Cuando Los Mundos Chocan

When Worlds Collide


November 6, 1994 the Asistencia Assesoría y Administración, along with their american promotors of the IWC promotion and in cooperation with WCW, presented their very first PPV on american television, commentated by Mike Tenay and Chris Cruise for the americans, and Arturo Riviéra and Andres Moroñas for the Mexicans. Approximately 11,000 fans were at the LA Sports arena in Los Angeles, CA to witness this event. Five matches, a double main event, and for most luchadores the first time ever to wrestle on PPV. This event, along with the World Wrestling Peace Festival, ment a breakthrough for the Mexican lucha-style in America, and it is because of this event that Americans got interested in lucha libre.



Match #1:
Batalla de los mini-estrellas (=midget-match):
Mascarita Sagrada and Octagoncito vs. Espectrito and Jerrito Estrada.
The Mexican midgets, as opposed to their American collegues, can actually wrestle and give away a very good show. Mascarita Sagrada is undoubtedly the best midget (or rather mini) in the world today. He can do just about any move Rey Misterio Jr. can , but when you see midgets, you don't expect them to go to the top turnbuckle and jump on their opponents outside the ring. The match was very high-paced, and had some excellent high-risk manouvers (like a somersault centón bodyblock through the second and third rope to the outside of the ring). Octagoncito and Espectrito opened up for both teams. Octagoncito got off to a very good start as he was able to control both Espectrito and Jerrito. As Mascarita tagged in, the rudos were able to contol him with a lot of double-team moves. Rudos dominated most of the match until Espectrito made the mistake of slipping off the top turnbuckle and landed, well, pretty painfully (every guy will know what I mean ;). Octagoncito was able to work Jerrito out of the ring and nailed him with a tope suicida. Mascarita was able to control Jerrito in the ring and the end came as Mascarita executed a perfect moonsault bodyblock on Espectrito into a rana for the three-count, and Octagoncito got Jerrito in the side-russian legsweep into an armstretch submissionhold and forced him to submit. Over ten minutes of pure high-flying technical wrestling, A four-star match and a perfect opening bout.



Match #2:
Batalla por el Orgullo (battle for respect):
Rey Misterio Jr. & Latin Lover & Heavy Metal vs. Madonna's Boyfriend & Psicosis & Fuerza Guerrera.
Capitán rudo: Fuerza Guerrera.
Capitán técnico: Heavy Metal The three young rising stars of the AAA take on the older veterans to gain their respect in this bout. Rudos attack the técnicos before the opening bell sounds. Rudos clear the ring, and the introductions start. The two captains start the bout off. Neither man can gain the advantage, so they both tag out, and Rey Misterio faces off against Psicosis. Psicosis puts Rey on the top turnbuckle, big mistake as Rey nails Psicosis with a swinging headscissors, making Psicosis flee the ring. Madonna's Boyfriend (aka Louie Spiccoli, bka Rad Radford) comes out and starts to brawl on Rey. Spiccoli looks huge in this promotion. He does a gorrila press with Rey and places him on the top turnbuckle. Rey comes off with a plancha, but Spiccoli just catches him in midair. He puts him on the other turnbuckle, and Rey comes off with a flying dropkick in the back of the neck of Boyfriend. Madonna's Boyfriend (he'd wish :) doesn't sell. Rey get out and Latin Lover enters the ring. Boyfriend starts to do his dancing, then Latin Lover does his ringdance, and the two get into a fight. Latin nails Boyfriend with a superkick and sends him to the outside. Heavy Metal and Psicosis enter the ring. They get off pretty even, and clear the ring for Rey Misterio and Fuerza Guerrera. Rey is able to get Fuerza to the outside and nails him with a swinging headscissor from the ring apron. In the mean time Latin Lover and Psicosis have entered the ring. Psicosis whips Latin in the corner, and goes for a dropkick, but Latin moves out of the way. The two team captains enter the ring again. Fuerza makes a foul on Metal, but the referees don't see it, Metal returns the favour and again the referees don't see it. Metal puts an armbar on Fuerza but Boyfriend enters the ring and breaks the hold. Boyfriend with a double underhook suplex on Metal, follows up with a kneedrop. As Metal rolls out of the ring, Boyfriend goes after Rey who's on the outside of the ring, picks him up and throws him into the crowd. Heavy Metal is now alone in the ring with Psicosis and Guerrera. Both rudos are able to doubleteam Metal. Metal is able to get out, and Latin Lover comes in, and the doubleteaming continues. Same thing as Rey comes in. Rey eventually is able to counter as Psicosis attempts a front bodydrop, and Rey counters with a faceslam. Fuerza comes in as well as Latin Lover. They exchange some slaps. Latin is able to hit Fuerza with a superkick, and a bodyslam. Latin goes to the top turnbuckle and attempts a plancha mortal but Fuerza moves out of the way. Fuerza put Latin in a scorpion deathlock, but lets him go. Metal comes in and the two captains exchange some blows. Psicosis enters, and whips Metal to the ropes. On the way back Psicosis kicks Metal, who lands with his feet on the top rope, and turns it into a moonsault, landing on his feet. He then does the same thing to Psicosis and sends him flying out of the ring. Fuerza comes in to kick Metal out. Rey Misterio enters and nails Fuerza with the Mexican backbreaker. Madonna's Boyfriend enters to make it two on one. They whip Rey to the ropes, and as Rey comes back, Fuerza hits him with a backdrop, but Rey is able to turn it into a dropkick on Boyfriend, who falls out of the ring. Rey is able to kick Guerrera out of the ring who accidentidly hits Boyfriend with a dropkick. Rey moves to the top rope and nails Boyfriend with a somersault centón. Heavy Metal and Fuerza Guerrera are now in the ring. The end of the match comes as Metal misses a somersault centón from the top turnbuckle. Fuerza nails him with a bodyslam, and puts Metal in some sort of armstretch submissionhold. Metal submits, and the victory goes to the rudos. Three stars, at least.
After the rudos have left the ring the three técnicos receive the applause from the crowd. It's november 1994 and I quote Chris Cruise on the then 19 years old Rey Misterio: "and once again fans, let me say that Rey Misterio jr. at 5 foot 2, 145 lbs, maybe the future of Mexican wrestling."



Match #3:
IWC vs. AAA:
Too Cold Scorpio & Pegasus Kid & Tito Santana vs. Jerry Estrada & La Parka & Blue Panther.
Capitán IWC: Tito Santana.
Capitán AAA: Blue Panther.

I was surprised that the members of the AAA, who were all rudos at that time, got the bigger pop in this match. Also Santana of the IWC got a big pop. As far as I know, Santana never wrestled in Mexico, and the announcers thought of him as the weak link of the team. Of course having two major rising stars like Benoit and Scorpio on your team, doesn't make it too hard to be the weak member.
Immediately at the beginning of the bout, there was some trouble between Parka and Estrada. Parka at that time held the light heavyweight title, and Estrada had some asprirations on that title. Shortly after this event Parka was to turn face, and feud with Estrada, who would eventually beat Parka for that title.
This bout knew some rugular opponents, as Scorpio constantly was in the ring with Parka, Benoit was the rugular opponent of Blue Panther, and Santana and Estrada were a lot in the ring together as well. This way we actually had three single bouts in one match, with some exceptions. The Parka/Estrada feud dominated the match, and the two were absolutely not there to win. Parka refusing to tag Estrada, Estrada pulling off Parka as he attempted a pin, but the most amazing part of the match was that all this feuding didn't really take out the excitement of the match. The match was good, the match was hot, and it was exciting. Benoit really showed here why he is considered to be the best wrestler on the planet today. I had already seen Benoit in his early WCW years, and some matches of him in Japan, but here he definitely gained my respect, and I think that also in Amerika people realized the caliber of Benoit (as I recall correctly it wasn't too much later Benoit signed with ECW).
The end of the match comes as Estrada and Parka are fighting again outside the ring, Santana tries to break them up, and Scorpio comes crashing in with a plancha from the top rope. This leaves Benoit and Blue Panther alone in the ring and both men show some very good manouvers. Benoit is utterly able to pin the AAA captain with a typical lucha libre move, the huracán rana. IWC win this one, Parka and Estrada leave the ring fighting, and the people start to prepare for the first half of the double main event.



Match #4:
Mascara contra Cabellera (Mask vs. Hair):
Hijo del Santo and Octagón vs. La Pareja del Terror (Love Machine and Eddy Guerrero).
Best two out of three falls, non-title match.

This match was highly anticipated by the fans, and to me it was the REAL main event of the evening. This match was just way too good to just put it in a tekst format, you should just see the match for yourself. I'll just give you the build-up so whenever you get to see this bout, you'll know what's at steak.
It all started as Mexicans greatest legend, El Santo, teamed up with Eddy Guerrero's father Gorri Guerrero in the Pareja Atomica. Both their sons, Eddy and Hijo del Santo, also teamed up but this team came to an abrupt end as the Love Machine was able to convince Eddy Guerrero that he was living in the shadow of Hijo del Santo, and that it was time to break up the team. By then Art already had "earned" himself the name as being a Gringo Loco. Eddy realized that both he and his father were playing second fiddle to their respective tagteam partners, and that it was time to do something about that. Hijo del Santo started to team up with Octagon and soon the team became tagteam champions. Eddy, of course, was enraged with this development and the Pareja del Terror soon started to make their threats towards the champions. In a title match, were Eddy and Art had bribed referee El Tirantes, the Locos were able to capture the world tag team titles. A real war between these teams erupted and most of the time was being displayed in trios or atomicos matches, as Art and Eddy had recuited Konnan and some more luchadores in their team. All this finially led to this spectacular match at When Worlds Collide. The first fall was easily won by the Locos as Eddy nailed Hijo del Santo, who was sitting of Art's shoulders, with a flying headscissors, and could easily pin him. Octagon was next up as Eddy took him down with a superplex to the center of the ring, followed up by Art's frog splash. With a "that's made in the USA"-remark by Art, he pinned Octagon.
The second fall was once again dominated by the locos and they were even able to pin Hijo del Santo. Octagon once again faced a 2-on-1 situation, but the Pareja got too cocky. Art accidently placed Octagon on Eddy and Octagon quickly responded with a huracan rana. Art thought they had won the fall, as he heard the referee making the 3-count. Not too soon after that Octagon took Art down with a side-Russian legsweep and put him into the Octaclutch. Art had to submit, and the masks were temporarily saved.
The third fall was very exciting as both teams had some great opportunities in beating the other team, but as the referee wasn't looking, Art nailed Octagon with a tombstone piledriver. Octagon nearly broke his neck there. The referee made the 3-count, and a stretcher came out to carry off Octagon. In the mean time Hijo del Santo faced two opponents. Hijo del Santo didn't know how to quit, and was even able to kick out of the superplex frogsplash combination of Eddy and Art. Santo threw Eddy to the outside and nailed him with a plancha from the top rope. As the referee was also on the outside the cornerman of Santo and Octagon, Blue Panther, came in the ring and nailed his arch-enemy Art Barr with a piledriver. Hijo del Santo rolled back into the ring and pinned him. Now the two former tagteam partners had to face 1-on-1. In some kind of battle for respect Eddy showed everything he had, and came very close to pinned Santo on several occasion. As Eddy attempted a dragon suplex for the second time, Santo was able to block it, rolled over and pinned Eddy with a rana. Eddy and Art had lost their hair, and their heads were shaved completely.
The match itself is worth at least 4 stars, but the history, the build-up and the crowd that was really infuriated by the locos made this match the best one I've ever seen. All together I believe you got a *****+ match. I just wonder what a match in ECW with Eddy and Art against Malenko and Benoit would have looked like. This match could have been even better then this Hair vs. Mask match. Too bad all there is left is to wonder how a match like that would look like.....



Match #5:
Lucha en Jaula (cage match):
Konnan el Barbaro vs. Perro Aguayo.
Non-title.

The second big feud the locos were involved in. Eddy and Art made Konnan turn on his long-time tagteam partner Perro Aguayo. In my opinion Konnan and Perro are the young and the old Hulk Hogan of Mexico. Konnan bringing in two titles (one of them he had won from Aguayo) and both men entered the cage. The match was not too good, but Aguayo was bleeding big-time. Aguayo keeps doing his 2 moves on Konnan, and as Eddy and Art realize their partner is in trouble they rush to the ring to help Konnan. As things look really bad for Aguayo, all of a sudden Konnan's arch enemy, Cien Caras, and his brothers of the Hermanos Dynamitas come to ringside to help out Aguayo. Konnan tries to climb out of the cage but gets punched back in by Cien Caras. Aguayo does his double-stomp from the top turnbuckle and escapes the cage. Aguayo wins the match.
As Aguayo leaves to celebrate he is completely covered with blood, the fans are even rather reluctant to celebrate with him, as they don't want their clothes to get all messy.
Just as in an ordinary PPV the main event was the worst match of the night, but still it was good enough to make it 2 stars.





All in all this event is over 2 hours of pure lucha libre like it ought to be. A must for every fan of lucha libre, or wrestling in general. A lot of stars that made their PPV debut on that event are now world famous atheletes. This event was the high peak of the AAA in their glory years, too bad it's now so hard to imagine they were able to deliver such a good event, and I think it's safe to say AAA will never reach that level again.
I hope you enjoyed reading this report.
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