lucha in london, Santo Jr. debuts, CMLL weekend, Rush defeats Pagano

Lucha Libre World (SAT) 07/11/2015 York Hall, London, United Kingdom [Linus @ DVDVR]
Attendance: 200
1) Cassius b Pure Britannico [Lucha London CHAMP]
title change
2) La Rona Corazones b Carmen Rosa
Feet on the ropes
3) Mascarita Sagrada b Octagoncito (original) © [WWA MINI]
Billed as a title change (and might have been!)
4) Heddi Karaoui © b Rayman [WWA LH]
Karoui retained.
5) Casandro, El Hijo Del Santo, Zumbi b Angel Blanco Jr., Dr. Wagner Jr., Magnifico Ii

This was the afternoon show; they had an evening show as well. Magnifico being the replacement for Boby Zavala is a surprise but a nice one. Didn’t see anything about the evening show, but it looked like Thursday show was about the same attendance and Friday was the busiest night.

At some point, on one of the shows, Santo Jr. ran in as Tempestad as a rudo. Tempestad was the name hyped years ago as the name Santo Jr. would use when he first started to wrestle. Maybe this means he’s start. Not sure any one on these casual audience understood the circumstances, but there’s not like there’s any TxT shows in Mexico to do these things. (There probably will be one soon, I suspect.)

AAA LUCHA FUTURE (SAT) 07/11/2015 Royal Albert Hall, London, United Kingdom [@edecanlover, Linus @ DVDVR, WON]
Attendance: 2500
1) Blue Demoncito & Octagoncito b Mini Abismo Negro & Mini Histeria
2) Fénix b Pentagón Jr.
Best match on the show. Pentagon argued with Piero, demanded he got faster, then got beat by a fast count.
3) Drago & Sexy Star b Bengala & Faby Apache
4) Blue Demon Jr., La Parka, Psycho Clown b Hijo del Fantasma, Texano Jr., Villano IV
Texano was working thru his injury in a comedy match. The entire roster came to the ring to celebrate at the end of the show.

2,500 is actually more than any of the NJPW FantasticaMania shows have ever drawn – but that’s primarily because this was a 5,000 seat building (which looked great) and those top out a 2,000. The celebration at the end of the show, including Pentagon grabbing a sousaphone and playing it for crowd, reminded me of the atmosphere CMLL/NJPW shows. Hopefully this can turn into something annual like those. This lucha show – and the Lucha London/Santo ones – were said to draw both a lot of Mexican fans and a lot of people who had no idea about lucha libre. They did some heavy coaching of the crowd here, trying to get them to throw money in after the Fenix/Pentagon match and explaining who were the tecnicos and rudos (sometimes not so correctly.) Reviews of this show seemed pretty positive.

CMLL (SAT) 07/11/2015 Arena Coliseo [CMLL]
1) Apocalipsis b Bengala
2) Astral b Pequeño Olímpico
3) Soberano Jr. b Hijo del Signo
4) Misterioso Jr. & Tiger b Hombre Bala Jr. & Súper Halcón Jr.
Moved down a spot. Rudos took 2/3.
5) Dark Angel b Amapola
moved up a spot
6) Dragon Lee b Bárbaro Cavernario
Tecnicos took 1/3.
7) Pólvora, Rey Bucanero, Terrible b Diamante Azul, La Máscara, Volador Jr.
Mascara is back to betraying Volador.

Mascara/Volador is never going to happen. Alexis did some Perisopes during the show, but not during Lee/Cavernario.

CMLL (SUN) 07/12/2015 Arena México [CMLL]
1) Bengala & Sensei b Camorra & El Rebelde
Bengala replaced Sensei (injury on Friday)
2) Acero, Eléctrico, Último Dragoncito DQ Demus 3:16, Mercurio, Pequeño Violencia
Violencia fouled Acero.
3) Blue Panther, Blue Panther Jr., The Panther b Okumura, Sangre Azteca, Virus
4) Fuego b Puma [lightning]
5) Ephesto, Luciferno, Mephisto b Atlantis, Delta, Guerrero Maya Jr.
Mephisto snuck in a pinall on Atlantis
6) Euforia, Niebla Roja, Último Guerrero b Diamante Azul, Mistico, Valiente
Euforia replaced Shocker on Wednesday. Ultimo Guerrero beat Mistico clean with the Pulpo Guerrero

Ultimo Guerrero should win, but seems weird he beat Mistico. At least they had the good sense not to ask Mistico to take a Guerrero Special, he might have been crushed into a pile of dust.

Semimain seems like an obvious set up to a trios title match in two or three weeks. I’m not going to change this sentence when it turns out in a few hours none of them are booked together next week.

Puma just won a belt, Fuego has no belt, it doesn’t really matter either way, so Fuego won.

Crossing my fingers for a big Acero/Pequeno Violencia apuesta match to counter TripleMania.

Cara Lucha (SAT) 07/11/2015 Arena San Juan Pantitlan, Ciudad Nezahualcóyotl, Estado de México[+LuchaTV, Black Terry Jr. (flickr), Estrellas del Ring, Kronosport, The Gladiatores]
1) Pegasuz & Shadow b Centella Atómica & Príncipe Aéreo
Teams changed around, with Pegazus taking Rey Fenix’s spot. Centella Atomica was hurt.
2) Yoruba b Demus 3:16
Good match. Yoruba upset Demus. Akuma attacked Yoruba after the match and Kilvan made the save. Mask/hair vs mask/hair challenges were made.
3) Epydemius b Jinzo and Aramis and Septimo Dragon
Good match.
4) Flamita b Wasson
Standing Spanish Fly for the win. very good match, money thrown in
5) Felino b Guerrero Mixtico
Listed as a double countout or a win for Felino in different place.
6) Rush b Pagano
quick match. Pagano complained Rush used weapons when he thought it was going to be a clean match (???), and rematch challenges were made.

Attendance seems down from recent Cara Lucha shows. Maybe that crowd is more into Volador than Rush? (Felino seemed like a weird fit for this show.) It seems like Pagano is used every as if he’s a drawing indy guy, but it’s hard to find evidence he’s a draw.

Pagano was back at it Sunday, going to a “out of control” draw versus Nicho in Salon Citalli. They talked about a rematch with no rules, which one would think every Pagano versus Nicho match would have. That seems like an odd way to build to a rematch but I suspect the people interested are more concerned with the fight than the outcome. Pagano/Nicho seems to be the favorite indy match of the moment, at least among indy bookers.

La Aficion’s weekly lucha libre column questions the existence of journalism in lucha libre coverage This column wins the award for most blind items which aren’t actually blind, to the point where a) they might as well have gone the extra half step to call people out by name because everyone knows why they’re talking about and b) it would’ve been more interesting to dig into any one of those stories and explore why no one looked into it. As it is, it comes across as “everyone sucks” and even I’m not that cynical.

Not even sure how to approach this, while saying everything correctly. I think a lot of people who are producing content about lucha libre right now are doing it because they came in loving lucha libre, not becuase they love journalism. There are (still) places you can do journalism and get paid, but there’s not much money in doing lucha libre journalism. That said, there’s a lot of people in English speaking counties doing what this column would count as journalism (and I’m not even thinking of raising it to Meltzer’s level, but a site like PWPonderings or Voices of Wrestling are more likely to evaluate and critique their wrestling than Mexican side) and it’s just not done even by the fanzine level stuff in Mexico. Maybe it’s cultural (around the wrestling even more than the question), maybe it’s an access thing – it does turn up when Mexican fans are talking about WWE, but not when they’re talking about IWRG. And it is disappointing – not even on the attendance or match rating level, but just people who have that access asking more questions (not just the usual fact sheet Q&A) would be fascinating.

Black Terry Jr. & Estrellas del Ring caught up with Flamita to ask what was going on with him and AAA. The “Fireball” name appears to be AAA only.  Flamita & AAA are talking, but he hasn’t signed a deal with them.

Dalys wants a hair match with Dark Angel & a title match with Marcela.

Keira versus Zeuxis was added to the 08/16 ChilangaMask show.

+LuchaTV has an interview with Tigre Uno.

SuperLuchas looks back at a 12 team ruleta de la muerte with Demon & Santo as a team. (They did not lose, but they did draw 23,000.)

LuchaWorld has KrisZ’s news report.

Super Libre had Al Carrillo and X-Fly as guests.

Lucha Libre in Japan

La Comandante did not win the REINA International Junior championship.

Violento Jack & Ciclope are headed to Japan for a deathmatch show on 07/29.

Lineups

IWRG FILL (TUE) 07/14/2015 Arena Naucalpan
1) Blue Metal, Canario, Sexy Angel vs Demonio Imperial, Orquidea Azul, Sexy Girl
2) Chicanito & Voltar vs Charly Boy & Vampiro Metálico
3) Guerrero 2000, Matrix Jr., Power Bull vs Acero, Adrenalina, Centella Oriental
4) Aeroman, Dragon Fly, Hijo del Alebrije vs Rey Terco Jr., Roller Boy, Troll
5) Alas de Acero, Aramis, Araña de Plata, Atomic Star, Chapulin, Electro Boy, Kanon, Mr. Jack vs Corsario De Fuego,Crazy Man, Master (Xalapa), Maximus, Pitufo, Rey Infierno, Totem I, Totem II [Copa High Power]
Gym FILL (Eterno’s team) versus Gym Skayde (this time, guys from Xalapa)

A Tuesday show, which is when FILL shows were originally when there were Thursday shows. (And there is a Thursday show already this week, the Lucha Libre Boom one with CMLL guys, so this is a recently rare 3 show week for Arena Naucalpan.)

Skayde’s team is really from Xalapa; they used to be all Arena Xalapa wrestlers before affilation started to move around (and were most recently around Arena Independence Total.) Many of those guys were listed on Arena Aficion show this past Tuesday.  Maximus is the former Vengador Radioactivo, who’s NOAH tour is surely still coming someday.