[1990-01-12-EMLL] Angel Azteca vs Emilio Charles Jr

[Zenjo]

Talk about it here.

[Zenjo]

If you want to see a textbook example of a good traditional title bout then look right here. They didn't need to do anything overly ambitious. Just utilize a wonderful basic match format. If you didn't know Emilio Charles was a boss then where have you been? Azteca has also proven himself as a strong worker from the era. All the parts were there. They could maybe had done with a bit more time on the mat had the duration been longer. I liked how the momentum carried over between the falls. Often the worm turns sharply. A satisfying tercera as EMLL picks right up where it left off in 1989.

[Jetlag]

Good title match as you'd expect from two of mexicos most reliable workmen. However the match was a little short and it lacked the selling that the previous Pierroth/Mogur match had. On the other hand it was more spectacular with big dives and both guys taking huge bumps for maximum drama. I would've liked to see more matwork.

[KB8]

Sort of by the numbers for a title match, but then it's these two in 1990 so by the numbers is still very watchable. I thought Emilio was really fun here as he slowly lost his grip on proceedings. He didn't dominate the first caida as such, but he won it decisively in the end and you could tell he smelled blood by the way he celebrated. Then he let Azteca back into the game in the segunda - or Azteca fought his way back into it - and by the tercera he was beginning to unravel. In the primera he was willing to take a step back and regroup, where losing an exchange wasn't so critical and a mistake unlikely to be the difference between winning and losing. In the tercera, with the match on the knife edge, you could see him getting desperate. For a rudo like Emilio that meant pleading with the ref', adamant that Azteca had fouled him while everyone else in the arena saw it for what it was. A rudo starting out clean and confident before slipping into his true nature over the course of a match is a play we've seen a million times, but it's a timeless sort of theater and Emilio does it as well as anyone. More than a wonderful pro-wrestling, that man was a thespian. For Azteca, most of what he was doing early in the year kind of feels like a warm-up for the Dandy feud. It's not like he's treading water, but if you've seen the Dandy stuff then it's hard not to compare everything else to it. And not a ton compares (of course I'm hyped to check out the June match again for the first time in a decade).