Video link to the match over at Youtube : https://youtu.be/Dth3j9pwMWg



Cagematch page for this match/event.

Who’s Who?

La Parka



What good timing for this entry! I had no idea La Park was going to debut when I watched this match and did some of the legwork on this entry.

La Parka made his debut in 1982 a decade before AAA would be founded. He would hold no titles in that time. Before the La Parka(The reaper) gimmick Parka was most notably Principe Island a mask he lost in 1987 to El Hijo del Santo. ending his 5-0-0 streak. I’m sure he had his fans, but he wasn’t super well known at all as those gimmicks his first decade in the business.

1992 came around and the AAA walkout happened. Antonio Pena, the leader and head booker of AAA who use to be a CMLL booker came to La Parka with the idea for the gimmick. The skeleton based loosely on the Day of the Dead tradition Mexico practices each year. The character was a hit out of the gate and the first major match was vs Lizmark at the first ever Triplemania for Lizmark’s Mexican National Light Heavyweight Championship. Not covering that match because I talked about it last year when highlighting Lizmark.

That belt would be around Park’s waist before too long. That and the WWA World Light Heavyweight Champion were the only 2 belts Parka had held at this point in 1995. 1992 to 1996 he worked with AAA until 1997 came around and the peso crashed. Like many people he left the company at that time following many other luchadors to bolster WCW. Where despite becoming a household name and one of the most memorable guys on the roster… he never really won any accolades. Post WCW he would return to Mexico working indie and CMLL dates from 2000-2008. Which is when clashing between La Park and AAA happened. They debut a new La Parka while he was doing dates for WCW as La Parka Jr. the two didn’t clash in the late 90′s because Parka wasn’t working with CMLL or rival companies instead being a WCW ad for their character and working US indie dates.

Octagon

Octagon made his debut in 1981 working mostly with EMLL as well. He didn’t become the Octagon character until the late 1980′s though when Octagon came to EMLL booker Antonio Pena with the idea of incorporating his legit martial arts training into a character. Octagon was the name based on the Chuck Norris film of the same name. This character took off and become a big hit. Octagon being in a couple of movies in the early 90′s which had become rare as the height of luchador movies had ended in the 70′s. Octagon was also of course sorta a proven gimmick as both Kung Fu and Kato Kung Lee had success, but most would agree that in the 30 years since Octagon debutted, that he has eclipsed both men’s success with his take on the gimmick.

Octagon at this point had captured and lost : Mexican National Trios Champion (with Atlantis and Mascara Sagrada), Mexican National Middleweight Champion(x2), AAA World Tag Team Champion (with El Hijo del Santo) and was still currently Mexican National Trios Champion (2x) (with Rey Misterio Jr. and Super Muneco). We covered his unmasking a few days ago vs Huracan Ramirez(II) since then he also shaved Bestia Negra I, then La Pareja del Terror(Eddie G and Art Barr) with his tag partner El Hijo del Santo.



Octagon would become the posterboy for leaving EMLL for AAA when that company launched. Antonio Pena walking out to form AAA with Octagon and many talents following him. Octagon is famous for being the hold out. Working strong with AAA even after the peso crashed in 1997 and most people left AAA. Octagon stayed being put in their HoF in 2011. Though strangely Octagon left AAA 2014 and sued them for money owed. Even working with CMLL again in 2017 after leaving the promotion 25 years earlier… a sight literally no one thought we would see.

Rey Mysterio Jr.

Rey Mysterio made his debut in 1989 in a World Wrestling Association promotion in Tijuana where he would work under various names until his Uncle allowed him to take the Rey Mysterio mask and name. Rey Mysterio Jr. would make his presence more well known in 1992 by joining AAA. Which signed lots of talent from Tijuana as well as all the walkout talent from CMLL. Rey Mysterio only worked 10 matches for CMLL in his career from what I can tell in 2001.

Rey Mysterio has won 5 hairs/masks at this point while in AAA. And held the following titles : Current Mexican National Trios Champion(with Super Muneco & Octagon), WWA World Lightweight Champion(x2), WWA World Tag Team Champion (with Rey Misterio Sr), and Mexican National Welterweight Champion. He would of course go on to hold gold in both WCW and WWE carving a career in American wrestling. He never held a AAA branded belt, mostly repping his original promotion WWA’s titles.



At this time he was one of many great young talents filling AAA. He Psicosis & Juventud Guerrera were the big 3 feuding in AAA/ECW/WCW the three of them all going to WCW once the peso crashed an AAA had to slow down and do less shows. Which lead to his mainstream career for all the the 2000′s and into the 2010′s still an international draw outside of the WWE asked to work NJPW, LU and recently a show for WWE in Saudi Arabia.

Fuerza Guerrera

Making his debut in 1978 working primarily with EMLL from what I can tell. He became a bigger star towards the late 80′s and early 90′s. He had taken the mask of Rocky Star who we covered in that brazos trios match from earlier. To many fans in the states Fuerza Guerrera may be a bit of an unknown with his son being a more well known name. His son of course being Juventud Guerrera and getting mainstream exposure thanks to WCW and his fantastic feud/rivalry with Rey Mysterio Jr. His father though was a great luchador in his own right and is considered a legend even if he never became a well known name in the states.

In the late 80′s he captured the following titles, arranged in the order he worn them from his first title to the latest before this match : Mexican National Lightweight Championship, Mexican National Welterweight Championship, NWA World Welterweight Championship(x2), WWA World Welterweight Championship, CMLL World Welterweight Champion,

Mexican National Tag Team Champion (with Juventud Guerrera), WWA World Tag Team Champion (with Juventud Guerrera) and WWA World Trios Champion (with Juventud Guerrera and Psicosis).



Those last 3 team titles he was currently holding at this time. Rey and his uncle would often tag vs the father son team of Juventud Guerrera & Fuerza Guerrera.

Of course with this being a mask vs mask match, I have to go over his Luchas de Apuestas record which at this time was 3-0-0 with him taking the mask of Rocky Star in 1989 and with his first win coming in 1985 when Los Bravos : Fuerza(Mask) El Dandy (hair) and Talisman (hair) won a trios betting match over Los Destructores : Lemús II (mask), Tony Arce (hair) and Vulcano (hair).

Juvy would not debut until he was 18 in 1992. Though he may have started training before that obviously. Where and and Rey Mysterio quickly became rivals which would continue into WCW in the late 90′s.

Pentagon I(Espanto Jr.)

Making his debut in 1971 Espanto Jr. would find his most fame in the mid to late 80′s where he would lose his mask and then hair several times to El Hijo del Santo. By 1995 he wasn’t really going to be a draw as a maskless guy who had lost to Santo half a dozen times despite that being a good rivalry. So AAA founder and head booked Antonio Pena repackaged him as Pentagon I an evil twin to the Octagon Character. A trope that would have 3 incarnations over the following decade.

Of course in late 2012 Pentagon Jr. would debut. Which is the one most people are familiar with and the most famous of the incarnations. Likely put in that gimmick to play off an Octagon Jr. Though, that never came to fruition in AAA. With Flamita being put in the gimmick only for Octagon to freak out on him and pull his mask off post show. Flamita left AAA, then Pentagon Jr. did and then Octagon did. Getting ahead of myself though. So this is the start of a decade of evil Pentagon characters for Octagon to fight.

As Espanto Jr. in the late 80′s and early 90′s held the WWA World Welterweight Championship, WWA World Lightweight Championship, UWA World Welterweight Championship, & UWA World Lightweight Championship. He would not win gold as Pentagon before retiring from the character and wrestling in 1996 instead becoming a trainer as the same wrestling school as his brothers.

Psicosis

Making his debut in 1989 Psicosis got his start in the same WWA Promotion Rey Mysterio started at.

It’s estimated that Psicosis and Rey Mysterio Jr. have met each other in the ring over 500 times in their careers. He like La Parka and a few other AAA talents would go to WCW in the late 90′s Psicosis like La Park had issues with AAA who owned the Psicosis name and gave it to a new guy when Psicosis started working with CMLL in the early 2000′s where he instead went by Nicho el Millonario which is the name he still works under today.

He’d work briefly in WWE 2005-2006 after that he would return to AAA for a long stint from 2008-2016, but more recently has become a staple in the hot Mexican indie company The Crash where he has worked 8 matches over 2017 & 2018 throughout all of his career Psicosis has always been someone you could see on a Mexican Indie shows never really being a company man after 2000.

At the time Psicosis was holding both the WWA World Welterweight Champion and WWA World Trios Champion (with Fuerza Guerrera and Juventud Guerrera).



How is the match?



Great, this one is really fun to watch because you have lots of starpower here in hindsight since Park/Mysterio/Psicosis would go on to be big stars in WCW and after in Mexico and Rey in WWE. Even Psicosis as noted had a short stint in WWE in the mid 2000′s. While this is a great match, I think it sorta hurts as a follow up to yesterday’s trios match which is the best one I think we have looked at in this series. This is fun, but knowing where Octagon/Pentagon went sorta deflates Pentagon here. I also, think the evil twin thing is a bit of a strange trope in general. It’s sorta akin to Tiger Mask/Black Tiger in NJPW I’d suppose and that had worked in the past. In fact it was working fairly well with Eddie G being Black Tiger(II) around this time in NJPW. So I get why they wanted to do it, as it had proven to work other places.

Still it’s nice to see young Rey/Psicosis/Parka along with Octagon an Fuerza as well. It seems like a waste though to have Pentagon here instead of Juvy, but you can’t have everything. Parka is fun and Psicosis dancing to taunt him is as well. They try to sell Octagon in dire trouble here with the mask ripping and all that jazz. Which leads to a nice moment after the match when all three tecnicos are in the ring together at the end. A really fun trios match, I’d recommend checking it out, but it isn’t anything too wild. It does feel like a television match and not a PPV or Supercard match because that’s what it was.