Month: October 2003

There’s some news and some rumors about the lucha TV situation elsewhere. What we know is that AAA/PAP is airing a special on Mexico’s Multivision on 11/02 (under the name of “LLL”, it’s nWo-splinter rudo faction). Which leads to speculation along the lines of:

– PAP is leaving Televisa
– CMLL doesn’t care about TV
– No more lucha on Televisa
– No more lucha on Galavision
– Or none of this happens

Not that you’d almost notice with the amount they’ve been showing lucha lately. I *think* a soccer game went long or they forgot about Daylight Savings Time, becasue the overnight replay didn’t air correctly.

Like I said, I don’t know anything myself, so I’ve put off mentioning it, hoping for things to clear up (because there’s always many ways something like this could turn out.) Haven’t heard anything more yet.

CMLL.com news
– Since the Arena Mexico show is on Friday, it’s going to be a “kids get in free with an adult” show. 20 best costumed kids will get a prize, I think. That’ll be a wacky look for a TV Taping.

The card for the show is:
* Atlantis, Shocker, Blue Panther, Mr. Niebla vs Vampiro, Tarzan Boy, Negro Casas, Black Warrior
(parajes incredible)
* Universo 2K, Mascara 2K, Violencia vs Pierroth, Emilio Charles, Bestia Salvaje
* Havana Brothers (Ricky, Quance, Rocky) vs Averno, Mephisto, Virus
* Tony Rivera, Angel Azteca, Sicodelico Jr. vs Holligan, Arkangel, Nitro
* Explosivo, Valiente vs Sangre Azteca, Ramstein

– More push for Arkangel and Angel Azteca. No date for that one yet.

– And, in something I think I was wondering about this summer, Pierroth may try to go four for four in stakes matches against the Capos, as Universo challenged him to a mask vs hair match. Unless something happens, I’d bet money on that for the last Arena Mexico show of the year. The CMLL news does draw in Universo’s pending issue with the Aguayos, so they may end up getting involved. (Gee, if they really wanted to turn Jr., costing Universo his mask to Pierroth would certinatly do it.)

– At last week’s Arena Mexico card, Virus pinned Rocky to win a trios match, then challenged Rocky for his SuperLH Title. Rocky said no. But seeing as they’re matched up again, I think it’s only a matter of time.

Between those last three bits, I think you can start to figure the big matches for the rest of the year, assuming they don’t save them all for one show.

I should have another TV episode up in 24 hours. Hoping for two this week and two next week to be back on track.

The last two weeks of CMLL.com news:

– Blue Panther and Mr. Niebla are feuding, have talked about a mask vs mask match. Yea right – except they noted it again a week later, saying Panther has accepted. I’d presume Panther would drop his hood if they did this, but having it so long in a pretty visible role, I’d be surprised for it to happen. And happen off an angle that been Arena Coliseo exclusive so far. Panther just hit 25 years of wrestling, by the way.

– At the same time, Angel Azteca and Arkangel are also feuding and talking mask/mask, and that I could actually see coming. Saw a lot of Angel Azteca matches when I was going through the old recaps, but not at all in the last couple years, so I could imagine this being a one last run to set up a payday for dropping his mask before he gets out. And Arkangel is a guy who works a decent amount of semimain events on the weekly spot shows – it could give him a push towards being more useful in the long run. But that’s all speculation from me.

– There was an undercard Cibernetico at Coliseo on 10/7 that was really good. The report congrulated these people for their performance: Felino, Virus, Tigre Blanco, Dr. X, Nitro, Sangre Azteca, Ricky Marvin, Safari, Tony Rivera, Olimpico, Chris Stone, Neutron, Ramstein, and Holligan (which I still think it spelled wrong), but they say 26 people were involved. KrisZ’s results had Loco Max, Nitro and Volador Jr. involved (and many of those names up there not involved.) That’d be way up there in intersting things that will never air in complete form.

– On the same show, Brazo de Platino returned to CMLL after a few months abscene – and was promptly injuried via tope by Black Warrior. He’s doing okay, though.

– Bobby “Rocko” Quance was injuried on 10/3, and Alan Stone has temporarly replaced him in the trio (with Ricky [who’s now II intead of Puma] and Rocky.) You know, seeing as they’re not wearing masks and all have names, why do they have numbers? To be more confusing.

– There’s a bit about Atlantis and Tarzan Boy beating Sabu in Japan, making it sound like they teamed up to do it. Which isn’t exactly true. Tarzan Boy and his partner beat Sabu (and his partner) when Sabu got DQed, and neither Atlantis or his team ever beat Sabu. Looking at the results, they’ve really been protecting the outside guys at the expense of the (tiny – not in stature, but in numbers) Michinoku guys, which isn’t what I’d expect.

What aired on CMLL (and will reair later, I suppose):

Vignette: Satanico promises death for Ultimo Guerrero
Vignette: Ultimo promises death for Satanico
(Probably more of a “who’s the teacher/student NOW?” thing)
Match 1: Satanico vs Ultimo Guerrero [3rd Fall]
Vignette: Havana Brothers cut another promo. Much the same as the last one! They’re calling him ‘Rocko’ Quance just to be confusing.
Match 2: Virus/Volador Jr./Ricky Marvin vs Havana Brothers
(goes 11:00 including time between falls. Intros are clipped, and I thought I spotted a clip during the match. Very fast paced and the crowd dug it.)
Spectacular Moments
Vignette: Talibanes goof around outside, takling about Guapos, Terrible, FdT.
Match 3: Talibanes vs FdT/Terrible
(FdT are wearing two sets of belts, one that seems to have something covered with electric tape. They’re tecnicos here?)
Post Match, the cage match is hyped up.

TV from three weeks ago is now up.

Time and preview are up. I think we’re still one week ago from the cage match.

I’ve been working on the RSPW Lucha Archive for a lot of the distance between posts around here, so feel free to use it. I’ve got a lot more stuff indexed that need to go up, but if you’re looking for 1992 CMLL recaps, you’ve come to the right place.

I’d say more, but I hit the wall at :30 after and am struggling to finish.

The main page update script is not functioning, so you won’t know that the blog has been updated by just going there. I’m working on a solution, but you may want to double check here for updates until I say something different. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Homer: So maybe there wasn’t any tape of the 0 show? At least that explains why I never had tape dates down for the 10/02 show. Send me the recap anyway, because it’d be cool to have another take. Speaking of, well, just a second –

Lucha News:
– Ultimo Guerrero beat Terrible to retain the CMLL LH Title. Does Magica get the next shot?
– Ultimo Guerrero will take on Shocker on the next LXW show (11/15, tickets $20-$30), in the quarterfinals of their World Title tournament. This amazes me in many ways: After what they drew for the first show, they’re doing another? You have Ultimo and Shocker and it’s a quarterfinal? No other participants have been announced. They do say they’re taping the show and I’d be happy to take a copy off their hands.

Part of the downside to following lucha, as compared to US stuff or even Puroresu, is that there’s a lack of freely accessible history info. [1] La Arena does a great job of telling who people were, and what they meant over the course of time, but it’s tougher to find articles about the time itself, or what it was like to see it – even for relatively recent stuff. In my continuing attempt to help that problem out [2], I’ve gone through some of RSPW’s archives on Google and set up an index of old recaps by Pete Stein and Doug Corti (among others), arranged in something coming close chronological order. It’s not really new material, but it’s a way for everyone to get at some good old articles quickly.

Caveats: Not all links are perfectly functioning (there are some holes on archive.org and google), and there’s probably a bunch more to add. My aim is to add in Homer’s recaps from here next, and link to any DVDVR stuff where I can figure out what date the stuff is from. I think La Arena still has a link to CANZ’s recaps that I could get working over archive.org, so maybe them too. I’m sure there a lot more out there; it’s just a matter of finding ’em, and putting them together so they’re easy to get at.

Let me know if you find anything useful. If you are Pete Stein, feel free to click the e-mail link and let me know if you’ve got any issues about how your recaps are being used – I can’t find an e-mail address for you that doesn’t seem 6 or 7 years old.

I’ll catch up with my own recaps – sometime after the World Series? I was hoping for a sweep just so my heart could get a rest.

[1] – because of tapes from Japan being easier to get? More hyped? Less talent drain? those are my best guesses
[2] – this is why I was going to do the FAQ…that I never did – er, ignore that

The Cubs Fan, being a God Amongst Men, sent me some assorted Lucha that I’ve missed out on since I lost Galavision hookup, as well as the Brock/Angle Iron Man match I missed due to a power outage. Whatta guy.

News

—Perro Aguayo Jr. may do one of those Rocky Maivia Forced Heel Turns. Fans haven’t taken too kindly to him.

—Havana Pitbulls returned on Friday, losing to Felino/Safari/Sagrado. Puma injured himself doing a dive outside the ring as he hit his head on a board and did a stretcher job. Gigante Silva also returned on the show, teaming with Shocker and Mascara Magica to beat Damian 666/Halloween/Rey Bucanero/Ultimo Guerrero by DQ.

—Ultimo and Rey are worried about losing their main event rudo spots, so they’ve been turning down several lucrative offers from Japan. Good news for lucha fans, I guess, but the GdI are always fun abroad.

—Dos Caras Jr. suffered a first round knockout against Mirko Cro Cop in today’s Pride Show, shocking, well, no one really. Caras had done some shoot work for the DEEP Promotion and did amass a 3-2 record (one of those losses was a DQ where he was stomping the bejeezus out of the guy). Cro Cop does a “pro wrestler hunter” type of angle, and was the guy who knocked out Yuji Nagata in the first round a couple of years back. It was really win-win for Caras, since no one expected him to win, and a good showing would do wonders for him. I don’t know if it was a good showing, but it was said to be a good match. And as far as I know, he competed with his mask on.

(Funny story: At the last DEEP show, Brad Kohler was told he would be fighting Dos Caras Jr. of Lucha Libre fame. Kohler checked out some tapes and got Super Porky mixed up with Caras (yes, Porky did some a shoot fight for the promotion). Caras, by the way, is 6’5 and 235 pounds. Oops. Caras won the fight in 1:25. The moral of the story: Kohler should read this blog.)