I thought this was a master class in rudo wrestling from Satanico, from his great selling of everything Atlantis does, to the mask ripping, and committing fouls so quickly that he turns rulebreaking into an art. Lots to like in a very good match. 

You can read my full review, as part of the 365 Wrestling project. 

El Satánico’s 1984 is widely regarded as one of the best years by any wrestler ever and matches like this one are the reason why, two well known faces of lucha faced each other for Satánico’s NWA Middleweight Title, Atlantis at this point in his career wasn’t the legend he is today, in fact, he was an up and comer that was just named Rookie of the Year of 1983 along with El Hijo del Santo so he wasn’t ‘‘El ídolo de los niños’’ yet. El Satánico was in a very different position though, he was the hottest heel commodity in México, he had been wrestling since 1973, he wore a mask during his early career but we don’t have any footage of him wearing the mask but the mask itself is still well preserved, his style is rough not only for his strikes but also for his holds, they genuinely look painful, I don’t want to be the guy that’s in the receiving end of any of them, Atlantis’ style is more based on aerial maneuvers and traditional lucha libre holds, at some point during the match he even tries to put Satánico in a camel clutch like the original Santo used to do, Santo retired almost two years earlier so the crowd had quite a ‘‘déjá vu’’, this match was a star-making performance from beginning to end, everybody knew that Atlantis wasn’t supposed to win but it didn’t matter there’s always hope, Atlantis won the first fall but it was Satánico’s show from then on, Satánico was always generous, he sold pretty well Atlantis’ offense and did everything in his power to make him look good, so good that the crowd started believing in Atlantis especially during the third fall, Atlantis got Satánico in an abdominal stretch but he got out of the hold then Satánico submitted his young opponent with his trademark hold ‘‘La cruceta con palancas’’.

A thing of beauty if you like lucha you’ll like this match.

This was a great match. The climax was gradual, as Atlantis had a good start in a very "classic" first fall and then he got slowly destroyed by Satanico, who used the most subtle low blow ever as a cheeky turning point. Top notch selling from Atlantis and good visual on his bloody masked face once the rudo took over, trying to rip the mask of the tecnico countless times. While Atlantis sold for most of the match, his desperation comeback in the last caida was also fun and Satanico sold the back from the very first fall. This was so easy to follow despite the bad TV signal for the bout, even the finish was simple and effective
****