Day: January 15, 2009

Perros del Mal announced yesterday that Charly Manson is joining the group. Box Y Lucha has a brief about it, SoloLuchas has quotes from a (tele?)conference about it with Perro Jr. There’s also a Diario Record story aruonds somewhere. Perro said they’re not sure how far Charly is along on rehab, but they’ll talk to him and announce a start date. That makes no sense, if you stop to think about it. How exactly did that conversation take place?

Charly: “Perro, I’d like to come work with you and team with Ciber-”
Perro: “Great! I’ve got to call the press and let them know!”
Charly: “Don’t you want to know when I can start?”
Perro: [has already hung up]

The other thing is, AAA was paying Charly while he was out hurt. They do that with all the injured wrestled – there was a Laredo Kid interview linked here a while back that mentioned it – and while it’s not what they get paid while they work (and quite probably not enough), it’s an income. Plus, he’s appearing on TV now and getting paid for that.

It’d be really great if the Perros could afford to do the same, but it’s inconceivable that they could afford to support someone who got hurt in another promotion and isn’t yet ready to wrestle. They’re only getting money for working shows and selling merchandise, and that money is dived up already to the people who are working. There’s still no TV deal. If they’re making so much money that everyone involved is getting all the money they want, and they have left over money to pay to people not involved, they’d be far exceeding the most optimistic projections for the company. And that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Which leaves two possibilities

1) AAA pays injured guys so little, Charly decided to just skip it and hang out with his friend Cibernetico
2) this is a(nother) worked departure from AAA to set up a big return later

With Cibernetico, I said it was a work because it looked like works I’d seen before. With Charly, I hope it’s a work, because if it’s not, it kinda says some really terrible things about how AAA (and lucha promotions in general) treat wrestlers who get hurt in their ring. Some things we probably already knew, but still depressing to see.

There’s circumstantial evidence to back up it being a work. AAA was building a Charly/Chessman match, but if Chessman’s going to be involved with the Circus, the Sect, and the Atomicos titles, then there’s no hanging storyline for Charly. If this was a work, it’d be better for Charly to go to Perros and be part of that group when they (inevitable) come back to AAA – he’ll give them a new act and more credibility to the group to help keep it afloat. Plus, the Perros shows seem to have plenty of healthy people talking and not doing much already, so an injured guy doing the same would fit right in.

Charly joining the Perros doesn’t seem to be a huge surprise to those reporting the story. It’s (now) mentioned he was seen at some of the shows, hanging around with Cibernetico.