Naito in CMLL tonight, AAA MSG press conference next week

NJPW’s Tetsuya Naito makes his annual appearance in Arena Mexico tonight. It’s part of a weekend trip to the southern part of North America, wrestling for CMLL tonight and Costa Rica’s CWE tomorrow. He’ll team with fellow Los Ingobernables members Rush & Terrible to take on Caristico, Valiente, and Volador in tonight’s main event. Naito’s appearance with BUSHI and EVIL last year was more an event than a match and this may be the same.

The match that looks like a safer bet to be a good match is the semi-main, where Cavernario defends the Mexican Light Heavyweight championship (just go with it) against NGD’s Forastero. The challenger is better in trios matches, but Cavernario always comes thru in big matches. With Naito and extra NJPW attention, this will be a good match.

The fourth match is pretty good too, with Cuatrero & Sanson teaming with Negro Casas against Dragon Lee, Mistico and Titan. Esfinge and Triton add Flyer to their team for the night to take on Templario, Felino and Rey Bucanero. Kawato makes an appearance on a show with extra Japanse attention, teaming with Tigre & Virus against the Panther brothers and Drone. Pegasso & Stigma open up against Akuma & Disturbio.

CMLL starts at 8:30 pm local, which is still one hour later if you changed clocks. There’s only about eight more days of this time issue. CMLL will stream on Facebook & Marca (currently geoblocked but probably not later), and I’ll be streaming it on YouTube. It’ll be up on CMLL’s YouTube later and there’s a good chance Naito’s match will end up on NJPW World in the future.

I will be lost in New York next week so maybe don’t count on a YouTube stream.

Lucha Central has a preview of the show.

AAA will have a press conference (Thursday) April 4th at 11:30 AM at Madison Square Garden. AAA sent out the info to some people in the press but hasn’t publically announced it. It is presumed to be the thing Konnan hinted at on his podcast, an announcement of AAA show to take place in that arena later that year. AAA had plans, known but never formally announced, to run the building last year. At the time, the idea it wasn’t enough time to be ready and they’d hold it off until 2019. That just seemed AAA talk that wouldn’t go anywhere, but 2019 appears to be a year of AAA talking big and then actually doing the big thing.

Last year’s plan was to run on Mexican Independence Day, on September 16th. That’s a Monday this year. My pretty safe guess is they’ll be running on Sunday the 15th. (In no great coincidence, a leak of the WWE schedule reveals they’re planning on running shows in MSG Monday & Tuesday of that week.)

The big question is what will AAA actually be running with? A regular AAA show will be a tough show, and they’re already running their biggest show of the year about six weeks prior. (This MSG plan would explain why TripleMania is earlier than usual.) AAA bringing back the Lucha World Cup idea seems plausible, especially now that they’re working with AEW and other promotions. The 2018 MSG plan included a never-named media sponsor footing most of the bill, and those previous World Cups were sponsor funded events. There was also a stated plan to run the US after running Mexico (where the concept worked well) and Japan (where the concept didn’t work as well), though again no one believed AAA because they’ve been talking about coming to the US forever. The difficulty is going to be getting all the people who might appear on a World Cup show – or really any AAA show – into the country without running into visa issues.

I’m not going to be attending this press conference. My plane from Chicago takes off about a half hour before this starts. I would’ve come in earlier if I had known this was happening. If someone else wants to pretend to be luchablog, maybe go ahead and try.

Alberto el Patron was out promoting the Combates Americas April Monterrey show yesterday. He told MedioTiempo that his long-awaited MMA fight that was originally supposed to be happening around now is still happening, he just needed more time to prepare. He’s aiming for October in Los Angeles or Las Vegas. Patron says he was originally going to face Cain Velasquez, but Velasques opted to re-sign with UFC instead. He’d be open to facing Velasquez in a wrestling match but says it would be complicated to have a MMA match.

The Christi Jaynes vs Vanilla Vargas vs Lady Flammer match scheduled for the 04/06 MexaWrestling show is off, with both Jaynes and Vargas having late changes of plans that’ll keep them off the card. That’s a tournament match and the promotion hasn’t decided if to put other women in the tournament or have a mixed tag with Flammer.

El Hijo del Santo’s column in El Grafico today is his final for the newspaper. He’s been writing there for five years after leaving Record and is complimentary to the media outlet. It reads like he has no plans to move onto a different paper.

This Entereprenuer bio of Caristico has 10 tips to beat your competition. Caristico says he’s going to retire in about 9 years. That sounds random, but it would be 30 after his debut.

AAA posted Fishman, Jerry Estrada, May Flowers and Villano V vs Winners, Super Calo, La Parka and El Mexicano from TripleMania IV (Ciudad Madero version) on YouTube, following the minis match from that show. The next match on that show is Rey Mysterio versus Juventud Guerrera car match. Copies of that match, unlike the others, exist on the internet but I would post any Rey Mysterio match I have if I was AAA.

The Crash on 04/13 in Auditorio de Tijuana

• Bestia 666, Mecha Wolf, and TBD vs NGD
• Carlito & Mesias vs Los Traumas vs Angel de Oro & Niebla Roja
• Rey Horus vs Adam Brooks vs Flamita vs Titan vs ?
• Los Haraganes vs Xperia, Torito Negro, Toto – new

Puma King goes to a hockey game.

An interview with Super Hades.

Lineups

CMLL (TUE) 04/02/2019 Arena México
1) Fantasy & Último Dragóncito vs Pequeño Olímpico & Pierrothito
2) Metatrón, Star Jr., Súper Astro Jr. vs Cancerbero, Hijo del Signo, Raziel
3) Black Panther, Blue Panther, Blue Panther Jr. vs Kawato San, Misterioso Jr., Sagrado
4) Rey Cometa vs Templario [lightning]
5) Guerrero Maya Jr., Titán, Tritón vs Euforia, Gran Guerrero, Último Guerrero
6) Cuatrero, Forastero, Sansón vs Ángel de Oro, Niebla Roja, Soberano Jr.

This looks better than usual for Tuesday, as did last week. The lightning match follows up on this past week’s foul, something that’s been suggested for lightning matches since the moment CMLL brought them back.

Metatron is back. You probably didn’t notice he was gone. He last appeared here in February, disappeared until December, and has only been wrestling in Guadalajara since. That suggests an injury but I can’t recall hearing about one.

CMLL (TUE) 04/02/2019 Arena Coliseo Guadalajara
1) Amperaje, Cosmos, Micro vs Jabalí, Paymon, Relámpago Azul
2) Oro Jr., Príncipe Diamante, Star Black vs Akuma, Espanto Jr., Furia Roja
3) Fuego, Pegasso, Stigma vs Tiger, Universo 2000 Jr., Virus
4) Kráneo, Stuka Jr., Volcano vs Rey Bucanero, Shocker, Terrible
5) Carístico, Dragón Lee, Volador Jr. vs Cavernario, Mephisto, Negro Casas

Dragon Lee/Cavernario build up trios for WrestleCon.

AAA TV (SUN) 04/28/2019 Domo Binacional, Nogales, Sonora [AAA]
1) Faby Apache & La Hiedra vs Chik Tormenta & Lady Maravilla
2) Sammy Guevara vs Jack Evans, Australian Suicide [AAA CRUISER, #1 Contenders]
3) Flamita, Hijo Del Vikingo, Villano III Jr. vs Carta Brava Jr., Mocho Cota Jr., Tito Santana
4) Golden Magic, La Parka, Niño Hamburguesa vs Averno, Chessman, Dave The Clown
5) Laredo Kid, Psycho Clown, Puma King vs Rey Escorpión, Taurus, Texano Jr.

Nothing too huge on this taping. This is the second half of a weekend swing with Mexicali, though Cage & Daga seem not to be part of the second show. Dave the Clown and La Hiedra are added.

Dave will be thrilled his feud with La Parka is back on. Villano III Jr. & Hiedra will be shocked at being tecnicos for a night. The Second match is the new rudo trio already having a match against each other because they did all the tecnicos against each other in Mexicali. This does reveal that the upcoming Laredo Kid defense is a multi-person match, but it usually is.

It looks like the current AAA policy is to announce cards about a month out. That means we should get another lineup next week for Los Mochis if that show is still happening.