CMLL relationships, Garza/WWE, LU/UK

Today’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter reveals Sofia Alonso and Cuatrero are a couple. The news is new but the relationship is not; they’ve been together for quite a while. Alonso attended the most recent The Crash show which included Cuatrero, which seemed like a bad move if they wanted to continue to keep the relationship secret. It is not meant to be public knowledge and it is unclear how much of CMLL knew this before now. I assume many did because it had gotten to me, but they didn’t want it out for the obvious drama reasons. The section also mentions Forastero and Ultimo Guerrero’s daughter are together.

Lucha Memes posted a video of a Diamante Azul promo, saying he will still be facing LA Park at the Generacion XXI show this Sunday at Arena Naucalpan. I’m not sure how a Diamante Azul who’s too hurt to wrestle in CMLL is going to handle wrestle LA Park but I’m not the target audience for Diamante Azul matches at this point anyway. Maybe it’ll be fine for those who want to see him.

El Planchitas says that, after a month, CMLL and Televisa are having issues. Televisa isn’t happy with the ratings and wants CMLL to modernize the product. Planchitas track record of late has been questionable but this story is easily believable. I never know what “modernize” means (and I’m not all that sure Televisa does either), only that CMLL wasn’t interested in doing it prior and that lead to CMLL leaving last time. CMLL & Televisa need something out of the ring on those shows to introduce the wrestlers to new fans and make them more distinguishable. They’re just rolling out edited matches and expecting people to care because lucha libre, and that is only going to hook people who were already interested in lucha libre.

CMLL took out the offending music from Monday’s stream, so it is back working. I’ve had this music issue come up plenty of times and it is not a hard process to fix. There’s a button with the video on YouTube itself that will remove the song from the audio track of the video. It can take about 15 minutes and works about 95% of the time. Just finding the button and knowing to do it is the tough part. AAA’s stream on Twitch runs into the same problems but Twitch seems like it just automatically strips out the offending songs, which would be ideal for most YouTube people.

Garza Jr. was officially announced as starting with WWE yesterday. He’s been in Orlando a few weeks. He did a video promo mostly in English, which was fine if having room to improve. As has been seen time after time, Mexican wrestlers will only go as far in WWE as WWE has confidence in them speaking English before a live crowd. It shouldn’t be that way but that the situation it is, and anyone who wants to follow Garza’s path would be wise to make the same efforts to learn English. With Garza signed, there’s no obvious next guy to go WWE – maybe Fantasma? Probably not Dragon Bane right now. All we should be sure of is there probably will be more WWE signings as they continue to sign everyone.

El Fantasma had a rented a building to be a gym next to his Mexico City lucha libre commission. On Wednesday, Fantasma found all the gym equipment on the sidewalk and outside of the building. He’d apparently been evicted without being told. Fantasma said he had been in the building 11 years and had not yet paid the previous month’s rent but was good until then. The building is owned by the mayor of Venustiano Carranza borough, and Fantasma accused him of being up to something. This was covered with more intensity than anything Fantasma has done as lucha libre commissioner in a long time. I had not heard of this gym before this came up but The Gladiatores has photos of what it looked like intact.

Nothing big on Keepin in 100 this week, though there’s an interesting development if you’re reading between the lines. Maybe overreading. This takes a lot of explaining though. Konnan, with not much setup, asked if it was a good idea to have someone suffering from Alzheimer’s as an announcer. There was also hinting around about a particular Konnan Twitter post from earlier this week. Everyone was very careful to keep it vague enough for plausible deniability but it is not hard to figure out they were talking about Vampiro’s recent social media. A week ago, Vampiro posted on Facebook that he has the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s. It is critical to understand that Vampiro is to dramatic posts on Facebook what models are to carefully composed photos on Instagram. It is their bit and is never the full picture. Vampiro likely didn’t expect it to get picked up as a news story and has spent the last few days trying to put the genie back in the bottle in Facebook videos and Twitter posts. That hasn’t quite worked so now he’s trying to launch a YouTube channel about healthy living. Whatever works for him, and none of this was worth writing about until it affected the actual product. That may be happening now. Konnan seems skeptical of the entire story but also of having Vampiro in his current role. Additionally, there’s a discussion of an (English speaking) announce that Kevin Kleinrock apparently recommended – I believe it was Joe Dombrowski – and Konnan seemed to think was good. (Dombrowski was on the Masked Republic PPV show and was good there.) If you put 2 and 2 together, there’s seems to be a discussion about replacing Vampiro as English announcer. It does not seem a definite thing if they’re just hinting about it.

Aside: If AAA (or the Mexico City Lucha Libre Commission) believe Vampiro is telling the truth and he does have the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s, can they allow him to wrestle Konnan at TripleMania? I’m not a doctor, I have no real idea if they can do it in a safe way or if they’re risking making it much worse. The obvious comparison is WWE’s Daniel Bryan, who was not allowed in the ring until he could show the wound on his brain had improved. (He credited cryogenic therapy for it, something Vampiro has mentioned as trying now.) Healthy/safety standards are so much less in Mexico that I’m sure it’ll happen if Vampiro wants to wrestle, but I hope someone’s asking questions.

Getting back to the podcast, Konnan mentions the Guardians concept includes the winners of each weight divisions defending the titles back in their home promotions and the possibility of it getting picked up as a full-time thing. I know we are all looking forward to seeing these belts defended on Elite and AroLucha shows. Those shows finally have a match announced:

• LA Park (ELITE) vs Pagano (AAA) vs Fatu (MLW) vs Taurus (AroLucha) in the heavyweight division

I assume that is part of a tournament and not the final. Maybe five weeks means four first-round matches and a four-way final, along the lines of the Rey de Reyes format?

Lucha Underground, seasons 1 thru 3, have popped up on Amazon’s MGM VOD service in the UK. It’s part of a $4.49 Euros ($5 USD) month subscription. It is not available in the US. I assume everyone who wanted to see the show has found a way to see the show, but that’s still a pretty good price.

05/04 The Crash

• Lucha Brothers (c) vs Mexablood for The Crash Tag Team Championship
• Austin Theory (c) vs Rey Horus vs MJF vs Adam Brooks for The Crash Heavyweight Championship
• Bestia 666 & Mecha Wolf vs Ultimo Guerrero & Gran Guerrero, winner gets a tag title shot

WON believes this might Fenix & Penta’s last show for The Crash, which sounds like great news for Mexablood. WON also mentions Flamita’s performance on the Impact show was impressive enough that Impact may end up signing him.

Fightful talks to Drago about his mask.

SuperLuchas looks back at the Dark Angel vs Amapola mask match.

LuchaTalk has a new episode.

Lineups

CMLL (MON) 04/22/2019 Arena Puebla
1) Astro & Asturiano vs Espíritu Maligno & Fuerza Chicana
2) Magnus & Rey Samuray vs Toro Bill Jr. & Tyson La Bestia
3) Marcela vs Metálico [lightning]
4) Guerrero Maya Jr., Stigma, Titán vs Rey Bucanero, Shocker, Templario
5) King Jaguar vs Policeman [hair]
6) Carístico, Cuatrero, Sansón vs Ephesto, Mephisto, Volador Jr. [Relevos Increíbles]

Maybe they’re running Caristico versus Volador for the Kid’s Day Even show? it is always Volador.

Neither King Jaguar nor Policeman have won a singles match in Arena Puebla in a decade. Both are near the end of their careers. This show should be a draw but it is hard to figure out why they would do this feud unless the winner is losing their hair later (on July’s Arena Puebla Anniversary show?) or unless an old favorite is being given a payoff. King Jaguar got beat up this past week so he’s the favorite.

Marcela & Metalica are both champions and maybe one of them defends a title next week.

The second match is one Tyson la Bestia away from being interesting.

CMLL (TUE) 04/23/2019 Arena Coliseo Guadalajara
1) Fantástico, Fugaz, Mr. Samurai vs Mr. Trueno, Paymon, Rey Trueno
2) Magnum, Oro Jr., Príncipe Diamante vs Difunto, Espanto Jr., Hijo del Signo
3) La Guerrera, Lluvia, Tae Honma vs Dalys, La Comandante, Metálico
4) Atlantis, Stuka Jr., Valiente vs Cuatrero, Forastero, Terrible
5) Ángel de Oro, Niebla Roja, Volador Jr. vs Mephisto, Mr. Niebla, Negro Casas

The women don’t often make TV here but do with Honam in for the moment. Sanson is apparently seperated from his brothers for the moment.