Tonight’s the second block of the CMLL Torneo Increible de Parejas. Volador & Cavernario made it thru last week’s group, and would work as opponents for pretty much anyone. Block B has about four teams who are at the usual level of those who win these tournaments, and about four who would be Valiente type surprises. The long shots are easy to dismiss: Hechicero & Stuka, Titan & Ripper, and Guerrero Maya & Dragon Rojo all could be fun teams, but aren’t usual main eventers. Rush is, but CMLL’s done very little with Terrible, and that’s enough to dismiss that team too.
Euforia doesn’t get a lot more than Terrible, but Atlantis & Euforia have won this tournament before and Atlantis wins this tournament half the time, so they may go away. Dragon Lee & La Mascara is last year’s anniversary match as a team, which could mean they work together and go along way, but probably means they’ll betray each other instead. (Rush vs La Mascara seems inevitable.) Ultimo Guerrero & Valiente are probably the favorites because Ultimo Guerrero is involved. I think Negro Casas & Mistico would set up the bigger tournament final next week, with teammates against teammates on both sides.
The tournament has no bad teams, everything could be a quality match, but time and angles will likely prevent the matches from being too good.
The rest of the card is not all that much. Yoshitatsu debuts in the tercera. (CMLL changed all of their lineup this morning to make his name one word as used in NJPW, instead of the two word “Yoshi Tatsu” spelling used in WWE.) He says he’s in until March 4th. Tatsu seemed to be turning heel and is a rudo on CMLL shows, though that could just be CMLL reflexively booking a foreigner as a rudo. We’ve seen Nakamura and Naito come to Mexico to tweak their characters before introducing those changes in NJPW, and I suspect that’s what is going on here.
Tatsu pulls a rough match to start, teaming with Kraneo & Pierroth against Diamante Azul, Marco Corleone and Volador. That’ll be mostly about the Pierroth/Diamante Azul feud. CMLL’s now five Fridays out from the Homenaje a Dos Leyendas show and the main event should be starting to take shape. It’s about time for mask challenges to be made (and more people to get sucked in, if they’re going for a cage match.)
The other two matches are a minis match (Electrico & Stukita vs Mercurio & Pierroth), which just happens to include the four best choices for next minis champion, and a women’s match (La Vaqureita, Marcela, Sanely vs Metalica, Reina Isis, Tiffany) which seems a bad idea. Metalica is officially a endorsed as a good luchadora if this is a good match, because she’s not been given much help.
CultIcon has a preview of the show, which I always enjoy reading but definitely more so on the days where I only realize I typed the wrong women’s matches after noticing he’s talking about a different one.
The show starts at the usual start time of 8:30pm, airing on ClaroSports. I’m not going to be around – I’m going to AAW, where I’ll see Hijo del Fantasma versus Low Ki and Rey Fenix in trios action – but I’ll try my best to record it remotely anyway.
There’s another notable show tonight in the Mexico City area. Lucha Libre Boom runs Arena Lopez Mateos with a random Caristico, Mr. Aguila, and Ronnie Mendoza versus Black Warrior, Juventud Guerrera, and Super Crazy trios main event. I guess Caristico/Warrior, Aguila/Juvy and Mendoza/Crazy all have history but it looks odd together. Semimain is a four way extreme match and there’s more Mexico City indie guys on the rest of the show.
AAA held a press conference today, mostly to talk about the La Llave a la Gloria contest. The video is here, and, as you can see, they still used the stolen logo. Maybe that’ll come up in post panel interviews. Most of the details about the contest were already known – sign up closes in 5 days, the tryout is a week from Saturday, winner on TripleMania – but that tryout was better explained here as the first stage in a contest that will last all the way thru August. Before, they mentioned it as just being one winner, but now it’s one winner in minis, female, exotico and men’s division. (That means TripleMania will have a Relevos AAA – at least Dinastia has a shot at making the card.)
There’s two over riding themes to the contest: riding the current patriotic wave in Mexico by trying to boost the nation’s wrestling, and AAA as a promotion that’s created new stars for 25 years creating one more in the winner of this contest. That’s kind of the reaction to departures: AAA has unyielding faith in their ability to create new stars, so while those departures may hurt in this moment, they’ll made those guys and they’ll make the guys who replace them. (They and CMLL are pretty alike in this aspect.)
The big reveal was Vampiro as the new director of talent for AAA. (Or it would’ve been reveal if Leo Riano didn’t write about it two days ago.) Essentially, he’s taking over Konnan’s position, as those two guys continue to be linked forever. There had been reports of Vampiro working in this role all the way back to last year’s Lucha World Cup, but it had never been made official and Konnan even recently said Vampiro had left AAA. If there was an issue, it’s obviously worked out. Vampiro gave a strong pro-AAA and pro-Lucha Libre speech to close the press conference.
MedioTiempo talked to Penta el Zero M about his AAA exit. In this one, Penta says he never told AAA he was leaving, but he had previously had conversations with AAA about problems he was having and did not feel AAA was listening to him. Since they weren’t listening to him, he didn’t feel there was a point in telling him he was leaving. Penta notes Zorro did give AAA notice, and claims AAA is trying block Zorro from working places just the same. (Zorro hasn’t seem to confirm this – he did RT me mentioning in on Twitter, but Zorro’s like a lot of luchadors who will seem to blindly RT anything which mentions their name.) Penta wants promoters to contact him directly if they want him to get him booked; he knows there’s a perception that Konnan convinced him and others to quit AAA , but Penta wants it clear that this was his own decision and he’s handling his own business.
Flamita & Hijo de Octagon were on opposite sides of the match for maybe the first time Wednesday in San Luis Potosi. Sabor del Ring says the match was more a feud between Flamita & Golden Magic then a working off what was a big story last year – Golden Magic stole the pin on Octagon at the end from Flamita. (Bandido replaced Jack Evans in the match, though Jack was still there on crutches.)
Super Comando vs Artillero has been added to the GH show at Gimnasio Hercules on 02/26. Super Comando has been back in Mexico this month, though his name hasn’t shown up much. He was in the US for almost all of 2016.
The AAA spot show in San Luis Potosi has a 11 person Copa Hijo del Perro Aguayo. Joe Lider is the only Perro del Mal left and he’s in it, though former members and associates Texano Jr., Averno, Hijo del Fantasma and Ayako Hamada are involved. Ayako showed up at AAA San Luis Potosi a while back but hasn’t been seen elsewhere much, perhaps she’s living in the area?
RobViper has a music video of Elite 05/04/16
Segunda reviews some recent matches, has strong feelings on Delta/Galactar.
LuchaWorld has the latest Lucha Report.
Fuego en el Ring has a new edition of their podcast. I really need an audio feed of these podcasts.
Lucha Underground Season 2 starts airing on KIX TV in south east Asia (think Malaysia) this Monday.
A photographer talks about her experience shooting ringside at DTU show in 2015, with photos. I do like the photographer thinking that maybe they wouldn’t be allowed to take photos, when I see a half dozen people at ringside with camera phones on half the indie shows these days.
Tony Rodriguez is looking hard for a partner for the RIOT show.
Lineups
NGX (SAT) 03/25/2017 Gimnasio Factores Mutuos, Monterrey, Nuevo León
1) Xtreme Boy vs Gemelo Muerte
2) Demenzía vs Sol Naciente
3) Lord Byron vs Psicótico, Core
4) Epydemius vs Centinela, Guerrillero, Último Ninja
5) Aeroboy & Violento Jack vs Daisuke Masaoka & Takashi Sasaki
Masaoka & Sasaki are from FREEDOMS in Japan, where Violento Jack & Miedo Extremo spent the second half of 2016. It’s a safe assumption they’re working the 03/24 DTU show in Arena Aficion,
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