tonight’s Arena Mexico show, June AAA TV stops, Rey del Aire

Tonight’s Arena Mexico main event is Rush, La Sombra, and La Mascara versus Mr. Niebla, Negro Casas and Shocker – or at least Shocker’s the plan. He’s missed the last week and a half of En Busca de un Idol. CMLL sometimes sneaks in changes in their show previews, but Shocker is still listed there. Shocker himself said on Twitter that he would be at Arena Mexico tonight. The preview pushes Rush & Sombra’s hated (and hateful) tecnico act of late, but this still looks like a setup to a La Mascara/Rush tag team title defense.

Tonight’s En Busca de un Idolo matches, starting off week 4, are Super Halcon Jr. versus Soberano and Hechicero versus Star Junior. They’ll reach the halfway point of this round after tonight’s matches, which means only 4 more Guerrero Negro Jr. & 3 more Super Halcon Jr. matches where they get yelled at afterward and have no real chance to win. Very little of this competition appears to be thought about in advance – note the behind the scenes videos lasted a whole one week, and that Fox Sports 2 is under the belief they’re airing these matches at some point even though CMLL hasn’t mentioned it – but if they had thought a little more about this year’s format, they would’ve realized it meant the last few finishers would be treated like pinatas for two months, damage which will care forward for a long time. Polvora got similarly mocked last year, but was a champion and so got a chance to redeem himself in other spotlight matches. Those matches are probably not coming for Negro & Halcon.

I’ve been pretty persistent in believing Guerrero Negro Jr. needs a different gimmick (he’s 30 and looks older), but if they CMLL has any plans of using him at all, they’d be smart having him disappear for six weeks after this over and come back in with a new name and a mask because he’s never getting over after this without a big change. Maybe Super Halcon will be treated differently back in his tag team (one which CMLL hasn’t had any particular plans for in a while, so maybe not), or maybe Super Halcon will give into Tirantes and quit. I don’t want to see anyone lose their jobs, but if you’re having people speaking for CMLL declaring specific luchadors are not good enough to be in CMLL, maybe they shouldn’t actually be in CMLL? Or maybe this week is the start of a delightful and thought out redemption story for one or both, but that seems the most unlikely outcome of all.

Note that the Busca matches are one spot down on the card than usual, which might mean a shorter Terra show. No one will know until the moment CMLL cuts off the broadcast.

Marisela Pena told fans on Twitter that AAA would be going to Quetetaro, Puebla, and Orizaba in June. Puebla is specifically mentioned as a TV taping, and the other two are probably meant to be ones as well. Either Puebla or Orizaba is likely Verano de Escandalo, though AAA hasn’t started promoting that event yet.

Guerrero Maya Jr. and Tiger both feel good about their chances in Reyes del Aire. Maya says this is the first time he’s been in one because he was sick previously. It is true he was ill and missed the 2011 one, but he was part of the 2012 and giant sized 2013 ones – he made it to the final three in his group last year. Meanwhile, Tiger talks about being in third and fourth in previous times, which only is right if he means he was third out one year and fourth out the other year. It’s almost like there’s so many tournaments in CMLL that what happens about them is completely forgotten by the next year, especially by those who participated in them. (Should still be a good match!)

Anime and Pirata Negro are filming a short movie – but since the picture an article used to promote the movie is Pirata Negro’s hand is covering up certain parts of Anime’s anatomy, people are apparently talking more about the picture. A poster on SuperLuchas, a successful website which seems to only occasional post about lucha libre, is upset about the attention this type of scandal thing in social media instead of people writing about the traditional lucha libre – in a post which shares the photo and no information about traditional lucha libre. It will also get a lot of clicks because it’s a picture of a half naked woman on the internet, not because anyone wants to have a discussion about the things people should be talking about. The irony is Anime and Pirata Negro (who wrestle around the Mexico City area) explain they’re doing this movie to get people to write about them since they haven’t gotten opportunities or attention otherwise. That seems to almost have worked, except people probably still don’t know their names since the picture seems to be going around without the article. Nice try though.

Half naked people in a lucha libre reminds me that Lucha Va Voom is running Cinco de Mayo shows. They’re in Los Angeles on May 1st and 2nd and over here in May 3rd. The Chicago show lists Casandro, Matt Classic, and Joey Ryan among the luchadors. I probably should go but I probably should go to a lot more shows and instead stare at the mountain of material for recaps.

LuchaWorld has a recap of Week 3 of En Busca de un Idolo.

Rob has highlights of late February 2001 CMLL.

Segunda Caida reviews Felino, Mr. Niebla, Negro Casas vs Marco Corleone, Máximo, Super Porky.

El Hijo del Santo’s column is about the early life of Blue Panther. He notes Halcon Suriano (grandfather of Pequeno Halcon) was an important mentor in Panther’s life.

Vaquerita talks about her return, says she’d like to have a title match with Amapola.

Demonio Maya talks about his career so far.

Electroshock wants a match against any member of la Sociedad, one on one. Don’t listen to him!