CMLL & AAA have shows less than an hour away by the time you read this. Maybe much less than an hour away. Maybe they’ve already happened and you’re reading this afterward, in which case a preview isn’t going to do you much good. Not sure if my previews are doing much good to begin with anyway, so you could just move on over to Lucha Central’s ones of the AAA show and the CMLL show. My shorter version is both shows look good, neither great, and both are marking time until bigger things down the line.
Everything that seems like it’s going to matter at TripleMania is already set, so these last two AAA tapings are only totally useful if they’ve got some fun matches. Tonight’s Veracruz taping has the classic b-show syndrome of matches with a bunch of good people and one person who isn’t on that level. (Let do this the hard way and name people: Hiedra is rarely good and Vanilla didn’t have a strong night last night out, Nino Hamburguesa sticks out like a sore thumb in the second match but might still get over, Joe Lider is Joe Lider and the entire rudo side doesn’t fit together, poor Laredo is stuck with both Mascara & Maximo.) The fourth match, with Aerostar & Drago taking on Hijo de LA Park & Taurus, could be great or could be an entirely different match if Drago is still out. The main event will be four way madness, and will end with Psycho Clown being unmasked again. This looks a lot like the Ecatepec show, which was alright while also being the signal that watching every AAA week of tapings is not necessary.
Not that the CMLL card is a vital watch either. There’s also a lot of stuff that should be good, something or other getting set up for next week, but that next week is the big show and this is just the show where we hope they maybe tell us what Okada will be doing. The main event was supposed to be Volador/Taven/Fenix versus Los Ingobernables and now Cavernario is in for the injured Terrible. I kind of wonder if Volador was so insistent about how the tag titles should be vacated with Terrible being hurt because he was under the impression he and Taven were actually winning them in a couple weeks. We’ll see what they end up doing here instead. The semimain may be setting up Penta & Caristico finally setting up their singles matches. Everything else is matches to have matches.
CMLL airs at 8:30pm on Marca and Facebook. Maybe I’ll stream it on YouTube, CMLL will have it on theirs later either away. AAA is insistent they’re actually starting at 8:30pm too tonight on Twitch. That seems unlikely but I guess we’ll see. Both shows should be fine, but if you decided to go watch a movie tonight instead, I think you’d be OK too.
There was another round of “Penta and Fenix to WWE?” discussion this week, even though it was all discussed last week and barely anything changed in the week – it just happened to get mentioned in the WON again, so the fifty sites who cut up the WON into their own news bites mentioned it again, and people who didn’t notice it the first time might have noticed it the second time. WWE having interest in Penta & Fenix is barely news – WWE is interested in signing anyone with any US indie buzz right now. The WON this week said Penta & Fenix aren’t guaranteeing 2019 bookings (probably coming up because people are trying to figure out WrestleMania weekend cards already.) I would read that more as them keeping their options open rather than having definitely signed with anyone yet.
Maybe more importantly, if we’re going with the idea Fenix & Penta are even free to sign with WWE, given their legal issues over the last couple years, then it seems a decently safe assumption that everyone associated with Lucha Underground is probably free to make their own move following Season 4. (Killshot also coming up in these stories with zero mention of a LU deal suggests the same.) Which is weird: going into the season, it seemed like LU were only allowing people to go if they declared they were going and did write off people with that idea. Now it seems more like a free for all. I don’t know if that’s a sign about the future of LU, or more about their place in the food chain.
Anyway, today’s relevance to this story is a strange paragraph in Leo Riano’s record column. He shoots down rumors that Penta has already signed with WWE, will start in a few months and so will lose his mask at TripleMania. This is shooting down a rumor that didn’t exist until he just made it up – or maybe it exists in the darkest corners of lucha libre Facebook I have yet to explore. Still, even bringing this idea just to shoot it down is an interesting way to plant a seed of doubt in the TripleMania result. (Penta’s still not losing.)
AAA separated out the post-match segment from the Queretaro main event, where Hijo del Fantasma takes credit for convincing Jeff Jarrett to come there. It’s not 100% clear if Fantasma means to come back to AAA (convincing Jarrett to join MAD before he had join MAD?) or specifically to Queretaro (possibly Jarrett wasn’t going to work TV tapings before he ended up with the belt.) It is clear that this segment didn’t get posted online until the show aired on TV, nearly a month after the taping happened. It’s not clear if any of these “bonus” segments actually matter. So far, only the stuff presented live on Twitch really seems to count.
The Familia Real versus Familia Munoz focused special Saturday Arena Coliseo Guadalajara show tomorrow is now taking place at Parque San Rafael in the same city. The explanation is there’s maintenance work being done on the Arena Coliseo Guadalajara building, which seems an odd thing to find out just a day before the show.
Maximo explained to MedioTiempo that he should’ve come to AAA “six to seven years ago.” Maximo says he was close to coming, but he was CMLL Heavyweight Champion at the time and did not want to leave in CMLL unprofessionally. You may recall Maximo actually left CMLL by being fired after destroying Ultimo Guerrero’s car. Maximo was also not champion “six or seven years ago”. He was champion from 2015 to 2017, until the time he was fired, and then still didn’t join AAA until this year. Anyway, he’s hoping he gets that hair match with Rey Escorpion now.
Fuego en el Ring has a much better explanation of Sangre Azteca’s trip to Argentina than Sangre Azteca seemed to have on Informa.
Black Skeller, the Ciudad Juarez luchador who previously unknown outside of his local area and became known after cheap shotting a valet ringside, is being brought in to work the next Zona 23 show against Angel o Demonio & Mr. Condor. A Black Skeller versus Zafiro (who spoke out against him on Facebook) intergender match also is apparently taking place on the AAA house show in Ciudad Juarez next weekend. That’s a peculiar thing, given the fuss about his license being retired last week. This wouldn’t be an AAA call, but whoever the local promoter is (though AAA could get it stopped if they were upset enough about it.) And I suspect the end result is people taking cheapshots at Black Skeller to avenge La Engimatica, but it’s all still a very dumb thing.
Vice Mexico has a story on DTU and extremo matches.
Titan vs Adam Brookes was added to Revolution Pro’s 08/19 show. Much to my surprise, the CMLL guys are only working the RevPro shows, not the ROH UK ones. That may be why CMLL hasn’t mentioned these bookings.
Flamita was added to Revolution Pro’s British J Cup in September. Should one of the lucha guys win, I hope they force the UK guys to change the promotion’s spelling to “Revolucion Pro” so the typo I keep making will actually be correct.
La Mascara & Maximo are going to Japan for RJPW on 09/20. Brazo de Oro Jr. is among those also going.
MLW will have LA Park vs PCO on 10/04 in New York. Everyone’s very excited for LA Park to do a LA Park vs Rush match and I kind of expect LA Park to the “strutting with the referee” US indie match he’s done for the last decade. Hope I’m wrong.
Faby Apache accepted LuFisto’s bucket list challenge match. No date/location has been announced, though DTU has hinted they’ll be hosting it.
Hijo del Santo’s column paid tribute to Negro Casas’s anniversary by complaining that Casas never called him while he was dealing with his spine injury. It gets much nicer from there, but it’s the most Hijo del Santo column ever.
Lucha World has the latest Lucha Report.
Lucha Talk has a new episode of their podcast.
+LuchaTV has a new edition of Aqui esta la Lucha.
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