Day: February 3, 2012

Full Arena Naucalpan results have never turned up, but let’s see if embedding a Tweet works:

Carta Brava Jr. Retiene el Campeonato Ligero IWRG ante Saruman con ayuda de Eterno.

— Tercera Caída (@terceracaida) February 3, 2012

(Eh, kind of.)

Tonight’s Arena Mexico show has a couple of big matches. The annual Reyes del Aire is tonight, with Mascara Dorada the favorite. The actual main event is another Ultimo Guerrero vs Atlantis to tease a mask match, which may be a new annual tradition.

CMLL says Ayumi will return in March.

PWInsider (no link) posted a story yesterday that WWE had been talking to various independent wrestlers about a cruiserweight-only show for their new WWE network. That network has been ever changing in form and debut date (which is now undetermined), so nothing is definite including this show. If it did exist, it would be a landing spot for the luchadors WWE’s previously looked at. It’s months off from happening, if it happens, but it likely means WWE is contacting some of them.

Luchas 2000 #605 reveals the “new promises” taking on Dandy, Scorpio and Fuerza on the next Todo x el Todo show are Angelico, Carta Brava Jr., and Saruman, all from IWRG. Dinamic Black is also interviews as participating, but I’m sure how.

LuchaWorld has KrisZ’s news update.

Rob has highlights of 06/14/11 CMLL.

Links

• Villano III talks about his career to promote his 40th anniversary show.
• Titan is surprised he’s in the Reyes del Aire
• Stuka visited a elementary school to speak out against bullying.
• El Consejo says they’re going to destroy everyone from Atomic Boy to Cibernetico
• Angelica talks about her upcoming Juarez Women’s Championship challenge.
• Estrellita will be on the Valiente’s Day Lucha Va Voom show.
• El Diario de Coahuila interviews local rudo Tempestad.

Lineups

indy (SUN) 02/19/2012 Arena Coliseo Monterrey
1) Demonio del Caribe vs Black Poison
2) Lady Puma & Rey Apostol vs La Bandida & Mr. Vega
3) Gardenia Azteca, Rosa Salvaje, Sexy Maciel vs Androide, Genocida, Hijo Del Mongol Chino
4) Angel Dorado Jr., Dralion, Sky vs Gemelo Muerte I, Gemelo Muerte II, Misionero
5) Big Neurosis, Golden Boy, Tun Tun vs Mado Miadow, Rico Rodriguez, Simbolo

Miadow is a magician, maybe? This is another match set up on Noches de Futbol.

Yesterday’s was the first press conference for X-Project, the new group led by ex-IWL director Valerie Ritcher. Their debut show is on 02/19, but she didn’t get far in announcing things before some interruptions. Sexi Star (“director” of Lucha POP) and Daga (“director” of new Daga Dynamic Dojo) argued with Valerie about their own shows also taking place on 02/19. After a bit of that, they revealed all 3 of the promotions – and a few more – were actually working together and would be co-promoting these events. “X-Project” turned out to be an umbrella organization united existing and new smaller promotions.

R de Rudo and Estrellas del Ring have recaps of the press conference. Sexi Star writes about her group’s involvement on the LuchaPOP Facebook. The group announced two cards for the debut night:

DDD (SUN) 02/19/2012 Arena Lopez Mateos
1) Angelico vs Zumbi
2) Lufisto vs La Vaquerita [POP WOMEN]
3) Juventud Guerrera vs Zema Ion
4) Trauma I & Trauma II vs Sami Callihan & Samurai del Sol [AULL TAG]
5) Davey Richards vs Daga

VO (SUN) 02/19/2012 Arena Lopez Mateos
1) NGX luchador vs KBW luchador, Super X luchador, OMEGA luchador [XProject CHAMP]
2) Vanely & Yuki Star vs Big Mama & La Felina
3) Fenix (AAA), Freelance, Sugi San vs Dark Dragon, Samurai del Sol, Zema Ion
4) El Mesías vs Blue Demon Jr. vs ?
5) LA Park, La Parka Jr., Super Parka vs Raven, Super Crazy, Tommy Dreamer

(Raven has a promo hyping his match.)

There’s should be something for everyone on these shows, because there is so much on these shows. The DDD show is a 3pm start, and the “Valerie Office” (another new promotion!) show follows at 6 pm. These are separate shows with separate admission,  though you get a discount if you buy both

               1 show   Both
1st Row          350     600 (pesos)
2nd Row          250     400
Other Ringside   200     350
Bleachers        100     150
Kids              50      80
(in USD, it's $47 at the top down to $4 at the bottom)

Those are premium prices. They have to be. This may be pitched as the union of Mexican promotions, but it’s built around flying people in from outside of Mexico. There are 7 coming in from the US and 1 from Canada over these two shows (maybe with another depending on who the surprise is.) There’s plenty of expensive Mexican talent too – the Parkas, Mesias and Demon are not cheap.

An incredible list of names comes with an incredible cost for paying that list of names, and I’m not certain how you make the math work here. IWL has drawn good at times, but with more friendly prices. LuchaPOP has not really drawn well at any price. The Mexican boutique indy promotions have evolved into something like the US ones, with mostly the same group of people who go to all the shows. It’s enough people to chant “This Is Lucha! [clap clap clap]” very loud, but it’s not enough for the people putting on these shows to break even. X-Project is going to have to draw in a lot of people who aren’t coming to these shows, find other (large) sources of revenue, or lose a whole lot of money. The focus here seems more on putting on a show the people running it will like – there’s no good business reason to bring in Mesias & Demon when you’re already doing the Parkas vs ECW on top, much less a lot of the other people – so this is probably the “lose a whole lot of money” scenario.

That’s sad, because there’s actually some good stuff here, months worth of interesting main events glued together in one night. LA Park, La Parka, and Super Parka as a team is a fantastic idea, and maybe one that’ll catch some attention out of the usual circles. LA Park & La Parka as a team has a lot of curiosity value. Traumas vs Samurai and Callihan should be a superb match. Fenix/Freelance/Sugi vs Dragon/Ion/Samurai will be crazy. Juvi is crazy, so his match with Ion should be interesting too. And Davey Richards vs Daga was pretty good the last time. I’ve been to a few really long wrestling shows to know they can exhaust you before the end, but if you can you can take six hours of wrestling in one night, you’re going to see some memorable matches.

This show will be running against the usual CMLL shows (which probably will be in week 1 of it’s rivalry of the month) and IWRG (which, who knows.) IWL/DTU is the weekend prior. I’ve kept getting it confused, though it’s still going after the same group of fans and they may not be as excited to spend back to back Sundays watching a long nights of lucha. But, if you’re a fan of this kind of show, you really owe it to yourself to go – there’s no guarantee you’ll get another one again.