Sangre Chicana and Perro Aguayo Paint with Broad Strokes

This was always my favorite of the 80s lucha classics.

Popular consensus props up the MS-1/Sangre Chicana apuesta from 1983 as the best of the era, but I’ve always thought that this hair match from 1986 had a certain charm that the former did not. I won’t lie, a part of that is just wanting to have the novel take, but I don’t think it’s a crazy opinion by any means. Upon rewatching this for BIG EGG, I don’t know that I can say it’s better than MS-1/Chicana, but I do still have a lot of love for it.

A big part of the match’s charm comes from the state of the footage that we have it in. Instead of an official EMLL broadcast, we instead have a fancam captured from the upper reaches of the famed Arena Mexico. The grainy VHS quality following the action in the ring gives this a grimy, almost forbidden feel to it that can’t help but entice. It creates the sensation of stealing a look at a bit of history not meant for consumption, a glimpse into a dangerous fight best enjoyed with the safety of distance.

Of course, the fancam remains an imperfect way to consume wrestling. This copy has a few sudden cuts that never render the action incomprehensible but do serve as a reminder that we’re seeing an incomplete record. The distance also does obscure one of the best parts of heated apuestas: the blood. One can just make out that Sangre Chicana bleeds after the first fall, but it’s never a truly visceral part of the match (unlike the more famed MS-1 apuesta from 83).

Luckily for us though, this is a match painted in broad strokes.

The fact that it’s a hair match already tells us before the bell that there’s high stakes and hatred underpinning everything. The opening moments tell us exactly who we’re meant to root for. Perro Aguayo, in the white tights, charges gamely only for a cowardly Sangre Chicana to stall on the floor. One might hear chants for both men later on in the match, but the action rarely moves away from Aguayo as the vengeful tecnico and Chicana as the cowardly heel.

Once all that’s established, it’s easy to get swept away.

Perhaps the best, most obvious feature of the match is the punching. My good God, these punches.

Perro Aguayo swings with all the passionate fury of the wronged. He punches hard and he punches big, but that’s only really half the story. Just as important is Sangre Chicana’s selling. His whole body gets rocked with every blow, lending each strike a near life and death sense of stakes. The staggered spaghetti-legged selling thrills me so much. I don’t know what Sangre Chicana did to deserve this hellacious beating, but I’m glad to see him receive it.

The beatdown takes up much of the first fall. Chicana gets basically nothing in, it’s just an all out thrashing from Aguayo. The big highlight—outside of those wild punches—is Chicana being thrown into the ringpost and getting further busted open with a wooden box at ringside.

The second fall sees much of the same, with Aguayo unleashing his fury on the rudo. He even escalates the violence by pulling apart the wooden ring edge to ram Chicana into. But Chicana’s just as experienced a brawler, and he’s able to throw hands with the best of them. In fact, though we mostly see Aguayo on offense, Chicana displays some blows in this that show that he might just be the greatest pro wrestling puncher of all time. Honestly, one can’t help but stop and be in awe of what Sangre Chicana displays here—not only being an all-timer at delivering a move, but also at selling that same offense in return.

A few big blows aren’t enough for Chicana to seize control though—a neat little way to show that the rudo can’t quite nut up against our hero and still expect to win. Instead, it’s cunning by evading a charging Aguayo in the corner that gives Chicana the opening to win the second fall of the match.

There’s a similar moment in the third fall when the two struggle over a row of chairs out in the crowd. Chicana throws a big punch that staggers Aguayo briefly. Once they return to the ring though, it’s Aguayo standing tall. Aguayo grabs a hold only for Chicana to headbutt him right in the balls. Such a great dirty tactic from Chicana driven by his inability to get the upper hand.

The third fall really is a wonder. Where the first two focused primarily on the brawling, the third fall sees these two amp up the desperation by throwing everything into the mix. They’re still swinging for the fences, but they also include holds and pinning combinations, as well as some spectacular dives. All of it with the very clear goal of getting that W and the mane of their rival.

Chicana really is the one I come away from this match admiring. It’s not just the magnitude of his selling, but also the precision of it.

Take for example, this bump in the third fall where Aguayo nails a big punch that sends Chicana flying out onto the floor. The bump alone is a marvel, both expressive and organic—at no point does Chicana’s tumble to the floor look anything less than realistic and painful.

But beyond the bump itself, the timing and presence of mind of Chicana on the floor. He waits to be fully upright on the floor until the precise moment that he has to catch Aguayo flying at him with the tope. It’s an amazing display of awareness and timing that so few today can match.

It’s pretty easily one of the best lucha libre matches of the 80s. At one point, I would have said it’s the very best, but I have demured from that idea for now. Recently, I even joked that its punch-centric offense and simple face/heel dynamics made it my favorite Memphis match of the 80s as well.

All that’s to say that there’s a universal quality to this match. It’s told in broad strokes, and all for the better. Its brilliance can’t be ignored.

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IS IT BETTER THAN 6/3/94? I love simplicity in a match and Aguayo and Chicana deliver on that promise with a violent apuesta that never lets up. That being said, I think the ambition of 6/3/94 actually does it some credit in this regard. That match too is helped by its wider context. 6/3/94 feels much more like the shifting of the tide in a long history, whereas this apuesta seems to just exist in its own perfect bubble out of time. Nothing inherently wrong with either approach, but I’d give the edge to Misawa and Kawada for this one.

Rating: ****1/2