LU EVW interview notes, Revolucha, IWRG

Revolucha (SUN) 03/11/2018 Gimnasio Nuevo León, Monterrey, Nuevo Leon[Lo Mejor de Lucha Libe, LuchaMania Monterrey]
1) Scravos b Faceman, Sertico
Sertico added.
2) Lady Flammer b La Chocolata, Baby Love
no Succi Lover or Erika Sotelo, Baby Love added and the match made a three way match.
3) Azrael & Muerte Extrema b Kamikaze & Kratoz
4) Hijo De Volador b Ryan Rogan, Epydemus, Low Rider, Brook Duncan[Revolucha CRUISER]
First match for Hijo de Volador under that name. Local debuts for Canadian Ryan Rogan and New Zealand’s Brook Duncan, who took the loss to Volador via Spanish Fly. Best match of the night.
5) Sick Boy b Nicho el Millionario, Psicótico
Bestia 666 and Sick Boy fought after the match.
6) Damián 666, Masada, Último Ninja b Bestia 666, Black Taurus (Indie), Garza Jr.
Garza Jr. unmasked Ultimo Ninja, Damian threw a beer in Garza’s face, and Ninja covered his face while cradling Garza for the win. Many challenges followed.

This didn’t draw as well as MDA, probably in part because they had to move arenas at the last second. The way the seating was arranged – with the upper level of the bleachers all not sold and empty – it looks more empty than it actually was. The matches will show up on Revolucha’s Facebook show.

LuchaMania’s recap says Hijo del Volador was making his debut under a new identity.

IWRG (WED) 03/14/2018 Arena Naucalpan [@DoradaFan, @GabrielBludemo1]
1) Chef Benito b Power Bull
2) Ángel Estrella Jr. & Toto b Dark Alfa & Guerrero 2000
Good match.
3) Shadow Boy & Súper Brazo Jr. b Dragón Yuki & Leroy
4) Black Dragón, Dinamic Black, Dragón Fly b Diablo Jr., Gallo Frances, Lunatic Xtreme
Good match.
5) Factor & Spector DQ Mike & Teelo and Capo Del Norte & Máscara Año 2000 Jr.
Tortuga beat Nuevo Capos, Factor fouled Mike, Teelo fouled Spector, referee caught Teelo but not Factor.

The MMM show had Lucha Underground Executive Producer Eric Van Wagenen on as guest last night. If you get something out of this, consider hitting the subscription button on their YouTube channel so they can get closer to 1,000 and YouTube will allow them to get ad revenue again.

The legal threats to SoCalUncensored & Pro Wrestling Sheet did come up. Van Wagenen said MGM/production did not send those out and were not even told it was going to happen. Van Wagenen doesn’t want spoilers out either, but his tact is more to work thru things quietly or to just put the people suspected of spoilers on a “no more Lucha Underground tickets” list.

They are all dubious about the spoilers have telling people what’s actually going to happen value because it’s tough to put it all together with how much is out of order or being taped as vignettes. The hosts have been to the shows, Van Wagenen works on the show, and they all agreed they don’t completely know what’s going on this season. The wrestlers might not be able to put together everything themselves. No one but the writers (hopefully?) seem to have a complete picture.

There’s some talk about about difficulties with new talent and the new shooting schedule. Van Wagenen notes that one small injury could mean someone’s out for months of episodes, one visa delay means half the season is gone. Getting visa for wrestlers for Mexico been much tougher this year, and they’ve had to throw out plans and recast roles because of those issues. Van Wagenen praises Chris Roach & Chris DeJoseph for being able to adjust when those things happen, and is grateful other people have been willing to drop their plans at a moment’s notice and come in.

The bit I wrote here a while back about LU seemingly getting away from a lot of Mexican luchadors on the show does come up. Those issues with visa, which have been a continual issue on this series, are cited as one of the reasons why it’s happening. They can’t get everyone they want, and end up going with a local/US talent as a fall back. Van Wagenen says they do think about if they have enough Mexican wrestlers on the show on an episode per episode basis. Some episodes he thinks they’re good, some episodes they could probably use two or three more. It sounds like they haven’t completely given up on getting that ‘more’, even for these last two shows. (Knowing that AAA is taping themselves on Saturday, that may be a bit complicated.)

Van Wagenen has no idea when Season 4 will air. It came off as if this is an El Rey decision and El Rey has not told them yet. El Rey people were at the taping this past weekend and seemed to be happy with how things were going on the new budget, but they haven’t seen a finished episode yet. There might not be a finished episode yet; Van Wagenen said he hadn’t seen one either and talked about color balance and any work to do. Van Wagenen got the impression things are looking good for a fifth season, but “every time I try to predict the next season, I end up looking like a world class jackass.” He’s not making any predictions, but he thinks El Rey won’t make a decision until after a few episodes air. They’d love to tape season 5 this year too – “the visas for our Mexican stars won’t have expired” among other reasons – but there’s no money currently set aside for doing in this fiscal year. They’re putting the sets back in to storage after the tapings wrap up this week.

Fun things: Van Wagenen mentions that he’s seen DeJoseph’s plans for season 4 closing vignettes and they’re the best ones yet. Stone Cold Steve Austin got ahold of Van Wagenen after Vampiro’s appearance on his podcast to give him a warning about Vampiro calling Pentagon chubby. Austin loves Pentagon and was expect Vampiro just to put him over strong and maybe take credit. Van Wagenen kept an eye on things and knew everything was going to be alright when Penta started making jokes about it on Twitter. They all like Vampiro and Van Wagenen thinks Vamp and Penta have a good relationship. If you watch the video today, you’ll notice Van Wagenen has a giant white board and I regret I do not have the time to screen cap it and analyze every scribbling on it for clues.

The visa issue is a plausible lack of luchadors, but also immensely frustrating because it seems like there should be a more permanent solution to this never ending problem. It does make me wonder how AAA’s planned trip to the US in December to go. They have a lot of time to get it worked out, but they’re also seem to wait until late to work out those details and obviously taking a long time. I’d guess the AAA plan is to use LU’s visas for their own guys to bring them to the US, but there may be no real point in MGM trying to get visas done at this point if they won’t be able to use those guys. If they’re Lucha Libre FMV visa, maybe they’ll get them done sometimes over this year – they’re really focused at getting done legal stuff, we can see – and those AAA wrestlers will be good to come in if there’s a Season 5. It’s AAA, so I really shouldn’t be taking them running in another country too seriously until there are actual shows in advance, but this discussion did remind me of the difficulties involved.

The other thing I think I’m picking up on is “new budget” seems to mean El Rey is the one footing most/all the bill for Season 4, with Lucha Libre FMV or other investors being a smal to no part of it (and MGM being some nebulous part of it.) In the past, LLFMV and investors seemed to be people who had to say yes before a new season would be made. In this interview, Season 5 existing or not seems much more specifically “does El Rey want it?” decision, with no waiting around for anyone else. The downside is that’s less money being spent on the show, but the upside is maybe that means it’s a less complicated process to get to that renewal, and the discussion this podcast mentioned they expect that process to be easier. I probably should’ve noticed this before, I might have written about it before, but it stuck out to me when writing about all of this.

Lucha Underground writers Chris DeJoseph & Chris Roach were on the TwitWOW podcast. I haven’t gotten to that one yet. Hopefully I’ll have a chance to listen tomorrow.

DTU’s weekend tour of shows starts tonight in Xalapa. Ciclope, Miedo Extremo, and Violento Jack take on GCW’s Erick Ryan, G-Raver and Freedom’s Kenji Fujimoto.

One night before their mask match, Angel de Oro & Cuatrero headline Arena Aficion. It’s a trios match with Atlantis, Canek, Forastero and Sanson. They’re selling this around Canek being on the show, not the big CMLL feud, which tells you how long promoters feel about big CMLL feuds.

Impact Wrestling vs Lucha Underground @ WrestleCon on 04/06 (free show on Twitch, night show)

• Dezmond Xavier, DJZ, and Andrew Everett vs Drago, Aerostar and King Cuerno
• Sami Callihan Jeremiah Crane vs Eddie Edwards on an I Quit match
• Fenix & Pentagon Jr. will be on the show

Impact put up a promo to explain the “change”. Edwards’ response is solid.

CMLL looks back at Dragon Lee vs Kamaitachi.

The latest episode of the Lucha Talk is up.

Lineups

IWRG (SUN) 03/18/2018 Arena Naucalpan
1) Soma & Toto vs Atomic Star & Dragón Bane
2) Dulce Luna & Lady Pink vs Lilith Dark & Star Fire
3) Leo, Mike, Teelo vs Liderk, Spartan, Spector
4) Dr. Cerebro © vs Ricky Marvin [IWRG IC MIDDLE]
first defense
5) Emperador Azteca, Internacional Pantera, Veneno vs Black Warrior, Máscara Año 2000 Jr., X-Fly
6) El Hijo del Medico Asesino vs Hijo del Alebrije, Hijo de Pirata Morgan, Capo Del Norte, Diablo Jr., Dr. Karonte, Lunatic Xtreme, Apolo Estrada Jr., Hijo del Pantera, Máscara Mágica Jr. [Rebelion de los Juniors]
winner gets a shot at Mascara 2000 Jr.’s Junior de Junior title

That’s not an appealing group of Juniors.