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El Dandy vs. Emilio Charles Jr. (12/1/89)


Phil Schneider

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  • 2 months later...

After the set up trios I assumed this would be another brawl, so I got pretty excited when I saw them posing with the belt in the pre-match.  An El Dandy title match is just the thing needed to lead us out of this set.  Well, it wasn't all it could be but it was still good.  Opening matwork is interesting and, well, more chain wrestling than matwork sort of, but not on the level you imagine from an El Dandy title match.  There were a couple awkward spots throughout where one of the guys sort of just walks up on the other after taking a move and grabs a german suplex of their own or something.  But mainly this was solidly good kind of workrate style lucha which I don't imagine many people were pulling off like these guys in the day.  The third fall is the bulk of this match and features some good back and forth and some nice dives.  A middling singles match for the set for me.

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  • 4 weeks later...

So this was a bit of a disappointment coming after all of their other matches against each other. This is a title match but it's not an epic along the lines of other famous Dandy title matches or even the best title matches on this set. Instead this was more like a combination of lucha and juniors style wrestling. That worked better here than it did in matches like Perro Aguayo vs Villano III but matches like Morgan vs Dandy and Charles vs Atlantis combined aspects of juniors style wrestling with visceral violence or graceful flying that made them more memorable than this one. It was still a good match but I would have preferred to see more matwork and less moves/nearfalls.

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  • 1 month later...

I was working on my rankings this morning and thinking about how much I loved this feud but how disappointed I was by this match. Admittedly, my expectations were out of control and definitely set me up for disappointment. That pre-match hype was inspired by how engaged I had been with their previous matches but also the knowledge of other Dandy title matches. I was picturing the epic matwork of the Casas and Angel Azteca matches married to the intensity of this feud. I was picturing a top 5 match, maybe even a number 1 contender. I decided to watch this again along with a few other matches and it compared to them rather favorably.

 

In my first post in this thread I compared this match to Atlantis vs Charles and Dandy vs Morgan and I felt that this match failed to combine juniors style wrestling and lucha the way that those matches did. Well, it felt much more like a lucha match to me this time around, particularly in it's rhythm. In a lot of ways it's very similar to the Santo vs Casas match from 1987. I feel as if I'm constantly talking about other matches on this set to explain how I feel about this one but for whatever reason that's the only way I can put this into words. Anyway, Santo vs Casas is a great lucha match and in particular a lucha match that really moves forward. The matwork is fast and the exchanges are often built around what the wrestlers do on their feet before they can take an opponent down to the mat for a submission. It's high workrate lucha but definitely still lucha. Some of the moves in Dandy vs Charles resemble New Japan juniors but most of their exchanges and the space between those exchanges feel like lucha.

 

Atlantis vs Charles is great and the visuals in that match are certainly more spectacular than those in this one but I don't feel as emotionally invested in it as this match. That's partly because this is another chapter in a rivalry I've already been following on this set but also because this match has a better title match atmosphere. Dandy and Charles just seem so determined to win this match. The Atlantis match is great but there is something kind of sterile about it. It's still great and isn't that far behind the other matches I'm talking about in this post but it's definitely ranked lower than the others. That leaves me with Dandy vs Morgan, Dandy vs Charles, and Santo vs Casas. All three are great matches but don't precisely deliver what I love about lucha so that keeps them out of the top 15 but they are still great enough that all three are hovering around the number 20 spot at the moment.

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I only half watched it so far but no way does this touch Santo/Casas which is still my standing #2. I also don't see how it compares with Morgan/Dandy because that was a total bloodbath. The fact that it's a belt match with all that involves means it probably should be compared to those in style, despite the feud between the two guys. Full watch and review coming tonight or tomorrow and we'll discuss further.

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I only half watched it so far but no way does this touch Santo/Casas which is still my standing #2. I also don't see how it compares with Morgan/Dandy because that was a total bloodbath. The fact that it's a belt match with all that involves means it probably should be compared to those in style, despite the feud between the two guys. Full watch and review coming tonight or tomorrow and we'll discuss further.

Morgan vs Dandy is definitely worked differently (violently) but I'm alluding to the juniors style influence on that match which I think you can also see in this match. On my second viewing of this match I didn't think that influence was as strong as it was the first time I watched it but it's still there. 

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Matwork at the start is fast and furious with the first fall having a good callback to the last match as Dandy loses to the same wheelbarrow slam thing. I'm getting behind the idea that these guys can beat the shit out of each other all they want, but for the belt they need to prove it as tecnicos. Short segunda and some clipping, then we get a long figure four spot with Dandy in agony. Ref has to break the hold and Charles looks like an angry Lou Ferrigno. Then he goes into the Scorpion to increase the pain. Dandy mashes some fans after a dive and this is just kind of rambling along. Am I crazy or does Dandy bust out a Tazmission here? They go back and forth some more until it looks like Dandy eats floor off a tope suicida. Finally Dandy wins with la Magistral, which is a good end for the kind of match they were bringing to the table. Still, it wasn't awesome or anything. The first fall cut a good pace but they couldn't get out of second gear for the rest, and it suffered from what I see as the lucha psychology of "try something, that doesn't work, just try something else". 

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Graham: I'm not sure what you mean by "juniors style". When I read that I think of something like Villano III/Perro Aguayo, lots of bombs and nearfalls, or just overkill which comes in a couple of these matches with too many pinfalls. Am I correct?

 

EDIT: Maybe it's this

 

"try something, that doesn't work, just try something else"
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Graham: I'm not sure what you mean by "juniors style". When I read that I think of something like Villano III/Perro Aguayo, lots of bombs and nearfalls, or just overkill which comes in a couple of these matches with too many pinfalls. Am I correct?

Yeah, both of those definitions can work though it's not automatically a bad thing. I'm comparing these matches because they are similarly fast paced and rely more on strikes, takedowns, and moves than on matwork. Using Morgan vs Dandy as an example: it's an apuestas match so it obviously has more striking than matwork but it also has all of those big suplexes and nearfalls at the end.

 

I was trying to compare this match with other matches on the set that combine aspects of lucha and what I associate with junior heavyweight wrestling as well as matches like Santo vs Casas that are purely lucha in style but feature a lot of workrate like this one. I think that for some reason I am struggling to find a way to put those thoughts into words that make sense.

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Haha, it's okay, I see what you're saying. There is a long stretch at the end of Morgan/Dandy that easily falls in that definition. We are really talking about the crux of lucha turning into juniors and indie/ROH-style wrestling here so the waters are gonna be pretty muddy. 

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  • 11 months later...

I liked this quite a bit and I didn't really have a problem with the matwork that others seemed to. The first two falls are decent but the 3rd fall really picked up and we got some cool dives and some big moves and a finish that I felt was pretty well built to. I also dug how much Dandy fought to get to the ropes to get out of some of the submissions. This should finish in my top half but not too far up.

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I thought this match was fine enough but liked the previous match a lot more.  The end of the first fall was some good continuity with the previous match.  The figure four struggle, where Dandy looks like he is swimming, is nice.  The dives were good too at the end.  Still, the third fall felt like a lot of "my turn-your turn" moves and pin attempts that meandered ultimately.  A little more hate would have been good here, even if they were trying to keep it "classy" for a title match.  Heck, even a slap to the face would have been welcome.  This is pretty solidly mid-range and not a match I'd be in a huge hurry to watch again.

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