Not exactly Mexican wrestling, but Tim pointed out WWC’s Saturday and Sunday shows are moving to 1pm ET, an hour later than they had been airing. That change is not reflected on my TV’s guide; you may just want to extend your recording an extra hour if you DVR the show to be safe.
(We’re also at the point where I’m going to be canceling WAPA soon if no other lucha turns up. I think I’m giving it a little bit longer, but not much. I can always resubscribe later.)
Yoshi Tatsu debuts Friday, and is also on the Monday Puebla show.
Beyond the matches to finish out the Toluca taping, AAA promising Mesias and Pagano having a skit. So that’ll be fun.
Between CMLL and IWRG, there’s two different tag team tournaments this week.
What happened: a Faby Apache cost OGT a match. The OGT strangely blamed this on Joe Lider. He and Kahn are the final two Perros del Mal. We found out the Mesias/Pagano feud stemmed from an attack on Dave the Clown and I will not get over this no matter how many times I type it. Dave the Clown!
This is Zorro’s final AAA match (at least for now) after 17 years with the promotion. Zorro knew he was leaving, though maybe not that this was his last match – he’s said he would’ve wanted to work his remaining dates if allowed – but no one else knows. There’s no reference to it during the commentary (which was done live, so they wouldn’t have noticed.) There’s also no attempt to down play or cut him out like the Rebelion guys, with the possible exception of the OGT/Apaches recap cutting out the Xinetez’ involvement.
What was good: The opener was fun. The main event is an interesting Angelico & Australian tag match sandwiched around a long La Parka comedy bit. The other match occurred.
Where can I watch it:It’s on AAA’s channel, and there’s handhelds around if you need all the AAA you can get.
Previously: Dr. Wagner & Psycho Clown agreed to a maks match, again. Aerostar & Super Fly less dramatically got to an apuesta match. Lady Shani won, challenged Taya for a title match, didn’t really get a yes or no but did get beat up. OGT beat the Apaches. (Zorro and the Xinetez’s interference is omitted from this video package.)Read More
IWRG (WED) 02/15/2017Arena Naucalpan [Estrellas del Ring, The Gladiatores]
1) Araña de Plata b Shadow Boy
2) Avisman b Odín Odin was not listed on the poster
3) Diablo Jr., Douki, Hip Hop Man b Alfa, Black Dragón, Omega
4) Demasiado, Diva Salvaje, Nigma b Leo, Mike, Rafy Moved down a spot. Exoticos want a trios title shot.
5) Diablo Jr. b Emperador Azteca Moved up a spot. Diablo Jr. replaced Ak47. Money thrown in.
6) Cerebro Negro, Demonio Infernal, Relámpago b Apolo Estrada Jr., Eterno, Heddi Karaoui Eterno faked a pin, but Demonio Infernal simply pinned him and got the win. Eterno did seem to have his shoulder up at two.
The Psicosis/Super Crazy vs the Hardys match will air tonight Impact Wrestling, but with an alteration. Marty Elias was referee for the match, Marty Elias is under contract to Lucha Underground, so Lucha Underground sent TNA a legal notice saying they couldn’t use Marty Elias on their TV. This is a repeat of what happened with Hernandez in 2015. This time, TNA decided to air the footage, but blur Marty out. On his podcast, Konnan says Jeremy Borash asked him about which guys were LU guys to not shoot them, but he just blanked about the referee. He says LU sent cease and desists to himself and his partner in the Crash, to TNA and to Anthem.
I watched that match – recap is below – noticed it was Marty and it didn’t even occur to me that LU would have a problem, but of course they did. On that recent MMM show appearance, EVW talked about not being concerned about guys leaving AAA, only being concerned on them being ready for his show and not appearing on another US TV show. Given the timing, he probably had this specific situation in the back of his mind in hindsight. The Crash had a second referee on hand, but seemed to be using Marty for the segments where a bilingual referee would be help – he was there for AR Fox/Flamita, the big angle with the debuts, and the main event. The match airing tonight was four minutes long, probably the second referee could’ve handled it, but I’d bet The Crash was so focused on making sure Fenix, Pentagon, etc. weren’t on TV that they didn’t even think about the referee.
Lucha Libre Pro on the left, AAA’s logo on the right
This may not be something AAA did themselves – Roshfrans or Record could’ve had someone search “lucha libre logo” and done the work – but they’re aware of it now. It’s be bad in normal sequences, but it’s incredibe for a company also being aggressive protecting it’s copyright. AAA’s argument about the Penta & Fenix names (as best we can surmise, since they’re not talking about it) is the new names/looks Penta & Fenix have come up with are not sufficiently different from the IP AAA created and owned. I don’t know if that’s correct, but I do know they’re on the exact other side of the argument by using this logo. Can’t have it both ways.
A bunch of Lucha Underground people, including Rey Mysterio, Johnny Mundo and Taya, will be at Chicago’s C2E2 expo on April 23rd for a Lucha Underground panel. I believe they announced one of these last years and then canceled it. Both Dorian & EVW will be on the panel, maybe they can discuss Netflix. Maybe it’ll be on Netflix by then. (Not a guarantee. It’ll still be more than a month before they’re on TV.) Maybe I’ll go. I’m not in a LU mood right now, have to think about it later.
Leo Riano’s column claims Vampiro was officially introduced to the AAA wrestlers as a part of the staff on Saturday. Vampiro’s been said to be around AAA for months, and I thought the story was he had recently quit. Maybe they convinced him to come back? Riano’s column is as carrying water for AAA as ever: when he mentions the LU/Netflix story, he’s careful to only name people on the show who are on good terms with AAA. He also says Villano III said, on Riano’s radio show, that he hopes his sons can debut in Arena Mexico at Homenaje a Dos Leyendas.
DTU says they running Arena Aficion on Friday 03/24. There’s a few usual people announced. The poster is Japanese themed and hints at international involvement. The poster also has a +Lucha logo on it, and this would fit as the promotion’s next iPPV.
La Aficion has an interview with Dragon Dorado, the winner of the Octagon talent search contest in Veracruz who wrestled on the Octagon/FULL show a few weeks. He is the luchador who you may remember as Vengador Radioactivo, when he won a similar NOAH talent search (but never made it to NOAH), then returned back to Veracruz. He explains here that he wanted to stay in Mexico City, but the promotion he was working with only offering him 500 pesos a week ($25 USD) and that wasn’t enough for him to stay. His dream was to somehow get back to Mexico City and winning the Octagon reality show did that. Now his goal is to defend the honor of the Octagon name by winning Penta el 0M’s mask. Dream big, I guess. He’d also like to go to WWE.
Main event is really happening. Volador’s going to win that main event and it’s just another opponent for him to beat, but they could’ve easily done better. Any one of the rudos in the fifth match would be a bigger match and probably better match. Even if CMLL’s felt they’ve over done Volador/Mephisto and Volador/Casas and is saving the next Volador/Cavernario match for another day, they could just go down another match and use any one of the rudos in the fourth match too and have a better match. Tiger would get more out of being in a main event with Volador and losing than Ephesto. If you’re not going to give those guys a shot on a Tuesday show that’s not going to draw big anyway, when are you going to give them a shot?
Fourth match looks a lot of fun anyway.
If Espanto Jr. wrestles, it’d be first match since suffering an injury on a baseball slide in November. He stands a good chance of getting a win with Diamante on the other side.
CMLL (TUE) 02/21/2017Arena Coliseo Guadalajara
1) El Divino & Gallo vs Évola & Exterminador
2) Eléctrico, Fugaz, Shockercito vs Mercurio, Pequeño Nitro, Relámpago
3) La Vaquerita, Marcela, Silueta vs Amapola, Dalys, Metálica
4) Dragón Lee, Esfinge, Stuka Jr. vs Bobby Villa, Dragón Rojo Jr., Pólvora
5) Atlantis, Diamante Azul, Valiente vs Pierroth, Rush, Yoshi Tatsu
Yoshi Tatsu arrived last night. They’re not exactly putting Tatsu in a lot of helpful situations. Bobby Villa officially listed under his new name.
Fugaz teams with the minis after getting in the minis title match. In theory, that could be a preview to the eventually title match (and Electrico/Pierrothito would make the most sense.)
BARACAL (SAT) 03/11/2017Gimnasio Olímpico Juan de la Barrera, Ciudad de México, Distrito Federal
1) Ángel Del Amor & Mr. Leo vs Centvrión & Violencia Jr.
2) ? & Trauma I vs Herodes Jr. & Máscara Año 2000 Jr.
3) Hijo de LA Park & Hijo De Octagon vs Hijo del Fishman & Silver King Jr.
4) Mr. Electro & Silver King vs Dragón Lee & Pierroth
5) Rush vs LA Park
Rush vs LA Park, at the site where Park had some of his crazy brawls with Dr. Wagner. Semimain seems like a waste of Dragon Lee.
The Rebelion leaving AAA have given LA Park all sorts of new indie opponents.
Negro and Trauma I are feuding in Naucalpan right now, but still trios champs. Trauma II is advertised on this show, and on for the ChilangaMask anniversary show that month. (He might be the mystery guy on the BARACAL show too.) He hasn’t been listed in a match since October.
What happened: Daga, Pentagon Jr., and Garza Jr. all left AAA and to join this promotion and the greater indie landscape. Garza and Fenix were added to the Perros del Mal. All mutually decided to relinquish the Perros del Mal name sometime after the show. The “La Rebelion” name came a week later officially, but this is the beginning of that story.
According to the people involved, those three people didn’t tell anyone (including Pentagon telling the other two) that they were going to jump. That’s hard to believe and certainly people in charge knew some point on this day before the big angle, since that big angle only makes sense if they knew they were changing the main event that Fenix was about to get a tag team partner. Still, it’s also clear many people out there for the big angle were not clued in on what was happening, even while it was happening.
The adjusted main event saw the Lucha Brothers (Penta/Fenix) win a five way match which was announced as for the The Crash’s vacant tag team championship. Super Crazy & Juventud Guerrera protested, and the reward was changed to a title shot at a future show. The tag titles instead were determined in a tag match between Super Crazy & Nicho el Millionario (not Guerrera, for unclear reasons) and the Hardy Boys. The Hardys won the titles. If you are reading this on Thursday February 16th, that final match is airing today on Impact Wrestling in some form.
In other action, Flamita kept The Crash Cruiserweight championship over AR Fox and Arkangel Divino defeated Black Danger to win the The Crash Junior Championship.
(Also, I decided I needed to try to do proper reviews on these. I’m not sure how I’ll manage if it’s an ongoing concern and both Elite and LU are back, but that’s a problem for down the road.)
What was good:Everything on this show was watchable. The bonus Hardys match was just OK as a stand alone match, but it was about giving the fans who came to see them all the Hardy Boys spots in a low impact match, and they delivered. Despite being in Tijuana, this was a crowd very familiar with the Hardys and often reacted more like a US indie show than a Mexican one – most of the reactions were ooh”-ing at big spots, and there were few chants beyond “DELETE!”.
I had stylistic issues with the trios match, but otherwise this had good matches. They could’ve cut down the time a little bit, it did feel a little long, but that shouldn’t be a problem if you’re picking and choosing. AR Fox vs Flamita was the best match on the show and the one you should go out of your way to watch.
My GIFs aren’t much good – I didn’t zoom in enough.
Where can I watch it: All the links are below videosluchas3000 has the show complete from a hard camera. Unfortunately, they’ve put up giant translucent watermarks all over the video. It’s not covering ring as long as the entrance screen is lit up bright, but you can tell it’s there and it’s a little distracting. +LuchaTV has commentary and multiple camera versions of Fox/Flamita, the big angle, and the five way tag match. TKD has handhelds of some of the matches.Read More
