Day: September 7, 2014

Lucha Underground (SUN) 09/07/2014 Lucha Underground Arena, Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, California [PWInsider]
1) Shawn Hernandez b Ricky Mandell
Dark match.
2) John Mundo & Prince Puma b Lil Cholo & Ricky Reyes
the heels – The Crenshaw Crew – from the end of the last taping (Reyes, Cholo, Ezekial) came out to talk at the start of the show. The guys they jumped attacked them, then beat two of them in a match. Still unsure of what their actual names will be.
3) Chavo Guerrero & Sexy Star b Ivelisse Vélez & Lord Of Havok
Lord of Havok is Matt Cross (slightly different name)
4) Mil Muertes b Blue Demon Jr.
Muertes attacked Demon after the match. Chavo made the save, but Demon attacked him

Air Date: 10/15?

Again, this looks like they’re doing one TV show per taping. (Taping was said to go 90 minutes.)  The roster looks to be really small at the moment . The US people who were talked about but haven’t appeared are Joey Ryan, Angela Fong, Candice LaRae, Rocky Romero, Scorpio Sky, Aaron Aguilera and Kaos. Romero’s back in NJPW thru at least 09/23, so he may have some association with this promotion but wasn’t ever going to be on these shows. I would assume some of those just didn’t sign the contract when it came to it.

Also, no Fenix, Drago or Pentagon again, but now we know why: PWInsider says their working visa was not done in time, so they could not work the show. PWInsider says this caused these show to be rewritten. I think I can confirm that. My impression, based on a tiny little bit of the a draft of a script I might have seen, is that Drago, Demon and Fenix (him versus Chavo) were all supposed to be in matches on that first show or had matches set up for future shows as part of the $100,000 prize storyline. Sexy Star would appear but not wrestle, and Pentagon wasn’t mentioned in what I might have read.

That’s bordering on unbelievable given how everyone knew that was important from the moment the project was announced, and how long they’ve had to take care of that issue. Based on what Drago was tweeting prior to TripleMania (and his last minute inclusion on the show), he might have not been originally planned on the show so maybe it’s make more sense with him. Though, even then, if you were going to add someone at the last minute, why add someone who you weren’t sure could work the shows? Someone really dropped the ball here and may have screwed up this show (even it if it wasn’t already screwed up.)

Demon may have US residency at this point, and wouldn’t be subject to the same issue. The smaller mystery is how Sexy Star is cleared but the other three aren’t.

On a more storyline note, Sexy Star seems to be a tecnica on this show, which just seems so strange.

In the long term, this may mean things feel more lucha if/when Pentagon, Drago and Fenix are allowed to work the shows, but I’ve got little confidence of that given everything. Given how late everything came together, they probably should’ve considered just delaying the first week of taping once those guys weren’t available but I have no idea how long it takes from them to turn them from recording to something that can go on El Rey; they might have left themselves no time. Or maybe it’s possible they’ll air out of order? I have no idea, this is just me exhausting the possibilities.

The one PWInsider quote that’s really captured everyone’s attention:

The wrestling styles was described to me as “WWE style” in the ring, as opposed to a traditional Lucha style. Chavo Guerrero, who was working as an agent last night, was said to be telling wrestlers to do less and make it mean more

That flies counter to every Konnan suggestion that this would be a PWG-style high spot spectucalur I think the point to remember here is the stuff Konnan’s said is pretty irrelevant. I don’t think he lied about what he would like to see, I don’t think he really gets to decide what happens at all.  I think AAA believed they might have to give up control of the writing and the look, but could at least control the in-ring. Doesn’t appear that’s going to be case either – or maybe people are just working at cross purposes. Seems a fair bit of that already.

Wrestler fan attendance was down from Day 1, with the crowd being mostly extra and maybe not even a lot of them. There’s enough people involved with this project who like talking enough that they really should’ve had people involved with the show and promotion doing media appearances to build interest in this project well before tapings started. They need something more than photos on Twitter, and they need not wait until October to start talking (and, really, to counter the bad publicity it’s gotten from places like here.) Obviously, there were/are enough other issues that there probably wasn’t time for that sort of campaign; the bad turnouts are just one of a few symptoms of putting everything together at the last second.. They’re going to give out free tickets to get anyone to come, but there’s probably no hope of attendance turning around at least until the show makes air, and that’ll still be dependent on people actually seeing the show. It’s kind of amazing it’s this hard to give away tickets to wrestling in Los Angeles – forget AAA Mexico proper, I can’t even imagine how many tickets PWG could’ve just sold to Battle of Los Angeles, with a couple guys who are working these shows – but I think that’s just the way it’s going to be. There’s about six days of regrouping to come, but I don’t think much is going to change. It is what it is.

Edit: Lucha Underground says there hasn’t been any seat fillers.

Lucha Underground (SAT) 09/06/2014 Lucha Underground Arena, Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, California [PWInsider, WrestlingHeads]
1) Famous B b B-boy
dark match
2) Mil Muertes b Martis Cassus
dark match. Ex-Maxine from NXT was with Mil. Mil may have been Mesias under a mask.
3) Blue Demon Jr. b Chavo Guerrero Jr.
4) Sons Of Havoc b Sexy Star
Sons of Havoc is Matt Cross
5) Johnny Mundo b Prince Puma
ex-John Morrison defeated a masked Ricochet. The evil (and unnamed) promoter had promised 100,000 to whoever had impressed him. Lil Cholo, Ricky Reyes and Ezekial Jackson (not given names) attacked Mundo & Puma after the main event. The promoter announced those three (may be named the Crenshaw Crew) would get money and already work for him.

WrestlingHeads has the full match by match results and should get credit if anyone uses them. Only three matches on the show, though I’d presume there’s a lot of backstage skits being taped. Only two of the AAA luchadors made air on the debut episode, with one a woman losing a match that’s an obvious bad style match up for her. Main is ex-WWE guy defeating ex-indy guy. No Fenix, no Pentagon, no Drago. No Konnan either, but PWI says he was working as an agent, as was Chavo. Those two guys would seem to have very different philosophies, but maybe not?

The crowd looks small in the pictures – PWInsider says it was few wrestling fans and a lot of plants. It’ll probably be the same this week: promoting a new lucha libre promotion on 10 days notice with no names on the poster is just not going to work (and Week 1 of Sunday NFL football is not going to help.) There was a couple of change of policies after the first taping: Dorian, Demon and AAA started promoting tomorrow’s taping, the first time the tapings have been promoted in Spanish. (Pretty sure that had been a conscious choice, and not an oversight.) They also revealed the address, 516 S. Anderson St. in Los Angeles. No more emailing to get ticket info, they’ll take whoever just shows up.

That picture also confirms the Vampiro/Striker nonsense announce team.

Sticking Mesias under a mask would explain why AAA hasn’t promoted him for this show.  I would assume Ricochet being in the main event means he’s signed, but maybe that’s not a sure thing since he lost.

I would suspect we’re less likely to get spoilers going forward, because the same people might not show up all the time, or might not be allowed to keep showing up.