No one’s promoting it, not El Rey or Lucha Underground, but they’re running a S2 marathon starting this weekend. Starting this Saturday, El Rey will air six episodes Season 2 episodes a night starting at 7pm CT. It ends an hour early on Tuesday, so they can air all four hours of Ultima Lucha back to back to back leading to the 2 hour final. (The final will repeat right after, as always.)
AAA has three way matches from Ecatepec this week, with a shot for the Cruiserweight title on the line and another heavyweight three way.
Elite moves to Saturday night at 9pm CT. Rush/LA Park is something to talk about in the morning but, for the purposes of this post, remember that CMLL’s stopped people from airing matches which they’ve felt have gotten out of control in the past (Volador/Niebla in Puebla.) Rush/Park should air, but there’s a slight chance it might.
Puebla looks more interesting of the two early week CMLL streams.
I still don’t believe this tournament will resolve as initially promised, and announcing Diamante Azul (not in the Liga Elite) versus Caristico convinced me I’m right. However, I’ve long decided I might as well treat it like it’s genuine until it falls apart, and so far it hasn’t fallen apart.
20 matches have been completed, with 46 matches left to take place. The good thing about this tournament is we know all of those matches, at least until Rey Escorpion fills in for someone again. And, since it’s the internet, I might as well rank them.
46) Cibernetico vs Xtreme Tiger
I like Tiger, you’ll see him higher on this list. The problem is he was utterly squashed by Lashley, which doesn’t give me any hope for him against any one else in this tournament. Outside of the LA Park match, Cibernetico’s not really shown up for these matches, and this seems most certain to be a 4 minute walkthru. Read More
Elite returns tonight with one of the biggest possible matches in their Liga Elite tournament, Rush versus LA Park. It’s listed as super libre, which means no DQ, but the line of what is and isn’t allowed in Arena Mexico is never totally clear. There’s a non zero chance LA Park does something that makes this his last match for a while; the last time someone tried this feud (August), LA Park said things on the microphone which made it his last match for quite a while. It’s going to an event; their recent match in Tijuana was quite good and this should be the same.
It’s packed top of the card. Dos Caras makes his first appearance in Arena Mexico since 1997, teaming with Atlantis against Mascara Ano 2000 & Universo 2000 (the youngest person in the match at 53.) The fourth match, the other TV match on a normal week, is Caristico vs Diamante Azul in what’s listed as a Liga Elite match. It doesn’t make sense as a Liga Elite match unless Azul is replacing someone (like Escorpion did last week) and it’s not clear if Caristico is actually wrestling the match. If he had the injury he said he had, he probably shouldn’t be.
The show opens with new CMLL luchador Ciclon Ramirez Jr. & rarely seen Principe Diamante versus Cancerbero & Raziel, Felino & Tiger against Super Crazy & Ronnie Mendoza and Hijo de Dos Caras, Hijo de LA Park & Rayman vs Hijo de Medico Asesino, Hijo del Dr. Wagner & Karonte Junior. The show now airs Saturday at 9pm CT.
It’s another big night for Elite. Rush versus LA Park is one of the biggest matches they can run, and you can’t bring back Dos Caras after twenty years every week. This should draw better than the International tournament, but that’s a low bar. They need to do much better than that.
I’d go to the premiere tonight, but I really don’t want to miss the Leyenda de Plata tomorrow night. It just got a better this morning: Dragon Lee will return for the tournament, taking Negro Casas’ spot. That’s how the Leyenda de Plata is supposed to work: Casas is the former winner so he’ll defend against the winner of the cibernetico. And it’s a killer lineup for that: Mistico, Volador, Guerrero Maya, Titan, Triton, Dragon Lee, the Panther, La Mascara, Mephisto, Cavernario, Ripper and Virus. I’d love it if Hechicero was in there instead of Mascara but there are some really good names in that list.
(Dragon Lee returns 1 day before Stuka makes it to ROH, which must be a little bit disappointing since that was Lee’s spot. They probably couldn’t be sure he’d be ready by now, and Dragon will likely end up in ROH later.)
Gran Metalik/Mascara Dorada versus Alejandro Saez was the opening match of WWE’s Cruiserweight Classic last night, with Metalik moving onto the next round. There are highlights and a post match Metalik interview. The matches for next week do not include Raul Mendoza’s match, though Lince Dorado (on the next Crash show) will wrestle. +Lucha has a 15 minute interview with Mendoza about the CWC but I haven’t seen it yet.
Podcast Boom has a press release talking about being the first ever Mexican lucha libre podcast on iTunes, which reminds me that I’m sad Kurt Brown is in Europe (?) right now instead of being in LA to give his thoughts about the Final Deletion. Anyway, the Boom iTunes link is here; the general RSS feed is here for other podcast software. They actually had an RSS feed all along, since they’re using blogtalkradio, but didn’t say or didn’t know.
I skimmed thru yesterday’s CMLL Informa. Segments were with rookies Escorpion Negro, Fiero and Maquiavelo (Fiero revealed he’s the nephew of the previous Fiero, Maquiavelo had been training for 7 years before debuting), Reina Isis fitness segment, Arkangel & K-Fu about Saturday’s Anniversary show (K-Fu will be debuting on a real show soon), Stuka Jr. & his son about going to ROH and his son training in lucha, and Guerrero Maya, Titan, Triton and The Panther talking about the Leyenda de Plata and Titan going to the Super Junior
I didn’t put it together yesterday, but the August Lucha Memes show in Mexico City is the same day as the ChilangaMask show. The former co-promoters are going to be running against each other for the first time. (CMLL people are working both shows.)
We’re halfway thru the year, so it’s long past time I’ve posted a working MOTYC list. Working plan is to update this after every month of TV. You can find it linked here even after it gets moved off the top of the page. I use air dates, because the post is recommending matches rather than an arbitrary date limit.
