CMLL Women’s Gran Prix tonight, Dorada/Cavernario to MLW, IWRG

CMLL

Today’s the CMLL women’s Gran Prix

CMLL (FRI) 10/27/2023 Arena México
1) Diamond & Valiente Jr. vs Dr. Karonte I & Dr. Karonte II
2) Futuro, Neón, Pelon Encapuchado vs El Coyote, Inquisidor, Pólvora
3) Averno vs Virus [lightning]
4) Atlantis Jr., Máscara Dorada, Místico vs Ángel de Oro, Niebla Roja, Templario
5) Amapola, Andrómeda, Dark Silueta, Hera, La Jarochita, Lluvia, Reyna Isis, Skadi vs Johnnie Robbie, La Catalina, Makoto, Mei Suruga, Stephanie Vaquer, Sumie Sakai, Tessa Blanchard, Zeuxis [CMLL Gran Prix de Amazonas]

These matches are usually planned out well, and it’s just a matter of executing to have a good match. It’ll be interesting where Andromeda fits in, and how CMLL follows up with Catalina after winning the Universal tournament. The Mexican team has won the previous two matches, so it’s probably about time for the foreigners to take one. The foreign team looks much stronger than the Mexican one this year, generally. Tessa is the obvious favorite but Mei could be the winner too; she’s the one who got the “would you consider staying in CMLL for a long time?” question on Informa. The modern men’s foreign winners have usually been all non-CMLL regulars, for what it’s worth.

The semimain should be good, and maybe better than anything turned out last week. Averno versus Virus is diehard favorite versus diehard favorite, they just need Hechicero to call it. I don’t know that Futuro & Neon will be as impressive this time out but it’ll be good to see them. The opener may be a struggle. This (and next week) is a double price PPV.

The women (or at least those who were in town) did the media tour on Thursday. They rode the Turiluchas buses with the media and did a group pose at the Mexico military college. Publimetro has interviews with Stephanie Vaquer & Tessa Blanchard, and Andromeda, Dark Silueta, Reyna Isis and Skadi on the tecnica bus. Blanchard said the CMLL women were the best in Mexico. Vaquer wants three or four Chilean women in the Gran Prix next year. Andromeda is twenty years old and started lucha libre training at 10. Jarochita feels like Catalina must be very lucky to somehow beat her.

Saturday has the NJPW Strong show in Las Vegas, Fighting Spirt Unleashed. There’s two CMLL matches

• Stephanie Vaquer & Zeuxis vs Lluvia & Johnny Robbie
• Mistico, Atlantis Jr., Hiroshi Tanahashi, Atlantis vs Adrian Quest, Tiger Mask, Soberano Jr., Rocky Romero

This airs on FITE for $20. It should be good, though I’m not sure if it’s $20 good. The Atlantis match is just a for fun one where the outcome doesn’t match much. Vaquer’s almost definitely going over in the women’s tag.

CMLL and NJPW have said nothing about Soberano. No “he’s hurt, he won’t be there.” No, “he’s actually going to gut his way through it (he really wanted to go Vegas.)” Just silence. No one’s much pointed it out, even when previewing this show. For all CMLL is being touted as the promotion of the year or even just having a hot one, it’s the same few as always actually paying attention to the day by day stuff. Anyway, no news usually means Soberano Jr.’s not going to be there but they haven’t figured out a replacement or the replacement is going to make people unhappy.

While I’m in a strangely sour mood, this is a good place to note that whatever effect Mistico had on Rampage has not seemed to help for the NJPW Strong shows much. WrestleTix Thursday reported 730 tickets have been sold, which seems a small number. Tickets for NJPW shows tend to be higher priced and NJPW didn’t set up the building much bigger than that so maybe it’s fine, it’s just not the “extra 2000” tickets for last week’s AEW show.

CMLL (SUN) 10/29/2023 Arena México
1) Brillante Jr. & Max Star vs Sangre Imperial & Vegas
2) Hombre Bala Jr. & Volcano vs Kráneo & Raider
3) Guerrero Maya Jr., Pegasso, Stigma vs Akuma, Dark Magic, Espanto Jr.
4) Reyna Isis, Stephanie Vaquer, Zeuxis vs Makoto, Mei Suruga, Tessa Blanchard
5) Blue Panther, Panterita del Ring, Valiente vs Averno, Euforia, Mephisto
6) Máscara Dorada, Místico, Volador Jr. vs Gran Guerrero, Stuka Jr., Último Guerrero

Only one women’s match is a rarity in CMLL this month.

Rocky Romero was on Wrestling Observer Live on Wednesday. The goal of the interview was to promote the NJPW Strong show. There was talk about the AEW/CMLL relationship. Romero confirmed that the CMLL rules are no AAA wrestlers on the same show as CMLL wrestlers. That’s generally the same rule CMLL uses in Mexico. There are Mexican local promoters that use talent from both shows, just not on the same show (and sometimes using slightly different promotion name now.) AEW is skirting those rules by considering Dynamite and Rampage as separate shows since they’re taped back to back, but Salvador Lutteroth was there and aware of it so it can’t be too much of an issue.

Romero mentioned that he hoped to see more with CMLL, AEW and NJPW in 2024, which came off as a Forbidden Door tease. It also could be read as CMLL wouldn’t be seen in AEW for the rest of this year. Romero had big plans for NJPW Strong in 2024, including invoking the planned (and COVID scraped) Madison Square Garden show from a few years back in talking about wanting to run a US show of that size sometime next year. That seems incredibly ambitious, but it would probably take CMLL wrestlers along with it so I’m all for it. Plans for NJPW Strong to return to taping weekly TV also sound like ways CMLL wrestlers may appear more in the US.

MLW’s TV show aired edited highlights of the 06/30 Volador Jr./Rocky Romero match. Heel producer for the day Salina de la Renta forced the announcers to tell the fans they’d have to buy the CMLL PPV to watch the whole show. You, of course, can not buy a CMLL PPV from three months ago – you’d have to subscribe to CMLL’s YouTube to see that full match. MLW also announced Rocky Romero & Barbaro Cavernario versus Mascara Dorada 2.0 & Ichiban for the 11/18 show on Philadelphia. Again, he hasn’t been Mascara Dorada 2.0 in three months; MLW isnt’t really locked in on this at all and it’s another reason to believe this won’t amount to much. The MLW shows do air on FITE+, so it won’t cost you much to see it. Dorada is the right name to get for MLW to get buzz. I’m also thinking this will be an eight-minute good match before it goes off the rails to serve whatever wacky angle MLW has coming up.

One thing I’ve been critical about CMLL’s YouTube channel is the lack of promised historical content. Technically, CMLL has done it. If you look at the end of the membership playlist, you can see CMLL’s moved all the Aniversario shows they’ve uploaded to that pay tier. Converting more free stuff into pay content is not what anyone was really hoping for.

The mayor’s office of Iztacalco opened up a photo exhibit for Blue Panther on Thursday. He’s lived in that Mexico City borough for 37 years. There’s video for the presentation here.

AAA

This week’s AAA TV finishes up the Mexico City taping

• Kento & Takuma vs Mr. Iguana & Niño Hamburguesa
• Octagón Jr. vs Drago vs Bestia 666 [AAA LA, #1 Contenders]
• Komander vs La Estrella vs Kuukai vs Mecha Wolf [AAA CRUISER]

Pagano, on stage in his usual paint, appeared as part of a rally for Mexican presidential candidate Claudia Sheinbaum in Parral, Chihuahua. Pagano told the media he’s been following the MORENA party (Sheinbaum’s party) since 2021 Ciudad Juarez elections but doesn’t consider himself part of any political group. Lucha libre shows paid for by political parties are common around elections in Mexico but it’s rare to see a luchador have a public association with a party. I guess it’s also odd to see a man in clown makeup on stage at a political rally, but I don’t follow Mexican politics closely enough to know.

AAA hosted a private show for the people in charge of Kingdom Cup. It took me a good ten minutes to figure out what the Kingdom Cup is, even with a link to their social media. (It’s a soccer league that plays 7v7 instead of 11v11, among other rule changes.)

IWRG

IWRG (THU) 10/26/2023 Arena Naucalpan [IWRG]
1) Red Power & Rey Aztaroth b Águila Oriental & Ajolotl 
2) Centurion, Gannicus, Rey Halcón b Caballero de Plata, Dr. Cerebro Jr., Tornado 
3) Último Legendario b Cerebro Negro 
4) Relámpago DQ Puma de Oro © [IWRG IC MIDDLE] 
fourth defense. Puma de Oro hit Relampago with an elbow to the chin, Relampago took a bump, and the doctor immediately stopped the match while giving the X sign. Relampago was DQed, though I’m not clear why. Titles change hands on DQs so Relampago is the new champ.
5) Gran Pandemónium, Hijo de Canis Lupus, Hijo de Pandemónium, Pandemónium Jr. b Ivan Rokov, Pig Decapitador, Pig Destructor, Pig Pool 
Ivan Rokov replaced Pig Destroyer and wore his mask. Bengalee got involved and attacked by the Pigs post match.

The fourth match finish was baffling. The two men are doing a dramatic back-and-forth strike exchange. Puma de Oro hits Relampago with an elbow to the chin, Relampago is KOed, and Puma de Oro is disqualified for knocking out his opponent. Isn’t the goal of professional wrestling to incapacitate your opponent? The announcers tried to make sense of it but there was no sense to be had. It reads almost like they were trying to do a weird shoot angle. Typically someone shoot doesn’t get to do two interviews afterward. This must’ve made sense in someone’s head but it it came off as silly.

This show primarily aired on IWRG’s channel. It popped up on Mas Lucha during the Relampago/Puma de Oro using the same feed, but didn’t stick with it for whatever reason. It’s been a while since I’ve checked in on an IWRG feed when they’re just running the show, and the streaming number did seem up – like 600 people watching live. It used to be under 100 when Mas Lucha and IWRG would both stream it, so people have at least figured out to check the IWRG channel.

IWRG (SUN) 10/29/2023 Arena Naucalpan
1) Águila Oriental vs Golden Power
2) Auzter & Súperboy vs Red Power & Rey Aztaroth (Estado de México)
3) Dr. Cerebro Jr., Fussion, Noisy Boy vs Centvrión, Gannicus, Mr. Mike
4) Hell Boy, Shocko, Tonalli vs Ivan Rokov, Puma de Oro, Relámpago
5) Big Mami vs Kali, Satania, Mary Caporal, Sagitarius, Gizelle, Lolita, Danessa, Estrella Divina, Amazonika [Copa Reina del RIng]
6) Spider Fly © vs Águila Roja [IWRG IC Light]
5th defense, 3rd against Aguila Roja

They’re giving the lightweights a big chance for a great match.

Tonalli talked up his feud with Relampago in IWRG leading into Castillo del Terror to Record. I can confirm this is not the same Tonali who is suspended for ten months due to gambling.

Other News

I broke the luchadb earlier this week and eventually caught in and fixed it. If dates looked weird, that was me and not you.

Lucha VaVOOM had been hyping up a mystery opponent for Taya on their Thursday show for a while. This was peculiar, as Lucha VaVOOM almost never announces any matches. All the matches are mystery matches. (I tend to wait for full cards before adding shows to the database, and I almost never remember to add Lucha VaVOOM shows because there’s never any lineup.) There was a reason for the hype; Taya’s match ended up being her and Brian Kendrick versus Maria Shafir & Ronda Rousey. That’s Rousey’s first post-WWE match, after finishing up there a few months ago. Rousey, before she was a big MMA star, then a WWE person (and also a person who posted weird conspiracy stuff on the internet), was a person who would go to southern California indie shows and have a fun time. This was probably just getting having that fun and nothing more for now.

On Tuesday, the Wolf King announced they were shutting down. On Wednesday, Mas Lucha posted a card a show for an 11/03 The King Phantom show, which maybe is being run by the same people who ran the Wolf King or maybe is being canceled who evern knows.

ESTO has an interview with Sanguinario Torres & Sanguinario Jaguar to hype the 11/03 Robles show in Mexico City. Their trio partner, Sanguinario Bin Laden, was not present.

RIOT’s 12/09 show will have Takuma & SB Kento vs Arez & Latigo. That seems like a good match.

US wrestler Charlotte Flair took part in United Nations day on Tuesday at primary school Francisco Zarco in Gomez Palacio. The article claims Andrade has two nieces there but their classmates didn’t believe they were actually related, so Charlotte and Andrade decided to pop in.

A fictional movie on luchador El Halcon aired as part of the Morelia film festival. No word on a larger release.

The San Luis Potosi state government unveiled a lucha libre themed Dia de Meurtos tribute.

Blind Magazine talks about a new luchadora photo exhibit.

An article on Latin Lover’s gym in Monterrey.

There are new people in charge of the lucha libre commission in Benito Juarez, Quintana Roo.