04/05 The Crash results (Mexico City debut)

The Crash (WED) 04/05/2017 Gimnasio Olímpico Juan de la Barrera, Ciudad de México, Distrito Federal [Estrellas del Ring, La Aficion, MedioTiempo, Por el Titulo Mex, Record]
1) Arkángel Divino, Black Boy (Baja California), Zumbi b Astrolux, Black Danger (Baja California), Último Maldito
Octagon opened the show, announcing an alliance with his Legado Dragon promotion. Alberto also appeared, saying he’d for sure be on the next show. Carlito confronted him to tease a match. After this match, the main event heels beat up the tecnicos.
2) Keira b Sexy Dulce ©, Santana Garrett, Lady Maravilla, Candy White, Laurel Van Ness [The Crash WOMEN]
Sexy Dulce injured her ankle on a plancha and left the match. Keira beat Lady Maravilla.
3) Rey Horuz b Laredo Kid, Mr. 450, Séptimo Dragón, Último Ninja, DJZ [#1 Contenders, The Crash CRUISER]
Rey Horuz gets a title shot against Flamita. DJZ was hurt taking a 450 splash and taken to the hospital with an undetermined injury. The main event rudos attacked again, but this time Rey & the Lucha Brothers made the save. Said to be a great match.
4) Jack Evans, Máscarita Dorada, Willie Mack b ACH, Bestia 666, Black Tauro (Elite)
Demus 3:16 debuted after the match, attacking old rival Mascarita Dorada and promising to chase him anywhere in the world and challenged him to a mask vs hair match. After this, The Crash (Konnnan), NOAH and Impact formerly announced an alliance.
5) Daga b Extreme Tiger
Scheduled as a four way, but Sami was moved up and AR Fox missed the show (flight?). Said to be a disappointing match. Hijo del Pirata Morgan debuted post match, attacking Daga and saying he was against La Rebelion.
6) Bobby Lashley, Carlito, Jeff Cobb b Blue Demon, Brian Cage, Garza Jr.
Lashley snuck in a foul on Garza. Everyone challenged for every match.
7) Penta Zero M, Rey Fénix, Rey Mysterio 619 b Cody Rhodes, Katsuhiko Nakajima, Sami Callihan
Sami Callihan replaced Matt Sydal (flight issues)

The matches sound good. Good good – the cruiserweight match might the one to see if/when it turns up elsewhere, but I didn’t see anything complete beyond the main event. The people who wrote about the show on social media seemed to have a very good time, and the Rey Mysterio entrance was crazy. The main event was about a ***1/2 exhibition-y all star trios match that was done well and got very good in the last third, with Nakajima feeling much more out of place than Rhodes. It was worked more US style, they all got in big spots at the end, the crowd went nuts for the 619 spot on everyone and Rey picked up the win. If you’re interested in just the quality of matches, they sound like they were all pretty good, and you can skip the next 2000 or so words.

Apolo Valdes guessed attendance at 60%, maybe a bit more. Estrellas del Ring says 70%. It looked a lot more empty that in the photos, with sections of empty seats and the wide ranges of the upper level completely empty. It looked like Arena Mexico on a Tuesday or a Sunday. It was tough to imagine how The Crash was going to make money running this show even if they drew a great gate, and this sort of turnout surely hurts.

The Crash picked a tough day to run. People have also brought up the high ticket prices and the fans being burned by other people who didn’t bring in scheduled names. These are legitimate issues, but the biggest reason is still the old obvious one: The Crash didn’t convince enough people to spend money on the matches they were offering. This was not a show that more than a few thousand people wanted to see, because that’s all who showed up.

The “all-star card” of meaningless matches has to go. I like seeing lot of luchadors getting work, but most of their efforts were wasted and most of the names didn’t mean much. This style of show has been proven not to be effective, especially in Mexico City, many times. Not enough has been learned from the failure of Elite. Elite brought in any big name they could, brought even more foreign stars for it’s international tournament , and drew horribly for a major league promotion. They drew great for a minor league promotion aimed at fervent wrestling fans, and so did The Crash did tonight, because all the Mexico City people who follow non-WWE international wrestling came to those shows. There’s just not enough of those people to fill Arena Mexico or fill Gimnasio Juan de la Barrera, not even close.

Gimnasio Juan de la Barrera is the home of AAA because that’s how AAA hypes it. They’re not the only promotion who’s run there. FULL wanted to two shows there run there last year, got Mexico City mainstream attention doing an angle with Pirata Morgan and a clown, and sold so few tickets that one show was canceled and the other was pretty vacant. (They’re going to try again with Alberto & Distromania, and it’s likely going to end the same way.) Baracal, who has experience promoting concerts around Mexico, had the hardcore pick for feud of the year, LA Park versus Rush, and drew no better than The Crash did in this same arena a month ago. Maybe a bit worse. The Crash can take pride in outdrawing Baracal, but probably at twice the price.

And AAA, who everyone diehard fan hates, who does have that history of not delivering what they’ve promised, who were putting out really bland cards at the time, filled this same Gimnasio Juan de la Barrera. And they filled much larger arenas with the same sort of cavalcade of foreign stars for the Lucha World Cup. AAA convinced people the (completely new and invented) Lucha World Cup because they got advertisers and media to treat like the competition was an important deal, because AAA had existed in the market for 20 years, and because they convinced people that winning the last match meant a lot. The same thing happened in January: AAA convinced people Johnny Mundo versus Pentagon Jr. was a match they had to see, at prices that weren’t much cheaper than these. The Crash told people they were the new alternative company, and did a great job in convince people they would have really good matches, and drew all the people who would come to a Wednesday night show to see really good matches. There’s not enough of those people to fill the building.

(aside 1: Lucha Memes should’ve also been a warning sign. Lucha Memes does great crowd, much better than the many other Mexico City area promotions who are trying to the same concept. They just had a really good card last month, have a track record of delivering on their shows, and still drew less last time. The quality of matches alone only appears to a relatively low amount of the people, important matches draw more people.)

(aside 2: PWG seems to be the cited example for The Crash, I bring it up too, but the goal should be NXT. PWG isn’t running 5000 seat buildings, and is getting friendly wrestler discounts because being there is so important. NXT is getting discounts in their own way, but their big show started in the sizeof buildings The Crash tries. NXT also made their shows easy to see for people who were not in the arena, which substantially helped spread the word about the brand. This is a horse I’ve beaten long past the point of death, but The Crash and other promotions inability to broadcast their shows isn’t just costing them the money they make from people buying iPPVs, but greatly diminishing the benefits they’d get for running good shows. In 2017, if people can’t see a professional looking version of your event, no one but the most diehard fans are going to care. Distributing their should not be something The Crash “should be trying to get to” or “aiming for”, this is something they should’ve been doing for months and everyone involved with the company should be freaking out that this hasn’t happened yet.The Crash is trying to start a fire with two rocks when there’s a convince store with matches around the corner, and it’s craziness. It’s nice of the Crash to take a cell phone into the crowd and shoot video from the 20th row, but that means nothing.)

This is not bleak. Any buzz for a good show helps. The Crash didn’t drew well in Tijuana when it started out, and worked it’s way there by being the Tijuana show people had to go to see. They started off with a Mexico City with a good show, and should draw better if they keep delivering good shows. This is not hopeless, this show is just a stark reminder of the job ahead of them. I suspect the spin is going to be that The Crash knew they weren’t going to draw well in the first try and it would always be this hard, but then it would’ve made sense to built to a show this jammed with stars instead of trying to take over night one. The Crash can still get where they want to be, but it’s going to cost them a lot of money in the short term to build their name in Mexico City. They’re going to figure out if it’s worth it.

The decision to run Wednesdays seemed to be because it was the only day they could get a lot of these wrestlers, especially Fenix & Penta. The Lucha Brothers schedule shows no sign of slowing down, and I wonder if The Crash is ultimately going to have to choose between centering around those guys or choosing more friendly days to run. The show ended live around midnight, which is a rough end time on a Wednesday. The fans were into the main event, but there were people visibly walking out before the show ended.

Hijo del Pirata Morgan actually announced he was leaving AAA earlier in the day, but word generally hadn’t gotten out before he debuted. Pirata quit AAA in the fall, but came back at Heroes Inmortales as a surprise entrant in Copa Antonio Pena. He left AAA for such a short time that most people who follow AAA probably just thought he wasn’t used on a few TV tapings. AAA didn’t have any more interesting plans for Hijo del Pirata of late, occasionally teasing a breakup and feud with Pirata Sr. (who might also be gone.) Pirata was talked up by Konnan when he was still with AAA and fits in better with the Crash. Pirata is listed on both the San Luis Potosi and Tlaxcala tapings, but AAA taping cards are expected to change anyway.

Demus 3:16 is a logical jump along the same lines. He’s already working a lot of indies, and he’s got no hope of doing anything in CMLL. CMLL’s decided most of the minis matches are going to be the first or second card, once in a great while they’ll have a title match or an apuesta match in the fourth card, but no more, and not many of those chances. Those matches pay about nothing, while Demus can make some good money by being Mascarita Dorada’s opponent in Mexico, in the US, and beyond. He wasn’t as definite about leaving CMLL, but the gig he’s taking is much better than one he has. Demus bringing up the idea of merging the minis with the regular division was reflective of this reality: the minis have no chance of earning bigger opportunities in CMLL as it’s currently run, are just dependent on the rest of the promotion getting hot and everyone being paid well. (Of course, the minis who did move up aren’t doing much better.) Both Demus & his brother Akuma were listed as working at least one US lucha indie, and in upcoming months, and I’d assume there will be a lot more.

Sexy Dulce’s suffering an ankle injury, which conveniently took her out of a title match she repeatedly implied she wasn’t doing, is suspicious. I know there’s a report saying it’s serious, but it’s the third straight Mexican title she’s lost without actually losing. It doesn’t really mean anything. Everyone Mexican promoter should’ve already been aware that Sexy is essentially the new female Mil Mascaras, someone who’s going to be forever popular but isn’t going to be putting anyone over. She has value and could be useful, but probably shouldn’t be around anything important. (The Crash’ Women’s title is not important and probably will never be, so whatever happened is pretty much irrelevant.)  I’d say we’d know this is a legit injury if she misses the boxing match, but she still doesn’t have an opponent for it right now and reports about her career have mentioned plans for her debut being pushed back previously. This could be a convenient way to push it back again.

The latest update on DJ Z is he’s going to have surgery on his colon, which they believe he fractured in the match. That sounds awful and they’re not even sure if that’s it. DJ Z was scheduled to be in Mexico for a while, but I’m sure he wasn’t hoping to be in a hospital bed.

Matt Sydal posted on Twitter that weather issues caused his flights to be delayed for eight hours and he apologized for missing the show. Sydal was flying out of Atlanta and I believe man of no social media AR Fox is based out of Atlanta, so I would guess he had the same issue. It didn’t appear either absence was mentioned to the crowd. It didn’t seem to matter except for people looking for autographs before the show. Most of the roster was in the day before for the press conference.

Fenix’s name was listed as both Rey Fenix (US) and The King on the video screen. I could not tell you what that man’s name is right now.

Kind of wonder if the Carlito/Alberto thing was actually setting up the new DistrioMania main event, since that’s probably the next show Alberto is working in this building and he needs a someone to replace Drew Galloway.

La Aficion reported there were problems with the meet & greet (Rey showed up late and fans only got about 15 minutes with him) and online ticketing. There was also a paragraph about being unhappy about the media area being overcrowded which seems to have been removed during the night. They took advantage of their media access to write a story that still included Matt Sydal in the main event. (Again, Sydal can’t be that well known if people didn’t even notice he was not there.)

No next date in Mexico City was announced. Actually, the Crash hasn’t announced any next dates yet, likely because they’re were so focused on this show. They’re expected to run in Tijuana on May 5th with the Young Bucks.