Villano III vs. Perro Aguayo (10/7/84)

[Phil Schneider]

Villano III vs. Perro Aguayo (10/7/84)

[tim.]

I've decided to let the disks be my master and watch in the order given rather than chronologically.  These guys rule the mat pretty hard for the first several minutes but I didn't really dig the ending portion of the first fall (though Perro's double stomp was nuts and awesome) or the second fall.  For the third though after Perro misses a double stomp they go off on a pretty good extended home stretch that has some great stuff in it.  Still despite the good which this match definitely had it feels awkward at times, looses steam towards the end despite a dive and ends with the most preposterous double pin I've ever seen.  This should finish relatively low for me but it's worth repeating that this is still a pretty darn good match.

[Graham Crackers]

Uneven is the word. I liked some parts and hated others. I saw these names and instantly thought brawl but I saw this was a title match and adjusted my expectations. It was living up to them at first with some interesting early matwork built around using leverage to pin your opponent. I'm a sucker for that stuff. Part of me was disappointed when they left the mat but I'm not really too sure what kind of mat game Perro Aguayo really had. Surprisingly this turned into a bit of a bomb throwing juniors affair and I can't say that's something I really wanted to see. Some of that stuff was cool but Aguayo's offense was a bit repetitive and the match was probably too long for what it was. Villano III did look pretty good and I'm still excited to see more of him on this set. I actually popped for his dropkicks to Aguayo's legs to capitalize on the missed double stomp. I'm not sure I've ever seen that spot done during this era. I wonder who the first person to do that was. And then we have the double pin. Man, another one? The double pin is turning into the lucha set equivalent of the New Japan DQ for throwing a guy over the guardrail finish.

 

The post match stuff was fun but also a bit of a tease. Perro Aguayo looks way more at home in that setting than in this kind of workrate match.

[Graham Crackers]

Was that Shadito Cruz as the referee in this match?

[Curt McGirt]

And we get more Japanese footage! This is in UWA and I'm wish we had more of their stuff. Is there any backstory to this match? I'd listen to the continuing podcasts but my net time for the month would be ate up in a day.

 

Crowd is hugely pro-Villano. His mask and Perro's boots just scream pro wrestling. They open with a very tense struggle that results in a couple standoffs before Villano busts out the dropkicks and senton but Perro quickly takes back control. Of course Perro has his own Senton of Crushing Doom and he busts it out, then the DOUBLE STOMP of Crushing Doom ends the first fall. They trade bombs (including a DDT) and submissions back and forth for segunda caida then the totally hurty-looking Villano Special wins it. Perro's hurt but recovers enough to fuck up another double stomp and the crowd heat is off the chain. You really can see the roots of ROH/US Indie style as both guys are just trading huge moves and elaborate pins/subs at random, with a ton of nearfalls. Both guys basically pin themselves and it's shitty. Luckily Perro decides to stomp the shit out of Villano afterwards, Villano takes off the belt (which is a great version of the strap-drop) and is ready to fight before him and Fishman jump him. Who is the Japanese dude in the red track suit that gets involved? 

 

Holy shit the crowd storms the ring to celebrate and kids start to play-fight. This was a nice change of pace from the brawls and technical title matches so far and will probably go high on the set. 

[Exposer]

Well, here’s our first look of Villano III on this set and Perro hasn’t been around in awhile. I was really impressed with Perro in this match. He had great impactful offense, good facial expressions, good selling, and was very good on the mat in a defensive sort of way. I loved the way he would head butt or knee Villano III to try and escape holds. He’s great at struggling to find ways out as well and his mannerisms are good. I liked Villano III in this for the most part but I was highly annoyed with his no selling of some of Perro’s high impact offense. He’d just pop up and go to the next spot a few times. The first fall was awesome with the mat work being great and Perro crushing Villano III with offense. That top rope double stomp was nasty as fuck. The second fall is good with Perro unloading more great offense but Villano III mounting a comeback and forcing him to submit to a wacky arm submission. The third fall is fucking great with Perro desperately avoiding the same submission and being a cocky bastard and nearly costing himself the match by lifting a prone Villano III up during pinfalls to do more damage. I loved both guys taking all sorts of high risks moves. It kept the match very interesting. The last few sequences were off in execution and suffered from some poor timing and I didn’t like the double pin finish but the post-match was tremendous. Perro and Villano III wrapped shirts around their fists like boxing gloves and fought. Then Fishman (Perro’s second I believe) assaulted Villano III’s wimpy second. Afterwards, the fucking fans stormed the ring and tried to rip off Villano’s already torn mask from the post-match beat down and the announcer slid into the ring and the kids scattered. That ruled.

This was a pretty great match but it had its flaws. I liked it better than the previous MS-1-Chichana match so I will give it four stars or so. It’s definitely a B+ and maybe even an A-. Great post-match too. 

[Matt D]

I liked the ebbs and the flows of the first fall. They go in and out of the matwork in a way i haven't really seen on the set as of yet. It's not working a base but it's still a decent amount of fun, though i don't think the matwork itself is as top end as some of what we've seen before.

 

Speaking of what we've seen, we've seen very little no-selling hulk ups on the set so far. There just hasn't been that uber-babyface hero stuff. I can think of one or two occasions but they all felt like natural, sparked moments. Here, there's a lot of stuff i like in the second fall, first and foremost the way that Perro just keeps him in the ring with his feet, but the story of the fall is the duck of the clothesline and the super comeback and how the fans erupt for it. It's the sort of thing that, so long as it doesn't wear out its welcome, will OF COURSE, get over huge. Everyone loves a superhero right until they don't. It's almost refreshing how Villano plays to the crowd (and then how it almost costs him as he goes to the top for no reason instead of slapping on the Villano Special (?) again. Of course then Perro pulls him up at a 2 count and we're in very weird territory for a title match). The whole segment with the missed doublestomp and the just failed Villlano Special is awesome. I was into the nearfalls here more than in a  number of previous matches even if it was all sort of silly. That's probably why I think this is the worst finish on the set so far.

 

This is definitely the best Sting match on the set and I'm glad they mention the WWF belt so many times in it. It's somehow fitting. I don't blame the no selling since it's intentional and effective, but I don't give it points either, if that makes sense. More fun than good, but plenty of fun. 

[KrisZ]

WWF Lt. Heavyweight Title: Villano III © vs. Perro Aguayo Jr. (10/7/84)I was expecting more violence here but we got something totally different yet satisfying as they do work this title match style. The matwork here was very solid with Perrito looking as good on the mat as I've seen him going move for move with V-3. The match would kick into high gear as they started brawling and throwing out the dives like Perrito hitting a big tope suicida to the floor. Perro's selling of the DDT was great and you thought the blood would come out there but it didn't. There were a lot of piledrivers going on here which was interesting considering it's an automatic DQ in this era. The fans were into the match heavy towards the end and we got a great stretch run as both guys were going all out before the predictable double pin finish. I dug this one a lot as it had an epic style feel to it where everything mattered and they weren't going a million moves a minute which there is nothing wrong with that of course. Great match.

[Yo-Yo's Roomie]

I thought this had a good sense of progression as they started on the mat and then went into more high-impact stuff, gradually getting more desperate as the match went on. I really liked how after dropping the second fall, Perro just upped his intensity again, and really started to boss things. Never lift a guy off the mat when you've got him pinned though. Rookie error. Then just when I was starting to think about a pretty high placement for this, things kinda dragged on and on a bit, and it seemed like they didn't have enough stuff to effectively fill the time. Great post match though. Who was Villano's second? About as useful as a chocolate teapot.

[Robert]

This is the first match I've encountered so far on the set where I could easily see it working in front of a current audience. They kept the matwork to a minimum like a lot of title matches these days and then went straight to the big moves and nearfalls. Wasn't a huge fan of that since Perro's offense got very redundant and Villano III wasn't exactly bringing it in the match. V-III even did that spot I hate where he goes up top for a big move that isn't in his repertoire just for the sake of missing it. Had this been Ultimo Guerrero people would have been throwing a fit but V-III gets a pass. Perro's sentons were brutal but he just kept doing them over and over. Double pin finish didn't help anything since it was such a cop out but then again this is the UWA so I wasn't expecting anything clean. Very disappointing considering the two wrestlers involved.

[Lee B.]

I liked this match quite a bit, even though I thought all the pulling the opponent up at the two-count was dumb. It was cool to see a dive from Perro in the first fall.  I also liked Villano's dropkicks to Perro's legs after Perro missed the double foot-stomp from the top.  I'm not the biggest fan of the double-pin, but it didn't take away from my enjoyment of the match, or the fine post-match beatdown of Villano. 

[soup23]

Bad things out of the way first, the finish was pretty shitty. That hasn't been the case much on this set even with countouts, nutshots and the ilk because of the nature here. The narrative of this match that they had thrown everything at each other and were at a stalemate is fine on the surface but felt cheap when watching the escalation of this match. That all being said, I enjoyed this a lot and thought the clunkiness at times helped. The opening fall was good stuff especially the little touches like headbutts to the abdomen to escape and reverse. Perro of course was going to dive in the third caida and that didn't disappoint. Villano III looked a little rough here but mostly held it together. THis match had a lot of charm with me that allows me to look past most of its flaws. (****)

[goc]

This match had it's moments but it had a lot of things that I didn't like also. I thought the whole second fall was pretty rushed and weak. I also didn't really care for Perro pulling Villano III up from the pin attempts after the piledriver because this didn't feel like there was enough hate to justify that, especially for a title match. Plus the finish was possibly the worst on the set so far. Probably not a basement dweller but not going to see the top half of my ballot.