(another) CMLL tag team tournament gets underway, Vampiro, The Crash WrestleCon

CMLL continues it’s unending streak of tag team tournaments with the beginning of one for the vacant CMLL World Tag Team championships. The champions were Shocker & Negro Casas, who were stripped of the titles for not defending them recently enough. They are on the card tonight and could’ve just defended them, but the point is to have a big match for Homenaje a Dos Leyendas and Shocker’s probably not goign ot be in too many big matches.

Tonight’s block of teams

• Valiente & Volador Jr.
• Mistico & Dragon Lee
• Sanson & Forastero
• Ultimo Guerrero & Gran Guerrero
• Atlantis & Soberano
• Euforia & Kraneo
• Rush & Pierroth
• Mascara Ano 2000 & Herchicero

The Guerrero team is strong favorite. Misitco & Dragon Lee, Volador & Valiente and Atlantis & Soberano have shots to advance as well. This is a good group of teams, though tournaments are more dependent on how much they have and how much they care about making the matches interesting (as opposed to just making sure the losing team gets in all their spots.)

Valiente is a late sub for Caristico, announced out due to injury. The nature of the injury is not mentioned. Caristico hasn’t been seen in a match for about two weeks, having also missed a big show in Xalapa this past weekend. Caristico hasn’t said anything about his injury on Twitter, though he did RT a Michinoku Pro post about a Jinsei Shinzaki show on June 24.

The actual main event is Marco, Angel de Oro and Niebla Roja versus Cuatrero, Mephisto & Ephesto in build up to Oro & Cuatrero on 03/16. A Guadalajara trio of Titan, Triton and Esfinge take on Shocker, Negro Casas and Felino. Triton & Esfinge have talked about wanting to form a trio with Titan, Felino has talked about wanting to more serious, and I guess we’ll see which sticks. Tiger, Puma & Virus face the Panthers & Fuego, and the show opens with minis match Shockercito & Ultimo Dragoncito versus Mercurio & Pequeno Nitro.

The show will air at 8:30pm on Claro and Facebook. Their website is no longer region blocked, so there should be no problems this week.

CMLL announced Matt Taven will return to the promotion for the 03/16 Homenaje a Dos Leyenda show. No match has been announced. Taven challenged Ultimo Guerrero for the middleweight championship on last year’s show. CMLL already has an apuesta match and a tag title match scheduled, so Taven’s probably in a trios match.

CMLL is starting a look back at past Homenaje a Dos Leyendas with the 1999 show, where Hijo del Santo & Negro Casas defeated Scorpio Jr. & Bestia Salvaje in a mask/hair vs mask/hair match.

Rush was on Deportes en Claro talking about how strives to be the best every day.

Canek is main eventing a show a show with many CMLL wrestlers in Arena Aficion on 03/15. You’re appealing to fans who generally gave up watching wrestling 25 years ago if you’re main eventing with Canek in 2018. Estrellita is on the undercard and was guest commentary last week on Claro, so she’ll be back wrestling in Arena Mexico at some point soon.

NJPW announced their Best of Super Junior tournament this year runs from May 18 to June 4. Two of Dragon Lee, Volador Jr., Soberano Jr., Titan and Barbaro Cavernario will probably represent CMLL on that show.

Puma King explains his new YouTube channel as a way for fans to see life thru the eyes of a wrestler.

AAA

Vampiro was on the Stone Cold Steve Austin podcast. It was a trip to land much like our own, but with some key facts along. Vampiro came off as if exaggerating to impress how great he and AAA were doing Austin, and Austin came off as occasionally skeptical but not really informed on anything on lucha libre beyond watching a few highlight clips of Lucha Underground. He was fine with Vampiro being Vampiro and seemed to genuinely like him. I noted a thousand words of strange things said during this interview. Here are some of them:

• Vampiro says Lucha Underground is doing 26 episodes this year. He describes his role on the show as “the go to guy for everything, I fill the holes, producing, editing – helping edit, excuse me, writing and agenting, that’s my thing, and then commentating and the Vampiro character, he’ll be back, I’m told.” Austin asks about the editing, and Vampiro reveals he means he sits in the editing booth while the editors work and points out things. (This is the tenor of the conversation.) Vampiro says he’s 100% responsible for those things in Mexico and is picking up a lot from watching people do it in Lucha Underground.
• Vampiro said the season 3 round of Lucha Underground tapings were too intense, with different cliques not getting along. They weeded out some of the troublemaking people and things are better now. Vamprio says LU won’t have a developmental system, but did run tryouts before this season started, and are looking for people with desire and who understand this won’t be a full time thing.
• They’ve only had two retape things twice in Lucha Underground, and they leave all the other mistakes in.
• Vampiro says he’s been with AAA for three years, and was promoted executive producer last March.
  • Three years means Vampiro working there when Konnan was still there, so that’s maybe not correct? Perhaps he got confused with Lucha Underground on the timeline, or considers that his AAA start.
• Vampiro: “In the last eight months, AAA has quadrupled in size. If we were doing 200 shows a year, now we’re closer to 800.” Pushes the move to live on Twitch, but seems to think the Space show is also airing live. Vampiro claims the TV tapings are doing 9 to 14,000 people per show.
  • Last Sunday’s AAA taping was at a half full 6,000 seat building. The Aguascalientes was half full as well. Toluca and Mexico City looked better but neither building was close to 9,000. Sunday’s Rey de Reyes is their first 10K building of the year.
• Vampiro talks about running the TV tapings from backstage like a mad man. Vampiro notes they have viewers live from around the world so, during the taping, he’ll pop up in a box on a screen and start explaining everything what’s going on English, including burying things that aren’t going right.
  • This has never happened. This is at least the second time Vampirio has said this is happening. Is this something he’s been pitching and it hasn’t gotten done? Is he under the impression it’s actually happening? Is this happening on Space and we’re not seeing it? Can it please start happening?
• AAA is just as crazy as Lucha Underground according to Vampiro, who estimates 80% of the wrestlers on Lucha Underground are from AAA. Vamp says people are moonsaulting off the light scaffolds every night. Austin does not quite believe this.
• Vampiro explains AAA has coaches that work with luchadors on how to deal with stress and your family when you’re off the road, and how to save money, and the wrestlers all go thru those classes before they even get in the ring. They’ve got a gym with professional trainers, and Vampiro comes by once a week to teach them what they need for TV
• Austin asks about Pentagon. Vampiro: “Pentagon’s getting a little pudgy [] but he’s in shape.” Vampiro says Penta is working too many indie dates and isn’t able to eat right. Later, Vampiro characterizes Pentagon and the others who’ve left as sort of “rebellious teenagers” who’ve grown up a bit, seen that their parents were right, and may be welcomed back to AAA.
• Vampiro would like to do more with the women in AAA, but feels the fans and the promoters don’t want it. He blames social media for getting the wrestlers to do crazy things. Austin incredibly brings up LA Park, and it does not sound like Vampiro is expecting to see him in AAA soon. Vampiro think Marco’s leaving Mexico soon. Vampiro defends Sexy Star. Vampiro says guys who never were top stars shouldn’t be agents or have a say in wrestler’s characters. Vampiro thinks Matt Striker should get a baseball announcing job because he’d be great at it. Vampiro told Marty the Moth to watch The Cable Guy. There’s more, but this is too much already.

So. A while back, Vampiro was mad at me for something or other – who even knows, the list is long – and I offered to interview him should we run into each other in Mexico. I’m not sure that was a great idea then, but it would’ve been great for the #content. I’m pretty sure it’s not even that useful now. Vampiro clearly had a lot of respect for Steve Austin as a fellow top wrestling guy, and they had shared interests in music and food that I skipped over there. And still Vampiro just was inventing things out of whole cloth to Steve Austin. I’m pretty sure Vampiro would have less than 1% of that respect level for me. We would get thru one question, I would hopefully push back, and we would never make it to a second question either because we’d be lost forever in that one question or one of us would throw our hands up and leave. (It would still be good #content, don’t get me wrong.)

I refuse to believe Vampiro is like this all the time. I don’t know how people would deal with be able to deal with him if he was 100% like this 100% of the time. It would be thoroughly maddening. People in AAA & Lucha Underground seem totally content to deal with Vampiro, so there must be another sane side to this individual we never see. I don’t think anyone out here is ever going to see it, because I think he transitions into this person once he’s out in public, but I can not believe he’s for real.

Marisela Pena posted photos of the AAA Arena in Guadalajara, saying the official opening is March 10th. They had a show there yesterday as part of a 13th anniversary celebration for the theme park it’s located in. Pagano is back in action and Mesias was wrestling this past weekend, which means both are possibilities for Rey de Reyes.

La Parka & Dave the Clown were interviewed in Puebla to build up Rey de Reyes.

AAA has this week’s TV listing up. I pay less attention to this now that it’s streaming, but it seems like they’re skipping the Faby/Ashley vs Divina/Shani match from Aguascalientes.

AAA posted Zona Ruda with Poder del Norte.

Other 

WWE’s Sin Cara talked with MedioTiempo. I think he does more interviews with Mexican press than he has matches on SmackDown. He praised the possibility of Rey Mysterio returning to WWE and said he’d like to see Dragon Lee there. He’s also interviewed in La Aficion, where either he or the writer bizarrely says AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura began their careers in Mexico.

03/21 Queretaro has LA Park & Caristico vs Penta & Fenix in a first time ever match.

A+ posted a commercial for ELITE now – except, they’ve taken the date down and just say the show is starting soon. Maybe don’t hold out for 03/11.

Segunda Caida reviews Lucha Underground 3×33, with the Son of Havoc vs Son of Madness match. I don’t want to spoil it for them, but I laughed reading Eric write “We don’t actually get a lot of blood in this fed”.

CultIcon & Caleb put together their dream LU vs Impact show.

El Paso Herald-Post has an article on Hijo del Impostor & El Dragon, who were part of a fundraiser for a local school.

LuchaWorld has the latest news update.

Lineups

The Crash (FRI) 04/06/2018 The Sugar Mill, New Orleans, Louisiana
1) Aeroboy vs Draztick Boy, J. Spade, Amarok, Matthew Palmer, Jason Cade, Ángel Fashion, Curt Stallion
2) Black Danger & Lacey Lane vs Christi Jaynes & Oráculo and Barbie Hayden & Joey Ryan and Diamante (Impact) & Douglas James
3) Rey Horuz vs Flip Gordon vs Laredo Kid
4) Bandido (Indie) & Black Boy vs Dezmond Xavier & Zachary Wentz and Dave Crist & Jake Crist
5) Daga vs Brian Cage vs Willie Mack vs Sami Callihan
6) Rey Fénix (US) vs Flamita vs Rich Swann
7) Damián 666, LA Park, Nicho el Millionario vs Bestia 666, Garza Jr., Mr. 450
8) Penta Zero M vs Austin Aries

Full card for the noon WrestleMania show.

I’m still disappointed Fenix/Flamita will not be happening. (At least not on this show.) Rich Swann was good last time he was wrestling, even under WWE restrictions. Swann versus Flamita versus Fenix should still be great. WrestleMania weekend already has a lot of great matches, and Fenix/Flamita could’ve been a special match. It’s a missed chance.

The opening match is a grab bag. I think you know Aeroboy & Draztick Boy if you’re reading this website. Angel Fashion is a Puerto Rico based guy, only there still isn’t much wrestling in Puerto Rico following last year’s hurricane so he’s been working in the mainland. Curt Stallion is a midwest cowboy who I’ve seen a few times in AAW. Jason Cade is from Sami Callihan’s Ohio factory and will be popping up elsewhere soon; he seems excited for the Impact/LU show for some reason. Matthew Palmer is a Texas guy who shows up in Inspire Pro Wrestling. I still have no idea who Amarok is. I thought maybe he was the local WildKat representative, but that appears to be J. (Jaden) Spade. In the mixed tag, Barbie Hayden is a Texas woman who’s wrestled in LLF and was an alternate for WWE’s Mae Young Classic last year.

Rey Mysterio and Rush were both advertised for this show at one point. Mysterio is working Five Star wrestling in the UK the night before, which makes it impossible to make it here.  Rush appears to be done in The Crash after La Mascara moved on to AAA. Demus, Mascarita Dorada and Black Taurus appeared to be on these shows at one point and those are tougher to figure. Arkangel Divino, Ultimo Maldito, Keyra and Taurus are the bigger regular Crash names who didn’t make it. It’s not a one for one swap with anyone; the people in the early matches are probably making their own way to New Orleans, the people in the top matches are probably having their costs split between multiple promotions, neither of which might apply to the rest of The Crash crew. I’m not sure if Divino & Maldito even can work in the US at this point, so maybe it’s all a pipe dream. Still, to me, there’s nothing more “The Crash” than the flashy crazy guys in the opening matches, and those guys would’ve been able to make a name for themselves in this match. This show should still be pretty good, but I wish it felt more like a The Crash show instead of a WrestleMania weekend indie showcase show.