Month: August 2004

The Big News: El Hijo del Santo and El Hijo de Perro Aguayo resolved nothing. Their Arena Mexico main event was a draw due to a third fall brawl outside of the ring leading to a DCO. This has all the makings of the undercard for the Rayo/Universo show, which sounds like it should be loaded.

Arena Mexico Results
– El Hijo del Santo DCO El Hijo de Perro Aguayo
– Mascara Sagrada, Negro Casas, Shocker b Hector Garza, Tarzan Boy and Terrible
– Black Warrior, Felino, Blue Panther b Pierroth, Averno, Mephisto
– Mistico b Virus in the lightning match [good match]
– Loco Max and Super Comando beat Brazo de Oro Jr. and Sombre de Plata

This week’s card – the first of the Olympic ones – is focused on the Gran Alternativa tournament. I mentioned the teams before, but let me just c&p:

Shocker and Alan Stone
El Santo and Mistico
Mascara Sagrada and Sagrado
Misterioso I and Misterioso II
Perro Aguayo Jr and Sangre Azteca
Ultimo Guerrero and Dr. X
Ultimo Dragon and Neutron
Atlantis and Volador Jr.

That’s quite the lineup. The older stars in the Gran Alternativa tournaments usually are upper midcard guys but not the tippy top guys, probably partly because it’s usually an Arena Coliseo event. There’s tremendous CMLL star power here; more gathered here than they usually put on non-major Arena Mexico shows. I guess that makes this a major show?

Lots of intersting parings as well. Guapo 2004 winner Alan Stone is finally teaming up with Shocker, for the first time, months after Alan supposedly won the right to join the Shocker and Magica in a new trio. Giving Mistico the win over Virus last week in the lighting match kinda indicated they had big plans for him (and a CMLL SL feud? Is it dead already?), but pairing him up with Santo takes that to a different level. And you’ve got the last (failed? I don’t know if it’s too soon to say that with CMLL’s glacial pace) new character Sagrado teaming up with the new comer Sagrada in an effort to make spelling difficult. It’s a surprise that they’d bring in Ultimo Dragon for this, and it’s also a little surprise he wouldn’t somehow talk them into using Taiji Ishimori. Maybe they need someone to take the pin.

This is the original Misterioso‘s first match in CMLL in 12 years. The La Arena bio I’ve got linked there should bring you up to speed, but as far as this tournament is concered, I suspect his background will lead to a match against the Atlantis/Volador Jr. team. That Volador/Misterioso mask finish is too good to be true.

Given the Santo/Aguayo stuff, those two teams will meet at somepoint down the line. Beyond that, it’s not particuarlly obvious how this is going to break down. I’d bet on Santo’s team, just because they seem to be giving Mistico a big opening push. This would be nice to watch – even with 4 minute matches, there’s going to be some fun matchups – but it’s unlikely ever to get to US TV.

The complete Arena Mexico lineup is
– Rayo de Jalisco, Canek, Mr. Niebla vs Universo 2000, Hector Garza, Vampiro
– Gran Alternativa Tournament
– Black Warrior, Safari, Satanico vs Okumura, Emilio Charles, Olimpico
– Tigre Blanco, Texano Jr. vs Mr. Mexico, Nitro

The Wrestling Observer Newsletter’s Hall Of Fame voting results was announced in it’s latest newsletter. Here’s how the lucah guys did:

                2004  2003 
Ultimo Dragon    62%   58% - IN
Villano III      43%   47% 
Blue Panther     39%   43%
Eddie Guerrero   31%   11%
Atlantis        >10%   17%
Gordman/Goliath >10%   n/a
La Parka        >10%   n/a
Dr. Wagner Jr.  >10%   n/a

You could see Eddie getting in someday, but the declining totals for others makes it seem that no one earlier than him has a realistic shot of making it. Ultimo Dragon going up enough to make it this year surprises me, but I guess the Japanesse votes gave a lot more cred to his WWE stint than the rest of us.

I feel like we have the 2002 numbers around here as well, though I haven’t turned them up.
(2004 votes were out of 58 voters. 2003 data from tOA)

CMLL LH Title Match: Haven’t heard if Ultimo retained or Atlantis won the title last night. I’ll let you know.

Lucha Times to come later today.

Three news items.

– Atlantis will meet Ultimo Guerrero for his CMLL LH Title next Tuesday in Arena Coliseo. This is your standard “I pinned you in a trios!” challenge, with the background of Atlantis and Blue Panther having beat Ultimo and Rey Bucanero for the tag team titles.

– CMLL plans on running another edition of it’s Gran Alterntiva tournament on upcoming Arena Mexico shows.

The Gran Alternativa features established guys teaming up with young undercards to give more exposure to the up and comers. Well, that’s what they try for, anyway. Winning kid gets to be in a big match. It seems to usually be a straight tag team tournament, though I think they ran it league style at least once.

I think the last one – or the last one to make TV much – was way back it 2001 where Psicodelico Jr. won. You can see the long term impatct there. I can’t shake the impression that there’s another once since then I’ve forgotten about. I’ll try to track down some info before it starts.

Anyway, I’m guessing this all boils down to having a one-night tag team tournament dominate the Arena Mexico card next week or the week after that. Probably get some fun pairings and Rayo/Universo buildup in the process.

Of course, both of these things will probably not make air due to the Olympics.

– Tickets go on sale for Rayo vs Universo on the 23rd, 24 days before the event.

The Big News: I can not believe it, but Rayo de Jalisco Jr. and Universo 2000 are going to have a mask vs mask match. Really.

It’ll be the main event of the annual summer (September 17th) anniversary show, which means there likely won’t be any thing major happening between Canek and Wagner on the show since they’ve already got their drawing card. Early fake betting favors Rayo winning Universo’s mask.

There’s no particular storyline stimuli for this match to happen after years of feuding. It’s more of a business decision.

The slightly less big news: Cien Caras is set to retire at the big Decemeber Arena Mexico show. He had talked about having done it earlier, but I believe they wanted to build a show for him.

Other news: Mascara Sagrada will be able to wrestle under that name, and he’ll return to CMLL to do so this week. Sagrada was involved in a court battle over ownership of the name and gimmick with AAA, and won the decision. No word on what’ll happen with the AAA Sagrada’s identity.

This is nearly identical to Park’s situation, where after the court battle is settled, the wrestler wants to get on TV to showcase himself to fans and local promoters as the real authentic version of the character; it makes it harder to get quality bookings when people aren’t sure which one is the clone. Sagrada’s got the advantage of keeping his name, so thing should pick up for him.

Mascara Sagrada stopped by the Box Y Lucha office to celebrate.

Dr. Wagner was suspended from wrestling in Mexico City for 15 days (which is to the 8/23rd, I believe) for attacking an official. I’m guessing this is an angle and he’s off wrestling elsewhere for a couple weeks, but you never know with lucha suspensions.

Meltzer says Fishman is broke and selling all of his lucha things. That’d be a wicked garage sale.

Meltzer also had some (monthly?) rumblings of people wanting to jump from AAA.

Arena Mexico results via KrisZ
– Los Platas (Brazo Jr/Sombra) d. La Flecha & Koreano
– Loco Max/Mr. Mexico/Sangre Azteca d. Chris Stone/Tigre Blanco/Tony Rivera
– Felino/Mistico/Ricky Marvin d Averno/Mephisto/Violencia
– Warrior/Porky/Rayo Jr. d Rey/Ultimo/Universo
– Perro Jr./Garza/Tarzan d Atlantis/Santo/Perro

Santo was fouled by Perro, which sets up this week’s main event.

Black Warrior was a sub for LA Park, who was double booked with Tijuana. No word if he’s in trouble for it, but he’s not on Mexico City cards this week.

Arena Mexico lineup
– Brazo de Oro Jr & Sombra de Plata vs Loco Max & Super Comando
– Mistico vs Virus (Lighting Match)
– Negro Casas, Felino, Blue Panther vs Pierroth, Averno, Mephisto
– Canek, Rayo, Porky vs Vampiro, Universo, Apolo
– Shocker, Mascara Sagrada, Negro Casas vs Hector Garza, Tarzan Boy, Terrible
– Hijo Del Santo vs Hijo del Perro Aguayo

That main event looks a lot of fun, and I’m thrilled they went to it this soon; figured we might not get to see it.

I don’t think Negro is supposed to be double booked here. Given Panther is in the match, the correct partner may be Atlantis.

I believe that’s Vampiro’s return. They were building up a Vamp/Niebla thing a couple weeks ago, but that’s not happening here.

Elsewhere:

Park (and Nicho) are headed in to NWATNA tonight to work their 20 Man X Division Gauntlet match, and I’m presuming the Impact/Xplosion taping on Thursday.

Park and Nicho being brought in follows TNA having yet another fall out with AAA. Their new plan is to just bring in guys who are not contracted to either promotion. That probable means the return of Hector Garza and maybe some other familiar CMLL names, since they’re apparently independent guys being contracted in on a per-show basis. Bringing Garza in would give them some nice continuity as they rearrange their Mexican team (if that’s even an issue of late, since all of them except Team Canada seem to have been disbanded.)

The minis made it all the way to a segunda on an Arena Coliseo show, without the title being on the line! The opening tag matchup sounded like quite the Who’s That? lineup of unknown mex indy guys, but I’m sure the short guys will take it.

TV Note: The Olympics should preempt lucha from being shown in Televisa Mexico the next three weeks. Gala appears to just take the tape from Mexico to reair it, so if Televisa doesn’t air it, Gala can’t. (I think.) I don’t even know if this means the shows in Arena Mexico will or will not be taped.

In late October/early November when those episodes are supposed to air on GALA, what actually airs will be completely unpredictable. The smart thing to do is skip to the next tape they do have, cutting out three weeks of TV but halving the gap between when it tapes in Mexico and airs here. The GALA thing is to air three weeks of random reruns.

I’m going to keep listing the episodes as if I expect them to air, because they still do matter in CMLL even when they don’t. But don’t plan on seeing episodes 153, 154 and 155, either on GALA or your favorite tape dealer.

No word on whom Olimpico is rooting for this year.

Lucha times will get updated later tonight.