There have been hundreds of PPVs and thousands of matches. Many are considered classics. The Flair-Steamboat trilogy of 1989, the cream of the WCW cruiserweight title matches, Mick Foley’s selfless battles to entertain the fans and create new superstars and, most recent of all, a tag team match in TNA which saw Primetime defy the laws of physics and/or sanity to pull off a move we hope never gets topped. But one match that is always mentioned when the hardcore fans discuss the best match in the history of PPV took place on a show which most fans never saw.

1994 was a pretty grim year for the wrestling fan. ECW had yet to make its mark, WCW had gone down the toilet since Hulk Hogan and his aging cronies had taken over, WWF (as was) had just presented Kevin Nash vs Mabel as the Summerslam main event and Smoky Mountain was content to play to a hundred fans in a high school gym as long as Jim Cornette could present his idea of wrestling and not lose money doing so. There was a gap in the market for something different. Serious fans bought in tapes from two places – Japan and Mexico. Mexican wrestling company AAA had been running shows in California for a while, taking advantage of the large Hispanic populations in the major cities. They regularly ran the LA Sports Arena (site of Wrestlemania VII – a show WWF failed to sell out in 1991) and played to critical acclaim. They forged a deal with WCW to help them run a US pay-per-view and the result was "When Worlds Collide".

The match – which was co-main event on the show along with a cage match featuring future WCW-joke Konnan – was a tag team bout between the fiendish duo of Eddie Guerrero and Art Barr and the heroic pairing of El Hijo del Santo and Octagon. The stipulation was simple – if Eddie and Art won, Santo and Octagon would unmask. If Santo and Octagon won then their opponents would have their heads shaved. Mask/hair matches are common in Mexico.

Three things to understand at this point.

Firstly, stipulations are always honoured in Mexican wrestling. This isn’t America where promoters con the fans with non-finishes or heels reneging on their promises. If you lose a mask/hair match then you lose your mask or hair (and get a nice pay off for doing so). There is an athletic commission which ensures you never put your mask back on (though they let peoples hair grow back).

Secondly, the rules of the match are a bit weird. It was the best two-out-of-three falls but both members of each team had to be pinned for the fall to be won.

Thirdly, El Santo is the biggest legend in the history of Mexican wrestling (and possibly Mexican popular culture) and El Hijo del Santo means literally "The Son of El Santo". The legend of the silver mask has endured for sixty years and may never die. El Santo died twenty years ago and had a state funeral.

What makes this match so great – and I bought a tape of it in 1995 but have seen it for the first time in years today on the Eddie Guerrero DVD – isn’t that it is a sixty minute epic or that it features revolutionary moves. It doesn’t surprise the viewer or contain any great feats of psychology. It isn’t inventive booking or a great story being told. The legend of the silver mask has reigned for sixty years and for much of that time the owner of the mask – father or son – has put that mask on the line against his nemesis of the week. For sixty years the mask has never been lost and probably never will be. Good will always triumph. So what makes the match so great?

The answer is simple emotion. I said it didn’t contain any great feats of psychological manipulation and it didn’t – this was raw emotion. Eddie and Art "Love Machine" Barr were representing the USA and proclaiming their superiority to the Mexicans. Eddie’s father – Gori Guerrero – was the tag team partner of El Santo and so Eddie betraying his Mexican heritage to become an American citizen was the ultimate act of betrayal. The Hispanic fans weren't paying to see whether El Hijo del Santo would lose his mask, they paid to see their hero beat the Americans. And did they ever care. The crowd heat was off the charts. The Latino temperament tends to lean towards the hot blooded and Mexican wrestling fans are some of the hottest bloods you’ll find.

The match ran around twenty five minutes with the bad guys winning the first fall, getting a 2-on-1 advantage in the second before losing and then getting a 2-on-1 advantage in the third before Santo pulled out a victory against all the odds. It was action all the way with move after move after move and very little actual selling. To a fan used to seeing HHH and Shawn Michaels try to make you think they’re having a classic battle by lying exhaustedly on the floor for minutes at a time this will seem odd. But that’s how they do things in Mexico. The only move they really sell is the tombstone pile driver (which is "banned" hence it is the ultimate heelish weapon). The rest of the time they, in the words of the song, get knocked down and they get up again. Kept in its own context it is a perfectly entertaining style. It’s only when it gets mixed with heavy-selling American wrestling that it looks faker than a politician’s smile.

It’s ten years since this match took place and people still talk about it. 2004 produced maybe two (possibly three) matches that people are still talking about at the end of the year. The bout ended and the losers had their heads shaved bald. The ultimate humiliation for the ultimate heels losing the ultimate grudge match. There was never a rematch as "Love Machine" Art Barr died a few days later of a drugs overdose. Had he lived he could've become a major star. WCW were very high on him (no pun intended) after seeing this show. They were planning to bring him in to be the focus of their new cruiserweight division and if they'd left his character in tact he would've been a sensation. And with the wrestling war about to ignite he would've been ideally placed. With a bit more work in the gym he would've been as high on WWF's list as Chris Jericho was. Sadly, it wasn't to be. But Love Machine lives on with the memory of this match and Eddie Guerrero's adopting of his finishing move - the frog splash - in tribute.

Was it the greatest match in the history of pay-per-view? It’s certainly in the top handful. Within the luche libre genre it was quite possibly the perfect match. And it’s not just a historical footnote either - El Hijo del Santo winning a mask match is every bit as predictable and clichéd as Triple H winning a world title match. Which proves that it isn’t the predictability which makes Trips so boring…