I wrote this at 1pm, and WordPress decided to schedule it for December 26. Better late than never.
CMLL (TUE) 07/25/2017 Arena México [CMLL, Culticon]
1) Apocalipsis & Yago b Fiero & Sangre Imperial 
2) Arkángel de la Muerte, Cancerbero, Sangre Azteca b Astral, Oro Jr., Star Jr.
3) Blue Panther Jr., Stigma, The Panther DQ Disturbio, Misterioso Jr., Sagrado
Tecnicos took 1/3. Sagrado unmasked Stigma for DQ. Misterioso took one of the Panther’s masks.
4) Rey Cometa b Virus [lightning]
Cometa won via plancha
5) Dragón Lee, Guerrero Maya Jr., Johnny Idol b Dragón Rojo Jr., Pólvora, Vangellys
tecnicos took 2/3
6) Negro Casas, Rey Bucanero, Terrible b Ángel de Oro, Marco Corleone, Volador Jr.
Bucanero challenged Angel de Oro to a title match.
I blanked on it, but they were doing a Bucanero/Angel de Oro feud last week and it makes sense they went to a title match. Show doesn’t sound good.
The real big news came in Guadalajara. The early Universal tournament opened the door for some titles changes to finally take place and Los Hijo del Infernales as Mexican National Trios Champions seemed like one which needed a shake up. The surprise is it was the Nuevo Generacion Dinamitas who won the belts last night in Guadalajara. The NGD had won a three team trios tournament last week to get this shot. Sanson, Cuatrero and Forastero are clearly going to be future top stars of CMLL, but this is pushing them upwards a bit faster than anyone had anticipated.
The now unlikely trio of Angel de Oro, Rush and Diamante won these same titles in 2011 as a message from CMLL that they were now to be taken seriously, and that’s the same message here. It’s Sanson & Cuatrero’s second title win in the span of days and I’m not quite sure how much they’re going to be doing with the Arena Coliseo Tag Team championships now. Hopefully one or both of these team titles get defended regularly, because these guys versus any group of tecnico seems pretty interesting.
The Dinamitas were already scheduled to be on Informa this week, so there will be a few highlights shown there. Informa might also be worth watching to find out the final name for the Gran Prix. They’ve been announcing about one name a week, so they might finish it off here. JCR billed it as a big international name last week.
Warrior Steel is listed as replacing Nitro on Saturday, which would be his first match since last March. (He’s the large guy from that year’s Gran Alternativa.) It’s odd CMLL just didn’t move Akuma or Templario up. CMLL does seem to have a thing about not putting large people in the normal opening matches.
El Popular interviewed Princesa Sugehit at the Arena Puebla show. She still wants Zeuxis’ mask. Sugehit is billing herself as the first Mexican luchadora to wrestle in WWE. I suspect that will be repeated forever and believed to be true, but Pantera Surena wrestled in WWE in 1995. It was probably Rhonda Singh/Bertha Faye bringing in an opponent she was familiar (from her time in Mexico as La Monster) with to help her get over, but Surena would actually be first.
Some extra thoughts about the TripleMania announcements
AAA’s lost a bunch of people early in the year, then seemingly intentionally focused on an even smaller group of people (with guys like Elegido, Dave the Clown, Parka Negra, the minis all basically disappearing from TV for the last half year.) It’s come across like AAA just couldn’t manage to convince people to come aboard after others left. Now, for TripleMania, it looks like they’re going to be bringing in a lot of outside people. Maybe AAA hasn’t been bringing people in because they just didn’t want to? I suspect most people will be in once and gone, but it’d be nice if AAA could keep some of the more useful guys around long term to help with the depth?
On the other side, I’m glad Alberto and Rey aren’t there; AAA needs to get people who are there all year over as stars and that can’t happen if they’re forced into minor matches to make room for the visitors. WWE does the guest star deal because they believe it’ll help WrestleMania in the short term, but I don’t think AAA needs that sort of help this year with Psycho/Wagner. (It’s the flipside to bringing back Sexy Star, which basically said AAA doesn’t have any confidence in the women they do have being useful at this moment.)
Ripper was feuding with Blue Panther Jr., which would’ve likely led to him getting a nice payoff for losing his mask. CMLL dropped the feud suddenly (after Ripper made some complaints about how the Invasors had been used in CMLL on Informa.) Ripper has now left CMLL and is back to being Psicosis, but I’d guess he hasn’t left his desire to get that payoff. I don’t know if it happens in AAA or elsewhere, but it’s probably happening before long.
I went back to listen to the attendance mention myself, and I still can’t tell if Zuniga says 60-65 or 70-75. I’m really bad at Spanish numbers. Even with the most favorable reading, AAA accidentally said they sold no tickets in the last month. I believe AAA sold tickets in the last month, and I believe AAA has been throwing out guesses at what percentage full they are all along either for pressure sales purposes or because they couldn’t keep track of what they’ve said. I think AAA is probably going to have sold 90+% by the time the show and the guessing isn’t really going to matter. Here’s what the ticket chart looked like at SuperBoletos this afternoon
Any section with a color in has at least one ticket sold. Some of those closest red and green ticket sections are literally one ticket left available. The closest open seats are the tickets they were talking about adding yesterday. The people who’ve bought tickets so far have gobbled up the most expensive seats, and the ones that are left over are going to be the casual fans who buy the week or day of the show. The best pitch to casual fans is talking about how big and important this show is, and so I’d expect a lot of Psycho Clown and Dr. Wagner from here on out.
In his Record column (helpfully photographed here), Leo Riano almost says he was wrong about Alberto appearing on TripleMania, and goes on to suggest Latin Lover and Charly Manson may appear. Latin had mentioned Vampiro reaching out to him in the past. Charly Manson seemed to be booked all over the place after he got out of jail in 2015, but he’s been seen a lot less this year.
Toscano’ name pops up on next Monday’s Cantu/AAA show in Nuevo Laredo. Cantu’s a rare AAA local promoter who uses indie names mixed in with the AAA guys, and doesn’t necessarily mean one’s going to be the other; Laredo Kid’s used here all the time and doesn’t appear to be going to AAA. Still worth keeping an eye on, since that Copa TripleMania opens the door for a lot of random appearances. Toscano was last in AAA in 2014, let go after a behavior issue at one of the Hard Rock resort shows. He’s been out most of this year after knee surgery, but has been working in Nuevo Leon the last month.
A La Llave a la Gloria video with Star Shock.
Lucha Underground
Today’s Lucha Underground is “Booyaka! Booyaka!”, the 28th episode of the third season. The matches on this episode were taped on May 14 and May 15, 2016.
- Texano vs the Mack in a Cueto Cup second round match
- Pentagon Jr. vs Dragon in a Cueto Cup second round match
- Rey Mysterio vs PJ Black in a non-tournament match (opening minute)
The preview promises more on Son of Havoc and Son of Madness.
This is Rey’s first LU match since Aztec Warfare, 17 episodes ago. With the hiatus, that’s a 252 day break between matches. Part of the reason to air those Mundo/Mysterio vignettes was to keep him in mind while he wasn’t being used in-ring for about half the season; it hasn’t felt like he’s been that far out of the show. Some of Rey’s matches were shot out of order so it probably didn’t feel like such a big gap live. Rey’s been treated like a big star when he’s been used in LU, but he hasn’t been used as much as would’ve been anticipated. If Rey is leaving LU (and if LU is continuing on), it’ll probably be more of an effect from a marketing standpoint of the show than on the onscreen product.
Other Things
LuchaWorld has the latest news update.
The newest edition of LuchaTalk is up
Lineups
CMLL (TUE) 08/01/2017 Arena México
1) Bengala & Magia Blanca vs Apocalipsis & Espíritu Negro
2) Fantasy, Stukita, Último Dragóncito vs Pequeño Nitro, Pequeño Olímpico, Pequeño Violencia
3) El Consejo, Oro Jr., Star Jr. vs Arkángel de la Muerte, Inquisidor, Metálico
4) Drone, Fuego, Stigma vs Raziel, Sagrado, Sangre Azteca
5) Mistico, Stuka Jr., Valiente vs Felino, Mr. Niebla, Negro Casas
6) Ángel de Oro © vs Rey Bucanero [CMLL MIDDLE]
first defense
Consejo is on a lot of shows in his first week, so he’s clearly supposed to be someone important. Rey Bucanero worked hard in his last title match.
IWRG (SUN) 07/30/2017 Arena Naucalpan
1) Fly Tiger & Voltar vs Lunatik Xtreme & Power Bull
2) Mike vs Pantera del Japon
3) Dinamic Black, Hijo del Alebrije, Shaolin vs Demonio Infernal, Kempo Jr., Monaguillo
4) Danny Casas vs Veneno
5) Black Dragón, Hijo De Dos Caras, Imposible vs Gallo Frances, Herodes Jr., Trauma II
6) Hijo de Pirata Morgan & Pirata Morgan vs Hijo del Pantera & Pantera and Black Warrior & Warrior Jr. and Diablo Jr. & El Hijo del Diablo and Villano IV & Villano V Jr. and Negro Navarro & Trauma I and Golden Magic & Mr. Magia and Bombero Infernal & Bombero Infernal Jr. [Legado Final]
The annual father/son battle royal, where one family member replaces the other family member after they’re eliminated. Sometimes they start with all fathers, sometimes all sons. Mr. Magia only seems to get booked in this sort of match. Villano V Jr. is not actually Villano IV’s son, but Villano V isn’t wrestling. Bombero Infernal Jr. is “debuting” – but they’ve acknowledged he’s one of the Ninja Turtles and are just not saying which one.
Mike/Pantera del Japon is what I really want to see, and Danny Casas/Veneno is probably what I’ll end up recording.
