Andre the Giant y Cien Caras vs. Alfonso Dantes, Herodes y Sangre Chicana (1981)

[Phil Schneider]

Andre the Giant y Cien Caras vs. Alfonso Dantes, Herodes y Sangre Chicana (1981)

[soup23]

Prematch promo from Andre is amusing with him saying he is 7 feet 2 inches tall.  Ok then Hulkster.  Opening is a wild scene with Chicana defiantly standing in front of Andre chewing gum.  Andre charges ahead and Sangre wisely takes a powder.  Some big shit also was happening in the crowd with someone being carted away by the police.  We start off with both Dantes and Sangre grabbing a leg resulting in Andre spanking Sangre.  Dantes tries his luck again and gets sit on.  Herodes grabs and hammerlock and Andre dead lifts him up.  He then does it to both Chicana and Herodes ot the delight of the crowd.  Where t the fuck is Caras with all of this happening? Andre is doing some amazing power man stuff and the crowd is eating it all up.  He pulls Chicana one foot up from out of the corner onto his feet.  Finally, Cien enters the match. Cien gets worked over a bit but its more Andre to the rescue.  He steps on Chicana.  Andre in another funny moment places caras in front of him to kick any oncoming intruders.   I am really alarmed at how incompetent they are making Caras look with Andre having to bail him out at all times. Fall ends with Andre/Caras as the victors.  Finally the rudos get a little advantage on Andre only for Caras to trip them up.  Caras gets fouled behind the refs back and Andre lines all three in the corner for a battering ram spot.  He sits down on Herodes and bearhugs Chicana for the victory.  Match is perplexing because I have a couple of major problems with it.  One, it follows the same pattern and is not that short.  Andre dominates against three guys, Caras gets outgunned and worked over, and Andre makes the save.  Second, I will need more clarification on how big name the rudos and Caras where at this time.  I know comedy can be a part of major wrestlers in lucha but it didn’t work for me in how stupid the rudos were made to look.  I can see some people really digging this as a vacuum type match with Andre showing his dominance and I did laugh at many spots, but the overall match lacked a certain depth and was too long for what it was trying to accomplish. 

C- (**) 

[tim.]

This match piqued my interest on the listings and it was a total blast.  Pre-match stuff is great from Andre giving us wise words to live by in his promo, a brash Sangre Chicana posturing in front of Andre and apparently a fight breaking out in the crowd.  Match is all about Andre's giant spots and they're great.  The rudos stooge well for him, especially Chicana, and they're like a swarm of insects trying to all get at him at once.  Andre brandishing Cien Caras as a weapon is hilarious.  I agree that this went too long and some of the schtick was overused but this was a really awesome old school wrestling spectacle.

[cool arrow]

Always fun to see pre-1985 Andre.

[newtalkingwall]

If I were on a tag team with Andre the Giant, I would probably think "I don't gotta' do shit tonight," just like Cien Caras apparrently did. I liked this match as far as Andre and the rudos went, but Cien Caras didn't need to be there, and trying to include him in the match seemed really forced.

[Zenjo]

Seeing Cien Caras masked is a bit wierd at the moment as I'm so used to seeing him without it.

 

I'm glad that every year of the 80's was represented as footage from the early part of the decade was obviously in very short supply. Any full on comedy match that lasts longer than 3m is very unlikely to appeal to me, and I'd have never sat through this if I wasn't ranking every match. It was just the same thing over and over again with the heels being made to look silly. This will go very low on my ballot.

[JerryvonKramer]

Lucha 1.2
Andre the Giant & Cien Caras vs. Alfonso Dantes, Herodes y Sangre Chicana (1981)

Andre's face looks oddly skeletal here in the pre-match interview. Oh, he's got a shiner. The camera starts zooming in and for a moment I thought it was going for a shot of "little Andre", but no they want to check out his massive hand. I am drawn to love whoever these interviewers are.

Three on two handicap match here. The ref is channelling Uncle Fester. Big ass stuff from Andre to start. A lot of spots here to get over his SIZE and STRENGTH. A little gimmicky.

Arm wrench by Chicana on Caras. So was Herodes the Lucha version of Hercules Herndandez? Big headbutt by Andre. Dantes in. Seres of big butt splashes by Andre.

This situation where guys can seemingly come in and out without tagging is going to take some getting used to. This one has no real flow, still hasn't felt like it has got going.

Dantes goes back to the arm on Caras. Andre takes over and now the faces start working Dantes's arm. Caras misses a dropkick. Herodes does some comedy punching on Andre's stomach before being thrown out of the ring. Comedy bump off Andre's ass by Chicana.

Uhh ... so what happened with the finish here? He submitted to the bearhug by Caras? Random. Oh no, it continues. So that's fall number 1. 1-0 to Andre and Caras. Wasn't into this first fall. No flow. Far too disjointed. And gimmicky.

So they can do regular tags too. FIP sequence now with the heels working over Caras. Chicana taunts Andre. Is that wise Sangre? Andre catches him and snaps him over his knee. Chicana holds one of his legs and the three heels hold Andre to give him some punishment. Not for long, Herodes gets tripped by Caras going for a shoulder charge. BLANTANT LOW BLOW REF! That's put Caras out of action for a while. 3 on 1 comedy stooges spot with Andre now. Andre sits on Herodes and the ref is very very slow on the count. Come on Fester!

So what's that 2-0 now? Yes and the win. Andre bearhugs Chicana for good measure.

Even allowing for the fact that 90% of this match was designed to get over the message of "this man is a giant", it was too all over the place for my tastes.

D+

[Graham Crackers]

Sangre Chicana just oozes rudisimo before the match starts. He looks like such a fucking punk. And there's a brawl in the crowd between civilians. Wacky. The match itself is more of a fun spectacle than anything else.

[Log]

This is worked exactly like me vs. my daughter and my two nephews at any family function.  Fun match.  Probably bottom half, though.

[Lamp, broken circa 1988]

I really enjoyed this, but it didn't occur to me how little Cien Caras did until I came in here to read. Fair point, that.

 

Favorite part of the match was the top wristlock counter spots, where Alfonso and Herodes both jumped up, clamped onto Andre's leg, and then hopped down and politely took bumps. Sangre Chicana, on the other hand, starts swinging and kicking his legs and shit, making it harder on Andre, so he just gets sack-of-shitted down to the ground. Really looking forward to seeing more of him now.

[odessasteps]

The beginning spots were almost straight out of a midget match. Also loved the double wristlock spot.

[Robert]

As most have said - a fun spectacle and a gem of a match to make video but would be shocked if anyone had this in the top half of their list. Cien Caras does almost nothing. Herodes was the star of the rudo team in my mind. Watching Andre do his shtick when he could still move was wonderful but as a top match of the 80's I can't see this getting much support.

[MJH]

This is the kind of match where the only fair rating is n/a. It's enjoyable enough (some of the spots don't come off so well, but those that do are good), and you can see charisma and talent in Chicana (whose squaring up to Andre at the start drew a laugh from me). Honestly, I'd've rather this have been a singles between Andre/Chicana, though I get why it wasn't. But, if nothing else, it's a nice example of what Andre was doing in most places in the '70s/early '80s. But, given the wristlock spots early, they should've had the referee picked up when he tries to raise Andre's hand.  

[fishbaugh]

Ass-based offense is a favorite of mine, and as odessasteps mentioned, this had a similar vibe to that midget match on the AWA set with the comedy spots, sitting on the heels, and butt-focused comedy bumps. Where the AWA midget match had an all-time great atomic drop, this had nothing that stood out and went on too long for a comedy match. Maybe they just wanted to get their money's worth out of Andre? Fun match but I can't see it break out of the bottom 25.

[Grimmas]

The beginning spots were almost straight out of a midget match. Also loved the double wristlock spot.

 

This is spot on. I really enjoyed it for Andre being a giant and for the fun midget comedy spots. (5.0)

[DouglasC]

I went from "Hey! These comedy spots are a blast! Keep showing those rudos what's for" to "Yegads. How long is this thing?" pretty quickly. I can't see this one making it too high on my ballot, especially considering the match listing. 

[puropotsy]

I'm fine with this being on the set, especially to have something from 1981 and to have the historical curiosity of the match, but it will probably be at or near the bottom of my ballot. The heels really did work hard here and I look forward to more from both Chicana and Herodes, but it was a clash to see Andre trying to work against these guys. With all of the spanking and butt-butts it started to feel like giant porn (http://cbsnewyork.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/isisw-alnick1.jpg?w=620&h=465)

[Exposer]

I liked the addition of Andre in this set. It’s always nice to get footage of him from a bunch of different settings. There were parts of this I liked. Sangre Chicana was great as the little fucker of his heel team who desperately tried to bring Andre down. Andre was a ton of fun tossing the heels around and using his tremendous ass offense. I loved Herodes’ sell of his chops. Cien Caras didn’t show me anything that I can gauge with yet but he wasn’t the focal point of the match. Overall, this went on too long and that largely has to do with lucha rules and the 2/3 falls format. I’m not sure Andre should be doing 2/3 falls matches in lucha context. He was fun but it was a little too much for my taste.

Two stars at best but it still had its fun parts. I guess C – would be the letter grade for it.

[KillerSpeed]

This was by no means a great wrestling match but I found it a really fun spectacle. Before the match Andre just stands in the ring while there's fights breaking out in the audience and he just stands there looking at the rudos like he's going to use them all as his toothpicks and then pretty much does just that for the rest of the match. Chicana standing in front of Andre chewing gum really has to be one of the greatest images in pro wrestling history. Actually the whole match was full of awesome Chicana mannerisms, when he gets stuck in the ropes trying to powder away it feels like a holy shit spot. You gotta love how stubborn the rudos were in this, you know it had to irk them, "so this guy thinks he's invincible huh? just wait and see". I also liked that the announcer mentions acromegaly, for how straight up weird and sleazy lucha libre can be it seems to be much less carny than wrestling in other territories. "This guys not a freak, he has a medical condition!" Even today in WWE they would only let the heels say that.

[keith_h]

This was really fun for the first 5 minutes, but then it just kept going and going... Everyone did their part well and it's always cool too see Andre working in different parts of the world when he could still move, but this could have been much shorter and it would have been far more enjoyable. The spots where they all would jump on Andre like Hobbits fighting a Troll were great, and Andre's ass offense is always funny. Like someone said above, Andre just wasn't made to do 2/3 falls matches. Cien Caras was pretty useless here, but I guess his whole role was really "Andre's little buddy".

 

Call it a C or **1/2 (mostly for the entertainment of watching Andre when he could still move).

[Yo-Yo's Roomie]

I love Andre but this did very little for me. The two spots I liked were when he lifted the two guys up when they had him in wristlocks, and the shoulderblocks in the corner to all three guys. I hope there's nothing worse than this on the set.

[Lee B.]

Not much to add here.  It was fun to see Andre in Mexico.  I liked the Andre head-as-a-battering-ram spot in the second fall.  This will likely be in my bottom half or third as well.

[Matt D]

I said it over on PWO but this is totally where Fezzik was fighting multiple guys at once before Princess Bride.

[PeteF3]

Match went too long for my tastes, but there were some fun Andre spots here even if they were fairly standard ones. It's cool to see what a truly worldwide sensation Andre was in the '80s, since he did these shots in Mexico and Europe that other top stars didn't. This also has the bizarre (to me, at least) sight of Cien Caras working babyface. His calling was clearly that of an asskicking heel, but that was certainly novel while it lasted. I don't foresee this escaping the bottom 25. Maybe bottom 10 if the rest of the set is strong enough.

[SLL]

This was super-fun. Just a great display of Andre's shtick, and how much fun he was in that era. I'd have pushed harder for it if it were actually competitive, but I think it is fine in the Landell/Freddy spot on the set and was worth showing people.