CMLL (FRI) 03/16/2018 Arena México [Claro, CMLL, ESTO, Estrellas del Ring, MedioTiempo, Notimex, Ovaciones, Quadratin, R de Rudo, SuperLuchas, thecubsfan]
Homenaje a Dos Leyendas 2018 (Lutteroth & Mil Mascaras)
1) Audaz, Flyer, Star Jr. b Disturbio, Templario, Virus 
10:55. Rudos took 1/3.
2) Dalys, La Seductora, Zeuxis b Kaho Kobayashi, Marcela, Princesa Sugehit
14:15. Rudas took 2/3.
3) Dragón Lee, Mistico, Rush b Forastero, Máscara Año 2000, Sansón 
12:13. Munoz took straight falls, the last when Rush hit Mascara 2000 with the corner knee smash and pinned him with his feet on the ropes.
4) Atlantis, Matt Taven, Niebla Roja b Euforia, Gran Guerrero, Último Guerrero
11:29. Tecnicos took 2/3.
5) Valiente & Volador Jr. b Rey Bucanero & Terrible [CMLL TAG, final]
15:49. Valiente & Volador won the tournament and became the 38th champions. Volador won the tag titles for the second time (Sombra) and Valiente for the first time.
6) El Cuatrero b Ángel de Oro [mask]
18:43. Cuatrero took falls 1/3, the last by surviving the campana (after it had been fully applied) and beating him with the spinning crucifix bomb. Angel de Oro is Miguel Ángel Chávez Velasco, 29, 12 years a wrestler.
Mil Mascaras was honored after the third match, with Sofia Alonso coming to the ring to present him with the usual plaque. Mascaras specifically thanked her for bringing him back to Arena Mexico.
Perhaps because the show was on iPPV instead of YouTube, we got to see both dance numbers. They were great fun and added to the show. The flipside of being on iPPV is the iPPV didn’t work. Internet.TV was struggling to load and serve pages from well before the show started until midway thru the show. If you could get to the stream page, it worked fine (except for a minute in the fourth match.) It just became impossible to get there for most people for the first two matches. As usual in these situations, there was no explanation of what was going on until after the service was restored. An internet.tv account said they had a techinical issue and refunds would be available to anyone who sends their payment receipt and the email address of their account to aym@aymsports.com.mx.
If you could see the event, it was a fun event as long as you don’t expect every iPPV to have a MOTYC contender. The opener and the main event were pretty good, and everything was enjoyable outside of the women’s match. The crowd was way into the show, though mostly by booing the tecnicos (Mistico and Angel de Oro getting it the worst) and CMLL came off as a hot promotion.
JCR pushed the Arena Coliseo Anniversary show (early April) and the Arena Mexico Anniversary show (late April) as the next two big events for the promotion. There’s post show interviews with Angel de Oro and Cuatrero.
AAA tonight will be live on Twitch for a TV taping in Cuernavaca. The show is listed as starting at 7pm, which will be 8pm in the US – and maybe a half hour later than if it’s a normal timed show. It’s an abnormal lineup for a taping, the last one this year when Lucha Underground will be busy on the same night. AAA’s held off on the people who they believed might be in Los Angeles. They did the same with the Tlaxcala taping a few weeks ago, which led to Texano & Dr. Wagner making non-match appearances. That sort of thing may happen again, though it definitely means no Vampiro in a Box for this show.
You can see the full card here. It’s not good. The listed main event is La Parka & Pagano versus Dave the Clown & Hijo del Wagner. That’s obviously bad. Maximo/Mascara vs Chessman/Averno vs Carta/Mocho could be good, but there’s not much here. There’s enough missing people, between Lucha Underground and the people on the Televisa reality show, that a few people who haven’t made TV this year get on the show: the opener has Dragon Solar & Pardux making their 2018 debuts along side Dinastia facing Mini Histeria, Fetiche and Bronco Gonzalez, all also in their first show. The last time we saw Pardux, AAA teased him joining Los Perros del Mal. Maybe it’ll go some place this time.
This is a free show, being paid by the local government. Hopefully that means a big loud crowd.
Alberto did a press tour for AAA Friday afternoon. There was not a lot of new news, since there’s still no opponent named. Alberto said there are two possible options for his TripleMania opponent, and the one he wants to face has had some of Alberto’s top ten matches. Alberto didn’t want to name the person until it’s locked it. He promised it’d be spectacular. He also said he was open for any kind of match as long as it was a one on one match, as that’s what his fans want to see. (And it means it’s a self contained match.)
Alberto claimed he still had not signed anything with AAA but they had a handshake deal and was open to working several dates for the promotion, but he didn’t want to sign a contract or be tied to just any one promotion. Alberto said he only needed a handshake because AAA had always lived up to their word with him economically. (I seem to recall him not feeling that way in the past.) Alberto was asked about Rush finishing sixth in the WON awards and praised him.
Alberto was in Mexico City the same day as his uncle Mil Mascaras was being honored, but neither seems to have said anything about each other. They had a war of words over who was the bigger star last year and I assume that to mean they haven’t patched things up. La Sombra, doing his own media tour for WWE, was at Arena Mexico last night.
The Crash is also running tonight in Tijuana with a mystery main event. Bestia 666 was supposed to take on Rey Mysterio, but Rey Mysterio is sidelined with a bicep injury. The Crash has said Bestia will face someone else, but has so far not revealed who. The semimain is also a mystery, since Rich Swann was supposed to be teaming with Arkangel Divino versus Shane Taylor & Mr. 450, and now Swann’s said not to be wrestling. You can see the whole card here, but I suspect there’s going to be some changes to move people up. As usual with The Crash, the show will be taped but we have no idea where, when or if that version will be put out.
DTU is in Tulancingo with Violento Jack defending the King of FREEDOMS Heavyweight championship against Kenji Fukimoto. Smart Mark Video is taping these shows, so they will turn up down the road.
CMLL Saturday in Coliseo has Angel de Oro, Matt Taven and Mistico against Cuatrero, Gran Guerrero and Mr. Niebla. Volador, Puma & Tiger are among those who will be in New York for WUW. Dragon Rojo returns to the ring in the ex-Salon Citalli,
Sunday shows include Volador vs Rush in Arena Mexico, IWRG’s Rebelion de los Juniors, and DTU in Morelos to wrap up their swing of shows.
Excelsior has a story on luchadora Ixchel, who’s also a surgeon.
Penta & Fenix are headed to PWR in California on 06/23. This is probably a makeup for them missing the February show.
Segunda Caida reviews Lucha Underground episode 100.