AAA Caralucha (THU) 01/01/2015 Arena San Juan Pantitlan, Ciudad de México, Distrito Federal [Black Terry Jr. (flickr), Estrellas del Ring, LLNEI, TerceraCaida]
1) Arceus & Rey Lobo Jr. b Anubis Black & Stripper
Rey Lobo Jr. is a new name for Arkanos
2) Kilvan & Yoruba b Andy Boy & Danger
Danger is sometimes listed as Danger King (but isn’t the CMLL guy either way.) Money thrown in.
3) Carta Brava Jr., Drago, Súper Fly b Fly Star, Guerrero Mixtico, Rayo Star 
Super Fly wrestled unmasked. AAA vs Indy match
4) Fénix, Hijo del Fantasma, Pentagón Jr. b Flamita, Hijo del Fishman, Sky Man
Great match. Another AAA vs indy match. Flamita and Fenix had issues, maybe beyond storyline. Flamita’s partners (including the returning Skyman) were also said to be terrible, yet the match still got money thrown in.
5) Súper Nova & Texano Jr. DQ Trauma I & Trauma II
Super Nova bled a lot. Traumas wanted a double apuesta match.
6) Monsther Clown, Murder Clown, Psycho Clown NC Broken Clown, Dave The Clown, Rothen Clown
Unclear if there was a winner; Psycho had Dave beat when Fantasma, Texano and Pentagon ran in to attack the Circus. Clown Corp were sort of okay with it, but also threw out three masks vs three masks challenges to the Circus.
BT JR. called the fourth “the best match ever”, so that sounds OK. All the AAA teams beat the indy teams (or at least had them beat.)
Flamita’s Open the Brave Gate championship is no longer Flamita’s – Dragon Gate announced the title was vacant and will be filled in a tournament this month. I’d figure Flamita would’ve just lost it if he wasn’t coming back, and I’d be shocked if he wasn’t back in Dragon Gate going forward. Dunno what they’re setting up, but I still think this is a setup to a return angle. All the Mexico indy shows might as well use him while they can. You can see Flamita’s last Dragon Gate match for the moment here.
IWRG (THU) 01/01/2015 Arena Naucalpan [IWRG]
***IWRG 18th Anniversary***
1) Freyser & Hip Hop Man b Alfa & Sky Ángel
Freyser, seen last week on an ex-IWRG team, returned here to replace Arana de Plata. Straight fall win for the rudos.
2) Douki, Imposible, Tony Rivera b Diva Salvaje, Estrella Divina, Miss Gaviota
3) Leo, Mike, Rafy, Teelo b Apolo Estrada Jr., El Hijo del Diablo, Liderk, Oficial AK47
4) Chicano, Danny Casas, Hijo de Máscara Año 2000 b Canis Lupus, Eterno, X-Fly
straight fall win for the Chicano team. Recap teases Canis/Eterno vs Chicano/Danny.
5) Hijo De Dos Caras, Máscara Sagrada, Pantera I b Hijo de Pirata Morgan, Monsther, Pirata Morgan
Monsther (II?) replaced Pirata Morgan Jr. Tecnicos took 2/3, with Sagrada sneaking in a revenge foul on Pirata. That’s the feud, but Sagrada also asked for a trios title match with this team vs the Piratas.
Last week’s show, with the promising tag team tournament, never made TV. I believe this one has already started to air.
Speaking of weird lucha TV, the Lucha Libre Boom show is being advertised as airing exclusively this week on Teleforumla. Not so exclusive, since AYM aired it a couple days ago. Probably more of it than will air on Leyendas Inmortales, but maybe they’ll show the main events falls in order – AYM seemed to fall 3, fall 1, fall 2.
In no surprise, one of the Gran Markus – “Hijo” – lost his mask in the Arena Neza New Year’s Day cage match. In a bit of a surprise, it was Averno who won, not Wagner or Myzteziz.
Volador defeated La Mascara in Arena Aficion in front of a pretty poor crowd.
PWInsider reported on a list of new Lucha Underground trademark names. (The site also forwarded me to a webpage which tried to download a hijack version of Adobe Flash, so be cautious if you use the link; the list is on the US Trademark site if you look around) There was a line in the first Prince Puma intro video about him being from one of seven tribes and that was meant to be a plot point. It may be a plot point that was dropped (like Cueto buying the guys from AAA), but the original idea was to introduce people from those six other tribes and more. The people behind this spent the time leading up to the start coming up with a lot of character sketches along the lines of Puma than have been seen (though Cuerno was definitely another one of them.) I would suggest not to read much into them, because it may just be a case of locking up names they might use, not that they will.
I’d also point to the recent issues with the Young Bucks as a sign that Lucha Underground may still be in process of signing new people to fill these roles, but obviously the roles are coming before the people if they’ve already done the trademarks and just now are sending out contracts. This is not taking a guy and figuring out a gimmick, but (mostly) writing a character and casting someone for it.
Interesting to note that while many of the Lucha Underground exclusive characters have been trademarked, the AAA gimmicks (Drago, Fenix, Pentagon Jr., Pimpinela, Mascarita Sagrada, Sexy Star) have not been. Also, we all learned how “Beal” is supposed to be spelled, so that’s a win.
The Wrestling Observer Newsletter had two AAA notes (that weren’t quite in the AAA section):
- GFW/Jarrett will broadcast TripleMania in the US if this weekend’s NJPW show goes well (closer to 10K buys than 5K)
- AAA wants Jim Ross as an English announcer for it’s iPPVs; Lucha Underground wants Jim Ross as the lead announcer for it’s shows starting this month.
I haven’t been around much the last few days – you may have noticed – but I was kind of surprised more people haven’t thought about that last one. Jim Ross is broadcasting with Matt Striker on the NJPW show. Lucha Underground wants to replace Striker with Jim Ross. Awkward. I’d assume it actually means Striker moves one chair over, making the English announce team JR & Striker and the Spanish Hugo & Vamp. It’s hard to figure how LU could afford JR while giving the Young Bucks a low ball offer, but as seen with other possible deals (Alberto), they have one rate for stars and one rate for everyone else and the Young Bucks are (somewhat surprisingly) in the everyone else category. It should definitely be noted that, at least as it comes off in the newsletter, Meltzer expects WWE to make Jim Ross an offer good enough to keep him from working for competing promotions, and it’s possible nothing comes from this.
Lucha Underground is still pretty to catch up on: the entire history is about 8 episodes, 12 by the time the next tapings start. AAA & TripleMania’s going to be tougher to do. It’s a lot different than NJPW or WWE, and there’s not as many people who are that knowledgeable about it to bring people up to speed. You can’t really go to Dave Meltzer or John Pollock on that one – people may follow the big shows but you have to go to places like this for the thorough AAA news. And as this last week has shown, I’m a half-intelligible goofball so this entire enterprise would rest on RobViper’s shoulders. (I guess Konnan counts, but for all Konnan’s good points, “remembering past storylines” is not one of them. I’ve heard Dr. Lucha is retired so no go there.) Not knowing the product was a definite problem last year, one AAA supposedly didn’t help much with, and I’d hate to see it happen again. I’m sure Ross would work on very hard, it’s just much harder to get the source material.
(Thank you for your support, by the way. I don’t think anyone quite got what I was saying but people saying they appreciate the effort is always appreciated. I’ve rewritten the post five times in my head.)
The great difference in the two products is also a reason why it’s so odd they’re being tied together for GFW’s purposes. I can sort of see it as “if one niche product fails, maybe it’s not worth trying others”, but there’s very little cross over between those two audiences. NJPW is 100x more popular among the online diehard wrestling fan base, but AAA should appeal to a more casual fan base and they already have US TV (Lucha Underground) to at least run advertisements for the show: there’s decent reason to believe TripleMania might actually do better than AAA.
It’s also random and weird. If you were going to buy the NJPW PPV, I’d say great and go do it, but I wouldn’t go out of your way to just to inflate the numbers for TripleMania being on in the US – too many things can happen. (Also, you’d be voting with your dollars for a Jeff Jarrett TripleMania match, think about it.)
Dark Angel is not in Mexico and will not be on tonight’s show, Puebla on Monday, or Mexico on Tuesday. Link may be dead by the time you see it, but CMLL was still promoting her on tonight’s show this afternoon. CMLL is a bit of a joke.
Meanwhile, CMLL posted a Facebook photo of a contract signing for Tuesday’s mask match. Ramstein signed on Wednesday, we’re told. Cholo talked about how the Principe Azuls have nothing and he’s a real luchador. They’re doing the standard “young guys in search of a big win vs tough experienced veteran” bit here, only the reality is Star Jr. and Soberano Jr. have more big wins than Ramstein and Cholo (especially Cholo!) and are actually already much higher than the rudos. The rudos are actually vast underdogs by any way you look at it. I’m not sure it matters much but some forethought would’ve fixed that.
Your entire Friday night preview, hidden down where no one will find it: Mascara Dorada’s beating Negro Casas for the title. The card update for next Friday is interesting – will the FantasticaMania guys be gone? Will Mistico get in his one match before heading to Japan?
CMLL Informa did air on New Year’s Eve, in one two three four five parts covering the end of the year. Even if they wanted to put out Titan/Cavernario after the fact, they’d have to find a way to split in half to actually upload it. Most views is about 1200 on the last one.
AAA put it’s two year in reviews up: the one from Christmas week, and the one from the end of the year (which I haven’t put up yet.) They currently have about 10x times as many views as the CMLL shows with about exactly the same theme.
BxB Fly has music videos of mid February ’14 IWRG, 10/07/14 CMLL Guadalajara, and 10/12/14 CMLL Mexico
LuchaWorld has KrisZ’s news up from New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day.
Segunda Caida reviews Hector Garza in the 2010 Gran Alternativa.
AAA’s Enrique and Oscar debate the (AAA) match of the year.
ChilangaMask has added Electro Boy vs Draego vs Emperador Azteca vs Mike Segura vs Dragon Celestial vs Freelance to it’s 03/22 show.
The Wagners vs Monterrey Ninjas match being teased on social media will take place on 02/25, will air on TV.
SuperLuchas has the looks back at past shows on 12/31, 01/01 and 01/02, but I haven’t gotten a chance to dive in them. So I’ll point them out today, and then probably again in about 14 hours.
Vice talks to Hijo de Medico Asesino, Sexy Polvora and Solar about their diets, weirdly translates their proper names.
On Twitter, @offearthart is doing a series of Lucha Underground art: Pentagon Jr. and Drago are up so far.
Estrellas del Ring recaps the year in lucha libre in Morelos.
Los Colisenos examines lucha libre while repeatedly declaring it’s been dead for 8 years (so it was dead in 2007?) and concluding that the current form of lucha libre will never be successful. The talking point, in those articles as always, that adding recent major events is a determent to all the other shows, seems less and less valid the more I look thru older results. EMLL was building to major events going for decades before they came up with names; it was just “the last show before it heads back to Arena Coliseo for a while” instead of “Sin Piedad”. I like to think the fans figured it out without needing the branding. (The problem isn’t those 4 shows, it’s the other 152.)
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