[2001-10-26-Tijuana] La Parka & Halloween & Rey Misterio Sr vs Rey Misterio Jr & Damian 666 & Vampiro

[elliott]

Full disclosure, I first saw this match in 2001 and voted it #2 MOTY in the 2001 WON Year End Awards. That tape is long since lost and I assumed I'd probably never see the match again because I don't recall anyone ever talking about it at the time. Well goodness gracious I found a copy of it on buried on a list somewhere and this afternoon it showed up at my apartment. This is the stream consciousness word vomit salad review of my first time rewatching the match in 15 years.

 

La Parka/Halloween/Rey Misterio Sr vs Rey Mysterio Jr/Damian/Vampiro 10/26/01 Tijuana

 

The version I saw back in 2001 was a BB handheld shot at ringside. This version is a handheld from the crowd, but is still excellent quality. My 15 year old memories were slightly off. La Parka doesn't set anything on fire. He is actually working the crowd pissing them off and some dudes in the front row tear a La Parka mask in half and throw it at him. Meanwhile a 3rd fan is setting a La Parka pennant on fire as the crowd goes batshit fucking crazy. So the fan starts the fire, not La Parka. Well Parka is pissed so he starts picking up the ripped mask and shirts getting thrown into the ring and rubs them all over his dick to piss off the dudes in the front row. This is all before and during intros. This entire segment start to finish (intros, match, post match) is 40+ minutes. I'm just about to reach the real start of the match. So excited.

 

...

 

This begins really as an extension of the pre-match schtick with La Park continuing to rile up the ringside crowd and threatening to walk out shit like that. La Parka & Damian have an issue here as everytime Damian comes in, Parka will run away. Halloween & Vampiro start off against each other and its pretty pretty basic shit to begin with. These guys aren't exactly known for exchanging holds and they're starting off with some basic trading of holds. Fortunately for the viewer, whoever is filming this is paying as much attention as possible to La Parka in the corner fucking with the crowd.

 

Rey Jr is maskless and he pairs off with Rey Sr. They do a quick back and forth segment that is so much more professional in nature than Vamp & Halloween that I can't help but chuckle. Rey Sr escalates it by shoving Jr, so Jr comes back at Sr swinging wildly. Fun little back and forth ending with Rey teasing a dive.

 

This leaves Damian & Parka as the final 2 who haven't matched up yet. Damian hops right in, Parka stallls in the corner until Halloween can come in. This is just classic rudo misdirection bullshit. Love it. Halloween & Damian are pals and everyone knows it, so they actually kiss each other on the mouth and hug to the delight of the crowd and Halloween lariats Damian. BEAUTIFUL. Damian gets to close to the ropes and Parka yanks him down by the hair. NOW Parka comes in and attacks Damian. This is so fun. This breaks down with all 6 men brawling around. There are a ton of stiff chops and it is so nice seeing a chop without a "WOOOOO." Parka, because he is a fucking genius and has GIANT balls, dumps Damian right into the crowd where they guy was setting Parka's merchandise on fire. Parka grabs a chair and starts bashing Damian with it right in front of those dudes. Back in the ring and Parka is just destroying Damian while Halloween & Rey Sr take care of Jr & Vamp on the outside. Damian is already bloodied and Parka takes him back out and knocks him into the other side of the building's ringside fans. Parka rips a giant piece of plywood or something off the floor and slams Damian into it. Parka brings the plywood back into the ring and sets it up in the corner powerbombing Damian through it.

 

Parka taunts the ringside fans inbetween falls to absolutely no one's surprise.

 

2nd fall starts and Damian is outside the ring bloody with Vampiro tending to him. Rey Jr starts off against Halloween, but Parka sees the opening for a double team as they corner Rey Jr and start double & triple teaming him. Which is ever better since his fucking uncle is part of this mauling. Parka sets more plywood in the corner while Halloween manages to coerce a wounded Damian back into the ring. Parka attempts to irish whip damian into the plunder but Damian manages to reverse it and Parka takes a gnarly bump through the wood to kick off the babyface comeback. Parka immediately goes to begging off and tries to run away before getting caught. Now Damian throws parka into the same section of the ringside seats and start bashing Parka with a chair. Now comes the plywood from ringside. Mysterio Sr takes a HUGE bump into the crowd. Rey JR is babyface apron working GOD as Damian and Parka square off in the ring as the crowd goes bonkers. Damian nails a couple of ranas and finally Parka is able to bail out again to escape. Halloween comes in against Rey jr and they slow it down a bit. Rey Jr gets isolated and double teamed again but makes a comeback putting Vampiro into position for a big dive off the top leading to the tecnico's taking the 2nd fall.

 

3rd fall La Parka calls out Rey Jr. Mocks him. Shoves him around. Rey Jr responds by using his superior speed to avoid Parka and make him look foolish. Classic spot where Rey Jr comes off the top rope for a cross body, Parka catches him, does his La Parka dance, sets Rey Jr back up on the turnbuckle, then Parka musses Rey's hair and PINCHES HIM ON THE CHEEK LIKE A BABY before turning around to La Parka strut leaving the door open for a top rope rana from Rey. Just perfect. Everything you could possibly want from a Rey Jr and La Parka interaction in a trios. Halloween & Vamp come in and Vamp just destroys Halloween with a superkick and slaps on a chinlock. Halloween's valet comes in to attack Vamp and Vamp no sells her slaps and looks like he's ready to hit her to the crowd's delight before the evil La Parka ran in to save her (we all realize now how stupid that shit was, right?). La Parka comes in and they get Vampiro out of there pretty quickly to continue the La Parka vs Damian stuff. They're just slugging away and trading blows back and forth leading to a big tope by La Parka. The other 4 guys all run in the ring. Sick bump into the post by Halloween. Vampiro hits a dive. Rey Jr hits his baseball slide into a spinning headscissors. Parka & Damian back in the ring and Parka is just killing him. Parka puts a La parka T-Shirt and pennant over Damian leading to a surprise roll up and a tecnico surprise victory!

 

Post match has Rey Sr and Halloween yelling at La Parka on the microphone as Parka walks around like "I blew it." Parka grabs the mic and everyone talks a turn on the mic.

 

So this is a shockingly great match. The third fall honestly could have lasted a little bit longer, it felt kind of abrupt considering how long the first 2 falls were and your typical lucha match structure with the 3rd fall being the longest. But. I mean, this was a near 30minute match and the entire segment was 40+minutes. So they definitely told the story they needed to tell. Saying it ended to early is almost selfish. I didn't want this to end. Vampiro is terrible but he is charismatic in this setting and the crowd was hyped for him. He mostly stayed out of the way and just came in to hit his kicks and do a few dives. Halloween I really enjoyed as the rudo henchman. Rey Jr was inbetween WCW & WWE. I'm not sure if he had started back up in CMLL yet but it was around this time. So he wasn't out there killing himself with insane dives, but everything he did looked really good and he definitely hit some flashy spots. Typical Rey Jr shit really. Great timing on everything and literally everything Rey Jr did looked great. He was just playing a background role in the trios so in some ways, his toned down performance actually was the right way to go. He was invested in the match clearly. He helped build heat on Parka vs Damian and set Vampiro up for his biggest spot of the match all while pumping up the crowd and hitting everything he did attempt cleanly. Damian was really good here as the centerpiece babyface of the match. Good timing with all the bullshit schtick early on with Parka. Bumped like a fucking mad man. When it was time for him to go on offense, everything he did looked solid, flashy when it needed to be and violent when it needed to be. La Parka was on another fucking planet in this match. His interactions with the crowd, his comedy, his violence. I mean, this is great because of his work. You don't mind Rey Mysterio Jr taking a backseat in a match when there's a guy as on fire as Parka. This totally held up as something I love and would consider a strong MOTYC. I couldn't believe how great this was when I first saw it 15 years ago. I cannot believe how great it was when I watched it tonight. You look at those names and you think "No way." Way.

[elliott]

This match is finally online and I would love it if people watched it:

[Cap]

Fucking brilliant... absolutely fucking brilliant showing from Parka here. He is really the glue that holds everything together personality wise and whips the crowd into a frenzy. This match is so much better than the sum of its parts. So many of these exchanges were solid and had real teeth to them. The best lucha brawls feel out of control, like anything could fucking happen as these dudes get carried away beating the shit out of each other and this had that feeling in abundance. The third fall was - as Elliot said - a bit abbreviated and as a result it didn't really hit that next level of intensity.

 

This was absolutely excellent. I want to rewatch this at the other angle because I feel like I missed some stuff on the ringside view, but this is a solid ****1/2 to me right now, could be higher which is bonkers given who is in the match.