El Solitario vs. Dr. Wagner (12/1/85)

[Phil Schneider]

El Solitario vs. Dr. Wagner (12/1/85)

[tim.]

Another from the show of clipped matches, which is a shame because it looks like we missed at least a big dive.  This started sort of weak but got real good at the second fall when the blood and mask ripping starting to come out.  Wagner pulling chairs from under the fans to bash Solitario in the head with ruled.  Good finishing stretch with both guys bleeding, their masks half off and a hard fought war of attrition feel.  This is a match where I started off thinking it would get placed low but starting at the second fall it just kept better and better, though still a bottom half match.

[tim.]

I had a feeling I might be underrating this so I rewatched it and yeah, I was underrating this.  The clipping is really unfortunate and pretty jarring in the first half but this match is incredible.  Even through the clipping the first half is pretty good but the second half gets great, Wagner is fantastic working over Solitario.  The ending run is perfect, masks are ripped up, both guys are spent and going for broke and there's tons of great spots and nearfalls.  Ending is really cool too.  Also even through the less than perfect VQ you can hear how hot the crowd is and get a sense of the big match feel.  After rewatching it this does very well on my list.

[Curt McGirt]

All the little kids rushing up to touch Solitario and Lizmark, with Solitario wearing this huge black feather thingy strapped around his shoulders, is cool. There's a lot of clipping but it doesn't disguise the work. These guys work fast and snug and it looks great. Ref takes a big bump right before the end of the first fall but he makes the pin anyway -- there's a mask on the line, no time to be hurt! Wagner snaps, ripping Solitario's mask then posting him and chairing him and it's psychotic. Damn clipping; we miss a posting and a dive. This should be a whole lot higher than it'll end up. Also the first unmasking I've ever seen where the guy isn't a scarred up, ugly old guy!

[tim.]

Yeah it's a real shame, this feels like a top 10, maybe top 5, potential match in full.

[Graham Crackers]

This was an interesting look at two guys with great reputations but not a lot of footage. I had seen both of them wrestle before but only in Japan so I still felt like I was coming in with a clean slate. This is clipped and like the other matches from this show it's not smooth and can be kind of distracting. We definitely missed some stuff that could have given changed this match's ranking but I think we do see enough to get a strong sense of how good it really was. This resembles the UWA heavyweight matches we saw earlier in the set but it's better than any of those. They were still working holds more than they were grappling but there was some chain wrestling that looked pretty nice. They definitely threw their weight around when they were grappling. There was a lot of force behind every takedown and that abdominal stretch into a pin sequence looked like a real struggle. This was a lucha de apuestas though so they did much more than grapple which may be another thing that pushes this ahead of those heavyweight matches from earlier. Wagner looks like a seriously bad mother fucker and I love that we can clearly make out some of his shit talk as if this were a Black Terry Jr. handheld. He throws some nasty strikes too and just generally moves around the ring like a brute. Solitario is more graceful but still looks like he is in a fight and knows it. He mixes some of his athletic takedowns with some good brawling. His selling is also pretty engaging when he's really getting beaten down. It's a shame that we still don't get much of a picture of him as a worker here because his reputation is pretty huge. He looks good but Wagner's contributions seemed much more apparent while watching this. I think this was really good but not a top tier match.It was also pretty cool to see Ray Mendoza as a ref. I think we also had Shadito Cruz as a referee in one of the earlier matches but I can't remember which one at the moment.

[Matt D]

The wings are awesome. Awesome. Solitario has a mask I always liked. It sort of combines the Lone Ranger thing with a typical lucha match. Wagner was something like 49 here. Solitario was just about 40. In general, clipping bugs me a little bit more in lucha because it's not always as easy to follow for me. You get clipping in a southern tag and it's not a big deal unless you miss a hot tag or transition. Wagner is really smooth early on. Both guys are very good at moving from one thing to the other. Here the clipping doesn't hurt the first caida too much in the macro-sense because you can tell that it's very even and pretty high end. It hurts in that there's stuff in there I wanted to see, but it was the usual back and forth game of human chess with Solitario getting the sunset flip out of nowhere to win it.

 

I love Wagner just taking over at the start of the second fall. He rushes in, hits a really nice butterfly suplex and just starts dismantling Solitario. Solitario comes back with some nice looking stuff including a beautiful Billy Robinson back breaker right on the bottom of the spine, but Wagner takes back over and things become just gritty as hell, with the rudo tactics really being unleashed. Mask pulling. Straight out punches. Slams into the post. A chair. The leglock around the pole is tremendous. Wagner is just trying to kill him and Solitario is selling it like a king. I don't know if I've ever seen Solitario and I'm dying for the comeback in the middle of the second fall because the beating is just that dickish and that good. Wagner really lets it breathe too, walking around the ring, screwing with the fans, taunting, ripping the mask. I like how he goes back to that Butterfly Suplex/Arm submission a couple of times. It gets him the submission eventually.

 

Oh man, Wagner's little high step run around the ring is the best and the no-nonsense heeling of the Abdominal Stretch is kind of hilariously lackadaisical after the brutality we'd seen. Solitario finally comes back with mask ripping, the slam on the floor and the tragically clipped dive. We get those agonizing slow counts in the third fall that I kind of love about lucha. These guys are selling really well but thanks to the clipping, I'm not sure we fully have the weight of the war they've been through, which is unfortunate but doesn't take away from the match once. These two are pros at really making every impact matter. It's interesting to me how simple a lot of the third fall offense is compared to other matches we've seen which either had just brutal shots or crazy submissions. It's still effective because they do a good job with it, but it does stand out. I especially  liked the Sunset Flip near fall since that's how the first fall ended. When the stakes are this high and the wrestlers have beaten on each other, a little goes a long way. It also ramps up as they go along. The sunset flip reversal near fall was also great and it leads into the actual finish beautifully. I really liked this because it's a really great mix of violence and something a little more wrestling oriented. It finds the balance better than most of the other matches on the set (though few actively seek it out or even need it, but it's a nice trick to pull off).

[Graham Crackers]

It's hard to rank a match like this based upon what we do see and not what I hope happened. A lot of the work is really awesome. On my second viewing I was popping for every punch that Dr. Wagner threw. I just need a little something more from the match's narrative. I kept watching it and thinking that one really great transition could push this up my ballot but we never really see one. The only one I remember is Solitario reversing the abdominal stretch which isn't really that spectacular. This is right in the middle for me right now.

[Lee B.]

Solitario's wings were indeed awesome.  Wagner taking over brutally during the second fall was pretty compelling.  I agree that this match would be higher ranked for me with better filming, less clipping, but it's still a strong mid-range match for me.

[soup23]

My lucha novice still shone through in this match. I would recommend at all possible to go in spoiler free to this match. After watching the match and reading OJ's history lesson, it was a match that continued to grow and consume my thoughts for days to come. The clipping was unfortunate but I'm glad that most of it was at least perserved.

[goc]

This was a really good match that I would have liked better without the clipping. I mean they clip out what is obviously a dive or at least a missed dive by Solitario! But the blood and the ripped masks made for some awesome visuals in this and it might not go too much higher than 50 but this is definitely a top half match on my ballot.