Day: April 23, 2017

LU at C2E2, ChilangaMask Anniversary show, Sexy Dulce wins boxing debut

thecubsfan 1 Comment
photo by CMLL

CMLL (SAT) 04/22/2017 Arena Coliseo [CMLL]
1) Shockercito & Stukita b Pequeño Olímpico & Pequeño Violencia
2) Fuego, Pegasso, Soberano Jr. b Disturbio, Sangre Azteca, Templario
tecnicos took 1/3.
3) Dalys © b Estrellita [CMLL WOMEN]
Dalys took 1/3 to keep the title. 9th defense. Esterllita’s 3rd challenge
4) Ángel de Oro, Blue Panther, Guerrero Maya Jr. DQ Máscara Año 2000, Sam Adonis, Vangellys
straight falls, Sam Adonis fouled Blue Panther.
5) Atlantis, Carístico, Marco Corleone b Gran Guerrero, Kráneo, Mephisto
tecnicos took 2/3

Fan photos showed CMLL installed a video screen in Arena Coliseo sometime recently, though it’s possible it was just a one time thing for a private show/sponsor event this weekend.

CMLL (SUN) 04/23/2017 Arena México [CMLL]
1) Camorra & Cholo b Fiero & Magia Blanca
Fiero and Cholo replaced Sangre Imperial & Templario on Tuesday. Billed as Fiero’s debut. (Fiero wrestled here back in July.)
2) La Vaquerita, Marcela, Skadi b Amapola, La Seductora, Tiffany
Amapola replaced Metalica. Tecnicas took 1/3.
3) Drone, Fuego, Rey Cometa b Metálico, Puma, Tiger
tecnicos took 2/3
4) Ángel de Oro, Guerrero Maya Jr., Stuka Jr. b Bobby Villa, Dragón Rojo Jr., Pólvora
5) Carístico, Marco Corleone, Máximo Sexy b Rey Bucanero, Terrible, Vangellys

Doesn’t seem like there was anything of note on this one.

 

Chilanga Mask (SUN) 04/23/2017 Coliseo Coacalco, Coacalco, Estado de México [+LuchaTV, MedioTiempo]
1) Niño De Cobre b Jerry Calavera, Diablo Jr., Inmortal, Glenn Calavera, Novasonic
The Hermanos Calaveras replaced Freelance and Ryan Kidd. Nino de Cobre (who appears to be trying to switch to simply Cobre) beat Diablo Jr. Good match.
2) Fly Star b Shiryu Dragón, Maldito Jr., Caifan III, Terremoto Negro
no Fly Star, so they worked a five way instead of a trios. Fly Star beat Dragon.
3) Centvrión, Dragón Fly, Impulso b Lokillo, Mr. Leo, Próximo (Baja California)
good match, money thrown in
4) Aero Boy b Bestia 666
Bestia 666 replaced Dave Crist
5) The Platino L Solar I, Makabre, Trauma I, Trauma II, Black Terry, Mr. Maldito [ruleta de la muerte]
in a surprise, Trauma II took the mask of The Platino. (Most seemed to guess Makabre was losing.) Platino is Oscar René Castillo Castellanos, 39 years old, 18 years a luchador, from Tijuana. Bloody match.
6) Hanson & Raymond Rowe b Extreme Tiger & Rey Fénix (US)
merging of two announced matches (Rowe/Hanson and Tiger/Fenix). Very good match.
7) Miedo Extremo b Masada (Texas), Wotan
Muedo defeated Masada

 

Big turnout for the show, and the matches sound like they went well. Dave Crist missing the show sounds like it wasn’t his fault. Freelance was double booked. Not sure about the rest. War Machine versus Fenix/Tiger sounds like a more appealing and a better special match than the two singles matches.

I attended the Lucha Underground panel at C2E2. It was the last panel of the last day in the big panel hall of the convention, and they had a good turnout. They also had Pentagon stand ups around the building promoting the May 31st return. It got me to thinking that it probably cost as much for them to participate on this show as it would’ve around WrestleMania weekend, but being at a comic/entertainment expo is kind of their play: they’re taking for granted they’re going to get a certain portion of the wrestling audience but are hoping the untapped growth is coming from people who might attend something like C2E2. (Still, maybe they could’ve done both, not giving in on that.) The infernal “TV show vs Wrestling show” question came up, and Van Wagenen broke kayfabe to explain it’s kind of just a marketing show – conventional wrestling shows haven’t been on Netflix, but sci fi/reality/action shows are and now they are too. It’s a distinction meant to sway content gatekeepers, with how it changes how they approach the show a bit secondary.

This late slot didn’t seem great for casual or potential people – it’s a long weekend, there was a line of people going as long as people coming when I turned up early afternoon – but there were definitely people giving the show and presentation a chance just to get away from the convention floors. There were also a lot of people very enthusiastic about the show and the wrestlers and wrestling in general; these are two distinct audiences, but two with some significant overlap.

The presentation was preceded by El Rey president Daniel Tibbets promoting the new shows coming to El Rey. Last week’s minor wondering aloud (and every other one) about maybe LU not coming back was dumb because things like this. The reason we’re not getting Lucha Underground right now, the reason why everything is a little screwed up, is because LU is the sun the rest of El Rey orbits around right now. El Rey needs LU to shine whatever light it has on these three new shows Tibbets was pitching to a mildly interested audience, because LU is the only thing El Rey can call a success right now. (LU’s numbers aren’t much compared to WWE, but WWE’s only getting just above USA’s average. LU was getting 2-3x’s El Rey’s network average. It may not be a big deal in wrestling, but it’s a big deal in El Rey.) If El Rey can build new shows off what they’re getting off LU, then LU’s importance to the network only grows. If they can’t, it’s may still be the only thing LU has going and they’ll try to find other shows to work with it. El Rey’s going to continue to want to carry LU as long as El Rey itself exists as a concept.

The panel didn’t break much news, but these panels are never really about that. They did show yet to air clips. We got to see a meeting of Son of Havoc and the debuting Son of Madness, a similarly dressed but bigger character, who have some past association I didn’t completely understand. (This is the bar vignette with two “Sons of Havoc” shown way back in the trailer.) We also saw about three or four minutes of the first episode of part two, which was officially confirmed to be the All Night Long match between Johnny Mundo and the Mack, all the way to the first pinfall and what appeared to be the first break.

I wrote a lot (too much?) about the panel as it was going on. You can read it here. I was struck about how Rey Misterio’s obviously a key part to all of this, and Rey probably wouldn’t be at all involved if not for Konnan getting him to a show and now Konnan’s specifically one of their biggest enemies. Pentagon and Fenix were namedropped by Dorian in normal bits talking about people coming from different places on the show and people who’ve done on the show; if you’re not someone who follows sites like this, you’d have no idea there’s any issues there (and maybe there aren’t.) Most of the questions were to the wrestlers, but Dorian was asked about Season 4 and jokingly said El Rey’s Tibbets should come back out and answer that. Dorian seemed pretty confident a deal was going to get done and soon. (I don’t what “soon” means but, the way he said it, it’s even possible they could announce a pickup around the May 31st renewal.) Dorian was more evasive and roundabout when asked about a LU video game, ending with the “we’re working on it” conclusion that usually means they are working on it but nothing is particularly close. I know people want a grand full featured wrestling video game, but I think LU fans would gobble up even something as simple as a decent low priced phone app game – even if it wasn’t wrestling, like Aerostar in a space shooter or something random. (A Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles style arcade side scrolling beat ’em up arcade game is my personal dream.) LU fans just want to interact with these characters even beyond the game.

Sexy Star/Dulce Garcia won her boxing debut, a four round unanimous decision. You can see the fight here. I’m uneducated on boxing but it didn’t seem like a fight Sexy barely won – not that she was ever in being danger of knocked out or even knocked down, but she also didn’t look that much better than a woman with a poor record. (On the other hand, that women didn’t bother to come to the center of the ring for the announcement; she didn’t think she was going to get her arm raised.) Garcia’s mentioned a goal of winning a title in boxing, and every indication is she’ll keep on fighting.

The local promoter for AAA’s Verano de Escandalo in Ciudad Juarez is hyping these four matches:

  • Dr. Wagner Jr., Soul Rocker, Psycho Clown, Murder Clown, Carta Brava Jr., Monster Clown, one person loses their mask
  • Pimpinela vs Mamba, hair vs hair
  • Drago, Aerostar, Bengala vs Lanzelot, Australian Suicide, Mascara de Bronce
  • La Parka, Argenis, Ricky Marvin vs Averno, Chessman, Super Fly

There’s more matches to come, and what AAA announced obviously has not been equaling what actually will take place. Those matches do generally match the ideas being presented on TV. The Traidor Clowns haven’t been in the mask feud yet (they’ve been in the tag feud), but it’s reasonable they might get involved. Argenis makes sense as the third tecnico to face OGT. Pimpinela and Mamba have been lightly feuding. I suspect it’ll still change more – some of the teams who threw challenges for the tag titles are listed in other matches – but it’s a starting point.

MDA in Arena Coliseo Monterrey on 05/07

That card got much more interesting in the last few matches.

Cibernetico says Elite will (now) return at the end of May. Wait for someone to actually announce a card before you believe it.

RCH returns with their 5th Anniversary show on 06/02 in Arena Naucalpan. Cibernetico vs Tinieblas vs Rayo de Jalisco is the main event, something that sounds like it may draw well but will be a struggle in the ring.

X-Torm and Zarco talk about why their mask match moved from one Tijuana indie promotion to another (though they don’t seem to agree on anything but Evolution Lucha Libre is going to be running for the moment.)

LuchaWorld has the latest news update.

AAA has this week’s TV episode up.

Matt Farmer has lineups and results from 1978.

Lineups

CMLL (FRI) 04/28/2017 Arena México
1) Eléctrico & Fantasy vs Pequeño Nitro & Pequeño Olímpico
2) Dalys, Marcela, Zeuxis vs Estrellita, Metálica, Sanely [Relevos Increíbles]
3) Soberano Jr. vs Sansón [Copa Junior Nuevo Valores, final]
4) Diamante Azul, Marco Corleone, Valiente vs Hechicero, Kráneo, Ripper
5) Carístico, Dragón Lee, Mistico vs Cavernario, Mephisto, Negro Casas
6) Volador Jr. vs La Máscara

Hechicero works a meaningless trio instead of Sabre, so it goes. More appalling to me, CMLL probably knew they were doing Volador/Mascara or something similar here for a few weeks and didn’t really do more than a faked foul to set it up.

No idea why they’re doing a relevos increible match with the women. Might just be something differnet to do something different.

CMLL (SAT) 04/29/2017 Arena Coliseo
1) Bengala & Sensei vs Camorra & Cholo
2) Astral, Sangre Imperial, Star Jr. vs Cancerbero, Disturbio, Raziel
3) La Jarochita, La Vaquerita, Marcela vs Amapola, Reyna Isis, Tiffany
4) Blue Panther, Johnny Idol, Titán vs Luciferno, Mephisto, Sam Adonis
5) Diamante Azul, Dragón Lee, Volador Jr. vs Negro Casas, Rey Bucanero, Vangellys

A show, and one with no random rookie this week.

CMLL (SUN) 04/30/2017 Arena México
1) Leono & Príncipe Diamante vs Cholo & Espíritu Negro
2) Pegasso & Starman vs Hijo del Signo & Metálico
3) Drone, Esfinge, Fuego vs Hechicero, Misterioso Jr., Virus
4) El Gallito & Microman vs El Perico Zakarías & Mije
5) Atlantis, Marco Corleone, Volador Jr. vs Cavernario, Mr. Niebla, Negro Casas
6) Carístico, Dragón Lee, Mistico vs Euforia, Niebla Roja, Último Guerrero

It’s really happening. Fourth from the top because CMLL is weird. Also, the segunda is a tag, so does that means each mascot is getting half pay? I dunno.

Main event has both Niebla Roja vs Dragon Lee and Niebla Roja vs his own teammates.

CMLL (SUN) 04/30/2017 Arena Coliseo Guadalajara
1) Capitán Cobra & Micro vs Destello & Guerrero de la Muerte
2) Fantástico, Johnny Dinamo, Tigre Blanco vs Carlo Roggi, Linterna, Mr. Apolo
3) Black Sugar, El Divino, Nautilius vs Gran Kenut, Mr. Trueno, Thunder Boy
4) Star Black vs Rey Trueno
5) Flash II, Metatrón, Vaquero Jr. vs Joker, Pitbull I, Pitbull II

Reminder that Star Black is the young upcoming guy in Guadalajara. Never a sure thing about anyone making the jump to Mexico City, but that’s what the singles match is about.