Day: July 5, 2018

Pura Raza teased CMLL & ROH wrestlers appearing on their next 08/04 show. No names or locations announced. I think this is probably someone (Taven?) coming to Mexico to work for CMLL and Pura Raza getting to use them for the Saturday date, similar to how Lucha Memes has done in the past. CMLL hasn’t even announced anyone from ROH coming in yet. Maybe we’ll start getting more CMLL announcements with the Mexico team out of the World Cup.

Looks like no Arena Coliseo show next Saturday; a Televisa boxing broadcast is scheduled for the venue instead. A ROH would normally be working the Arena Coliseo show on Saturday and not an outside date, so I wonder if there’s a boxing show scheduled for 08/04 too.

Impact Wrestling officially announced their deal with 52MX in Mexico. They’ll air Saturday nights at 9:30pm. The Wrestling Observer hypes this as a lead-in for more Impact wrestlers working in Mexico because the fans will know them. I’m skeptical of that working to any great degree. 52MX doesn’t have much viewership in Mexico (or the US), and the people who are going to see it are the wrestling fans who are seeking out everything and probably know who these people are already. CMLL has had a show on 52MX for over a decade and I can’t point to any sign of it helping the promotion create stars. Impact itself used to be on 52MX and it didn’t seem to help Impact people get over in Mexico previously.  It’s much better than nothing, and it would seem to create the situation where Impact is available in another language while AAA still is still Spanish only.

In the weekly Marca interview, La Jarochita said she was a soccer player growing up, but her father thought it wasn’t a tough enough sport and put her in wrestling instead. She’s picking Uruguay to win the World Cup.

A show in Tecate next weekend has a four-way scheduled with Negro Casas, Mistico, Arkangel Divino and Black Destiny. That would be the first time the ex-Crash (and seemingly current AAA) and CMLL guys have mixed. I think there’s a good chance it’d end up on 126F’s channel.

RIOT Inedito on 7/28

• Keyra vs Lady Flammer
• Sammy Guevera’s birthday party

Caristico will be on a The Crash show in Tlaxcala on 07/29. This is not Tlaxcala the city itself, but it feels strange the Crash running Tijuana and Tlaxcala as it’s two regular places. Those places are very far from each other. I guess it’s all about where you can find a reliable local promoter.

DTU announced Shotzi Blackheart and Jimmy Lloyd ill appear with the promotion on their upcoming shows (08/11 Arena Lopez Mateos, 08/12 Tulancingo, 08/14 Arena Aficion.)

Vancouver’s Calamity Cate is working in LLF next weekend according to this surprisingly detailed article from the Vancouver Courier.

Segunda Caida reviews the 07/15 CMLL LA Park/Rush trios.

Lucha Libre in Japan

In Freedoms, Miedo Extremo challenged for the King of Freedoms title but lost to champion Masashi Takeda. Violento Jack & Daisuke Masaoka kept the tag team titles over Jun Kasai & Kenji Fukimoto. MicroMan Fever has a recent translation of a Miedo Extremo & Ciclope interview with +LuchaTV, talking about their trips to Japan and the US.

Real Japan Pro Wrestling, a promotion led by original Tiger Mask Sayama, ran a show on 07/03 with a lot of Mexican names. The bit here is Tiger Mask is resurrecting UWA/LLI, even showing a letter from original promoter Francisco Flores’ daughter endorsing the idea. He brought in a bunch of sons of UWA/LLI wrestlers to this show to get over the concept. (RJPW is supposed to be 80s NJPW, when UWA was a partner promotion.) That included Brazo de Oro Jr., who seems to rarely work in Mexico, flown over to work a midcard trios match. They’re also running a masked man tournament, with Toscano (wearing a mask but still called Toscano) and Dos Caras Jr. participating. Dos Caras Jr. won the main event match. I’m not sure how the tournament works or when it’ll be continuing; RJPW doesn’t run often and doesn’t get a lot of attention.

Dr. Wagner Jr. & Hijo del Dr. Wagner make their seemingly annual trip to Japan in a couple weeks, appearing on the 07/16 Stardom show.

Hijo del Pantera challenges Yusuke Kodama for the Wrestle-1 Cruiserweight championship on 07/18.

Lineups

CMLL (TUE) 07/10/2018 Arena México
1) Acero & Aéreo vs Mercurio & Pequeño Violencia
2) Magnus, Retro, Sangre Imperial vs Akuma, Inquisidor, Yago
3) Pegasso vs Virus [lightning]
4) Black Panther, Blue Panther, Blue Panther Jr. vs Misterioso Jr., Puma, Tiger
5) Flyer, Stuka Jr., Valiente vs Felino, Rey Bucanero, Shocker
6) Ángel de Oro, Kráneo, Niebla Roja vs Cuatrero, Forastero, Sansón

A show. Main event is a rematch, which wasn’t really set up at all in the matches (but JCR seemed tipped off.) That could mean Sanson/Niebla Roja on 07/17 or they’ll just forget about the whole thing.

Akuma’s not going to be any happier with that match.

CMLL (TUE) 07/10/2018 Arena Coliseo Guadalajara
1) Black Sugar, El Rielero, Luminoso vs Mr. Apolo, Puma Negro, Tyson La Bestia
2) Estrellita, La Guerrera, Marcela vs Amapola, La Metálica, Tiffany
3) Esfinge, Titán, Tritón vs Ephesto, Luciferno, Mephisto
4) Soberano Jr. © vs Cavernario [MEX WELTER]
5) Carístico, Dragón Lee, Mistico vs Euforia, Gran Guerrero, Último Guerrero

Soberano and Cavernario had a great title match last year. Matches on the GDL tend to be edited down to shorter time (assuming the internet feed even works.)

Tyson La Bestia, who’s wrestled on plenty of indie shows with CMLL wrestlers and appeared on the one-off ELITE 2018 return to Arena Mexico, makes his way onto a normal CMLL show in the opener here.

Recapped: 06/28/2018

Matches:

Espíritu Maligno, King Jaguar, King Rocker beat Meyer, Millenium, Tigre Rojo Jr.
(16:09 [6:37, 4:25, 5:07], 2/3, n/r, via VideosOficialesCMLL)

Astro, Asturiano, Stukita beat Joker, Mercurio, Saurón
(13:37 [5:18, 2:03, 6:16], 2/3, ok, via VideosOficialesCMLL

Amapola beat Princesa Sugehit in a lightning match
(6:36, Amapola Devil’s Wings, ok, via VideosOficialesCMLL)

Felino, Puma, Tiger beat Black Panther, Blue Panther Jr., Esfinge  
(12:12 [4:42, 1:49, 5:41], 1/3, good, via VideosOficialesCMLL)

Soberano Jr. © beat Titán for the Mexican National Welterweight Championship
(22:44, 2/3, great, via VideosOficialesCMLL)

Flyer & Volador Jr. beat Templario & Último Guerrero
(14:18 [2:44, 3:02, 8:32], 2/3 DQ, ok, via VideosOficialesCMLL)

What happened:

Soberano kept his title over Titan.

Último Guerrero fouled Volador, setting up a singles match next week.

Amapola asked for a title match after he won, and Sugehit granted it.

Thoughts:

The main event was a regular match with the same people as the Gran Alternativa, not something trying to build on that or even approach it. The crowd got into the match, but the pace and intensity was much lower. The wrestling was smooth but they didn’t as much to showcase the younger wrestlers until Flyer’s run in the third fall. It kind of makes sense, because Volador/UG is the match coming out of it, but I’m not really excited to see that one more time.

Titan had his right hamstring taped up, Dragon Rojo style, and he slid out of the ring early on when it was bugging him. It’s hard to tell how serious the injury really was, but it perfectly explained Titan’s reasons for attacking Soberano with a different strategy. He did it well, going for his leglock submission instead, and it turned into a dramatic match. Titan never really got a close near fall in the third fall, but they’d done so much to establish the figure four a deadly that it was better than any cradle would’ve been. They made smart use of the three falls structure to get that over as possible finish in the first fall, and they built it up a lot until Titan got in that moment. There were fun twists along the way – Joker got obliterated by a tope just for being a second – and these two got as about as a good reaction as they would’ve with something that would’ve required a lot more leaping. This was well done.

The Panther/Felinos match was the expected mirror of their successful matches in Arena Mexico with a little less time. It was a little slow to start, but probably intended that way to build to a faster moving finish. If you’re going to watch one, you should watch the Friday ones, but this was worthwhile on this show. Felino has been looking better teaming with his sons of late and has a lot better timing as a third wheel than Esfinge.

When I wrote that there were only a few possible women’s matches left that would be potentially good, I think I was thinking of this match being on that list. This match was alright, but it wasn’t good. Part of it is the ghosts of the past: they’re both slow and less impactful than the same match would’ve been five or ten years ago. They haven’t pushed themselves to adjust what they do, and so this came off as a slimmed down version of an actual good match. I’m sure they’ll try a bit more in the title match but they’d have a ways to go before it’d be recommendable.

The athletic ability of the mini técnicos can sometimes overpower the boring structure of their overall matches. This wasn’t one of those times. Asturiano and Astro didn’t do a lot while that match itself followed the usual pattern. Asturiano wrestles in Puebla locals fairly often. Astro doesn’t seem to be wrestling anywhere unless it’s in some small Tlaxcala indie we’re not hearing about. I hope he’s getting more out of wrestling than these matches.