Month: August 2017

AAA TV (SAT) 08/26/2017 Arena Ciudad de México, Ciudad de México, Distrito Federal [AAA]
TripleMania XXV
1) Ashley, Dragón Solar, Pardux, Solaris b Bronco González Jr., Chicano, Fetiche, Hahastary [La Llave a la Gloria]
6:41. First of two final matches (and easily the worst of the two, with many people looking nervous. Dragon Solar pinned Fetiche.
2) Angelikal, Hijo Del Vikingo, The Tigger b Ángel Mortal Jr., Tiger Boy, Villano III Jr. [La Llave a La Gloria]
7:28. All three tecnico hit top rope moves on all three rudos at the same time. After the Reina de Reinas match, all 14 participants returned. Vikingo, Angelikal and Ashley were announced as winners, but everyone in the group would be part of a new AAA school.
3) Hernandez, La Hiedra, Mamba, Mini Psycho Clown b Big Mami, Dinastía, Estrella Divina, Máscara de Bronce
6:42. Hiedra hit Mami with a chair from outside and Mamba – suddenly with a short blond hair cut – got the win.
4) Sexy Star © b Lady Shani, Ayako Hamada, Rosemary [Reina De Reinas]
9:55. Lady Shani won a spot in the match via a contenders match in Aguascalientes. Hamada & Rosemary (GFW) were added on 08/18. First TV defense, 2nd overall. Terrible match, with Sexy Star submitting Rosemary by armbar, then putting it back on and apparently pulling Rosemary’s arm out. Martha Villalobos presented the title to Sexy Star.
5) Monsther Clown & Murder Clown b Dark Cuervo & Dark Scoria and Aerostar & Drago and Andrew Everett & DJZ [AAA TAG]
13:23. Secta fall on their 3rd defense, Murder splashed both of them. During the match, Aerostar used the ropes and Murder Clown to climb to the hanging light platform. The platform had been lowered so Aerostar could reach it, and was raised all the way back up before Aerostar leaped off onto everyone. Poder del Norte ran in to attack everyone (not just Drago & Aerostar, but others for no reason.) Raptor made the save for his friends. Dave the Clown returned to TV to help his fellow clowns and Marty the Moth, in clown makeup, also came out to help them.
6) La Parka b Argenis, Bengala, Australian Suicide, Faby Apache, Pimpinela Escarlata, Averno, Chessman, Súper Fly, Bobby Lashley, Jeff Jarrett, Moose, Decnnis, Scorpió Jr., Zumbido, Histeria, Maniaco, Psicosis, Halloween, Mr. Águila, X-Fly, Crazy Boy, Joe Lider, Niño Hamburguesa, Heavy Metal, Lanzeloth, Ricky Marvin, Blue Demon Jr., El Cobarde, Pirata Morgan [Torneo Triplemania]
26:14. Trios entered together in 90 seconds interval, but the match turned out to be everyone for themselves with one winner. Some teams (OGT, Vipers, Guapos, Mexican Powers) entered thru the crowd for no explained reasons. Joe Lider entered as a Mexican Power, instead of as a Perros del Mal as had been advertised days before. (X-Fly replaced him and Kahn-Del Mal seconded them.) However, Lider turned on the Mexican Powers mid match to join the Perros del Mal, in one of a million things going on once. Cobrade Jr. was the mystery man. Sangre Chicana, Cobarde, May Flowers, Los Vatos Locos, Los Payasos and Mascarita Sagrada were lumberjacks in a match with over the top elimination rules. Intocable didn’t appear and was replaced by Ricky Marvin. The GFW team entered individually for no explained reason. La Parka survived a three on one against the OGT to win. Latin Lover presented Parka with the belt.
7) Pagano NF El Mesías [street fight]
16:41, though the action had stopped about two minutes before the match was officially waved off. Moved down a spot. Match went to a no finish when medics checked on Mesias after Pagano hit Mesias with the barbed wire bat to the side of the leg. Rey Escorpion returned to AAA to attack both men, with the idea he was more extreme then both of them.
8) Johnny Mundo © b Texano Jr., Hijo del Fantasma [TLC, AAA HEAVY, AAA CRUISER, AAA LA]
22:04. Moved up a spot. Third defense for Cruiserweight/Heavyweight, fifth defense for Latin American title. Kevin Kross, Mascara de Bronce and Henrandez all got involved, though Mundo won long after interference.
9) Psycho Clown b Dr. Wagner Jr. [mask]
28:42. Wagner was cleanly beaten and unmasked as Juan Manuel Gonzalez Barron, 52, from Torreon.

Wagner apparently let a Japanese photographer take a photo of him unmasked when he was there in May, so this was no last minute call and probably the plan from last year. Maybe before last year, because AAA did start down the Wagner/Psycho and Pagano/Pentagon paths for TripleMania 24 before switching those around, perhaps thinking they needed one more year to set it up.

I don’t know what the deal was with Meisas’ injury. The finish of the match was really flat, as if it really had been cut short by an injury and Mesias was supposed to win and they had no idea what to do. Still, the match and the show had been so long at that point, it seems crazy to think they were going a lot longer and Mesias ended up walking with help to the back. Rey Escorpion’s run-in was totally downplayed by everyone in the ring, to the point where he went over the top even for the usual lucha bit of attacking in injured guy, as if he knew this sucked but had to get himself over.

Jeff Jarrett looked like he had no business being in a ring, but he was treated like a huge deal to set up Parka beating him – and then they played the music because whoever was running it knew Parka was winning and figured beating Jarrett must’ve been it. The match went on for a few more minutes.

Maybe Marty is allied with the Clowns going forward, but it also felt like they were just checking off appearances for regulars with all the people running in. Ricky Marvin got Intocable’s spot in the Torneo TripleMania. Elegido appeared before the show for a giveaway. I think that leaves Gronda and the lesser minis.

I haven’t watched any of the matches again complete – this is time 3 of 5 I’ll be writing about this show, so I’ll be doing it eventually – but it’s so obvious something happened with Lady Shani and Sexy Star that I should’ve picked up the first time; the Mexican announcers seemed to. Lady Shani lands a sliding kick to Sexy Star’s head about 2:30 in, Sexy takes a moment to recover, then stops selling all of Shani’s offense, and Shani starts swinging and Sexy goes for her hair. Piero tried to pull them apart and still needed Ayako’s help to do it. It might have started before that, and Sexy was weird all match leading to her pulling Rosemary’s arm out. I’ve not been on Twitter today, but Rosemary apparently praised Shani, Ayako and Vampiro for calming down the situation while ripping Sexy Star for her actions. Rosemary says Sexy Star didn’t apologize and is trying to tell people it was an angle.

Any other promotion in the world would fire Sexy Star after this – but recall, AAA never has fired Sexy Star. They didn’t last time either, she just told them she was retiring and they thought that was good enough. And even if they did fire her, this is on AAA for enabling Sexy Star all this time. You could see something like this coming after Sexy Star ripped the other AAA women and Lady Shani ripped her back on +Lucha’s podcast, except apparently AAA didn’t see enough to put a stop to it. Really, you could see this coming from the moment they rehired Sexy Star and gave her the title the first night back – that was inviting an ego driven disaster and it took two matches to get one. Dorian & Marisela made that call, not Vamp, and that’s the strongest reason nothing will get done – getting rid of Sexy Star would be admission they screwed up, and they’re not going to take that L. They’re not even going to take a smaller L – it sticks out that Rosemary mentions an apology from Vamp but did not mention the owners of AAA offering the same.

(Sometimes I think Vampiro’s given so much freedom to do whatever he wants – like chokeslam the heavyweight champion as the semimain underneath their biggest title match of the year to set up no match – because the Roldan’s know how many messes he has to clean up and they figure letting Vamp putting himself over will keep him happy, or at least keep him going. It hurts the onscreen product for the fans, but the fans aren’t the priority.)

I have no proof, no one’s told me anything, but if I got to put money on it, I would bet that Hijo del Vikingo was planned to win the La Llave a la Gloria competition from day 1. He’s the only one of the three winners who didn’t even go thru a tryout, and with them instead putting him on TV right away (like how Daga was put on TV before he actually won that competition.) I think AAA was happy to find Angelikal, and maybe have discovered Ashley thru these tryouts, but I believe this was a bit of a storyline. Which is fine, if you want to tell a story about a guy winning it, fixing it so a guy the caliber Hijo del Vikingo wins is good and it still gave other people a chance they wouldn’t have gotten.

It’s too bad that second Llave match happened with about 15% of the crowd in the building. It would a much better experience for everyone if AAA took a page from WWE and NJPW, had a fan fest the day before the show some place, and ran minor matches the level of the La Llave a La Gloria ones so these shows wouldn’t be five hours long. They could even run last minute angles there or interviews. But, the only thing AAA takes from NJPW & WWE is storyline ideas without understanding them, so understanding a fan fest or pacing is unlikely.

Mascara 2000 Jr. wants a hair vs hair match with Dr. Wagner now that they’re both unmasked. Or he just wants an easy payday.

CMLL (SAT) 08/26/2017 Arena Coliseo [CMLL]
1) Pequeño Nitro & Pequeño Olímpico b Eléctrico & Stukita
2) Arkángel de la Muerte, Cancerbero, Metálico b Oro Jr., Pegasso, Starman
Oro replaced Astral and hurt a leg. Cancerbero replaced Nitro.
3) Blue Panther, Blue Panther Jr., The Panther b Puma, Tiger, Virus
4) Johnny Idol, Titán, Valiente b Felino, Mr. Niebla, Negro Casas
5) Marco Corleone, Matt Taven, Michael Elgin b Rey Bucanero, Terrible, Vangellys
Foreigners won falls 2/3.
6) Juice Robinson b Shocker
Juice took falls 1/3. Foreigners remain undefeated.

It happened. Everyone lived.

CMLL (SUN) 08/27/2017 Arena México
1) Disturbio & Espíritu Negro b Fiero & Magia Blanca
Disturbio replaced Cholo.
2) Canelo Casas, Hijo del Signo, Inquisidor b Flyer, Oro Jr., Príncipe Diamante
Rudos took 1/3
3) Rey Cometa, Soberano Jr., Stuka Jr. b Misterioso Jr., Nitro, Sagrado
Nitro replaced Morphosis (may now officially be gone). Tecnicos took 1/3.
4) Ángel de Oro, Mistico, Valiente b Kráneo, Rey Bucanero, Vangellys
Angel de Oro replaced Niebla Roja. Tencicos took 1/3.
5) Juice Robinson, Marco Corleone, Michael Elgin b Ephesto, Luciferno, Mephisto
Foreigners took 1/3.
6) Matt Taven b Euforia
Taven took 1/3. Foreginers remain undefeated.

The booking of this feud has become very obvious: I think you can figure out the outcome of every match until 09/01, and then the outcome in the Gran Prix. Still, it’ll probably be a fun time. I just hope Taven puts in a good word for Euforia.

Team International also went mini golfing.

Niebla Roja missing a show is not a positive sign but it’s too far out to matter. He’s booked the next couple days and so we’ll quickly know if it’s a pattern.

The Crash will have a press conference on Tuesday to talk about the Rush signing, Penta’s travels, and upcoming plans. Fenix is among those listed as appearing, but he hasn’t been appearing as scheduled of late. He’s got a big week of a mask vs title match in AAW and BOLA in PWG, and you should sound the alarms if he’s not at this press conference on Tuesday at 2pm.

In typical cynical indie action, Mantra defeated Jason X in the main event Pleu’sports debut show in Arena Azteca Budokan in the finals of a cage match. Jason X said he was 40 with 5 years of experience. I only have a record of him wrestling twice before and he was easily the least known person in the match.

DoradaFan has a Soberano Jr. music video.

Segunda Caida finds joy in an Arkangel, Metalico and Policeman team.

Noticas del Sol de Laguna has an interview with Torreon luchadora Linda Llamarada.

Lineups

CMLL (SAT) 09/02/2017 Arena Coliseo
1) Kairos vs Demasiado
2) Príncipe Diamante & Sensei vs Warrior Steel & Yago
3) La Vaquerita, Lady Maravilla, Sanely vs La Comandante, La Seductora, Tiffany
4) Blue Panther vs Vangellys [lightning]
5) Soberano Jr., Stuka Jr., Titán vs Dragón Rojo Jr., Hechicero, Pólvora
6) Carístico, Kenny King, Valiente vs Kojima, Shocker, Terrible

Kenny King joins Kojima as at least hanging around for the weekend. I’d assume this lineup means all the other foreigners are finishing up on 09/01.

I don’t have a painless way to search for singles matches that are opener, so I don’t know if that hasn’t happened in a long time or just plain hasn’t happened ever. It’s exceedingly strange; it’s obviously a tryout match and almost a dark match, but it’s strange they didn’t bump two of the guys from the “segunda” to give them their spot. That 1v1 combination doesn’t seem to make any sense: the only Kairos I know is a guy working indie shows in Puebla who’s never faced Demasiado and never wrestled in Arena Puebla. I guess he must be in CMLL’s school somewhere.

LI (SUN) 09/17/2017 Arena Coliseo Guadalajara
1) Magic Girl & Tarahumara vs Eva Bernal & Guerrera Isis
2) Flash I, Hijo del Pantera, Súper Astro Jr. vs Ángel Negro, Hijo Del Villano III, Villano III Jr.
3) Pantera, Solar I, Súper Astro vs Heddi Karaoui, Rocky Casas, Veneno
4) El Fantasma, Rayman, Villano IV vs Hijo de Máscara Año 2000, Máscara Año 2000, Universo 2000 Jr.
5) Rayo de Jalisco Jr. vs Canek
Cien Caras will second Canek

Legends Inmortales continues to drift away from “Legends” with the names involved, but it was always just an excuse to book Canek and, for Guadalajara, any Rayos or Dinamitas who wanted to be involved. The poster makes it seem like Rayo’s facing both Canek & Cien Caras.

Maybe a normal update later, but just to hit the big things.

TripleMania is still up on Twitch, but only until the day is over; they’ll take it down after 24 hours. It’ll eventually turn up on AAA’s YouTube channel and it’ll no doubt be pirated, but if you want to be sure to watch it, tonight’s the night.

Timestamps: jumping close to the match start, not the entrances, using the Spanish feed but the English may not be that off.

0:40:14 – La Llave a La Gloria Match 1 (bad)
0:53:05 – La Llave a La Gloria Match 2 (great)
1:49:29 – Relevos AAA (good)
2:07:50 – Reina de Reinas (a disaster of epic proportions)
2:40:56 – AAA Tag Title Match (good)
3:17:17 – Torneo Triplemania (a complete unwatchable mess)
3:52:35 – Pagano vs Mesais (surprisingly boring)
4:20:00 – TLC ladder match (good)
5:14:55 – Wagner vs Psycho (great)

No attendance was announced. I think this is going to be a situation where all the tickets were bought, but many were not used – there were visible empty floor seats, either from people who decided to watch the boxing match instead or scalpers who got left holding after that match was announced.

The boxing match did end just as Wagner/Psycho was starting, but the post match of that coverage meant Televisa was airing the mask match on a 10-20 minutes and anyone with a Twitter account was spoiled. There was a lot of talk, even backstage, about AAA stopping the show at some point to make sure the mask match didn’t happen until after the fight. There were parts late where it felt like things were going longer than they needed to for that reason, but my hunch is Televisa was always going to be content with airing the Wagner/Psycho match on a delay and the show went very long because AAA just put too much stuff on it.

The Twitch broadcast stayed up the entire show. They had over 60K viewers in Spanish and another 10K in English at the peak. The US announcers were pointing out how they were beating various gaming channels and it came off as a success in that way. Assuming the ad revenue is what they wanted it to be, I expect this or something like this to happen again for next year’s show.

The big news on the show

• Dr. Wagner Jr. unmasked after 32 years. That was amazing
• which means that poster was really right after all and AAA both successfully made the deal to get their biggest mask loss ever and couldn’t keep it quiet for one more day.
• Johnny Mundo is still champ, and they’re going to keep doing the stuff with him and Vampiro forever because it got them the non-Mexico attention they desperately crave.
• Neither Kevin Kross nor Mascara de Bronce had that magical briefcase, and I’m kind of wondering if it got dropped or if AAA is just horribly inconsistent. Oh wait.
• Aerostar did a dive from space and yet Monster & Murder Clown are tag team champions. To be fair, Murder was the only guy who caught Aerostar so he does deserve an aware for saving the dude’s life.
• Sexy Star is still Reina de Reinas champion, but no one’s talking about that. There was an initial PW Insider reported where Rosemary was said to fear shoulder damage and the others almost got into a fight with Sexy Star over it backstage. Sexy Star was acting very strange by the end of that match, grabbing out to Rosemary’s arm and wrenching it around after the match was over. The allegation is she got stiffed by Shani and took it out on Rosemary, but I don’t know. I do know that match was just as much a disaster when Sexy Star was out of the match as in it, with too many time spent around a lousy chair that wouldn’t stay up right and all the women looking upset about what was going on. Every wrestler on Twitter is livid at Sexy Star, AAA hasn’t said anything. I think nothing comes of it, except maybe Sexy Star gets to pick her opponents going forward because not that many people seem to want to work with her.
• AAA’s completing a change in how they handle their training. Gran Apache (and others) would train AAA wrestlers at other schools, but now it appears AAA will have their own Vamprio run school. (This would seem to imply Vampiro is moving to Mexico full time, which has not been hinted at before and may not actually be the case.) Angelikal, Hijo del Vikingo and Ashley all were announced as winners – in something that felt like it might have been known before they got out there, because no one reacted as big (happy or crushed for losing) as you’d expect for that sort of thing – but all 14 finalists will be the first class in the school.
• Rey Escorpion showed up for the no-finish of the Pagano/Mesias match. He’s definitely jumped to AAA. Maximo & La Mascara showed up after the conclusion of the mask match, and they might have been simply visiting for the night. Cobarde was the mystery person in the Torneo TripleMania, which is not the sort of surprise they’d keep secret and suggests they really might have been trying to get Alberto but wouldn’t pay him what he wanted. Latin Lover returned to award the belt, but never wrestled so he must not be able to and it didn’t seem like anyone returning for that match was back for more than the night.

The English announcing was not any good. Gill & Ramirez were more professional than Striker’s performances, but they came in with almost zero product knowledge and trying to wing it. They made many references to AAA not giving them a format sheet or preparing them at all, but it’s also clear they did not watch any AAA and their preparation was limited to looking a few things up on wikipedia beforehand. They clung strongly to people they knew from elsewhere (Vampiro, GFW, Vampiro, Blue Demon, Vampiro, Vampiro, Vampiro) like a young child’s security blanket. Not being able to ID the Llave guys is one thing, not being able to ID the OGT guys or being surprised Wagner would start a promo “bien bien bien” presented the product in a worthless way. This happens every year, and it’s clear AAA is fine with the product being presented terribly because they let the same mistakes happen every year. AAA will never expand into the US market with these efforts, but they don’t seem to concerned about that either.

I didn’t hear great things about the Spanish announcers and their prep either. Announcing is just not a thing AAA values at all.

The other news from last night is The Crash finally announce both Rush & Pierroth would be working their shows. They have not left CMLL, but are working in The Crash as CMLL reps. That means CMLL has agreed to some deal where The Crash pays CMLL for each appearance; given how much CMLL didn’t want to work with The Crash prior, it must be a pretty good amount. Rush will be working the Gran Prix on 09/01, will start with The Crash on 09/02 and be working The Crash dates after that. Rush & Pierroth may still work CMLL dates when they’re not working with the Crash. This is a short term agreement, and who knows what everyone will be thinking when it’s done.

On Twitter, Konnan acknowledged it was a package deal: Rush was only coming if they booked Pierroth as well. I do not envy finding a way to use Pierroth on a promotion that’s mostly Dream Match based, and that will be the big challenge to overcome long term. I suspect he’ll actually be using the La Bestia del Ring name, since it’s CMLL who’s been forcing him to stick with Pierroth for this time.

CMLL (FRI) 08/25/2017 Arena México [CMLL, luchablog]
1) Robin & Star Jr. b Akuma & Espanto Jr. 
11:06. Tecnicos took 1/3.
2) Disturbio, Misterioso Jr., Sagrado b Drone, Guerrero Maya Jr., Pegasso 
17:20. Rudos won 2/3.
3) La Vaquerita, Princesa Sugehit, Sanely b Amapola, La Comandante, Zeuxis 
8:29. Sanely replaced Silueta. Straight falls. Zeuxis purposefully unmasked Sugehit for the DQ in the first, and Sugehit got away with a mask pull on Zeuxis in the second.
4) Soberano Jr. b Cavernario [lightning] 
9:13. Soberano won via powerbomb, though it was a clear screw up. Tirantes counted Cavernario down when he kicked out. Both wrestlers argued the count, continued to their planned finish, but Tirantes refused to count again.
5) Dragón Lee, Mistico, Niebla Roja DQ Gran Guerrero, Shocker, Terrible 
11:04. Tecnicos took 2/3, the last by DQ when Gran Guerrero unmasked Niebla Roja.
6) Juice Robinson, Matt Taven, Michael Elgin b Diamante Azul, Último Guerrero, Volador Jr. [Relevos Increíbles] 
13:10. Tecnicos took 1/3. Foreigners worked as total rudos. Johnny Idol came to ringside to distract Ultimo Guerrero and Matt Taven snuck in a foul for the win.

Like last week, there was nothing great on the show but it was not a bad use of time. Cavernario & Soberano clearly could have a great match if they were given the chance, though we may have to wait until NJPW wants to do it since CMLL doesn’t appear to be giving it any run. After playing tecnico/tecnico last week, the foreigners are working more simply rudo without Marco around to keep them in line.

Sugehit/Zeuxis was easily more over than Gran Guerrero/Niebla Roja. I’m not sure if that would be the case if the roles were reversed, because some of the non-reaction has to be displeasure about that match being the mask match and having more spotlight on the women wouldn’t actually help them. The best thing for the women is to continue getting more over than the men, stealing the show on 09/16, and forcing CMLL to take them more seriously going forward. They’d seem to get more out of that then a one night “we screwed up so, here’s this” main event. I’m not sure if there is a best thing for Roja/GG, but I expect they’ll continue to muddle thru their generic build to their generic match, it’ll be decently good, and then we’ll all just move on.

TripleMania is today. You can watch the show for free on Twitch, in English (Kevin Gill, Gabriel Ramirez) and Spanish. The schedule, in Central Time

• ongoing-7pm: best of TripleMania marathon
• 7:00-7:40: preshow, previewing the card
• 7:40-8:00: La Llave a La Gloria finals
• 8:00-???: main TripleMania card
• after the Mayweather/McGregor: Psycho Clown vs Dr. Wagner

That match is airing after the fight on Televisa, as it’s been advertised on Televisa for months. I guess there’s always a change things could get screwed up and Televisa would air on some delay, but I believe the plan is still for it to air live.

I’m curious on how ads are going to work on Twitch. There will be some, but they’re airing about every 15 minutes on the best of stream, hopefully they’ll be timed to be in between matches when they actually go live.

My plan is mostly to write updates on Twitter and try to aggregate them on the website, then post a recap later. But my website will die with a swift breeze so Twitter’s probably the best bet.

Outside the main event, there’s not a lot of news going on with the matches. For the people not in matches, the answer is a lot of maybes.

• Taya’s tweeting happily with other ex-AAA people and doesn’t seem like she’s about to work TripleMania.
• AAA probably wants Alberto to be the mystery man in Torneo TripleMania and there’s a reported he’s headed to a feud with Jeff Jarrett that’ll start here. The one bit certain to be true from what Alberto said the other day is he’s not going to be working this match unless he’s gotten paid in advance.
• LA Park isn’t listed as working any shows today. He’s also insisted many times he won’t be working this show.
• Same with La Mascara and Maximo, though Maximo had previously said he was taking a booking on this day elsewhere.

I checked Mexico’s trademark search to see if there was any movement on “El Patron Alberto”, since AAA trademarking it was said to be an existing source of strife between them. Nothing’s changed, but AAA did officially file for “Lanzelot” about 10 days ago.

AAA had a press conference yesterday, but it was mostly inconsequential. They just had Dorian & the CEO of Roshfrans interview both Psycho Clown and Dr. Wagner about this match. Dr. Wagner was teasing like this could be it for him, which is probably the way to go regardless of the outcome. No one else appeared, though+LuchaTV got brief promos with Crazy Boy, DJZ, and Intocable and Scorpio Jr. There’s also a Vamprio interview which might be from a previous press conference – it’s so tough to tell when anything is from on +LuchaTV – but I could only make it about two minutes before I needed to move on.

CultIcon previews TripleMania.

Konnan said The Crash will have an announcement tomorrow. Konnan managed to post that exactly at 11:59pm local time, so your guess is as good as mind if he meant Saturday or Sunday. TV is the what people want the answer to be, but I’m skeptical it’ll be that. The Crash & Rush rumors are getting another run and Rush is hinting at surprises on his Facebook.

Coliseo has Juice Robinson vs Shocker, which will be weird. CMLL’s had the foreigners win every match and that would not be a time to change it. DTU is running the car wash with a Hormiga/Camuflaje Alto Impacto title match. Sunday has Euforia vs Matt Taven.

La Aficion has a complimentary profile of Rush, which might not be coincidentally coming after the not complimentary article.

El Hijo del Santo writes about the time he and Negro Casas were thrown out of a match for going out of control with brawling. It’s this match. Santo says they were suspended from Arena Mexico 60 days. They wrestled in Arena Mexico less than a month later.

Lucha Underground posted a Mariposa promo. She makes a point of mentioning that Marty is her half-brother and not of full blood, and that she’d rather Marty was going after her than Melissa.

LuchaWorld has the latest edition of their podcast.

CMLL edecanes are featured in the latest H Para Hombres magazine.

Lineups

CMLL (FRI) 09/01/2017 Arena México
1) Blue Panther, Blue Panther Jr., The Panther vs Cuatrero, Máscara Año 2000, Sansón
2) Marcela, Princesa Sugehit, Silueta vs Amapola, Dalys, Zeuxis
3) Carístico, Mistico, Soberano Jr. vs Cavernario, Felino, Negro Casas
4) Diamante Azul, Dragón Lee, Euforia, Mephisto, Rush, Último Guerrero, Valiente, Volador Jr. vs Johnny Idol, Juice Robinson, Kenny King, Kojima, Marco Corleone, Matt Taven, Michael Elgin, Sam Adonis [Gran Prix]

It’s the Gran Prix, so a four match show. Surprisingly, we’re free of Niebla Roja & Gran Guerrero for a week, though Sugehit and Zeuxis are back again.

Mascara 2000 hasn’t wrestled in CMLL since they used him for the Sanson/Cuatrero vs Navarro/Terry feud, and hasn’t wrestled in Arena Mexico since June when they ran this exact same match. There’s no reason for him to be involved on this show but it helps to be friends with the people in charge.

You should stop right not and not read this update if you want to go into tonight’s mask match with 0% knowledge of what’s going to happen. I’d point you the the preview I wrote for Voices of Wrestling instead. The normal news update will go up separately. 

Late last night, a poster surfaced for an AAA show in Oaxaca on 09/17. The main event is listed as Poder del Norte against Hijo del Fantasma, a surprise luchador, and “presented without a mask” Dr. Wagner Junior. That would indicate Wagner is losing his mask tonight to Psycho Clown.

The poster is everywhere among people who talk about lucha libre right now; the most scandalous image in lucha libre is the lineup for a show that’ll draw maybe a 1000 people. I’m not exactly sure where the poster originated; the Facebook accounts for the local group (Promociones Rams) haven’t been updated since 2013, but I’d guess it was on Facebook somewhere. Dr. Wagner has seen the poster, because he’s RT-ed it, but he hasn’t actually said anything about it and neither has AAA. I’d be surprised if they acknowledged it either way.

Rams is a small promotion by AAA affiliate standards; they don’t need run many shows, they don’t get TV tapings. They wouldn’t be figure to be in AAA’s inter circle. Monterrey’s KDNA group seems to be a more important group – they do run every week, they get major shows – and their next lineup has “the loser of the mask match” instead of a specific person. (Rob asked around about this, and the impression was the KDNA promoter doesn’t even know who’s going to be sent to him for this show at this point.) It doesn’t make a lot of sense for AAA to be telling people who will be losing this match, and this doesn’t seem like the person they’d normally pick to tell. There’s plenty of people who work much more directly to AAA who did not know who was going to lose as recently as last night.

This reveal would represent a tremendous screw up by AAA to let this get out. It make no sense, it would be a willful error of a giant magnitude to the point where I have trouble believing someone could mess up this bad. I may have trouble with that belief, but most people talking about this point to all the other times AAA’s royally screwed up in recent years and don’t see it as that much of a stretch. My instincts and what I’ve picked up has suggested Psycho was the loser tonight, but I’m at the point where I don’t really trust my instincts (the Atlantis/Sombra point?) – I now think it’s going to be Dr. Wagner who’s unmasked.

This poster is everywhere. It’s going to be hard to avoid spoilers. And yet – I don’t think it really hurts the amount of interest in the match. A Dr. Wagner fan is not going to turn away because he’s going to lose – there might be more interest because the more historically relevant man losing his mask. It’ll dampen the excitement of the match if people feel they know the outcome already, but everyone’s going to want to see that unmaking moment anyway because it still means so much. And, if this happens and once we get over the colossal screw up of it all, there’s also a story about AAA incredibly pulling off the mask loss that no one thought was actually possible.

If I was running AAA, I would cancel that show and never work with that promotion again for letting that promoter out there, I would fire the person in the office responsible for working with them as soon as possible, and I would carry an angry grudge for a long time. It is a good thing I do not run wrestling promotions for my own health. But that all can wait – they’re going to announce a sell out tonight and they’re going to do huge numbers, even if everyone’s already been leaked the outcome.