Azteca’s TV listings say Lucha Azteca 7 will be a 75 minute show for it’s 04/01 debut. That’s an odd length; perhaps it’s only a first show deal, but it means it’d be have to be cutdown for the US (and there’s still no sign it’ll be aired in the US.) CMLL airs 3 matches on it’s hour show, so maybe this means a fourth match, and maybe this means they’ll do other type of material. The time of the show means it ends just about an hour before that night’s normal show airs. Their website has a preview of the show, though it’s blocked in the US. They push being a modern version of lucha libre, which apparently means lots of selfie sticks.
CMLL Informa will move to Thursday afternoon next week. It’s not clear if this is a full time move, though it would seem to be if Elite is running regularly on Wednesdays. Fujin was on this week’s Informa – and also told CMLL he kissed Maximo because Maximo’s shirt said “Kiss Me” – but the show was stole by Kamaitachi paying off his bikini bet.
Pro Wrestling Sheet reported Sami Callihan signed with Lucha Underground. He worked a dark match late in season 2, with King Cuerno and another person who hasn’t debuted on screen. The WON has results from this past week’s tapings, and Callihan actually didn’t wrestle on those – he was on Evolve instead. LU was taping matches out of sequence anyway, so he might still debuting early in season 3. Keep in mind “early in Season 3” probably means January 2017.
Rolling Stone has an article in Teddy Hart, centered on his appearance at The Crash back in February while talking about his issues. The article gives Teddy credit for helping training Pentagon and Fenix, which I haven’t seen mentioned prior. Konnan is credited for getting Teddy booked on that show, seems to be done with him by the end of the show, but the promoted is mentioned as wanting to bring Teddy back.
Both Masked Republic and Arturo Rivera implied Cage was pulled off the Elite shows because of his contract with Lucha Underground, though their feelings about the reasons (bullying vs Elite not checking the contract) naturally differs.
Lucha Memes (SUN) 04/10/2016 Arena Jardines, Ecatepec, Estado de México
1) Electroser & Troyano vs Hantar & Íkaro Gym Falcon vs Gym Contreras
2) Freelance, Mike Segura, Pantera vs Arez, Belial, Impulso
3) Iron Kid vs Alas de Acero, Aramis
4) Supermega vs Black Terry
5) Keira vs Toxin
6) Hechicero vs Último Guerrero
Full card for the debut show. This is the venue sometimes known as Arena Fusion and where GoMask has been. Main event should be fun.
AAA says they sold the building out and it certainly looked sold out in pictures. The venue is listed as 7000 seats, plus whatever they added on the floor and minus whatever they blocked off for the entrance. The Roldans made a point of showing the full crowd, and there seemed to be a message about AAA still being to do these kind of crowd regardless of who’s left. It’s a bit mitigated by this show being promoted as a special tribute for Hijo del Perro Aguayo and the seeming lack of other AAA shows in big venues outside of Mexico City, but 7000 tickets is 7000 tickets. You can’t argue with a sell out and that’s what they got – and probably at a cheaper cost than they were getting those a year prior.
There was no iPPV. AYM/internet.tv put up a note yesterday that the show was canceled thru no fault of their own. My belief is there was a deal that just didn’t get done in time. AAA never promoted it, and also didn’t say anything when other people found it. It seems like it should’ve, any extra money would’ve been nice, but the last minute and lack of advertising time for it means the only people who knew about it were mostly the people read this site. That’s not that many people. (If it was a straight revenue split, it’s money they passed up. If there was any sort of overhead AAA had to give up before the revenue split, then maybe it was money they saved.) As it is, I wish I was most skeptical of it actually happening as to not get people’s hopes up or worked harder to confirm it was actually happening)- it’s only because we’ve found the iPPV info before it’s was announced in the past that I thought it might be the same this time. Hopefully this can work better next show.
Jack Evans missed the show due to food poisoning. We knew about Mini Charly. AAA and Blue Demon haven’t explained his absence. It may be a flight issue. Demon also has a reputation of missing shows where he expects to lose, and he probably was going to lose on this show. It hasn’t really occurred to me, since he’s Mexican Hero Blue Demon Jr., but Demon was the last guy getting flown in from the US and probably getting paid US Dollars. It’s surprising given who isn’t around. Demon seems like he opens door for sponsorship a guy like Cage (to pick a name) would not, but Cage probably is easier to deal with and costs less.
(Blue Demon’s only “explanation” is to RT mentions of him also missing Rey de Reyes two years ago. Note to luchadors and luchadors promotions and anyone on Twitter: stop retweeting every mention you get.)
It still feels early on in this new regime, but one booking change that strikes me is there’s less angles on these shows. Wagner talked about matches (and because it’s Wagner, there’s no telling if this is actually a plan or a bit he made up on the spot or if it’ll switch from one to the other along the way) and people had title matches, but the only news it the debut of the Other Perros del Mal. The Pentagon group had been wearing red/white Perros del Mal t-shirts the last couple of days, which had appeared to be simply a new variant of the design for the Hijo del Perro Aguayo one year anniversary. Those who came in after the Rey de Reyes final appear to be wearing the normal black/white shirt, for a color coordinated feud (though I’m not sure how long Damian’s group had the shirts on, since they’re not wearing them in most of the photos.)
The show actually begin with an in-ring tribute to Perro Jr., with the current Perros del Mal members in the ring talking about him and the rest of the roster around the ring. It seemed heartfelt, but it also seems like a designed way to leverage sympathy for Pentagon’s group into the new feud. This angle touched a nerve; Perro being praised on TV is one thing, but his memory and legacy being fought over crosses a line for some. This is not new ground for AAA. The subtext and sometimes actual text of the Roldans/Konnan on-screen was also about who was the rightful inheritors of Antonio Peña’s legacy. (I guess it’s still happening off-screen.) I can’t say if it’s the right thing to do – I don’t know what Perro would want, and I’m not enough in the Mexican culture to tell how they’d receive it.
From a business and aesthetics standpoint, I’m not in favor of it. Pentagon gets the Rey de Reyes win, but adding these guys strongly suggest he’ll still be around the same place in the card. Nicho, Halloween and Damian have had outstanding careers, and are certainly allowed to keep getting paid from lucha libre when those much older and more broken down are getting paid, but are clearly worn down by a long hard career. Pagano is a limited luchador who tries very hard and doesn’t always succeed, and is best keeping focusing at what he does best. This is going to be a lot of extreme matches, a style that’s exhausted my patience. We’ll also find out if Pagano’s indie popularity can translate to a wider audience. If it can, then that’s solid reason to do more of this (which is depressing.) If it can’t, then they’re doing this damage to themselves for no reason.
Pentagon’s post-match interview pointed to a match between himself and Pagano, but the angle suggests a 4v4 match at some point. Who would be Pentagon’s fourth? Kahn and Taya both seem like not great ideas for this match. (Bringing in Keira or Ludark as Taya’s opposite would be a silver lining to this, and give the women’s title a new direction.)
This has some implications for indie promotions, all of whom seemed to be using Pagano at once. If he’s in AAA, his availability will be less and they won’t be able to do matches with him against CMLL guys – exactly what’s scheduled this weekend in Guadalajara. If you’re a fan of indie lucha and not of Pagano, this might be good news, but indie promoters who want extreme style can find others who are willing to do it.
I don’t know. I feel very dispassionate about this whole show. I don’t know if I’m just tired – the upside of no iPPV is I got at least one extra hour of sleep! – or if it’s just not enthralling when you’re only watching results on Twitter and Instragram (but not Snapchat?) AAA did the right thing with Pentagon winning, but it felt like that should be the first step for more. The underlining thought makes sense in that feud – give the Pentagon Perros someone more rudo to feud with to continue allowing them to be fan favorite rudos – but it doesn’t seem like a big step forward. The rest of the shows are wins that are worth mentioning, but everything’s been reset to the beginning and so none of it feels all that important and there aren’t a lot of directions suggested going forward. (They could’ve done the Japan bit of someone coming out to challenge Texano, to at least set up that direction.) Maybe the Zorro/Fenix interaction, maybe the Wagner challenges are going somewhere, but it’s going to take more time to find out about all of it.
The next show is April 8th in Mexico City. No lineup is out – maybe in the next few days.
