Let’s get the normal stuff out of the way before going to the abnormal.
CMLL (MON) 11/19/2018 Arena Puebla
1) Black Tiger & Rey Apocalipsis b Centella Roja & Hijo de Centella Roja 
Odd team of Tiger and Apocalispis took falls 2/3.
2) Pegasso & Tigre Rojo Jr. b Metálico & Toro Bill Jr.
tencicos took 1/3.
3) Drone, Fuego, Stigma vs Dragón Rojo Jr., El Malayo, Pólvora
Rudos took 2/3.
4) Marcela b Dalys © [CMLL WOMEN]
Marcela took 2/3 to win the title on her 7th challenge of Dalys. Dalys falls on her 17th defense, finishing second to Amapola. Marcela is the 18th champion, and a 5 time champion.
5) Atlantis, Octagón, Stuka Jr. b Ephesto, Fuerza Guerrera, Mephisto
tecnicos took 1/3.
6) Último Guerrero © b Sansón [CMLL HEAVY]
UG took falls 1/3 for his first defense.
Both title matches were said to be good and they had a decent turnout. It feels weird that a 2.5 year title reign coming to an end seems just a footnote, but that’s where the title is right now.
The most recent CMLL Women’s champions:
- Marcela
- foreigner (Ayumi Kurihara)
- Marcela
- foreigner (Syuri)
- Marcela
- foreigner (Dalys)
- Marcela
Avispa Dorada’s chances of winning the title next look surprisingly strong. The first Marcela reign on that list was in 2011. This pattern is more about CMLL’s inability to build new female stars, especially on the tecnica side, in the last seven years. The only other person who might quality is a tecnica star right now is Princesa Sugehit, and she’s got the other women’s title. Marcela winning the title is news but it doesn’t really affect the underlining issues. There are no better prospects with Marcela as champion than there was with Dalys.
CMLL is live from Arena Mexico at 7:30 pm with a regular card. Titan versus Flyer in a lightning match is an interesting match among many not interesting matches. Raziel is scheduled to make his return, but has been scheduled and not returned already. Guadalajara has Diamante Azul vs Rush.
Puerto Rico’s Cuervo was suffered a serious head injury last night on the PALL show from Arena Lopez Mateos. He was knocked out by a brick thrown from the ring to the floor by hardcore luchador veteran Angel o Demonio. The brick connected with the back of Cuervo’s head. As of this morning, he someone posted on Cuervo’s Facebook that he was going into surgery to remove a blood clot from his head. There are different versions of what’s going on. None are good. That would be a dangerous operation and there are possibly going to be consequences to his life even if it goes well.
(This is the Puerto Rican wrestler named Cuervo, not the long-time AAA wrestler of the same name. Cuervo has been in Mexico a few weeks and was said to be returning to Mexico afterward.)
You can see the situation start at 1:08:01. Angel de Demonio goes back to get a brick, comes back to the ring, Cuervo hits him two times with a chair, Angel o Demonio doesn’t really sell them, Cuervo walks around the ring looking for something, Angel O Demonio picks up the brick and chucks it at Cuervo. The brick hits Cuervo in the back of the head, breaking in half. Cuervo is knocked out immediately. He regains some level of consciousness seconds later; he’s at least groggy. Angel o Demonio actually tries to continue the match until the doctors get him to back off. Cuervo’s hurried to the back. This was a casket match, and the referee talks Angel o Demonio into going into to the casket himself so they can have a finish.
Angel o Demonio explains himself both in the ring, in a backstage promo, and on Facebook. His public reasoning is Cuervo had hit him with a chair seven times, so he was hurting when he threw the brick and had intended it to hit Cuervo in the back. Behind the scenes, the story is more is Angel o Demonio being angry about how hard he was hit in those chairs shots and annoyed about other things in the match. Either way, this was not something done with the idea of entertaining the fans, but a planned attempt to hurt Cuervo because Angel o Demonio was unhappy.
Angel o Demonio is a 54-year-old wrestler, originally a UWA/el Toreo trainee who had the misfortune of coming in to wrestling just as that promotion was coming apart. He’s spent the last couple of decades wrestling on indies shows, mostly in Mexico State, mostly in hardcore matches for the last decade or so. Angel o Demonio had short stints in AAA – he was part of a masked clown trio, a failed attempt to do something that would work later with the Psycho Circus. He’s mostly the guy you see on every hardcore show, a guy physically limited due to age and injuries, feeling the need to do big stunts to prove his worth at this point.
I think what Angel o Demonio committed a criminal act. I do not believe it’ll go anywhere. Cuervo’s priority probably is to get out of Mexico and go home. Everyone else is not going to want the situation too imagined, they’re not going to want stones turned over to expose other worms. As we saw with Black Skeller earlier this year, this kind of sensational violence going viral often leads to the attacker getting a higher profile and more bookings in the short term, and the victim trying to make it go away as quick as possible. It also leads into some questions about the local commission, though nothing seemed to change in Ciudad Juarez. I do not anticipate it being any different in Estado de Mexico. The most expect here is the PALL promoters shying away from using Angel o Demonio for a while.
There was big news on Dragon Lee last night, though I may have jumped the gun by 24 hours. Dragon Lee did not announce he was off Exatlon. Instead, what people were reacting to on Twitter was a teaser for tonight’s episode. It teased someone saying farewell to the show. Dragon Lee had been sitting out challenges with an ear infection and Dragon Lee is conspicuously not shown in any other footage of today’s episode, so it does seem a safe bet Dragon Lee is out of the show. Exatlon starts at 7:30 pm CT, and the announcement of the replacement should be early on.
Do not expect an immediate Dragon Lee return to the ring. The good news there is these shows are taped at least a few days in advance of airing; he’s probably been secretly home already and the ear issue is being taken over. Still, he’s been on a beach and running obstacle courses for three and a half months. Dragon Lee is in shape, but probably not ring shape. The boxer who eliminated off the show two weeks ago did an interview with ESTO, explaining that he thought there was no way he’d be able to box in December and was aiming for a January return. Dragon Lee has a big tour in December too. I don’t think he’ll be gone that long, but it’s not out of the question.
The other thing is I’m not sure how much we’ll get to see Dragon Lee in Arena Mexico. He’s coming off the most watched show in Mexico, so there’s going to be plenty of opportunities in his home country. Meanwhile, Rush just noted on Informa that every promoter he talks was asking to book Dragon Lee. Two places of note where Rush is working is MLW and ROH. I suspect those people (and more) are looking to bring Dragon Lee in. Dragon Lee was on an upswing of US interest following his King of Indies win. That might have cooled down with this long break, but the drain of talent from the US indies has gotten even bigger in the last few months (and is expected to get a lot worse in January.) Supply is low and demand is high.
Many CMLL luchadors and luchadoras have other jobs. CMLL does not pay many enough to only live on wrestling, and it’s also good to have another occupation for when wrestling ends. This is not quite one of those post-wrestling jobs. A photo has been circulating on Facebook of Lluvia apparently working as an exotic dancer. The photo has been floating around for a week; Lluvia is in her mask and her fishnet gear, though less underneath it than she has in matches. El Planchitas wrote about it yesterday, getting a story behind it. Lluvia has explained it was from more than a decade ago and it was part of a function where she was working as an edecan, not as a dancer.
Pasala has a recap of the Zona 23 show. Corsario Negro Jr. apparently won a chance to appear on a Powerbomb.TV match in the US. Not sure if that means WrestleMania weekend or IWA-MS, who had a couple of wrestlers on the show.
A small curiosity. Hahastary – AAA’s Hades, last seen in a quasi-dark match leading a team of Samoans – is listed as working a couple of indie shows this weekend. She doesn’t seem booked on AAA spot shows often, so maybe AAA is letting her find her own work since she’s a low level guy. The curious part, to me, is Argenis is also working at least one of those shows and he strictly works AAA shows. Perhaps, like with Bengala, AAA is allowing the middle of the card wrestlers who’ve been pushed off of TV with the addition of new talent to make their own schedule?
Fenix and Aeroboy are back in GALLI on 12/09. This is at Thalia Hall; Arena GALLI was still open last weekend but they’re running elsewhere for this show.
The Gladiatores recap of the Proximo/Ultimo Maldito apuesta match went close to sixty minutes. I look forward to seeing six minutes of it on 126’s YouTube.
LuchaWorld has this week’s Poster-Mania.
Lineups
CMLL (SAT) 11/24/2018 Arena Coliseo
1) Arkalis & Sonic vs Apocalipsis & Cholo
2) Avispa Dorada, La Guerrera, La Jarochita vs La Seductora, Metálica, Tiffany
3) Sangre Azteca vs Metálico [lightning]
4) Audaz, Rey Cometa, Tritón vs Disturbio, Misterioso Jr., Sagrado
5) Blue Panther Jr., Kráneo, Volcano vs Hechicero, La Bestia Del Ring, Rey Bucanero
6) Stuka Jr. © vs Terrible [NWA LH]
first defense
It would be weird if the national heavyweight champion was also the worldwide light heavyweight champion, but not too weird for CMLL.
CMLL (SUN) 11/25/2018 Arena México
1) Angelito, Fantasy, Kaligua vs Pequeño Nitro, Pequeño Olímpico, Pierrothito
2) Hijo del Signo & Yago vs Akuma & Camorra
3) Flyer vs Tiger [lightning]
4) Ángel de Oro, Blue Panther, Stuka Jr. vs Dragón Rojo Jr., Hechicero, Pólvora
5) Atlantis, Niebla Roja, Soberano Jr. vs Cuatrero, Forastero, Rey Bucanero
6) Diamante Azul, Valiente, Volador Jr. vs Gran Guerrero, Terrible, Último Guerrero
Second match is a rematch. Unless we get a lot more people involved, Akuma’ss mask is not long for this world. They do probably have to keep it going for another month, so there’s time for those people to get involved or the match to change again.
