Kaho/Amapola & UG/Mascara move closer to hair matches, Dorian Roldan interview, Matt Taven back in CMLL next week

CMLL (FRI) 05/10/2019 Arena México [CMLL, Lucha Central, Marca, Ovaciones, Record]
1) Magia Blanca & Stigma b Espanto Jr. & Hijo del Signo 
13:18. Tecnicos took 2/3.
2) Drone, Fuego, Guerrero Maya Jr. b Kawato San, Pólvora, Vangellys 
14:10. Tecnicos took 1/3.
3) Kaho Kobayashi DCOR Amapola [lightning] 
6:03. Double countout as they brawled outside the ring. The two agreed to a a hair match.
4) Atlantis, Atlantis Jr., Soberano Jr. b Hijo del Villano III, Rey Bucanero, Villano IV 
13:03. Tecnicos took 1/3.
5) Cuatrero, Máscara Año 2000, Sansón b Euforia, Gran Guerrero, Último Guerrero 
8:11. Dinamitas took straight falls, Mascara sneaking in a foul on Ultimo Guerrero. The two agreed to a hair match.
6) Dragón Lee, Místico, Volador Jr. b Cavernario, Mr. Niebla, Negro Casas 
11:51. Tecnicos took 1/3.

Kaho Kobayashi says she’s not leaving Mexico until she takes Amapola’s hair. Amapola’s promo tells Kaho to get better. Kaho’s hair is purple now, would she purple-ize her hair if she was losing it soon? Maybe? The Atlantis and Villano Family made challenges, as did the Dinamitas and Guerreros.

A totally skippable show match quality wise. It was important in making it clear matches were going to happen, but that is dependent on you caring about those matches. Both Amapola/Kobayashi and Mascara/Guerrero were definitely agreed to on this show, which leads into a press conference announced for Thursday. CMLL should announce date(s?) for those two matches, maybe a tournament, maybe more.

Dragon Lee’s reason, if there is one, for being on this show remains a mystery. He did catch up with Exatlon teammates after the match.

Nothing big going on this weekend. AAA has this weekend off. The Saturday and Sunday CMLL have nothing critically important. Metalico maybe becoming a tecnico again is the only thing that sticks out. IWRG has a promising if not super important card. Most of the big indie promotions are off. The most interesting indie show might be the Lucha Libre London shows, with Santo, Casandro, and Fantasma. The first of the doubleheader is already done by the time you’re reading it and we’ll probably not see more than clips from it.

SuperLuchas has a wide-reaching interview with Dorian Roldan, from the TV Azteca offices. That location, and recent SuperLuchas articles reporting much lower ratings that it seemed AAA & TV Azteca were reporting suggested it be an interview focusing on that subject. It turns out those numbers really never directly come up, though a lot of other things about AAA’s TV. This is one where you’re better reading it for yourself; I’m going to summarize what I can here.

The most interesting part to me was the extended history of AAA’s TV deals. Let me try to condense it into a timeline:

• 1992: Antonio Pena & Televisa start a lucha libre promotion. They initially want to call it OILL (Oraganizacion Internacional de Lucha Libre) but eventually decide to use “Asistencia, Asesoria, Administracion de Espectaculos”, a name Televisa had used for other projects. Televisa pays Pena for the TV rights but gets to sell sponsorships. Televisa also takes care of production.
• 1995: Mexico economy craters and Televisa wants to get out of AAA. Pena creates Promociones Antonio Pena as a separate entity and it buys full control of AAA.
• Somewhere in here, Televisa stops paying Pena rights for the TV but gives Pena the power to sell sponsorship rights (so he’s the one making the money off the Corona logo at this point.)
• 2000-ish: Televisa tells AAA that they’re no longer paying for production and it is up to AAA to pay for it. AAA rents a production unit from MVS.
• 2002: AAA decides to stop renting production and buy their own in-house production equipment. Televisa’s only role at this point is to air the show, and they dictate how long that show will be. (CMLL also had to pay for production by this point.)
• 2008: WWE comes to Televisa and TV Azteca. Things go really well for a while.
• 2013: things are going less well for WWE & Televisa. The ratings have tanked and Televisa decides to get rid of wrestling from their broadcast channels. All wrestling, which means AAA & CMLL need to go too, though they could continue on the TDN cable station. This decision is made around September of the year. Dorian Roldan meets with Televisa executives, tells them he’s got sponsorships thru the end of the year dependent on AAA being on broadcast TV and asks for a reprieve until December to figure something out.
• 2013-2016: Televisa allows AAA to buy TV time to keep their slot. Roldan says AAA was making the most money at this point by selling sponsorships for broadcast TV, so it made sense to do what they had to keep that air time. Roldan says CMLL made at least one attempt to get back on Televisa, only to find out they would be required to pay for TV time as well and pass.
• 2017: AAA wants to get on Univision (US), but Roldan is not confident AAA looked good enough to get picked up because their production unit is outdated. AAA decides to not only to pay Televisa for TV time but also pay them to produce the AAA show. AAA’s deal with Univision does not get done and they see no improvement in Mexico.
• 2018: AAA has done good numbers with their TripleMania specials for two years. This seems like a good thing. Televisa apparently is not impressed. They raise the rate they’re charging AAA for TV time. Roldan talks to TV Azteca, who with they share some prominent sponsors and decides to make the move.
• 2019: AAA debuts on TV Azteca. TV Azteca is paying CMLL a rights fee. Televisa reacts and brings back CMLL (and is believed to be paying them a rights fee.)

There’s a lot of other big pictures thoughts in here. Dorian Roldan feels WWE has made Mexico and Latin America a low priority and doesn’t see them as a big threat domestically to AAA. He welcomes the idea of WWE trying a NXT Mexico but does not think they’d do well, that there’s not a fan base big enough to support them without WWE being on strong broadcast TV and that an NXT Mexico show wouldn’t get that TV deal either. Roldan sees the wrestling fans of Mexico split three ways

• 5% are the hardcores who follow everything super closely, know the AEW guys and NJPW.
• 45% know the difference between AAA & CMLL but aren’t more knowledgable than that.
• 50% have so little knowledge that go to an Arena Mexico show thinking they’re seeing AAA

Dorian Roldan’s big goal still is the United States, feeling there’s just so much money to be made there (and holding up the Mexican National Team playing in the US as proof.) He also feels like, by going after the Hispanic market, he won’t be as directly competing with WWE as AEW might be. The Madison Square Garden show will determine how strong they go in that path forward. AAA was not expecting to sell out like AEW show, believing the Hispanic market isn’t going to buy tickets that far in advance, but feels like they’ve done well given how little noise they’ve made so far. AAA plans on making a lot more noise.

The thing that’s going to get the most noise from this interview is Dorian Roldan talking about the meetings he’s had with various other heads of companies. Roldan mentions speaking with Joe Koff (Ring of Honor), Ed Norholm (Impact Wrestling) and Billy Corgan (National Wrestling Alliance) over WrestleMania weekend. Roldan pushes the idea that even though they’re competitors, they should be building bridges to work together. “You need a talent, I have another talent signed with Lucha Underground, what are we fighting for?” In Roldan’s telling of it, he got Willie Mack to appear for the NWA and the Lucha Brothers to appear for AEW. That’s a completely opposite version of the Mack/NWA story from what’s been told by Mack and other people involved, where AAA/LU/Roldan was threatening legal action if the NWA (& ROH) continued to use Willie Mack. I tend to believe Mack’s side of this story and wonder what pieces are missing from Roldan’s side.

There’s a lot more here – you can read yourself about Roldan’s thoughts about an AAA/CMLL show, about wrestling in Monterrey (“I do not know a place in the world where promoters fright mone – there they strive to see who loses the most money”) and about egos in general.

AAA posted a Mother’s Day promo with Faby Apache and Marvin. You could watch Marvin grow up before your eyes if you watched the annual version of these interviews all in a row.

Add 07/06 in Guadalajara (Zapopan) to the upcoming AAA TV tapings. As that page notes, this would be AAA’s first taping in the Guadalajara in four years. They haven’t been since the 2015 Rey de Reyes show, which was twice delayed and included a fatal bus accident.

El Universal interviews Tiffany and her mom La Diabolica.

05/24 (Friday) The Crash

• Angel de Oro & Niebla Roja vs Los Traumas
• Lucha Brothers (c) vs MechaWolf & Bestia 666 in a TLC match for The Crash Tag Team Championship
• Rey Horus & Hijo del Fantasma vs Caristico & Austin Theory
• Flamita vs Black Danger vs Adam Brooks
• Los Haraganes (Animal, Demencia, Silver Star) vs Triple Amenaza (Star Boy, Viento, Zarco) – new

LuchaWorld has the latest news update.

Voices of Wrestling has a review of the ChairoKingdom show.

El Sol de Durango interviews Escoria.

Segunda Caida writes about a 1994 Negro Casas match.

This week’s Puma King video talks about having 9 matches in 5 days and ends especially weird.

Lineups

CMLL (FRI) 05/17/2019 Arena México
1) Magia Blanca & Star Jr. vs Akuma & Espanto Jr.
2) Kaho Kobayashi, Marcela, Sanely vs Amapola, Metálica, Tiffany
3) Esfinge, Rey Cometa, Tritón vs Felino, Hechicero, Tiger
4) Soberano Jr. vs Negro Casas [lightning]
5) Euforia, Gran Guerrero, Último Guerrero vs Ephesto, Máscara Año 2000, Mephisto
6) Carístico, Místico, Volador Jr. vs Cuatrero, Matt Taven, Sansón

Matt Taven returns for the first time since the Gran Prix weekend. He’s pictured with the Ring of Honor title. It seems possible he’d defend the title here. The next Ring of Honor shows are June 1st and 2nd, so he could stick around for the 05/24 CMLL show.

Otherwise, the two CMLL feuds continue. Matches 3/4 could be good. Magia Blanca and Espanto are back together in the opener, which would be very not good.