LA Park not to CMLL, Mistico not back to action, IWRG

IWRG (WED)11/05/2014 Arena Naucalpan [IWRG]
1) Black Niko bExtraño
2) Sky Ángel & Vampiro Metálico IIb Hip Hop Man & Power Bull
3) Anubis Black, Araña de Plata, Atomic Star b Alfa, Omega, Saruman
Saruman can’t get a win in IWRG.
4) Avisman,Chicano, Ciclon Black, Dragón Celestial b Liderk, Rayan, Spartan, Spector
“Kenshi” was listed, but he was back to being Chicano here. Avisman, scheduled on the tencico side for no discernible reason, turned on his partners.
5) Canis Lupus, El Hijo del Diablo, Eterno b Golden Magic, Relámpago, Veneno
Rudos took 1/3, Canis beating Golden Magic.

Saruman angle only exists in my mind.

LA Park’s not returning to CMLL after all. Park’s speech on last Friday’s show certainly implied a full time return, but All Elite announced LA Park was still an independent and only wrestling CMLL luchadors on their shows. CMLL went completely silent on LA Park’s appearance after Friday; when it still hadn’t been brought up by the end of CMLL Informa, that was the sign something was going on. All Elite is friends with Luchas 2000, Luchas 2000 is friends with CMLL – it’s possible LA Park’s appearance was done as a favor, but there was probably some money attached too. Instead of selling advertising on the sign boards or the ring, CMLL sold advertising in the form of a in-ring promo.

All Elite comes out a winner, because they still get to promote LA Park vs CMLL matches on their own cards – even though LA Park really didn’t specifically promote those shows. LA Park comes out a winner, because he’s reaffirmed as a winner and can do promos about how he want to Arena Mexico to challenge everyone and CMLL was too scared to let him fight their “protected/inflated” wrestlers. The fans are losers, because CMLL was (as usual) too busy pretending everything was alright to honestly say LA Park wasn’t coming back or explain the situation at all. CMLL believes they’re a winner because they’re getting paid by All Elite, but really just sold more of it’s credibility away and comes out a loser in the long run.

This news comes from an All Elite press conference, who also said they’d be running shows in Guadalajara, Aguascalientes, San Luis Potosi, Neza and Monterrey. They’re running very expensive shows with no television promotion, just relying on magazines and newspapers, as well as the star power of guys who are struggling to draw people to regular shows. Either this promotion doesn’t really have a plan here and is about to lose a lot of money, or there is something going on with the money that doesn’t seem safe to speculate about.

LA Park is also announced in Arena Coliseo Monterrey on 11/30 and Nuevo Laredo on 12/01. Either he lied about his injury, he’s lying about working these shows, or he’s coming back far too soon from it. This press conference would’ve been the moment to come clean about any of those situations (or even just make up a better story), but it doesn’t appear anything was said.

Meanwhile, Los Colisenos predicts LA Park’s return to CMLL will be a miserable failure. You can read this as Colisenos not being any more plugged in than the rest of us to know it wasn’t a full time return, or that even people inside CMLL had no idea what was going on. I think it’s the latter, and that’s the only reason it was reported at all. Still, it would’ve taken about 20 seconds for JCR to say “hey, LA Park isn’t actually back, he’s just working some indy shows at CMLL buildings” to clear up the situation.

Tickets for All Elite’s announced shows in Puebla and Coliseo run from 125MX to 480MMX ($9 to $35USD) on the DF stop, which is pricey for lucha libre shows. Note that CMLL is selling these tickets themselves thru Ticketmaster – or All Elite is paying them to sell the tickets for them. (It may just be that’s the only way they can set them up for Ticketmaster at those venues.) If last Friday wasn’t just a one time All Elite advertising spot, it would make sense for Dr. Wagner or Extreme Tiger or someone other outside name from the show to make an appearance tomorrow.

This week’s Tercera Caida had Golden Magic & Chicano on to discuss the Castle of Terror results. Those two, and Golden Magic’s ever present father Mr. Magia, spoke more after the show. There’s also a bonus short clip of Herodes talking about his very busy indy career.

Yesterday’s CMLL Informa was mostly useless. The one thing we got out of it was Mistico II being evasive about his return date. He wouldn’t even confirm a 2014 return and he and JCR avoided the issue a lot. (Which really didn’t leave them much to talk about.) I do know Mistico also taped a promo for NJPW – maybe one that’ll air this weekend – and that seems like something they’d only want if he was going to be on the January shows.

El Rey’s site has a Lucha Underground store. It’s generic Cafe Press-ish stuff with logos on basic stuff, but yesterday you couldn’t buy a Drago shirt on the internet and today you can, a massive leap forward for all lucha libre kind. Since this launched very quietly, I wonder if it’s even supposed to be there.

WWE is shuffling the air days of their TV shows, as has been anticipated most of this year. By no coincidence, their NXT show will apparently air at the same as Lucha Underground currently airs.

SI’s Extra Mustard had a story on the El Hijo del Santo/Axel name battle. The article reads like an interview with Axel is the primary source. El Hijo del Santo refused an email interview request and is painted as man who guard his rights to be the heir of the Santo name because it’s all he has.

Stukita vs Draego has been added to the 11/23 Coliseo Coalaco show.

A story on the recent lucha libre shows at the Mexico City Toy Museum. The museum has been promoting a new lucha libre hall of fame coming soon. I’ve lost track of how many of those have been announced, held an induction ceremony where all their friends were put in and their enemies were not and then were never mentioned again.

The weekend shows in Juarez include a tribute show to the recently murdered Anima I; his brothers are also retiring on the show.

LuchaWorld has KrisZ’s news update.

DoradaFan has highlights of 08-12 CMLL.

BxB FLy has highlights of last week’s IWRG show and Mascara Dorada in Japan

Drago talks about his match in Leon. The fact that there’s not a lot of angles going on in AAA right now make a lot of these interviews really generic. We can work out Alberto/Texano, Hell Brothers/Psycho Circus and Aerostar/Super Fly for Guerra de Titanes, but I hope they work on the rest of the card by Leon so there’s far fewer “I will be teaming with these two people, who are good people, and facing these three people, who are dangerous” articles for everyone’s sake.

DJ Spectro writes about Santo II.

Lineups

DTU (SAT) 11/08/2014 Plaza de las Americas, Pachuca, Hidalgo
1) Jimmy & Kevin vs Black Fire & Slayer Pack and Paranoiko & Violento Jack and Crazy Boy & Ovett and Artikus & Lanzeloth and Cíclope & Miedo Extremo and Ángel o Demonio & Jhonkyand Jinzo & Rocky Lobo [DTU NEXO]
vacant titles
2) Drastik Boy © vs Aero Boy [DTU AI]
fourth defense by Drastick Boy

I think they meant to give out the DTU Nexo title before but the show was canceled (which is a reason why running twelve DTU shows in three weeks seems iffy) but it might have just been a tag division previously?

IWRG (SUN) 11/09/2014 Arena Naucalpan
1) Saruman & Sky Ángel vs Hip Hop Man & Power Bull
2) Dragón Celestial, Metaleon, Septimo Dragon vs Anubis Black, Araña de Plata, Atomik Star
3) Leo, Mike, Rafy, Teelo vs Liderk, Rayan, Spartan, Spector
4) Dr. Cerebro, Negro Navarro, Relámpago vs El Hijo del Diablo, Trauma I, Trauma II
5) Golden Magic, Súper Nova, Toscano vs Canis Lupus, Chicano, Eterno

Chicano definitely asked rudo-ish after unmasked, but Eterno had a hostile confrontation with Chicano later on. I’m not sure which side he’ll end up on, but that’s what the main event will determine.

Traumas and Navarro on opposite sides in the semimain, so maybe two matches ending with turns.

I wonder how long until the Ninja Turtles/Comando Elite mask match?

ACG (FRI) 11/14/2014 Club Arena Olimpia, Tonalá, Jalisco
1) ? vs ??
2) El Tapatío & Reyko vs El Piraña & Relámpago
3) Dr. Freezer & El Divino vs Furia Nazi Jr. & Verdugo Nazi
4) Índigo vs Sádico © [OCCIDENTE WELTER]
First defense for Sadico.
5) Esfinge & Omar Brunetti vs Demonio Maya & Ráfaga

Promoted as the first “Arena Coliseo Guadalajara” card in this Tonala arena. The actual poster offers a clue – Cesar Dantes is teaching lucha libre classes here. This arena regularly runs Sunday shows already (or previously.)

indy (SUN) 11/16/2014 Mujam, Ciudad de México, Distrito Federal
1) Flecha vs Cosmonauta
2) Súper Muñeco & Súper Pinocho vs Kahoz & Rambo and Black Man & Kendo and Gallego & Romano Garcia
3) Solar I, Super Astro, Ultraman vs Black Terry, Scorpio Jr., Shu el Guerrero
4) Dos Caras Sr., Mil Mascaras, Sicodelico Sr. vs Brazo de Oro, Brazo de Plata, Brazo de Platino

There’s also a story on the recent lucha libre shows at the Mexico City Toy Museum (Mujam, which is actually an acronym). They used to run lucha libre shows once a month, stopped for a great bit of time, and have now been holding them just about every two weeks. They’ve been on social media promoting this show as part of an opening of a new lucha libre hall of fame. I’ve lost track of how many of those have been announced, held an induction ceremony where all their friends were put in and their enemies were not and then were never mentioned again. Maybe this one will go better.