2006 Year In Review: September

the big news: Mistico beat Black Warrior for his mask.

This feud started back in February when Warrior turned on Mistico during a tag team title match. The two had feuded thru the year, and the breaking point was their matches in the Leyenda de Plata. When Black Warrior won his block, you knew Mistico was winning the other one so they could have one more big singles match. (They’d previous had a NWA Middleweight title match, with Warrior beating Mistico for the title.)

On 09/08, Mistico beat Black Warrior, and they agreed to a mask match for 09/29.. As the tournament was in progress, CMLL also decided they might as well have Atlantis defend his title. Despite Warrior’s interference, Mistico won that as well, and is the reigning Leyenda de Plata champion.

In the main event on 09/29, Mistico defeated Black Warrior to win his first mask. The match was good, worthy enough of the build, though not great. Black Warrior was revealed as Jesus Toral Lopes, but not revealed for much, as he covered up his face and left before camera people could get much of a shot of him.

Black Warrior worked hard to create a new look for himself after losing his mask – he’d already had his hair died and painted in a Dennis Rodman story – and gained new fans in the months after his mask loss. His personal re-invention helped, but the 09/29 has seemed to be the peak of the general public support of Mistico. After this match, the amount of fans tired of Mistico and his matches repetitive nature increased, and Black Warrior benefited from being the guys who was trying to put a stop to it. Warrior seemed to have an increased confidence as well, drawing from getting his chance to be a main eventer and succeeding at it. As much was designed to benefit Mistico, it’s worked out well for Black Warrior so far.

Shocker returns, joins Perros, unjoins Perros: Shocker leaving AAA had been rumored thru the summer, so I dismissed it as the same rumor popping up again when it came up before the 09/02 show. I was wrong, Shocker was a new member of the Perros on that show.

On purpose or not, with Shocker joining the group immediately after jumping from AAA, the Perros del Mal were about as close to an invasion force as you could get without using the name. Perro Aguayo Jr., Hector Garza, Mr. Aguila and Shocker had all recently been AAA members before forming/joining the group, and the other two members Halloween and Damian were outsiders from Tijuana. The Perros feuded with the Guerreros all year, and in a battle between two rudo factions, the Guerreros were portrayed as the the hometown defenders, despite the Perros being the more popular team. I’m not sure they were supposed to be an AAA faction come to Arena Mexico (though Chessman may disagree), but they were definitely supposed to be outsiders.

Upon returning to CMLL, Shocker went on a media blitz, pretty much apologizing for his lackluster AAA stint and promising to be back to his old self in AAA. While he was soon back to his old status – refusing to be part of a group where he wouldn’t be leading it, Shocker turned on the Perros to cost them the trios titles on 09/29 – he hasn’t gotten back to the quality of matches from his peak in CMLL. Despite becoming a tecnico (and reuniting with Que Monito), groups of CMLL fans still hold a grudge against him and he gets more boos than you’d expect for a top tecnico.

CMLL on PPV: This 09/29 show was also CMLL’s first PPV since 2002, when the main events were all based on the Boricuas/Gran Markus feud. Mistico/Black Warrior was a bit better. It seemed like it could be a one time event then, but CMLL also ran the year end show on PPV, so they may be restarting them for the major shows. Much like boxing PPVs, matches from the show aired one year later on the normal CMLL TV show (and that week of tapings never aired.)

The lineup for the show was announced two weeks before it, but there was a lot of non match notes. CMLL never mentioned it was going to be a PPV on it’s website, till hours before the show; we found out thru a Sky PPV press release. Tickets for the show were the most expensive ever, as CMLL tried to mine the most money out of the Mistico/Warrior feud. It did appeared the show didn’t sell out as a result. The magazine press was very upset about their access being restricted and not being able to take ringside (or anywhere close to ringside) pictures during the PPV.

I had live coverage of the show (1st/2nd, 3rd, 4th, CMLL Trios, mask), and the results were about what I picked. There’s a day after recap too.

Verana de Escandalo: AAA’s big show of the summer took place on 09/17, and really didn’t have much of note. (partial results, full results).

The opener had as much impact as the rest of the card, with Laredo Kid winning the Dream Tournament earning himself a higher place on the card. Unlike CMLL’s Gran Alternativa, this actually stuck, and Laredo Kid was in the semimains the rest of the year. The downside is Laredo Kid’s job in the semimains was to be repeated killed by Abismo Negro and the Vipers. At least that was building to Laredo Kid’s brief moments of non-death.

Other news on the show saw Charly Manson join the Vipers as a new member (replacing Electroshock, not a long term member), Scorpio Jr. take over the Guapos and Hator join the group (replacing Shocker) and Groon II be the non-surprise surprise addition to the main event. There was plenty of TNA involvement on the show, with a group of random people (AJ Styles/Homicide/Low-Ki/Samoa Joe) winning a four team tournament. Jeff Jarrett wrestled in the main event trios, with a tease of a Jarrett/La Parka Jr. NWA World Heavyweight Title match.

Pena not sick: This month also included an infamous AAA press conference. The lawyer for AAA explained Pena was absent not because of a much rumored illness, but because he was busy organizing North and Central American tours. No one bought it.

Other AAA: Brazo de Plata Jr., Chris Stone (as a new Guapo member, and the sons of Pirata Morgan. Besides VdE, AAA just ran one more TV taping, building up the Scorpio/Porky feud, which wouldn’t peak till the end of the year.

WWE invades Arena Coliseo!: Well, no. But with WWE in Mexico City, and having a free day before their shows started, Edge & Lita took in an Arena Coliseo show, trying to hide their identity under lucha masks. It didn’t quite work.

Averno wins the Middleweight Title: Negro Casas held the championship since 2004, and it seemed to be a bit of a vanity title, with only four known defenses prior to the title loss. Averno had gotten a shot in August in Puebla, and earned another shot in September, winning the title on 09/18. This was a pretty big moment for Averno, allowing him to progress from a good rudo who put over young tecnicos, to one who got to beat those tecnicos some of the time, since he was now champ.

An oddity about this title change is Toxico, a wrestler in Guadalajara, had earlier also earned a shot for the title against Negro Casas. Negro was briefly injured soon after, and the title match never took place, and seems to have completely been forgotten.

WON HOF: Eddie Guerrero (and no other lucha-primary wrestler) was voted in the Wrestling Observer Hall of Fame. It was expected he’d make it, and the debate was more about why he was making it – his life or his death. In other evaluations of wrestlers, with slightly less credibility, lucha wrestlers were on the PWI list though not the order we’d expect.

Other CMLL:
– Volador suffered a neck injury due to a dive gone wrong. It looked bad at the time, and he sat out a couple of weeks, and Volador unhappily sat out the PPV.
– I didn’t know this before, but there was an article detailed Arena Coliseo being built with Lottery winning
– Ovaciones wrote a whole article about Ultimo Guerrero and Atlantis celebrating Atlantis’ birthday by eating cake.