5-Star Match Reviews: Eddie Guerrero & Art Barr vs. Octagón & El Hijo Del Santo – WCW/AAA When Worlds Collide 1994

Thirty years ago the pro-wrestling world was a very strange place. WWF and WCW hadn’t really started their great war in earnest and both companies, despite having solid rosters, weren’t firing on all cylinders. On WWF’s side, unless the match involved Bret Hart or Shawn Michaels, fans weren’t always getting their money’s worth and tended to be disappointed once all the hype died down. WCW, meanwhile, tried to an extent to fill in the gaps in WWF’s product by marketing to people that WWF largely ignored. This mainly included fans who wanted classic, Southern-style wrestling and less of a cartoon-like presentation.

Though WCW had its own share of dubious decisions and questionable creative, they did have one thing WWF didn’t: a willingness to work with other companies. WCW was more willing to test the waters with other companies and even other styles from other countries. Come 1994 there was always at least some interest in Japanese wrestlers like The Great Muta and Jushin “Thunder” Liger. But another big entity making waves and trying to enter the American wrestling market came not from across the Pacific, but from south of the border.

When AAA took advantage of a political schism in lucha libre they found their way into the American market. By working with WCW on this show, AAA was not only able to promote themselves to a largely-ignored Hispanic audience, but the wider wrestling audience could get a glimpse of what lucha libre was all about. And no match did a better job of bridging that gap than this one.

The Story

Lucha libre is often harder to get into compared to other styles of pro-wrestling. It’s far more acrobatic and athletic, which gives it an inherent sense of choreography. Since most lucha promotions use boxing rings and not wrestling rings, the wrestlers have to tumble and roll a lot more to avoid hitting the canvas so hard. The presentation is also more colorful and over the top, with masked wrestlers dominating the scene. Masked luchadors are extremely popular and the longer a wrestler competes under the same mask the greater that wrestler’s fame grows. And if a luchador is unmasked, that character/gimmick disappears forever.

As such, anytime a mask is wagered it’s a SERIOUS stipulation; hell, the only reason Rey Mysterio was able to wear his mask (and wrestle under that name) after losing it to WCW was by carefully arguing that he never lost it under an officially sanctioned apuestas match. The fact that there’s a degree of regulation in lucha libre for such matches gives it that extra sense of legitimacy, even if it’s all bullshit at the end of the day.

Still, the idea of Guerrero and Barr, two Americans by birth donning a decidedly pro-USA gimmick in front of a Hispanic audience, getting their hair cut if they lost must’ve tickled thousands of fans. But the idea of the SON OF THE SAINT being unmasked definitely didn’t.

I’m not the most well-versed in lucha history but what is certain is that Santo’s father, the original Santo, The Silver-Masked One, is the biggest icon in lucha libre history. I don’t know if anyone in American, Canadian, Japanese or British wrestling even compares to how big this guy was. He was a national hero many times greater than Hulk Hogan. he defined lucha libre, became a cross-over star who became a big star in luchador films. He wore his mask for 42 years and only ever revealed his face once (poetically, the original Santo died a week after this partial face reveal and was buried in his trademark mask as well). His son, who is wrestling here, continued that legacy, so for all intents and purposes the two Santos were one in the same. For him and Octagón to be forced to unmask would be sacrosanct, a tragedy so terrible that it would likely cause a riot. And since the lucha commission decisions were strictly enforced, there was no way that Santo, the ultimate good guy, would try to weasel or kayfabe his way out of an unmasking.

These consequences, coupled with the match taking place in Los Angeles during a time of heated debates on immigration, created a tense and exciting atmosphere. If Los Gringos Locos lost, then they’d lose their hair. A humiliating moment, to be sure, but no big deal all things considered. But if they won, then there was a chance that neither one of them would make it back to the locker room, much less out of the venue, in one piece.

The Match

This took place on November 6, 1994.

This is a two-out-of-three-falls double apuestas/wager Hair versus mask match with a 30-minute time limit. The bell rings and Guerrero & Barr bail to ringside as they’re drowned in “Mejico” chants. Guerrero & Santo start off with some mat grappling as Barr yells “callate!” (Shut up) at the pro-Santo fans. Santo out-wrestles Guerrero so Barr tags in and then so does Octagón. They have a quick acrobatic exchange with Barr playing as overtly heel as possible, mocking his smaller opponent at every turn. Octagón lands a dropkick but Guerrero interferes and attacks both opponents. He lands an Exploder on Octagón and a doomsday headscissor on Santo, the latter getting the first three-count. That’s followed by a superplex/frog splash combo (along with a scream of “THAT’S MADE IN AMERICA!” to get Los Gringos Locos the first fall.

Los Gringos Locos = 1; Santo & Octagón = 0

The second fall starts with Guerrero cheap-shotting Santo again. Guerrero gets two two-counts off some suplexes and then Santo rolls away to tag Octagón. Guerrero willingly goes to his knees to give Octagón a free shot but then he pokes Octagón’s eye. Great heat. They double-team Octagón for a bit until Santo goes after Guerrero. The babyfaces fire back with some combo moves on both Guerrero and Barr, including some well-timed coordinated tandem moves and a double dropkick to send both of Los Gringos Locos to the floor and stereo suicide dives through the ropes.

Santo gets a two-count on a victory roll and blocks another standing headscissor. He goes to a corner but Guerrero cuts him off and lands a Super Frankensteiner. He covers Santo and here comes Barr to add more pressure. Los Gringos Locos pin Santo. Octagón is the only hope left.

You can hear the air leave the arena as everyone is shocked into silence. Octagón enters the ring and immediately gets launched into a double-team clothesline. LGL go for a double back body drop but Octagó counters with a double facecrusher. He rushes to the ropes and Barr launches him for some pop-up move. Barr gloats, not realizing that Octagón counters into a picture-perfect Hurricanrana and gets a three-count on Guerrero. Barr turns around and Octagón lands a Russian leg sweep into a grounded octopus hold. Barr submits. The match is all tied up!

Los Gringos Locos = 1; Santo & Octagón = 1

Guerrero tries a powerbomb on Santo but Santo counters with a Frankensteiner only for Barr to break it up. Guerrero applies a camel clutch but Octagón breaks it up. Santo does the same but Barr kicks the back of his head. Santo counters a fallaway small with a small package but Guerrero breaks that pin up as well. Barr applies a sort of STF but Octagó punts him in the styomach. Santo suplexes Barr but Guerrero interferes again. Octagón lands kicks and goes for an armbar but Guerrero pokes his eye. Santo interrupts a Gory Special but Santo fights back with a diving electric chair suplex. Barr saves Guerrero and the two heels land stereo suicide dives of their own.

There’s a slight skip in the action as we go from Guerrero attempting a superplex to Santo hitting a springboard sunset flip bomb to the floor on him. This distracts the referee while Barr blocks a dropkick from OCtagón and spikes him with a Tombstone, which is illegal in lucha. Barr covers Octagón for the three-count. Now Santo has to fight them off all by himself.

Blue Panther, the babyfaces’ second, assists a knocked out Octagón out of the ring as LGL land a clothesline/bridging German suplex combo on Santo for two. LCL land the same superplex/splash combo from earlier in the match…but this time Santo kicks out. LGL try a clothesline/dragon suplex combo. Santo ducks and Barr hits his own partner. Santo dropkicks barr and planchas onto Guerrero on the floor. This dive keeps the ref’s attention long enough for Blue Panther to piledrive Barr. Santo capitalizes and pins Barr. Now its down to Santo and Guerrero.

Santo rolls Guerrero up. Two-count. Guerrero lands a Ligerbomb. Two-count. Avalanche belly-to-belly by Guerrero. Two-count. Super Frankensteiner. Two-count. bridging dragon suplex. Two-count! Guerrero tries again. Santo counters into a roll-up. One, two…and three! Santo pins Guerrero. The babyfaces keep their masks!

Winners after 19:20 and two falls to one: El Hijo del Santo & Octagón

Review

This might be somewhat slow and simplistic compared to modern standards but it compensates for that by being one of the most emotional and, as a result, exciting lucha libre matches you’ll ever see. It was more story-driven than typical lucha fair with Guerrero & Barr serving as Americanized heels in every way possible. By going in that direction they bridged the gap for new viewers by combining their more character-driven direction with the same lucha libre structure. The result is a timeless classic. Though many matches are faster, feature harder-hitting action, or include more outward violence, this has to be one of the most satisfying under-twenty-minute matches out there, regardless of particular context. You can watch the match in a complete vacuum and still feel like you got your money’s worth out of it.

One important thing I want to point out here is the fantastic commentary from Mike Tenay and Chris Cruise. In three minutes they introduced all the main players, explained the stipulation and meaning of the match, and how the match would be structured. This was integral to this match registering with a foreign audience that was likely seeing lucha for the first time. And throughout the match they called the action cleanly, introducing key details as they came like the feud between Santo and Guerrero going back to a generation and how the piledriver/marinete is banned in lucha. These tiny details amplified the story and gave it more of a personal edge, thus reducing that dismissive preconception that this was just random flips and acrobatics for their own sake. If there was ever an example of wrestling commentary to study, it’s this one. Ringside commentary can make or break a match, especially if the commentary steals attention from the match or doesn’t fit. Here, Tenay and Cruise called it as though they were seeing it for the first time and presented things like sports commentators and storytellers cluing in audiences into the particulars of what was, for many people, a novel medium.

As for the wrestling itself, it was fairly clean and smooth. The match was perfectly paced. Turnarounds and came suddenly but not too out of nowhere. The match benefited from lucha’s more lax approach to interference so that the falls on both sides had to be earned. But most importantly this was a match that showed just how to build heat without the need for complicated promos or long and winding backstories. Everything was explained and condensed into a neat little package courtesy of both the commentators giving the most crucial details and the wrestlers moving and competing in ways that allowed that story to unfold with clarity. It had such a clear good-versus-evil dynamic that made it easy to boo the villains and channel that ire into support for the babyfaces. All too often these days a heel might get “too much heat” and people would complain; here, Barr & Guerrero’s slimy and underhanded actions translated unto passionate and unyielding support for both Octagón and Santo. Even though Santo was an institution in lucha in the same vein as John Cena or Hulk Hogan in WWE, he actually had to fight from beneath at least once and overcome a serious obstacle. This wasn’t a prototypical cartoon where the babyface side has such a clear and guaranteed path to victory; Guerrero and Barr did such a phenomenal job establishing themselves as credible threat during the first half of the match that it became completely believable that the babyfaces could have lost and been forced to unmask. It felt genuine, which isn’t something you find all that often in the present day, what with everything shrouded in an overwhelming sense of performance and the complete death of kayfabe.

Final Rating: *****

Though the action may be slow or not as polished by modern standards, this is still one of the best two-out-of-three falls tag matches you’ll ever see. These four guys crafted an exciting back-and-forth match filled with nail-biting action and a serious sense of consequence where the result actually mattered. This becomes all the more pronounced when you compare it to wager matches seen in the English-speaking wrestling world: how often does a stipulation either get ignored or retconned after tickets are sold or fail to have any sense of gravitas? Fans want to invest their time and money into something that matters, or at least something that feels like it does. If every stipulation is inconsequential then why would people want to pour their emotions into something?

Here, that emotional investment was well worth it: not only did two legacy luchadors get to keep their masks but the dirty, dastardly villains got humbled right away in highly dramatic fashion. It might not be the deepest or most complex of morality tales told in the squared circle, but it’s one of the most accessible and understandable all the same.

Thanks for reading.