El Hijo del Santo vs. Negro Casas, Hair vs. Mask match
I was talking with a friend, who loves Lucha Libre, and I was giving him my stock opinion, which is that I enjoy the creative mat work and suicidal dives, but I find that the style just isn’t stiff enough for my liking.
“Gordi,” He said, “You’ve got to check out Hijo del Santo vs. Negro Casas.”
So I did, and I enjoyed it, but it just seemed like typical high-end Mexican wrestling to me. I couldn’t really understand why my friend had recommended the match to me, as it did nothing to change my mind.
The thing is, El Hijo del Santo and Negro Casas wrestled a lot of matches. They had one of those feuds that goes on for quite a while, getting more and more intense with every match, building up to the ultimate intensity of the Hair vs. Mask encounter. The match does contain some technically brilliant mat work, and there is a breathtaking dive by Santo, but the body of the match is just the two men beating the hell out of each other. Even more surprisingly, the match has some solid old school psychology, with Casas going after Santo’s knee, and Santo trying to break Casas’ arm. There’s also the crazy spectacle of Santo, the rudo, getting cheered as he beats on the heroic Casas because the Mexican fans don’t want to see El Hijo lose the silver mask.What makes me love this match in particular, however, is the simple fact that my friend was quite correct: the action here is as stiff as any Vader or Aja Kong match I’ve ever seen.
Dory Funk Jr. & Terry Funk vs. Bruiser Brody & Jimmy Snuka, April ’82
This is not the famous Real World Tag League finals match that introduced Stab Hansen into All Japan Pro Wrestling, though that is also one of my all-time favourite matches. This match takes place months later, and it marks the conclusion of the epic Brody & Snuka vs. the Funks feud.
The match starts out with a typical 1980s feeling out period, but quickly spills to the floor, where we are treated to a duel of chairs, with Brody trying to once again brain Dory Jr. and Terry doing everything he can to protect his older brother. Back in the ring, we hit plenty of high-end 80s offense, with Piledrivers, stiff Chops, Spinning Toeholds, and Springboard Splashes being handed out all around. Stan Hansen isn’t at ringside, but Brody’s friend Buck “Yellow Belly” Robley is, and he is more than ready to interfere when the momentum from a Terry Funk shoulder block takes Terry out of the ring. Brody slams Dory Jr. to the mat, then leans out to help punish Terry while Snuka climbs up to deliver his famous Superfly Splash. At the last second, Dory rolls out of the way and Terry slugs Brody, who falls backwards and takes the full force of his partner’s splash. Robley breaks up the pin attempt, causing the Funks to pull him out of the ring for a beating. Meanwhile, Brody blows off Snuka’s attempted apology, and the partners end up beating on each other. Robley attempts to turn the odds in Brody’s favour, but the Funks make the save.
That’s not all, though, as Snuka gets jumped in the backstage area where Brody and Robley beat him bloody with a table and then Brody returns, chain in hand, to choke his former partner down.
The match and the angle kept the Funks strong as the most popular foreigners in Japan, allowed Snuka to leave (for the WWF) as a hero, and established Brody as the most viciously psychotic monster heel in the promotion. I don’t know that it did much for “Yellow Belly” but at least it gave him one more kick at the can.
Akira Hokuto vs, Shinobu Kandori, Dreamslam I, April ’93
Akira Hokuto is one of the best wrestlers of all time, and one of the toughest. She once, legendarily, finished a match with a broken neck. Kandori is not as great a wrestler as Hokuto, but she might be even tougher. In fact, she was once called “The toughest man in women’s professional wrestling.” This match is a weird mix of styles, combining extreme violence, high flying, and shoot style strikes and submission work in equal measure. Hokuto also bleeds all over the ring, but as bloodbaths go this is an even better actual match than the legendary Muta vs. Hase encounter from 1992. The women exhaust their impressive supply of high impact wrestling moves, then settle for going toe to toe and punching each other right in the face until one of them falls. It’s a fantastic match that’s worlds different and light years better than any women’s match we are ever likely to see from the North American Corporate promotions. Looking it up, I can see that the readers of the Death Valley Driver Video Review voted it their best Joshi Pro-Wres match of the 90s. I think it’s a superb choice.
Thanks for reading!
