How the Legend of the When Worlds Collide Apuesta Endures
How the Legend of the When Worlds Collide Apuesta Endures
The double hair vs. double mask match from 1994 is placed on a pedastal even though it never hits the peaks of the style.
This might be one of the most famous lucha matches of all time.
There are far more notable, significant, and—let’s be very honest—better lucha libre matches in the canon, but this one endures in the collective memory for a few reasons. The most obvious of those would be that it was broadcast on American pay-per-view. In every facet of media, the United States is the single most powerful arbiter of culture in the world. If it’s accessible to American eyes, it leaves an imprint on the world as a whole.
But AAA’s When Worlds Collide could never have gotten to that point without their business partnership with WCW at the time. It’s one that afforded them access to a professional American production team for the event as well as (rather limited) promotional aid from WCW television and its broadcasters at the time. Whatever the many mistakes that went into getting this event to happen, like failure to promote it heavily both on WCW’s American and AAA’s local television, the deal still got eyes on this event from wrestling fans that might never have seen lucha libre before. Reports in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter claim that the crowd in attendance saw far more non-Mexican American fans than previous AAA events in the area.
Even at the time, the double hair vs. double mask match pitting “Love Machine” Art Barr & Eddy Guerrero against El Hijo del Santo & Octagon stood out. It played as a big blow off to one of AAA’s hottest angles, and also received one of the longer runtimes on the pay-per-view. The dramatic defeat of Los Gringos Locos no doubt stuck in the minds of both the AAA faithful and new viewers attracted by the WCW connection.
The Observer played no small role in mythologizing this match through the years as well. In the November 14, 1994 edition, Meltzer would go on to award the match the coveted 5 star rating. In that week’s Observer, he said of the match that, “Live this was one of the best matches I've ever seen.” Later on, it would also be immortalized as part of WWE’s official canon by being featured in an Eddie Guerrero compilation DVD.
I can’t speak for the live experience, but watching this match back 28 years later, it really isn’t all that.
It’s not bad.
There’s good stuff to be admired here. Eddy’s mat exchanges with Santito are fun to watch while they last. Eddy brings a little more grit to the matwork here, in comparison to the much more fluid lucha stylings of Santito. Barr’s a brash and cocky heel who never stops shittalking but also takes the bumps one would want in return. Octagon’s around too, I guess.
Structurally, it has all the dramatic beats that one wants from this format. The rudos take the first fall, the tecnicos constantly have to fight back against the odds in the latter two. We even have incredibly dramatic story beats such as Octagon getting stretchered out from a devastating piledriver, and Blue Panther coming in to give Barr his just desserts. Then, there’s a climactic final confrontation between Guerrero and Santito as our hero endures a barrage of big offense and nearfalls.
But none of it ever really gels together. I’ve seen this match before, and I rewatched it twice in preparation for this piece, and every single time I’m waiting to love it. I’m waiting for it to kick in to be great, and it just never really gets there. As a younger fan, I thought this was just my lack of familiarity with lucha as a style, but now I feel much more confident in saying that it just isn’t really great.
There’s a lot working against this match’s favor. First of all is the format that we’re getting to begin with. Any longtime lucha fan will tell you that the most famous and beloved lucha matches are either singles matches or trios matches. The lucha tag match with this particular rule set—two out of three falls with each fall wrestled under elimination rules—falls into a bit of a purgatory. It doesn’t have the comfortable, quick rhythms of the trios, nor does it have the direct emotional focus of the singles.
The pacing of this match really feels odd. Even with all the two out of three falls lucha matches I’ve seen in my time, the first fall here feels abbreviated and rushed. Meanwhile, the comebacks and shifts in the latter two falls rarely reach the kind of emotional and athletic heights that I’ve seen accomplished in better matches. It all just kind of breezes by. Inoffensive for the most part, but only because it’s so unaffecting.
In fairness, the odd pacing may not be entirely the fault of the performers. Talk of production issues backstage have circulated since the day of the event. Where past AAA cards in the California area went three, even four hours long, When Worlds Collide only goes for two. The WCW production team reportedly undercut the workers by constraining the already tight five-match card with brief runtimes. Wrestlers on the undercard were placed in one-fall matches when they were far more used to working the standard two out of three falls format. They were also warned about going over time on the broadcast. This rush seems to have infected even the apuesta, with Meltzer writing about it, “…everyone panicked about time, the wrestlers in the ring went out too fast and there were no slow spots all night.”
This leaves the match feeling like it has a lot of the right ideas about creating drama, but never actually being able to manifest that tension through action. The babyface comebacks never have the silky smooth flourish one wants, the rudo beatdowns never feel all that cruel either. Even the big nearfall-laden final fall between Santito and Eddy doesn’t pop the live crowd. They don’t gasp with each nearfall, just kind of let it wash over them until finally Santito gets the win.
The funny thing is that even at the time, more seasoned lucha fans saw how this didn’t quite stack up to the best work elsewhere. Even Dave Meltzer, in spite of his 5-star rating, expressed multiple misgivings about the match. In the same November 14, 1994 Observer, he wrote:
I didn't feel [English commentary] got the intensity and drama of the hair vs. mask match over as well as it was in the building until perhaps the final minute, nor the quality of the moves over. Live that match was an unquestionable ***** match and on PPV on the English feed didn't come off as a ***** match….
Although the mask vs. hair was the single best match I've seen since going to AAA shows, overall judged in comparison with the regular house shows I've seen in Los Angeles and Tijuana this year, it wasn't as good as many of them...
But the match’s legend endures, and will continue to do so. It’s too inextricably linked to the legacy of a beloved deceased wrestler, and it’s an easy thing for the WWE machine to whip out footage of despite never releasing a restored version of the full event. As far as lucha libre goes, it’s really not a bad place to start.
It’s just hard to circle back around to it once you’ve moved on past.
IS IT BETTER THAN 6/3/94? No.
Rating: ***