Alberto del Rio is now El Patrón, Rey Misterio, AAA pilgrimage, IWRG vs AULL

IWRG (WED) 08/13/2014 Arena Naucalpan [Black Terry Jr. (Flickr), Estrellas del Ring, The Gladiatores]
1) Matrix Jr. b Sky Ángel
Said to be an excellent match
2) Dragón Celestial & Seiya b Electro Boy & Hip Hop Man
Seiya beat Hip Hop Man, then challenges for his Argentina Championship. (Hip Hop Man is champion of Argentina?)
3) Ciclon Black & Tony Rivera b Emperador Azteca & Relámpago
Ciclon snuck in a foul on Azteca.
4) Golden Magic © b Canis Lupus [IWRG IC WELTER]
Magic retained the title, taking falls 2/3. Second defense for Magic.
5) Alan Extreme, Black Terry, Metaleon b Ironía, Spider Boy, Yakuza [captains hair, hair]
Alan Extreme and Ironia were selected as captain before the match, so it was a hair vs hair match. Lots of bleeding and mask ripping. Team AULL lost fall 1 by excessive violence. Terry and Spider Boy were eliminated, Ironia and Alan were knocekd out of the ring and Metaleon submitted Yakuza for the big win. Ironia lost his hair for the first time, in a two fall loss.

Show looks like it was pretty good. Black Terry posted video highlights here (his camera can now take photos and video at the same time!) I need to know about whatever 100% Lucha championship Hip Hop Man has absconded with all this time.

Alberto del Rio held a press conference today, with Hugo Savonivich and Joaquin Roldan. He made it back to Mexico City yesterday and said some brief words about rejoining AAA to the press waiting for him, deferring all WWE talk until later. He also did a brief promo for the AAA website, again using the Alberto del Rio name.

At the press conference itself (covered by AAA, R de Rudo and Tercera Caida), Alberto announced he would be moving away from the “Alberto del Rio” name. He acknowledged WWE owned that name, so he’d instead be using the “El Patrón” nickname that was used in his introduction and frequently on Spanish language TV. The name El Patron is not trademarked for wrestling by anyone in Mexico – though it is for other uses – and no one’s using the name in Mexico as far as I can find. Mexican fans would generally know who it meant if they saw ADR’s face on a poster.

Del Rio also said he was unable to wrestle for during his 90 day no compete. (It appears he did not believe this extends to appearing on a show.) Del Rio claimed his lawyers were trying to free him from his contract in time to wrestle Sunday. That is unlikely to happen – this is more to put the blame on WWE for not wrestling. That 90 day no compete would end on November 5th, which means the first major show he could appear on would be the early December Guerra de Titanes. Alberto del Rio says he always wants to face the best and specifically challenged Texano Jr. for the heavyweight championship, and you can pencil that one in for December.

ADR would not comment on his firing. He said legal issues meant he could not talk about it now, but would have another press conference in 15 (some said 12) days where he would reveal all. People frequently say that sort of thing to avoid ever answering questions, and we’ll see if that’s what happens here.

Alberto – El Patron, I should get used to that – said AAA was his home, his present and his future, but there were no specifics about any long term deal.

Alberto was asked about Rey Misterio Jr and said he did not know what was going on with him, but would be happy to fight him again, this time in Mexico. Joaquin Roldan clarified that Rey Misterio Jr. is under contract to WWE, and AAA respects that contract and will not violate it, but the door is always open for Rey to return to AAA some day down the road.

The Wrestling Observer Newslwetter reported that Del Rio was originally under the impression he would just be suspended until after SummerSlam and was “furious” when he found out he was fired. The belief is the slapped WWE employee threatened to sue WWE if Del Rio wasn’t fired. It also says the wrestlers were sympathetic to Del Rio, do not like the employee who was attacked, but had largely moved on already. An update today says WWE is trying to tie ADR into a longer no-compete to specifically block him from working for TNA or AAA USA. This would require WWE to keep paying him for an extended period of time. (That course of action seems to prove that Rey Jr.’s continued employment by WWE is largely for the same reason, which had already been widely assumed.)

AAA’s annual pilgrimage before TripleMania seemed to include more fans than ever. There were a massive amount fans at the start point and at the church at the end, seemingly much more than ever before. As usual, there were also mystery luchadors with the AAA ones: I have no idea who this guy is, and there’s another unknown red masked luchador near the front here. (R de Rudo has their own set of photos.) About fifty luchadors took part, with La Parka among the notable ones not there – but everyone’s been doing a lot of press for TripleMania and may have been doing more during this event. Myzteziz might have been taking non-bus transportation.

Yesterday’s CMLL Informa included Sagrado, Felino, Ephesto, Mephisto and Hombre sin Nombre. The last three noted Hombre sin Nombre needed a name and the trio itself needs a new name and talked about running a fan contest for both.

Tercera Caida had two weeks of highlights and Dr. Wagner as guest. The Alberto del Rio story has gotten so big, Dr. Wagner actually talked about someone besides himself. (Seemed like he’d rather feud with ADR than Myzteziz, who’s name he was mocking thru the show.) Wagner had nothing bad to say about AAA, and wouldn’t talk about any of the bad things he said before. There’s also an after the show video, which I haven’t seen quite yet.

I was on a (subscribers only) Figure Four Daily yesterday, talking all the craziness of the last few weeks. The big topic talked about there and not yet here is the possibility of Rey Misterio Jr. showing up at TripleMania. If he was clearly legally free to show up, he’d probably show and they’d probably advertise him much the same as Del Rio. If the situation is more cloudy, maybe it’s something they just won’t advertise. I wouldn’t buy TripleMania to see Misterio wave at the crowd for 15 seconds, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that occurred.

I haven’t really thought about what do for Sunday. Is there an interest in a marathon chat, running from the start of TripleMania (5PM) until TripleMania ends (listed as 9pm, but no one believes that) or an hour after the stream breaks? I’m sure I’ll be doing live results and Twitter updates and the usual insanity (need to figure out a plan to eat), but feedback about what you’re looking for will shape what I end up doing.

Rob has highlights of 05/20/14 CMLL.

LuchaWorld has KrisZ’s news update.

Segunda Caida reviews Uprising: Lucha Libre from 08/02.

Sombra and Terrible talk about the Universal tournament in generic fashion. They would like to win! There’s no mention of who’s in the other eight, but NJPW would have probably announced a Tanahashi (or anyone else) visit by now.

A story about people going on vacation to see Arena Coliseo Guadalajara. Informador will only cover results there if they can work in a slice of life story with it.

Trailer for a Super Nova movie!