Johnny Saint vs Negro Casas

[Loss]

Another Casas comparison.

[Matt D]

I like Super Astro as a Saint comparison if we’re going lucha. Though I wonder how people feel about Hechicero as a more modern choice. He’s obviously more of a rudo version. Rene Ben Chemoul is the guy in the French footage who reminds me the most of him.

[Childs]

Saint was overrated at one point because he was the bridge to classic British wrestling for a subset of American fans. He put up some brilliant performances but couldn't match the depth or consistency of his best peers. He probably won't make my list. Casas, despite ranking below the tippy-top tier of luchadores for me, is a lock for the upper half. So this was an easy one. 

[ohtani's jacket]

Saint was in some great matches. They tend to be more serious, competitive bouts or catchweight contests. I'm not a huge fan of showcase Johnny Saint bouts where he does some tricked out moves and gives the crowd a few laughs. I would rather watch other guys' showcase bouts. Saint was never my gateway into WoS, anyway. Steve Grey vs. Clive Myers was my gateway. Saint is this kind who has this idiosyntric style that's not really unique where you start to explore British  and European wrestling, but was unique for overseas audiences in the same way that Dos Caras on an M-Pro style felt tricked out and unique. If you watch WoS, you soon discover that there's so many other guys. Now if the floodgates open with the archives, I may change my tune. It's possible that Saint has a ton of great undiscovered matches. We're kind of at the stage where we need more footage to validate a lot of the assumptions we have about British guys. But as of right now, I would say the big advantage Casas has over Saint is that he was great at working face or heel. I cannot imagine a heel Johnny Saint. I can't imagine any promoter would ever want to book that. IIRC, there is pissed off Johnny Saint out there, but no heel work. That's not a problem in and of itself, but it does limit the breadth of Saint's work compared to Casas who had multiple runs on both sides of the ledger.