Today begins the 9th annual Parejas Incredible Tournament. There will be eight teams of one rudo and one tecnico in a single elimination tournament block this week and another eight next week. (Matchups are determined by a dumb battle royal.) The winners of each block face off on April 28th, which will also be the anniversary of the opening of the Arena Mexico building.
The idea of rudos and tecnicos teaming together seems like a CMLL favorite. It is the only tournament CMLL has remembered to run every year. CMLL one night tournaments have generally been better of late, though there is still a lot of matches which are just there and don’t serve any purpose. The purpose of this tournament is like the Universal one which just concluded: CMLL occasionally uses it to set up upcoming big matches and occasionally just spotlights top stars. It is a long way away from CMLL’s Anniversario show, but there’s also no obvious main event for that show yet.
There are some obvious teams who will not be part of the final. Euforia & Guerrero Maya, Rey Bucanero & Triton, Flyer & Forastero, and Blue Panther & Mascara 2000 have only a small chance of advancing a single round, much less advancing past that. Barbaro Cavernario & Titan would be a popular fan pick and Angel de Oro & La Bestia del Ring would justify recent booking, but both would surprise picks to win tonight’s part of the tournament. It is likely to come down to either long time rivals (and short time amigos) Caristico & Mephisto or recent rivals Sanson & Soberano. I lean towards the veterans to win, as they have the most possibilities for next week.
CMLL’s gone towards having the tournament matches close up the show recently. Tonight, they’re scheduled to have Volador vs Gilbert el Boricua go on last. That’s a problem, not just because Volador’s overexposed and Gilbert’s much diminished. Their match will be the twelfth on the show, with eleven chances for something to go long. A reason CMLL stopped having a match following a tournament block is they almost always were rushed to get through them to finish up the show when they wanted. Volador/Gilbert would be better as a single fall match tonight, because it is likely to get under ten minutes, and something that goes one fall eight minutes is a lot preferable than two minutes, two minutes, four minutes of a normal CMLL structure. I wouldn’t have a lot of faith on this match working on a typical situation and I think they’re put in a no-win one here.
Dragon Lee finishes up in Mexico for a while in the tercera, teaming with Niebla Roja & Valiente against Terrible, Negro Casas, and Gran Guerrero. Hechicero again will miss commentating, teaming with Polvora & Vangellys against Stuka, Rey Cometa, and Blue Panther. Robin teams with Principe Diamante – first streaming appearance in two months – against Akuma & Espanto to open the show.
CMLL on Friday night returns to airing at 8:30 pm CT on Marca & Facebook. I’ll probably stream it on YouTube.
Mascara 2000 talks about his team with Blue Panther. Sanson talks about teaming with Soberano. Sanson wants to win but wants no part in teaming with Soberano.
Lucha Central had a preview of this show.
Last night, Elite and AAA dropped a poster featuring wrestlers from those two promotions, MLW, Impact, and AroLucha for a show on May 2nd in Fronton Mexico called “Gladiatores: Liga de Campeones de Lucha Libre.” There was no explanation of what this was about, as normal for both Elite & AAA. Lucha Central helpfully advances it a bit: this is stage one of an Azteca7 sponsored tournament. Multiweek tournaments are not good ideas for lucha libre – Azteca should know this from Elite, and even the Lucha Capital tournament went into a bit of nonsense at the end – but everyone no one wants to learn from past problems. This is good news if this means Azteca7 is giving AAA space for more programming and much less good if this is affecting the regular AAA show. The Azteca logo is not on the poster. None of the AAA video partners are listed.
AroLucha has not run an event since February 2018. Outside of a one-post-a-day Twitter account, there’s no indication they’ll run an event again. Almost everyone who was on their initial TV taping has moved onto work for someone else. It is unclear who will represent AroLucha on this show. The common theme here is Konnan works for AAA, works for MLW, works for Impact, worked for AroLucha when it was briefly a thing, and essentially worked for Elite last year since the AAA/ELITE show were all Elite productions. Konnan had a problem last week, with three of those groups running the same time, but it’ll be much easier when they’re all running the same show.
(It is also telling that AAA is propping up the corpses of Elite & AroLucha “Weekend at Bernie’s” style but didn’t think LU was worth the same effort. If the people who supposedly control the talent contracts want to move on, then why are there still contracts?)
AAA is currently scheduled at running five different tapings over nine days, starting on April 26. It is AAA running on a CMLL schedule and there might be the same problems with overexposure. At least this show would seem to have a different talent mix than the rest of the shows, and it is a problem that really only affects the most diehard people.
AAA drew 4.4 million viewers last weekend, while CMLL drew 1.3 million. AAA has crept back up, but they seemed to be solidifying around those numbers.
Sexy Star’s MMA debut is tonight. Her undercard fight is airing on DAZN. She won all her boxing matches and I expect the same here. It’s a combo of training and being put in good positions.
MexaWrestling/Lucha Memes 05/01 “Battle of Naucalpan” en Arena Naucalpan:
- Lady Flammer vs Silueta
- other Mexa Wrestling wrestlers: Arkangel Divino, Septimo Dragon, Templario, Hijo de Canis Lupus, Bandido, Rey Horus
- other Lucha Memes wrestlers: Arez, Komander, Audaz, Ultimo Maldito, Laredo Kid, Jonathan Gresham
RIOT 05/04 (Chicles) in Arena LLF
- Simbolo vs Black Terry
- Caifan II vs Low Rider – it only took them 3 weeks to announce a second match!
Also, Lucha Time announced they’d have Bandido vs Rey Horus on their 05/05 show. Bandido replaces Arez, who’s on the AAA taping instead. Lucha Time doesn’t put up their show and there are not many people bootlegging in Monterrey, so I wouldn’t get too hyped.
LuchaWorld has the latest Lucha Report.
Something called Nacion Lucha Libre posted a teaser video last night.
The Gladiatores has a sit-down interview with Pirata Morgan to talk about his life .
The Marvin family are running wrestling clinics for children.
An interview with Antrax 1 and Antrax 2.
Puma King has a video on his trip to WrestleCon.
Lineups
CMLL (TUE) 04/16/2019 Arena México
1) Príncipe Diamante & Robin vs Apocalipsis & Inquisidor
2) Pegasso, Star Jr., Stigma vs Akuma, Espanto Jr., Espíritu Negro
3) Blue Panther, Fuego, Guerrero Maya Jr. vs Dark Magic, Kawato San, Pólvora
4) Flyer vs Templario [lightning]
5) Soberano Jr., Stuka Jr., Valiente vs Euforia, Gran Guerrero, Hechicero
6) Carístico, Místico, Titán vs Mr. Niebla, Negro Casas, Último Guerrero
Top two matches could be fun. Sure are a lot of Flyer singles matches lately. Not sure what Polvora did to deserve those teammates.