This review was commissioned by Tongo279 over on my Ko-fi account.
Smoke rises. A Dr. Wagner t-shirt has been draped over a steel chair in the center of the ring, and it’s burning. LA Park stands behind the flames, middle finger up to Wagner who’s just entered. It’s one of the sickest, most striking opening images to a match ever, arguably up there with something as palpable as Shinya Hashimoto’s head bowed in concentration before the Dome match with Takada. One need only look at it before a guttural “Hell yeah” springs forth from the lips. It’s awesome, and it sets the tone for one of the greatest lucha brawls of the 2010s.
The match immediately lives up that opening image as well. Park goes right on the attack, even using the chair still smoking from the burnt t-shirt laid upon it. It’s a wild primera from there with Park basically dominating the entire fall. What we get is a nasty crowd brawl filled with great punches, headbutts, mask ripping, and some delightful big bumps like Park slamming Wagner into a guardrail set up against the entrance stage. There’s a malicious glee to how Park works this first fall too, taking a moment to posture at some fans in the front row, grabbing a bottle to smash Wagner’s face in. It’s all just the best stuff you want out of a crazed lucha brawl like this.
There’s something incredibly smug too in how Park seizes the victory in the first fall. Not only does he slam Wagner through several steel chairs, he also makes a show of kicking the warped chairs out of the way first before going into the pin. Just this real confident, cocky display of basking in the chaos that he’s wrought.
It’s the smaller details of violence in the segunda that really help elevate this too. The broadcast returns from commercial break to find Park’s fingers digging deep into Wagner’s ripped mask and bleeding forehead. From the angle we see, it looks almost like Park’s knuckle deep in Wagner’s eye socket. The blood surrounding the wound and seeping through Wagner’s initially all white mask help that illusion as well. It’s gruesome and only added to when Park really lays on this petty, meanspirited violence like repeatedly ramming Wagner’s head into the ring canvas.
The second fall sees Wagner finally get his licks back. He’s explosive with that first charge to finally exploit an opening and he’s just as fun leading the violence through the crowd on this turn around. His own use of a beer bottle as a weapon feels surgical, suiting his ringname. Wagner carves Park, really slicing with that beer bottle to exact a measure of revenge from the first fall.
As a result of that, the final fall has one of my favorite little touches: Park spends the whole thing trying to keep his brains from spilling out. There’s no need to be subtle about it really, Park’s cut is deep and his face is covered in blood, but it’s gotten so bad that he’s needed to bandage it up between falls, and one finds him constantly pressing the bandages into his wound as if trying to stop the bleeding. More than once, the bandages come loose and he needs the referee or a ringside doctor to tie it back up for him. This gives us one of the highlights of the final fall where Wagner dodges a Park attack in the corner and Park hits the turnbuckles so hard his bandages fly off his head. Fuck yeah, the kind of thing that feels like unscripted mayhem that lends itself so well to a bloodbath like this.
Unfortunately, the final fall also has some classic LA Park lucha ref bullshit. There’s a few twists and turns there, never feeling like too much really, but it’s not the ideal. The match ends too on something of a false note–the ref counts a pinfall win for Wagner but only so he can snatch it away to give Park the DQ victory because Wagner had inadvertently splashed him earlier. It’s a convoluted end to what’s otherwise some of the most direct and immediate violence one is bound to see in pro wrestling.
About two and a half falls of some of the best lucha brawling of the 21st century.
IS IT BETTER THAN 6/3/94? For much of the first two falls, I thought it might be. However, one sort of feel in real-time when this match falters and just misses classic status. Unlike the King’s Road epic which can’t help but build and build and escalate to a fever pitch, Park and Wagner let loose just enough steam to end up on the losing end.
Rating: ****1/2
