CMLL Friday preview, Mil Mascaras to Guadalajara

The key match on tonight’s Arena Mexico show is probably the segunda, a women’s trios match. CMLL’s spent the last week eagerly pushing the concept of Princesa Blanca & Seductora versus Marcela & Princesa Sugehit in a double apuesta match for Juicio Final. It seems an unlikely match; Marcela’s side isn’t losing one of those, but it seems a waste of Blanca losing her hair to do it a tag match. On the other, that might that tag match might not be a main event and one of the other lingering (and better) feuds might be resolved on the card. Tonight’s women’s match only includes half of the people in the proposed match (Sugehit, Seductora). If the other two get involved, then that tag match is likely to happening. If the other four women start feuding as well, then it’s obviously an unappealing cage match main event for the next CMLL major show.

The top matches on the show continue the issues of the last couple months (or longer): Los Indeseable face Negro Casas, Shocker, and Mr. Niebla again, and Atlantis and Ultimo Guerrero meet again in the semifinal.

There’s no broadcast on Terra today. (There’s unlikely to be a return on RadioCMLL either, since CMLL let the domain expired and someone from France is now squatting on it.) With en Busca de un Idolo over, CMLL’s Fox Sports 2 show will likely return to showing the lightning match and the top 2 singles matches. Everything will be taped, but not everything will air. The end result is this women’s feud they appear to be building Juicio Final around will probably only be seen by the people already going to the shows.

I’ve not found out a reason exactly why Terra was dropped on Friday. Simplest guess is it was blamed for crowd’s not being where they want on Fridays. It wouldn’t completely make sense since it has been many months since they were airing full Friday shows (you still had to go if you wanted to see the main event, and the main events are the only things they use to draw people in) but it’s an easy target to blame when things aren’t going well. It’s unlikely to be a major factor. The regular audience for the show seemed to be under 1,000 (possibly way under) and most of those people are like most of the people reading this website, way too far away from Arena Mexico to actually go.

It probably saves someone some money as well – either Terra or CMLL was paying for the transmission, and it’s always been unclear how either side has directly made any money off it. The most advertisements we’ve seen is a pre-roll advert and that was pretty rare. The shows are surely done under the conceit of being a loss leader – if you come to watch CMLL on Terra, maybe you’ll want to go to a CMLL show or click around on a few Terra shows. It’s hard to measure for CMLL (though the crowd not being great may again have been all the proof they needed) but an easier thing for a website to figure out.

Mil Mascaras will return to Arena Coliseo Guadalajara on 07/25. (Video promo.) That’s a Friday, the first Arena Coliseo Guadalajara Friday show since December 2012. It’s also Mil’s first appearance in the building since 2006, when the main event was Blue Demon Jr., Hijo del Santo and Mascaras versus Atlantis, Pierroth and Ultimo Guerrero. That’s a match unlikely to be repeated.

Rob has highlights of 04/16/14 AAA and bad times for Daga.

Malefico notes that his title win over Stuka was the first time he’s ever challenged for a singles title – he wanted to bring the Occidente Light Heavyweight championship back to the hands of a luchador of the Diablo Velasco school instead of an outsider.

Nitro is happy to return to France, wishes Sangre Azteca could’ve come with him.

Segunda Caida reviews Hijo del Lizmark, Místico, Último Dragón vs Olímpico, Tarzan Boy, Último Guerrero

Zumbi has mixed feeling about the World Cup being held in Brazil.