Alberto leaves AAA, Carístico returns to Arena Mexico, Lucha Memes

photo by Black Terry Jr.

Alberto leaves AAA

There’s not a lot worthwhile to say about the Alberto situation that won’t be added to or corrected in a few hours. Both MLW and the Wrestling Observer have podcasts out later tonight which will likely add more information about the situation. I’m going to stumble thru a few paragraphs anyway, but I’m making assumption which could quickly said to be wrong.

My best guess is Alberto is working Guerra de Titanes, drop the title, and that’s it. It appears he (unlike Myzteziz) let AAA know ahead of time and he’ll work out the rest of his dates, but previously saying he wanted to take no bookings in December is the indication of when he’ll be working only WWE. (No one’s said when Guerra de Titanes is, but I’m under the impression it’s late November this year, maybe 11/29.) Alberto’s already changed his Twitter profile back to just WWE and there was no mention of AAA on the PPV; any thoughts of some sort of alliance is wishful thinking. AAA is just some indie dates Alberto’s finishing up, as far as they’re concerned. I’m guessing Alberto got an awesome deal as part of returning; beating Cena clean on his first night is a good start.

AAA has to decide what to do with the Megachampionship next. The best case is Texano or Fantasma or Mundo or Cage just beating Alberto, but it may be a situation where Alberto can not or will not lose cleanly and they’ll have to add a third person to get beat. Mundo’s the guy most recently set up to challenge, but he’s not a regular and he’s also a guy it would seem WWE would make a run at. (It’s possible he’s under Lucha Underground contract; those ones seem to still matter.) Myzteziz only lost to Averno, Perro and Rey. Alberto’s lost in non-significant ways to Cage and Texano. Rey hasn’t lost. AAA’s going to boast about having a lot of young promising stars even after the defections of Alberto and Myzteziz; one of them really needs to get a win here.

Lucha Underground says Alberto leaving their group was a mutual decision. There have been reports about Alberto not coming back since pretty much last season ended but, given what happened with Hernandez, there had to be a real release given at some point or WWE wouldn’t have brought Alberto in. (It’s the LU contract that’s important; the AAA ones don’t seem especially binding.) There’s also been occasional reports for weeks/months in the Observer and Steve Sims’ section of the Figure Four that at least one member of the Myzteziz/Alberto/Rey Misterio group weren’t happy with what they were being paid by AAA, as it wasn’t what they were promised.

Elite Lucha Libre

Elite Lucha Libre (SUN) 10/25/2015 Arena México [+LuchaTV, MT]
Attendance: 8000
1) Pegasso & Puma (CMLL) b Fly Warrior & Principe Diamante
Pegasso worked rudo, and landed on Fly Warrior’s ribs while failing at a 450 splash.
2) Aeroboy, Ángel de Oro, Golden Magic b Kamaitachi, Okumura, Tiger
Said to be a very good match
3) Bárbaro Cavernario & Hechicero DQ Heddi Karaoui & Zumbi
Zumbi fouled Hechicero.
4) Blue Panther & Negro Casas b Negro Navarro & Solar I
Money thrown in. Los Traumas came to the ring to challenge the Panther and the Casas families to matches. It was announced one of those matches would happen on the upcoming show.
5) Máximo, Silver King, Valiente b Bestia 666, Damián 666, Halloween
Silver King wore facepaint instead of his mask. Maximo was introduced as Maximo Sexy. Damian fouled Maximo.
6) Carístico & Volador Jr. DQ La Máscara & Rush
the original Mistico was listed as Ex-Mistico, announced his new name would be Mistic 2.0 (to wide mockery) and declared his name would now be Caristico. His team took falls 2/3, with Rush fouling Caristico and unmasking him for the DQ. Volador & Carístico showed no tension. Los Ingobernables declared this was their arena now, not Carístico’s.

Show did not draw especially well, a surprise to everyone involved. The estimate is 8,000. That’s more than a normal Friday show gets, but a lineup with this many names and with the first Mistico I match in Arena Mexico in five years should crack 10,000 easy. Both the Dia de Muertos shows last year appeared to outdraw this show and it’s possible this year’s shows will do so as well. The original All Elite shows did better than this attendance. Elite surely was disappointed with the numbers and it seem fair to already wonder how many of the Sundays shows they’re going to be around for if this is night one turnout. Again, 8,000 is much better than CMLL draws, but they’re doing it at much higher than CMLL costs.

Mistic 2.0 announced he was changing his name once again, this time to Caristico, in a post show interview. (It appears he was actually announced as Mistico.) Caristico is a combination of (Sin) Cara and Mistico. It’s a slightly better name than anything with a “2.0” in it.  His explanation is he felt there would be too much confusion between Mistico and Mistic 2.0.

In an interview from Friday with +LuchaTV, then Mistic 2.0 now says he didn’t have an AAA written contract because his word was good enough. (LuchaWorld has a full recap.) He says he left AAA because they had no plans for him, and he had no problems with anyone backstage.

I’m fairly certain AAA had plans for Myzteziz for Guerra de Titanes, and everyone was well aware they wanted to have him and Rey Mysterio rematch at TripleMania.

Maximo confirmed on Twitter that he was being forced to change his name to Maximo Sexy. (He also spelled it Sxy.) It’s an awful name. Looking thru the trademark database, there is a pre-existing Maximo trademark being aimed at children and being used on shirts, and the CMLL Maximo trademark was applied for but never approved. CMLL did apply for another Maximo name at that time, but it was actually “Sexy Maximo”. Maybe CMLL will change it in a few weeks. The La Mascara’s trademark is in a similar state of being applied for years ago but apparently never approved.

It’s kind of silly CMLL is going thru all this work to own the trademark on characters they barely do anything to merchandise. And there’s many better names than Maximo Sexy, a name most people will never actually use. (Like, they’re not great, but couldn’t they just call him “Maximo Alvarado” or “Maximo Brazo”?)

Lucha Memes

Lucha Memes (SUN) 10/25/2015 Coliseo Coacalco, Coacalco, Estado de México [+LuchaTV]
1) Alastor, Leviatham, Sádico b Indio Makawi, Jasson, Súper X
Sadico’s team is Zona 23.
2) Alas de Acero & Iron Kid b Atomic Star & Super Mega
good match.
3) Demasiado © b Juana La Loca, Diva Salvaje [War City Exotico]
Demasiado kept the championship. Good match.
4) Black Terry b Belial
Very good match.
5) Disturbio b El Hijo del Diablo
Ciber Punk helped his Lucha Kaos leader get the win.
6) Keira b Rocky Lobo, Garrobo Punk
No Garrobo Punk, so this was turned into a three way. Keira beat Ciber Punk.
7) Arez & Impulso b Decnnis & Toscano
Maybe a slight upset, very good match with money thrown in. Revenge challenges followed.
8) Dragon Lee (CMLL) b Aramis
Said to be a MOTYC, money thrown in.

This slips a bit under the radar with the bigger news happening, but sounds like it was a good show with Dragon Lee versus Aramis a must see match. Disturbio’s match is up on YouTube as always and Black Terry Jr.’s photos are going up here.

Other news

CMLL (SAT) 10/24/2015 Arena Coliseo [CMLL]
1) Bengala b El Rebelde
2) Sensei b Akuma
3) Stukita COR Mercurio
match ended early when Terror Chino counted Mercurio out as he was coming back in fromt a dive.
4) Súper Halcón Jr. b Cancerbero
5) Delta b Sangre Azteca
Virus replaced Sangre Azteca on Monday.
6) La Vaquerita & Marcela b La Comandante & La Seductora
7) Ángel de Oro, Blue Panther, Volador Jr. b Felino, Mr. Niebla, Vangellys
Vangellis replaced Negro Casas on Monday. Angel de Oro replaced Titan.

A show. (I’m going to push Arena Coliseo Guadalajara to Monday.)

On Friday, Bryan Alvarez said on Wrestling Observer Live that he heard a rumor Lucha Underground had gotten a lot of funding, enough to easily cover seasons 2 and season 3. Steve Sims, on the line at the time, said he had not heard that. There was also discussion about the benefits/downsides of LU moving away from wrestling and more sci-fi, with the different hosts disagreeing on it. Somewhere in here, Bryan (seemingly joking) suggested an alien character, which caused Lucha Underground producers to mock the idea on Twitter. I don’t think we’re getting aliens.

LuchaWorld has KrisZ’s news update.

Segunda Caida watches some random recent CMLL.

Lineups

IWRG (WED) 10/28/2015 Arena Naucalpan
1) Bambio, Canario, Fly Tiger vs Gafe, Kabra Kan, Skanda
2) Charly Boy, Guerrero 2000, Vardeus vs Ángel De La Muerte I, Ángel De La Muerte II, Vengador
3) Fireman, Rey Flecha, Shadow Boy vs Acero, Blue Monsther, Macho
4) Atomic Star, Galaxy, Kanon vs Picudo Jr., Troll, Violencia Jr.
5) Alas de Acero, Aramis, Black Drago, Dragón Fly, Fresyer, Hijo del Alebrije, Látigo, Power Bull vs Ángel Dorado, Ángel Dorado Jr., Cruz Del Silencio, Emeprador Sayri, Hades, Obituary, Rene Rocks, Toro Machine [Copa Higher Power]
Torneo FILL XLVI; Gym FILL versus Gym SCW.

SCW is a Morelia based promotion. Neither team is listed with a trainer, but that looks like an Eterno team. Cruz del Silencio is a deaf luchador who wrestled briefly with DTU.

Alberto el Patron back to WWE; AAA losing another major star

AAA started the year with a pretty formidable big four

  • Rey Mysterio Jr.
  • Myzteziz
  • Perro Aguayo Jr.
  • Alberto el Patron.

Perro passed away. Myzteziz is returning to Arena Mexico as I write this. And Alberto del Rio just returned to WWE.

Alberto beat John Cena for the US championship in a match which was planned to be Cena’s last match for a few weeks. Alberto is expected to return full time to WWE, though the details are unknown.

It appears AAA knew about this in advance. There was an MLW podcast announced with Konnan prior to the reveal, and MLW would have the best info about Alberto doing anything. Dorian Roldan sent out a positive message about Alberto and suggested he’d be in both promotions, at least for the moment. My hunch is Alberto is working with AAA for all his announced dates – as Mistic claimed he wanted to do – and losing a title match to someone at Guerra de Titanes. But this is obviously a very strange story.

Alberto’s next scheduled appearance is on 11/02 in Nuevo Laredo, the pushed back TV taping.