Day: May 8, 2015

much of this is a repeat; just trying to put it all in one spot.

The first ever Lucha World Cup will take place on May 24th, in Mexico City’s Palacio de los Deportes. It’s an international trios tournament including six different major promotions and twenty four different wrestlers. The tournament is sponsored by Cerverza Victoria. The hope is this will become the first of an annual competition, taking place not simply in Mexico but also moving to other countries around the world. You can watch the tournament live at luchaworldcup.com. Tickets can be bought from Ticketmaster.

Wrestlers from Mexico’s AAA (who will host the tournament), the USA’s ROH & TNA, Japan’s NOAH & AJPW and wrestlers not aligned with a promotion will appear. It’s a rare interpromotional show, but the focus is more on international nature: teams are formed on the basis of which country they represent, not which company. The initial tournament allotted three trios for Mexico, two trios for the United States, two trios for Japan and one trio for countries not otherwise represented.

Teams

Mexico

1. Dream Team: Alberto el Patron, Myzteziz, Rey Misterio Jr. (all from AAA)
2. Psycho Clown, Texano Jr., Hijo del Fantasma (all from AAA)
3. Leyendas: Dr. Wagner Jr., Blue Demon Jr., Solar (all independent)

United States

1. Matt Hardy, Ken Anderson, Johnny Mundo (from TNA & Lucha Underground)
2. ACH, Moose, Brian Cage (from ROH & Lucha Underground)

Japan

1. Yoshihiro Takayama, Taiji Ishimori, Atsushi Kotoge (from NOAH)
2. Kenzo Suzuki, Tiger Mask III, Masamune (from AJPW & independents)

Rest of the World

1. Angelico, El Mesias, Drew Galloway (from AAA & TNA)

The referees for the show will be Piero of AAA, Marty Elias of Lucha Underground, and Shuichi Nishinaga of NOAH. The Mexico City lucha libre commission, led by El Fantasma, will be sanctioning the event.

AAA’s publicly acknowledged CMLL was invited to participate in the tournament, but declined the offer. AAA’s said they invited everyone, so other notable missing names likely also declined.

Bracket

The tournament will be a normal single elimination tournament. First round matchups will be drawn on May 22nd, two days prior to the tournament. All trios matches will be under a 15 minute time limit. Should no winner be decided in that time, each trio will pick one wrestler to continue on for a 5 minute overtime. If there’s still no winner, the trios will pick another wrestler, and the process will repeat until either side wins.

The semifinal losers will meet in a third place match prior to the final.

In addition to the tournament, a wrestler judging panel will determine the best dive, best hold, best match and best wrestler of the tournament for awards. The panel will include Canek, Cien Caras, Universo 2000 and Máscara Año 2000.

broadcast

The show will air live on iPPV intentionally, on regular PPV in Mexico, and at a later date on Televisa in Mexico. The iPPV will have an English language audio feed with Matt Striker and Vampiro. GFW announced Jeff Jarrett will also announce select matches. Fellow Lucha Underground announcer Hugo Savinovich will join the normal AAA broadcast crew on the Mexican broadcast feed.

The iPPV can be bought at internetvluchaworldcup.com for $19USD currently. It’s possible that price will go up on the day of the show.