What happened: The new version of Revolucionarios debuted with a big introduction and a win. Rayo de Jalisco’s feud with Terrible was toned down; he got the revenge pin in the first fall and the focus was on Mephsito & Carístico (who have a singles match tomorrow in Coliseo.) Nothing else really happened.
What was good: The Revolucionarios match was the most watchable. None was really bad and some stuff (opener) was better than usual, but there wasn’t a lot you need to go out of your way to watch. People watching the stream were generally higher on the show than me.
Where can I watch it:It’ll be on my channel soon enough.Read More
We don’t have a card for Tuesday’s Guadalajara show (and we may not be getting one though the show will go on), but Negro Casas/Mephisto will have a match because they can’t stop doing Negro Casas singles matches. Those two met in a 2014 CMLL Universal opening round match, but their only three fall match was in September 2005, eleven and a half years ago.
This is the first FantasticaMania where they’re explicitly building to another show down the line instead of making it self contained, and that affected the top couple matches. The goal of Takahashi/Titan was to continue to position Takahashi as the top of the division. Titan wouldn’t be in the top 10 of contenders at this point, so Titan had to go down hard and that was the story of the match. Takahashi being Takahashi, he was still willing to take the death bump if it had gone right. Still, this was the back and forth fight hoped for because that didn’t serve NJPW’s plans. Dragon Lee & Cavernario got more time because Lee hasn’t had that epic in NJPW for a year, but the longer match slowed down the pace a bit. The length and violence of the match might have worn them out of the end, and the match seemed to end a little early due to Cavernario’s injury.
NJPW’s recap mentions Cavernario suffered a right shoulder injury and seemed to believe it happened on a reverse huracanrana. There’s some uncertainty if he’ll be back in the ring the rest of the week, though he was fine enough to be back on Twitter afterwards.
The full show from the first day of the tour (as aired on SamuraiTV) is now up.
Tomorrow’s (early morning) FantasticaMania show will have the Atlantis versus Rush and Maximo versus Hechicero title matches. That title match will be interesting: the crowd was into Maximo tonight, and NJPW apparently will give them a lot of time out of deference of it being a title match, but it’s still a strange match up. It should be good, but I’m not sure what the reaction is going to be. (I’d expect Atlantis/Rush to go shorter than Titan/Takahashi.)
The undercard is the strongest of the three Tokyo shows, though we probably shouldn’t expect greatness out of it. The other five Ingobernables face Dragon Lee, Titan, Juice, Tanahashi, and Finlay. Kushida, Taguchi and Soberano are scheduled to face Okada, Ospreay and Barbaro Cavernario in the tercera; that could be a strong match if Cavernario can go. It’s another good chance for Soberano, though he’s likely to take the pin. Stuka and Okumura have a special singles match as the second match, and the opener is an atomicos with Bleu Panther, Henare, Jushin Liger and Tiger Mask against Ephesto, Gedo, Jado, and Raziel.
Culticon previews the show. It’ll air at 3:30 AM CT on NJPW World and will be available to watch on demand immediately after if you’re the type who prefers normal amounts of sleep.
Euforia will face Mr. Cacao in a singles match in Nagayoa on the 29th.
While CMLL is offering a title match in Japan, they’re offering a Rayo de Jalisco match in Mexico City. Tonight’s main event is a rematch from last week, with Rayo de Jalisco, Caristico & Diamante Azul versus Terrible, Mephsito and Rey Bucanero. Terrible cheated to win last week, with definite hints they’d be heading to a Rayo/Terrible match. A Rayo de Jalisco Jr. singles match is a bad idea and maybe CMLL won’t actually do it. The crowd that showed up last week did seem to be into the nostalgia of seeing Rayo, but it also didn’t seem to draw a bigger than usual crowd. (Maybe a normal crowd is good enough given the people involved.)
The only somewhat important match on the show is the official debut of the new Revolucionarios trio, with general Dragon Rojo and colonel Polvora welcoming captain Bobby Z to the trio. They face usual rivals Rey Cometa & Guerrero Maya, with Johnny Idol tagging along. It’s CMLL, so it’s a 50/50 shot the new group wins.
The rest of the card has Marco Corleone, Angel de Oro, Blue Panther taking on Negor Casas, Sam Adonis and Felino, who hasn’t been on TV in about three weeks. It’s no big deal, but weird given the lesser amount of people around. The lightning match has Triton versus Misterioso Jr., which should be good. Fuego, the Panther & Pegasso take on Skandalo, Disturbio, Sangre Azteca, which will be a **1/4 match. Flyer & Oro Jr. open the show against Inquisidor & Akuma.
AAA returns to TV taping tonight. They’re also in Mexico City, at their usual home of Gimnasio Olimpico Juan de la Barrera, with this year’s Guerra de Titanes. There’s two title matches on the show: Pentagon challenges Johnny Mundo for the Latin American championship, while Garza Jr. does the same against Hijo del Fantasma for the cruiserweight championship.
Pentagon versus Mundo was built up on TV, with Pentagon getting a singles non-title win over Mundo after losing the title way back at TripleMania. The match was brought up during the year in review stuff, but didn’t seem to get any special hype on last week’s TV show. Johnny Mundo’s sent in promos to build up matches previously, but I think he’s only just RT-ed the Guerra de Titanes poster this time. Maybe there will be more today, but I get the feeling this might be it for Mundo for the moment in AAA. The thing is, given Taya is still Reina de Reinas champion, not being around doesn’t mean you can’t still be champion. (And it’s not like Pentagon is going to be around every weekend either.) I expect a title change, I’m just not certain of it.
The other title match is Hijo del Fantasma versus Garza Junior. AAA’s done nothing to build up the title match or Garza in anyway. They’re teaming, now they’re not, and now they’re going to have a match that’ll be OK. Probably not much more than that because Garza Jr. hasn’t been much better than OK in his AAA run. It probably doesn’t matter for his career to have good matches, because he seems to be getting booked (on his own, without AAA) pretty well without having many good matches. It still would be nice if he had one, but I think his lack of full time status means he’s unlikely to win the title.
The main event has gotten the most hype on the show, but it’s among the least interesting. La Parka, Psycho Clown, Texano Jr. face Dr. Wagner, Mesias and Pagano in a match that continues the autopilot ride to Psycho Clown & Dr. Wagner at TripleMania. Perhaps the most we can hope for is Texano getting a title feud, as the heavyweight champion of the promotion hasn’t had anything to do since TripleMania. Earlier, there will be a cage match with Aerostar, Super Fly, Argenis, Australian Suicide, Angelico and Carta Brava Jr., where the final two will have an apuesta match at Rey de Reyes. Aerostar and Super Fly is the only feud they’ve pushed from that bunch, but they could do a different match up without it really changing much. Faby Apache & Mary Apache take on Averno & Chessman in a rematch from TripleMania. I had hope for that match turning out well way back then, but months of Tirantes related finishes and non-finishes has killed my interest. (A lot of stuff seems to be direct follow up to TripleMania, showing how little has actually happened in the months since.) The opener will be Bengala, Big Mami, Dinastia, and Pimpinela Escarlata against Dave the Clown, Lady Shani, Mamba and Mini Psycho Clown.
AAA’s hinted at big news outside the matches. They have not yet announced the TripleMania location, but we know they’re at the very least considering Plaza Mexico. That announcement could come today. Alberto el Patron is also in Mexico City, and AAA officials were special guests at the Combates Americas show last night. Alberto has said he’ll be back in AAA at some point, and this would be an easy way to make an appearance and set up something for later in the year.
Guerra de Titanes is listed at 8:45pm CT start local. It’s usually a little bit later, but perhaps not as much in Mexico City because there won’t be a local promoter dark match. The show is not officially streaming, but I’d guess live fan cams will pop up during the night. It’ll air on TV starting next weekend.
AAA says the show is sold out, a full day ahead of time. There will be no tickets available at the door. That’d be over 5,000 people. AAA’s run this venue in recent years, but never advertised it as a sell out and definitely not a full day ahead of time. It’s so unexpected that I’m curious if they’re simply not selling all the seats. (There’s no sign of that.) This is a really good sign for a promotion hoping to sell a lot of tickets in Mexico City this year. They’re probably missing an opportunity by not putting this on iPPV, but I wouldn’t have guess that ahead of time and I’m not surprised they didn’t either.
Lucha Libre FMV announced that Dorian Roldan is now the General Manager of Lucha Libre FMV. The press release says he’ll be in charge “live events, talent relations, sponsorships, merchandising, and licensing.” The idea, as explained by Eric Van Wagenen on Masks, Mats and Mayhem is that Dorian will bring AAA’s experience in running live events and helped shift them towards more touring. That seems to be the general focus of the next few months: they’re aiming to run tapings in the fall (not a firm date), but Van Wagenen said he was confident there’d be live events sometime this spring and summer. That may not even come in a traditional fashion; there’s been talk about trying to help out the wrestlers by making it more allowable for them to use their LU gimmicks elsewhere (which has been a real issue for guys like Mil Muertes and King Cuerno, who are much less valuable under their AAA characters.) They’ve even spitballed an idea of offering a package of wrestlers/characters to foreign places where the show is airing (like Germany.) It was made clear these are ideas they’re just throwing around and nothing is committed, but that they’re working harder in this area and expect to make some progress.
Van Wagenen also gave his side of the LU hiatus. The hiatus wasn’t planned when they were taping. The idea didn’t come to him until “November or December”, and even then it wasn’t a certainty, just trying to figure out at what point it would make sense to take a break. They weren’t ever told how long they’d be gone and it didn’t come off like EVW had been told a specific date even at this point. His guess was like mine after the El Rey upfront – they’re on hiatus so they can be on the air when LU’s new shows are ready to start airing. Van Wagenen pointed out that El Rey may not even yet know when those shows are going to be ready, which would prevent them from giving a firm Lucha Underground date. It’s important to note he was guessing at this, is not speaking officially for LU or El Rey.
Dorian Roldan having more power in the Lucha Underground power structure, specifically over “talent relations”, seems like bad news for talent who have bad relations with AAA. Jack Evans, Sexy Star, Fenix, even Flamita have left AAA and already had uncertain futures with LU. If this gives Dorian sole control, they may not return to LU without returning to AAA. On the other hand, LU’s invested a lot of time in some of those characters – Sexy Star & Fenix especially – and other parts of the management team may not want to lose that investment. It seems less likely those people will be back whenever LU tapes again, though this definitely doesn’t shut the door.
There’s screen shots of the WWE survey sent out to Mexican fans this past week. CMLL & AAA do not come up by name, but just by concept. They want to know if WWE fans are interested in them at all, or if they’d be interested in a new Mexican league. There’s also a section devoted to find out how much having more content in Spanish (or specifically with Mexican voices) is important to subscribers. These surveys are about figuring out priorities.
The Box Y Lucha commission of Ahome, Sinaloa gave out 2016 awards: Omar Brunetti was the stellar wrestler of the year, while Dark Fire was the luchador of the year. Sagrado Tormento, Mr. Iguana, Alma Grande as the tecnico trio of the year, Payaso Infernal, Dr. Terror, Mario Mora as the rudo trio of the year. Cholo Chriss & Mr. Iguana were revelations of the year, Dragon Rider the novato of the year. Dark Fire & Sagrado Tormento won tecnico tag team of the year and Dr. Terror & Cholo Chriss were the rudo version. Tony Golden was given special recognition for his work in lucha libre.
What happened: Dragon Lee defeated Cavernario to keep the lightweight championship. Takahashi dominated Titan, but had less luck attack Lee after the main event.
What was good: Nothing was bad on this show, but it’s the last three matches which are worth watching. The main event was strong, though possibly ended early due to injury. Titan/Takahashi was a little disappointing but effective for it’s purposes. The Guerreros/Okada vs Mistico/Volador/Juice match was just fun.
Where can I watch it: It’s on NJPW World for subscribers.
