Super Astro, Atlantis y El Faraón vs. Fuerza Guerrera, Blue Panther y Emilio Charles (8/18/89)

[Phil Schneider]

Super Astro, Atlantis y El Faraón vs. Fuerza Guerrera, Blue Panther y Emilio Charles (8/18/89) 

[tim.]

We're all hoping the same thing when we see this line up; yes, Panther and Astro match up in the first fall.  It's damn good and Astro does a backflip off of Panther during one of the lock-up monkey flip thing spots and it's pretty cool.  The rest of the first fall is real good with some nice rudo schtick and Panther and Astro coming together again for an awesome faster paced exchange off the mat.  Everyone is pretty great in this match but Astro especially, he might be the most purely spectacular wrestler of all time.  Second fall has some more good action until the rudos finally gang up and take the fall.  Techinco comeback is cool with Atlantis going after Charles, Astro after Panther and Faraon after Fuerza.  Ending is awesome with Atlantis hitting a dive, Astro hitting one of the biggest holy shit dives off the set springboarding to the outside with his reverse headbutt, leaving Faraon to submit Fuerza in the ring.

This kinda had it all for a trios.  Good matwork, fun schtick, good fast paced action and a nutty dive spot to finish it off before the remaining technico submits the remaining rudo.  I'll rank this above most of the trios on the set but not within the really upper echelon of the trios.

[Graham Crackers]

Fuerza fucking Guerrera. THAT is an awesome Fuerza Guerrera performance. Fuerza is such a fucking goof. I always love the Fuerza bump, especially when it gets used as a miscommunication spot. I love Atlantis teasing a dive against Blue Panther then turning and slapping Fuerza right off the apron. I love Fuerza eating a punch from Faraon, spinning around, and accidentally posting himself. I love Fuerza's spaghetti legged selling of all of Faraon's punches. I loved Fuerza selling his frustration at the victory roll getting blocked before the finish and selling the pain in his nose after it gets countered. I love Fuerza Guerrera.

But like a great rudo he never steals the show. It's the spectacular tecnico offense that makes most of the list of highlights in this match. There is tons of graceful high flying from Atlantis and Super Astro while Faraon keeps it simple with good matwork and great punches. The rudo team does a great job with their miscommunication spots and stooging and it makes an already great batch of tecnicos look better. I'm not sure if the "Atlantis hits the quebradora on all of his opponents" spot has ever looked better and I thought the fake out with Blue Panther almost blocking it at the end made it even better. The dives at the end were amazing too. Atlantis has a great fast tope and Super Astro's tope en reversa to the outside was insane. This is a high end trios match.

[Curt McGirt]

I know Super Astro is short but he looks like a mini compared to the other guys in this one. Opening matwork is just as good as you would expect from these two maestros. Astro does a gorgeous rolling legscissors into armbar that I had to rewind. Love how he goes straight after a cheating Charles, the largest guy in the match, who begs off running all the way down the aisle! Then they replay the spot with Atlantis flat SPRINTING across the ring after Panther. We get more Panther/Astro and una caida ends spectacularly. Astro completely clowns all three rudos in a funny spot. Faraon acquits himself well briefly and we get a short segunda capped with a Scorpion deathlock. My god, the bit where Fuerza gets punched and runs full on into the post... it's almost as good when he gets knocked off the apron earlier and does this ridiculous Broadway musical sell of it. We need way more of him on this set. Atlantis and Astro both dive; Astro's tope reversa with Panther flying into the crowd is indeed "espectacular" and Panther actually gets stretchered off of it, which is just insane. I feel like if anyone needed to know what a classic lucha trios match is like, they should be shown this. Strong, high ranking match.

[Lee B.]

I watched bits of this match over the course of a few nights and probably should watch it again as I wasn't quite as blown away by it as the other commenters were.  The crowd was very hot, which was good, especially when Astro chased Charles into the audience.  The rudo miscommunication spots were good, including Guerrera flying through the ropes to kick his partner in the head on the floor.  Atlantis's three spinning backbreakers looked great.  I also enjoyed Astro's successful attempts to befuddle all three opponents at once, and his subsequent strut to the corner.  However, this seemed a bit one-sided.  The rudo pin in the second fall was kind of sudden, as if they forgot that the rudos needed to win a fall and went to a finish fairly quickly (although Charles's hand-biting was a nice touch).  The third-fall triple-teaming, assisted by the ref in the case of Super Astro, was good but didn't last quite long enough before the amazing dive by Atlantis and the cool backwards splash off the rope by Astro.  Astro's flying backwards headbutt was really graceful too, toward the end.  I liked Charles's strikes throughout also.  So lots to like, but overall a lack of drama brings this down a bit.  It is top half, but probably mid-rangey top-half for me.

[goc]

This was a fun trios but not one I'd rank near the top of the trios heap. I love Panther hitting dudes out of mid-air during leapfrogs and Super Astro doing that bit where he makes all 3 rudos look like buffoons before heading to his corner but other than that and the insane finish that included Blue Panther having to be stretchered out, not a lot stands out to me 30 minutes after watching this.