This was a match in the Top of the Super Juniors IV tournament.
Fun time for both wrestlers, as this is roughly 3 weeks after Kid’s extremely famous match and win vs. Razor Ramon, in one of the greatest moments in the history of Monday Night RAW.
On the flip side, this match is taking place mere weeks before a really big summer for Eddie in AAA, where Los Gringos Locos would partake in some extremely famous matches that wound up launching Eddie to superstardom.
The match is way better than I expected it to be. I mean, it’s these two with both at the early stages of their primes, so that should be expected. But given I had never even knew this match existed, I really didn’t expect much heading in to my viewing. So that may add to my overall enjoyment of it.
As for the match itself, Kid is super fast and shows it early with reversals and counters of anything Eddie throws at him. Eddie finds he’s not as fast as Kid on an early ropes sequence, so he slows it down with a few stiff strikes and a whip on the outside, sending Kid head and shoulder first into the guard rail.
Eddie wants to act quick by going right into a Gory special and a pin attempt, it he’s unsuccessful. Now, he begins stretching the hell out of Kid to wear him out and keep him grounded. Focus is going toward the neck and left shoulder, working off of the initial throw into the guardrail.
Now that he’s effectively worn him down, Kid’s more Eddie’s speed and Eddie’s able to thwart his comeback on a ropes sequence and ground him again immediately, going right back to work on the left shoulder.
Kid works his way out and, on another ropes sequence, he bends down to make Eddie roll-spin over his back, and as he lands Eddie takes Kid’s bad arm down with him in a quick arm drag. Such a great little touch.
Eddie keeps the arm/shoulder work up and Kid is largely selling it fine. Big comeback starts, and Kid is able to catch Eddie off guard with a big kick sending him the floor, followed by a rather sloppy but effective (and cool) diving spinning heel kick from the top down onto the floor!
Eddie slows the match down, again to his pace, by coming back in and battling on the apron with the ropes between them. Eddie hits a big springboard attack followed by a baseball slide to keep Kid on the floor, and then a HUGE DIVE INTO THE CROWD!
Kid slowly gets back in. The arm and neck work have mostly been abandoned, and Kid’s even stopped really selling it after the big dive. In fact, he really doesn’t sell the dive much either, so that sucks. Eddie grabs Kid from behind in the ring, but Kid swings a leg back to low blow him and then runs up the corner with a moonsault press, mimicking the finish to his match vs Razor, but Eddie kicks out in an unlucky twist of fate. Eddie repays him with a stiff Manhattan drop to the groin. Eddie sets Kid up top to prepare for the finish, but Kid gets an errant kick to daze Eddie and plants him with a beautiful tornado DDT, and that just barely gets the three count. Either that, or Eddie decided to kick out at 3.1 just for funsies.
Overall, I really enjoyed this. Through a modern lens, this would be a perfect match for RAW or Dynamite. And I appreciate the chances they both took given that this was in 1993. Sadly, I think this is the best these two are capable of together. They work a program in WCW that is painstakingly fine. It’s a shame because this is a pairing that, by all math, should work. And while they certainly never any horrible output, it never really delivers beyond the threshold seemingly set by this match.
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