CMLL (FRI) 01/27/2017 Arena México [CMLL, thecubsfan, Yahoo! Deportes]
1) Shockercito & Stukita b Demus 3:16 & Mercurio
16:48. Tecnicos took 1/3.
2) La Vaquerita, Marcela, Princesa Sugehit b Amapola, Dalys, Zeuxis
14:05. Tecnicas took 2/3.
3) Forastero, Máscara Año 2000, Sansón b Blue Panther, Blue Panther Jr., The Panther
12:19. Rudos took 1/3. Forastero replaced Cuatrero.
4) Diamante Azul, Marco Corleone, Máximo Sexy DQ Pierroth, Ray Rowe, Rush
9:22. Straight falls, the last when Pierroth unmasked Diamante Azul. Rowe did not get along with his partners at times during the match (setting up Rowe/Azul in Lucha Memes on Sunday)
5) Mephisto © b Carístico [CMLL WELTER]
11:41. Mephisto took 1/3, cleanly, to keep the title. 4th defense.
6) Dragón Lee, Mistico, Volador Jr. b Cavernario, Gran Guerrero, Último Guerrero
13:03. Tecnicos took 2/3.
You should go out of you way to see the title match. The show was overall good.
In Arena San Juan, Penta el 0M, Fenix, Daga and Garza Jr. debuted their new team name, “La Rebelión.” They had new t-shirts (on Masked Republic, though they won’t ship until mid-February and new merch to go with it. The name La Rebelion has some history, it was the name of the Perros del Mal TV show. This is allusion to them rebelling against AAA and the legacy they’re carrying on, as they specifically mentioned it being a homage to Perro Aguayo Jr. when unveiling it.
La Rebelion have set up their own Facebook.
They ended up facing and defeating Gallego, Pentagon III, Mr. Condor and Mosco de la Merced (II). The first three were replacing Histeria, Psicosis II, and Manaico. Psicosis posted a video on his Facebook saying the promoter had refused to pay their guarantees. The story going around from the promoter’s side is those guys got to the building, saw how packed it was, and held the promoter up for more money. The promoter, presumably realizing the building was full for La Rebelion, didn’t pay and those guys left. For what it’s worth, pretty much every other match on the show ended up changing during the night.
Konnan’s launched his own Patreon as an extension of his Keepin it 100 podcast. If you sign up for $3/month or more, you’ll get exclusive content, but he’s offering a podcast for $1/month subscribers talking about recent events right now. There’s a lot of talk about TripleMania, the Roldans, PROMELL. Some of it is well trod ground on other podcasts, some of is new, but you should go sign up yourself if you want to hear it all.
There’s no more clarity on the timeline of the jumps. The best we get is “we knew for a while”, and Penta/Daga/Garza were careful not to let AAA know it was happening. This might have all happened 10 months ago, back in March, but someone tipped off Dorian, and MGM’s lawyers threatened the AAA/LU guys with losing their LU deals. Fenix & Sexy Star trickled out on their own, but this had been building since then. They had remained in contract with Konnan and remained frustrated with how they were being used in AAA.
Konnan talks about the Copetes issues (asking women for sex, demanding kickbacks from wrestlers, playing favorites in house show bookings) he’s brought up on Podcast BOOM, and alleges Copetes must have something on the Roldan family to stay there. Konnan says Dorian confirmed it to him once, then denied it another time. The mystery La Chiva is said to be Copetes’ brother, getting booked on shows via Copetes’ influence over people who are actually used on TV.
Konnan believes Paco Alonso is mad at him nowadays primary because Alonso blames Konnan for messing up a deal between CMLL and WCW back in the day, and uses him as an example for others not to cross him. Konnan also thinks there’s issues because he’s badmouthed CMLL on his podcast, leading to CMLL not letting their guys on The Crash’s shows. The “other owner of the Crash”, Nacho, is friends with Rush and Konnan hears from other people in the Office that Nacho isn’t happy when he says bad things about CMLL, but believes he should hear more about when he says good things. Konnan hints he might just get CMLL people to jump Crash instead.
The Crash is planning on running 17 cities in 2017, including Mexico City. Their next big goal is getting on TV. “I really believe I’ll overtake CMLL, Elite, AAA all in a year” after he gets on TV. “I’m surrounding myself with really good people, and Dorian surrounded by straight up idiots and yes-man.”
One of those 17 cities will be Monterrey. Llaves y Candados announced they’ll have announced about something The Crash/Rebelion related at the end of their 02/19 show. It’s obviously going to be a show with all those guys. The date is the important part, since we know AAA is already running Rey de Reyes on the 19th. We’ve seen local promotion MDA run Arena Coliseo Monterrey on the same day Rey de Reyes takes place in the bullring in the past, and perhaps we’re headed to the same thing.
The Crash announced Jeff & Karen Jarrett will be their 02/25 February show. This may be part of whatever TNA/The Crash relationship is being worked out, or it may be a separate thing given the history between Konnan and Jeff. Nothing can kill my interest in a lucha libre promotion like bringing in Jeff Jarrett. Jarrett goes about it differently than AAA’s La Parka, but brings the same pluses and negatives to the table today: they both absolutely can get themselves over in front of a Mexican crowd, but they make every match they’re in all about them and worse overall, and they never do good business when it’s time to put someone over. AAA ran big angle with Jeff Jarrett 3 or 4 times, always building him up big, and always with something happening where he couldn’t be there to put his rival over at the end, so the only people who got anything out of it were Jeff & Karen. Maybe every single time is AAA’s fault and Jeff’s totally not at fault (and just as not as fault when he pulled the same thing with NJPW), but Jeff Jarrett caries a stigma of “really bad AAA garbage” in Mexico, and The Crash should be trying to distance themselves as far as possible from really bad AAA garbage. Instead, he’s on their first show after they make news.
Here’s a solution: Penta smashes Jarrett with his own guitar on 02/25. Nothing less. If Jarrett is as good at getting himself over, he won’t be that hurt, he can just get himself back over next time he’s around. This is generally not the time to be slow playing stuff, or building to a big show you don’t even know the date of yet. The Crash just needs to kill it, to build buzz, to get people to put it on TV. Jarrett can’t even get on TV in his home country, he’s not going to help much for Mexico. I suspect Jarrett will be just doing a Trump thing and patriotic Blue Demon will defend Mexico’s honor. However, if Jarrett comes with 10 feet of La Rebelion, it needs to end with the Rebelion stomping on him. Those guys shouldn’t be beat or beat down by anyway in the Crash for a long time.
Fenix & Pentagon are teaming against the Hardys and locals (well, closer to being local) Al-Cold and AXL in Lima, Peru on 03/25. Fenix & Pentagon are already facing the the Hardys at WrestleCon the following weekend. Even without a formal agreement between Crash/TNT, promoters seem very interested in booking that match on it’s own.
CMLL tonight at Arena Coliseo has Mistico, Valiente, Volador Jr. versus Gran Guerrero, Niebla Roja, Ultimo Guerrero and Angel de Oro, Fuego, Stuka and Bobby Z, Dragon Rojo and Polvora in a semimain. Both those sound pretty good, but there were no TV cameras at Arena Coliseo last week and I suspect there won’t be any this week either. Lucha Retro is already into repeats, after only 14 episodes, and they may be done already. (Dave Melzter’s news bit from a few weeks ago about how CMLL was close to losing “Azteca” makes more sense if he meant “Fox Deportes”.) The show had actually been doing it’s best ratings numbers of late, with even the repeat episode having more viewers than when it was first run.
Lucha Memes has Chairo8 on Sunday. The hype for it has been lost in the week of Rebelion news. CMLL booking Ray Rowe and having him do teases a fight with Rush probably helps, but not as much as if the announcers were allowed to actually mention the show by name and location. It’s still early days in that relationship, maybe it’ll get there.
The two big matches of note on the Chairo8 show are Rush vs Raymond Rowe and Flystar & Toxin vs Laredo Kid & Ronnie Mendoza. Those matches will be available on VOD for $3USD by Tuesday. The live crowd will get to also see Hechicero & Dr. Cerbero, Keira vs Silueta, and Jack Evans and Rey Horuz leading trios, among other matches.
Fuerza Guerrera, who may be the all time leader in backing out of mask matches, says Dr. Wagner Jr. doesn’t want to lose his mask and will not show up at TripleMania. It’s not clear if Fuerza actually knows anything or is just speculating like the rest of us. I think it’s a moot point – if AAA’s not going run a larger arena (which would give them more money to pay Wagner) and they were willing to have Pentagon Jr. lose at Guerra de Titanes when they thought he wasn’t going anywhere, then they’ll be totally fine with having Dr. Wagner beat Psycho Clown if it comes to it. It may or may not be their plan at the moment, and it may not be what Psycho Clown wants right now, but they’ll do what they have to get that match delivered. It’s strange in context, because I don’t have a lot of confidence in AAA on a lot of points, but these last few days have made me super confident that match is actually happening as promised.
Lucha Boom teased an upcoming announce with La Liga de la Justica, a Puebla indie promotion.
Mascara Sagrada bemoans the state of lucha libre. The article mentions his real name.
Rey Horuz and Bestia 666 are headed to Puerto Rico on March 18th.
Cancha has a video story on Sam Adonis. Trump Supporter Sam Adonis teaming with Vangellys on Tuesday was kind of amazing but I’m afraid to point it out.
Lineup
CMLL (FRI) 02/03/2017 Arena México
1) Eléctrico & Shockercito vs Pequeño Nitro & Pequeño Olímpico
2) Fuego, Pegasso, Soberano Jr. vs Disturbio, Okumura, Virus
3) Drone, Guerrero Maya Jr., Rey Cometa vs Bobby Z, Dragón Rojo Jr., Pólvora
4) Titán vs Cavernario [lightning]
5) Ángel de Oro, Marco Corleone, Máximo Sexy vs El Cuatrero, Máscara Año 2000, Sansón
6) Atlantis, Diamante Azul, Volador Jr. vs La Máscara, Pierroth, Rush [Relevos Increíbles]
CMLL calling main events with tecnicos on one side and rudos on the other side “relevos increibles” just makes CMLL look stupid. There’s no other way to stay it. A feud with Diamante Azul & Pierroth doesn’t look much better.
Titan/Cavernario is an old title feud that should be fun. Revolucionarios get their usual rivals.
Euforia, who CMLL wrote on their own website would be back on this show, is not on this show. Strong quality control. He’s back Tuesday anyway.
