This week’s Wrestling Observer mentions all financial issues between Rey Mysterio and AAA and Mysterio and Lucha Underground have been resolved. They also say their information has Rey Mysterio signed for season 3, with options for two more season after that (unless the deal has been breached in some way – catching up on money takes care of the most obvious breach.) They also say LU would like to produce a movie in 2018. That would both be amazing, perplexing, and something consistent with looking at this show as a scifi/fantasy genre show even more than a wrestling show.
There’s also the usual back and forth about LU finances that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere: Meltzer says Lucha Underground is losing all the money possible, Eric Van Wagenen says no we’re not, we’re in our budget, we don’t learn much. It’s impossible to figure out how LU, on it’s own, is making any money. (Not even turning a profit, just revenue at all.) It also seems to be unaffected by not making money. Both things are weird, but as long as the show goes on, it’s hard to care a lot about it.
Actually, the only thing I got out of this is figuring out how much Dave believes TNA lost in his first ten years.
According to one company source, the amount of money lost thus far is, after two seasons, slightly less than half of what TNA had lost after ten years in business
Dave’s said many, many times that he believes LU S1 lost $20 mil. (Again, LU publically heavily disputes this number every time it comes up.) S2 was less episodes, less tapings, no start up costs. Let’s say $12.5 mil to pick a number. So we can guess TNA lost more than $65 mil in 10 years, and decided to go for year 11! That’s a lot of money. $32 mil is a lot of money! Please, someone feel free to give me some of this money.
Moving on. Even though the money situation has been fixed with AAA and Rey, it’s said he has no return to date to AAA. He might be used on a show on the level of TripleMania, but otherwise the devaluation in the peso makes him too costly to use beyond that. It’s not said but I’d guess this might have been the same situation for Alberto had he not gone back to WWE; he had great foresight to take the WWE deal when he did.
The WON also has news on the AAA US TV show – mostly that it’ll be tough to have a AAA US TV show. Lucha Underground holds the exclusive rights to AAA wrestlers in the US, so AAA TV is a no go unless something changes. The new plan is to be selling the TV to other English speaking countries. The idea is Hugo Savinovich and Chris Cruise doing commentary in AAA’s studios in Mexico, but Konnan can’t because he’s signed to Lucha Underground even though he’s not on the show any more, which makes it hard to figure out how anyone else on LU can be on the AAA show. This doesn’t completely make sense to me how it works.
Elite held a press conference yesterday, though it doesn’t sound like they gave out all their news. The big item was Super Crazy and Felino signing to do a hair match on February 28th, so one of the many feuds they’ve built up since starting these shows in November will have a payoff. Felino, because he’s the regular here, is the favorite to win but he has a weak track record in apuesta matches and isn’t a sure bet by any means.
It sounds like that also may be the last Sunday Elite show for the time being. The Wednesday Elite shows would start that following week and will be a change of days, not a expansion show. Sunday Arena Mexico show would revert back to normal CMLL shows. The Wrestling Observer reports all of this, and says those Sunday shows would air on ClaroSports TV/Titanes en el Ring. That’d probably mean they’ll also be the LATV shows.
Sunday’s a much easier day to draw than Wednesday, a day CMLL hasn’t run in Mexico City for a long time if earlier. (In the old weekly loop of generations past, Wednesday was the show in Arena Coliseo Acapulco, which is why there are Wednesday shows in Acapulco to this day.) However, Sunday’s a much easier day to draw everywhere. Elite seems to be doing well on shows away from Mexico City at least at this moment, and it’d be easier to do more of those if they had Sunday free. Adding another day to the Arena Mexico schedule is over exposes CMLL’s wrestlers more – this would make more sense as replacing the Tuesday shows – but this otherwise makes sense.
Those Wednesday shows will be home to relaunched of the Liga Elite, the confusing league format Elite tried in it’s original incarnation. I’m fairly certain that I was the last person who cared about the standings for that thing, probably also including the people who were participating in the tournament. It seemed entirely unsuccessful, but they’re trying it again. 12 people will be involved, but the names and any format changes haven’t been announced.
The press conference also introduced the Moreno sisters, making challenges. Cinthia mentioned she’s no longer with AAA; her last match there appears to be March 2015. Rossy Moreno is they’re targeting Estrellita. Jinzo & Rocky Lobo also talked about their match against Okumura and Fujin this weekend.
Of note, Arturo Beristain (Hijo del Gladiador) was billed as the Elite Chief of Programming. That’s the public face of match making, and usually the behind the scenes one too. Beristain is a CMLL employee at last check, so the difference between these two groups is minor.
+LuchaTV has a new edition of Esto es Lucha, with Shocker as guest.
In response to an article claiming a show in Ensenada got out of control, the local commission says the show was a “98 or 99% success.” The 1-2% failure had to with the luchadors in the main event (Psycho Clown versus a trio of Rey Misterios) breaking the rules in some unspecified way which seems like crowd brawling. The commission insists they’ll be more careful on the next show in March and the promotion says they’ll hire more security.
DTU announced a return to Arena Aficion on 03/01. Guest luchadors include Shalie Rockstar, Titan, Triton, Fujin and Raijin. The idea of the NJPW kids showing up in DTU brings joy to my dark heart.
Caristico says he has no plans to go back to WWE. That he’d even need to say that makes him sound dumb, but it may be more on whoever asked the question. He says nice things about Rey and Alberto but also says WWE didn’t really want a Mexican to get over. To be fair, it’s sometimes unclear if WWE wants to get anyone over.
LuchaWorld has KrisZ’s news update.
Electroshock wants to win the Rey de Reyes again.
Daga says 2016 will be his year, and he hopes to win a mask (Suicide’s.)
Danger hypes the DTU vs CaraLucha show.
Furia de Titanes has a video with Lady Sensacion.
Tigre Asiatico talks about running the CILL promotion in Chicago for three years.
You can have breakfast with Mil Mascaras on March 19th.
Zao got to the bottom of the Mephsito Pants Mystery. Literally, the bottom.
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