Month: March 2020

Pagano is planning on running an empty area show in Juarez on 04/19. The main event will be Aereo & Hijo del Impostor vs Pagano & “Ex-WWE Sin Cara”. The former Sin Cara is not listed as Cinta de Oro at all on the poster, which is interesting, though it’s clearly meant to be that person. Two other matches will take place on the show. The venue is not listed but is probably the Arena Juarez arena that Pagano’s promoted in the past. The poster originally listed a suggested 100 peso ($4.23 USD) donation, and now is listed as airing on +LuchaTV.

It’s hard to believe anything happening twenty days from now will actually happen as planned at the rate of change and it’s strange they’re waiting that long to run a show for that reason. I think Sin Cara/Cinta de Oro may be living in El Paso, and just crossing the border may be impossible at this point.

I doubt I’ll have three days of news in a row, so might as well remind you now that Lucha Libre Vanguardia is also planning on streaming on +LuchaTV tomorrow night. The start time is 9 pm local – remember, Mexico is still not on DST, so that’ll be 10 pm CT US (or one hour after AEW/NXT ends if that helps.) They’re running an eight-man tournament and two non-tournament matches. The brackets are not known ahead of time. I don’t know if they’ll be accepting donations through YouTube Super Chat but I suppose it probably will work that way.

+LuchaTV has a new edition of their podcast, their first attempt to do it through teleconferencing. It’s a tough thing to get used to; turning off your microphone when you’re not talking helps a lot. They do talk about the Lucha Memes show a bit; the money donated will go to the wrestlers – and the building open, and the person who designed the poster, and various other people. (I haven’t had a chance to listen to the whole thing.) They also have a column on Aeroboy battling through the indies.

Diario Basta has a long interview with Black Panther about his career. Blue Panther did not want his sons to be wrestlers but he trained in secret anyway. His father eventually found out and let him continue, and he moved to Mexico City three or four minutes to continue. He quietly wrestled as Silver for a year and a few months. (I don’t think he was the Silver who was working in Puebla, but there was a Silver working Toryumon shows and the like. A Silver pops up working in Torreon New Year’s Day 2011, so that might be his real debut.) Blue Panther told him to change his name to Cachorro to start 2014, the same name Panther had used at the beginning. The idea to change to Black Panther came from CMLL, who felt many of the fans were calling him Black Panther already because of his gear. There’s a question about if CMLL has been hesitant to push him and get in trouble with “the film”, but Black Panther doesn’t think it’d be an issue.

RIOT’s Tonto Evento Sorpresa III is now up on their Pivotshare and Highspots Wrestling Network. They’re offering a free month to everyone who bought a ticket to their show scheduled for 03/28 who hasn’t asked for a refund.

Angel Garza was planning on getting married in July in Monterrey, but his wedding may be postponed due to the coronavirus.

Box Y Lucha posted an old interview with Pierroth Jr.

Ring of Honor signed Rey Horus to a two-year contract. It seems as though ROH might have earlier, but this appears to be the official deal. All of the MexaSquad trio appears to be signed through the end of 2021. Dragon Lee and Rush are also under contract, making five Mexican luchadors signed to ROH. WWE has six (Andrade, Garza, Carrillo, Mendoza, Bolly, Metalik) to eight (Mysterio, Kalisto) depending on how you want to classify “Mexican”, though that’s with a much larger roster. ROH might not be stopping in five. My impression is there was interest in at least trying out other unsigned Mexican wrestlers before ROH went on hiatus and it might still be there after they come back.

Konnan Big vs Dr. Wagner vs Fresero Jr. was at one point going to still happen in an empty arena, but then shut down over the weekend. Dr. Wagner‘s attempt at running an empty arena show Friday night was canceled within a day. It appears to be an issue over how they were going to pay the luchadors. Really, though, they’re getting the same message not to run as everywhere else and those shows are choosing to listen to the message.

Demasiado & Herodes Jr. talk about having no money coming in because they’re not working. I hope some thought about from the luchadors about changing the way this system works while they don’t have work, rather just trying to go back to how things were as soon as possible. It’s a long-shot hope.

There’s talk of a food drive in Pachuca to support local luchadors. Most work other jobs, but many of those are all shut down for the moment.

Pagano and Cinta de Oro teased a match for April – most likely teaming on a Juarez spot show. Anything for April seems tentative.

CMLL has a sitdown interview with Caristico about his career.

CMLL asks KeMonito 100 questions in five minutes. Monito’s pick for favorite soccer team got picked up as a news item, which is more about the quest for easy news items at this point. Lluvia has also done the 100 questions bit.

On +Lucha, Miguel Reducindo’s column confirms the Gemelo Diablos are the Gemelo Panteras. For what it’s worth, the only Gemelos Diablo trademark I can find at the moment is for a man in Guadalajara. That’s usually something CMLL takes care of before introducing characters.

An interview with Hidalgo’s El Impostor.

Carxyus wrote about his injury on Facebook. He was in surgery less than two hours after the surgery and is still working on recovering strength in his right hand. He’s thankful for the help he’s been given and plans to return to wrestling photography.

DoradaFan has a vlog on his trip to Mexico.

A story about lucha libre themed restaurant Burger Ring in Durando.

LuchaTalk talks about Angel Blanco and Aereo/Villano III Jr.

On Keepin’ It 100, Konnan mentions the 04/25 AAA TV taping in Tijuana is no longer happening. Konnan explained it as Tijuana not allowing events of more than 500 people at that point. Konnan also believes AAA will not run the same Rey de Reyes card later and is unsure Verano de Escandalo (05/26) will happen; their next big show may be TripleMania.

CMLL Informa introduced a new Gemelos Diablo team. The original Gemelos Diablos were Jose Sanchez and Alfredo Sanchez, who wrestled in EMLL in the US through the 60s and 70s. The new ones are unrelated to those wrestlers (and will have a black/white scheme instead of black/red.) They’re said to have trained with Tony Salazar, Virus and Ultimo Guerrero for five years and wrestled for 7. Uno is the slightly taller one of those two.

Matamoros based wrestlers Gemelo Panteras have been appearing infrequently in CMLL the last couple of years and say they’ve been wrestling for 7.5 years. That fits the story. Their father Pantera Blanca was also in Mexico City yesterday for +LuchaTV interview and promoted CMLL Informa before it was revealed the Gemelos Diablos would be on it, then posted a Facebook story which comes of like a farewell to the “Gemelo Pantera” gimmick. Everything points to CMLL just changing the names of the twins.

Julio Cesar Rivera also mentioned on CMLL Informa that there was an idea to run a CMLL empty arena show – perhaps with fewer people on the show and smaller matches – but the “Direccion General del CMLL” (??) said it was not possible because they would not permit physical contact between luchadors.

Dr. Wagner’s Arena Campeones will run an empty arena show on Friday night (8:30 pm local; 9:30 CT in the US) on their Facebook page.

ALITT, a promotion in Hidalgo, was planning to run an empty arena show but will not run now after being told to stop by the government.

Octagon feels like the lucha libre commission (and by extension, the government) should be helping out luchadors finically at this time. This leads into a plug for his union, though no mention of what his union is doing to help. Octagon feels like wrestling will restart in May.

Hijo del Vikingo says he dreams of having a match every night he’s stuck at home.

A lucha libre fan in San Luis Potosi has created lucha libre face masks for 30 pesos.

DoradaFan has highlights of 03/15 CAR The Crash.

Ovaciones has an interview with Mortis 666.

Lineup

DTU (SAT) 04/25/2020 Arena Lopez Mateos
1) Demonio Gato, Dioseo, Ulised Vengador vs Danny Boy, Séptico, Slash
2) Chucho el Roto vs Randy
3) Divino, Kig Jaguar, Ninja de Fuego vs Dark Diablo, Dark Joe, Dark Orus
4) Aero Panther vs Fight Panther, Samuray Jr., Vengador Radioactivo, Dariux, Flayer Boy, Hijo Dr. Pólux
5) Belial & Impulso vs Lunatik Fly & Lunatik Xtreme and Halloween Jr. & Hijo De Halloween
6) Halloween & X-Fly vs Cerebro Negro & Fantasma de la Ópera and Ángel o Demonio & Ovett and Paranoiko & Pesadilla
7) Sabú vs Joe Lider, Pagano, Miedo Extremo, Cíclope, Crazy Boy, ?

Everything is tentative right now, down to Sabu being able to make to Mexico. (Konnan mentions he was asked to be on this show, and couldn’t believe they were running it.) That main is going to be an amazing mess.

The status of the 04/05 Lucha Memes is unclear. The Mexico State boxing and lucha libre commission updated their statements on Tuesday, prohibiting all events. They specifically include shows closed to the public, which seems to be referring to this Lucha Memes show without mentioning it by name. Lucha Memes had a plan to limit the amount beings in the arena area – everyone would get their temperature taken before coming in, dressing out in the seating area so there’s enough distance for everyone, luchadors leave immediately after their match – but the new regulation seems to prohibit even that. The regulation may not matter; Lucha Memes has told people the show will still go on, though they haven’t said much publicly (and that vagueness may be the best move if they are planning on running anyway.) +LuchaTV posted a news article about closed shows being banned noting it would affect the Lucha Memes show, but still is promoting the Lucha Memes show as happening as normal (or whatever normal is at this point.) Justiciero also posted a letter he sent to the commission, protesting the original shut down, so it seems like he would continue to support a show being run in Coliseo Coacalco.

Memes and +LuchaTV can possibly have this show regardless of the rules. The commission is not going to storm Coliseo Coacalco and tear the ring down. It’s possible the local Coacalco and Mexico State authorities might send someone in law enforcement to break up the show, but they also might not – they might have better things to do. IT does seem likely that the Mexico State commission – already recently weirdly angry with +LuchaTV, Lucha Memes and Coliseo Coacalco for the 24/7 title thing – will make their lives miserable if they defy this order. This again might a lot of words about irrelevant things; the show is still 10 days away and a lot has changed in the last 10 days already.

For their part, Lucha Memes says they’ve received 24 donations. I believe Angel Garza was among those making a significant donation. There’s no mention of exactly how much money Memes has raised. The MedioTiempo article mentions the money will be used to pay rent for the arena in addition to paying the wrestlers. Lucha Memes mentioned on Twitter that they’ll be taking donations (including from international viewers) for wrestlers through YouTube’s SuperChat function. Memes is also going to release the Virus versus Jonathan Gresham match through +LuchaTV from last year’s Battle of Naucalpan to raise money the same way. That’ll get more money to the luchadors, though it means the money has to pass through at least Google and +LuchaTV and possibly Lucha Memes to get to them. Anyone who can donate money through SuperChat probably can donate money through any number of other digital methods, if the wrestlers themselves would make those available. This section comes off as harsh towards Lucha Memes and +LuchaTV but luchadors not doing something individually or as a group is the bigger issue.

Milenio has an interview with KeMonito about his recent viral fame and his career. He’s surprised by the inventiveness of the memes as much as anyone. He also reveals that Vampiro martinete spot hurt more than Ultimo Guerrero kick that set him flipping into a million GIFs, though I wonder if part of that might be selling the devastating effect of the banned lucha libre move. Monito also reveals he was considering retiring on the last Aniversario show, changing his mind after talking to CMLL. It reads like the injuries have added up, he’s probably not sticking around for much longer, and CMLL will retire the character at point. KeMonito also appeared in a video promoting the World Wildlife Fund.

An unexpected side effect of the current quarantine: the producers of the Perro Aguayo documentary say the film is done, but it’s impossible to show it in a theatre right now. It’ll be digitally available eventually but they’d like to follow the usual theatrical release when that becomes possible again.

Dragon Rojo Jr. was supposed to be ready by now, returning from right knee surgery. Rojo tore his ACL and partially tore a PCL among other injuries. His last match was in January 2019 and his recovery was supposed to take eight months, though I’m not sure when he got the surgery. Dragon Rojo was first said to be back in January, then it got pushed a few weeks, and it wasn’t talked about much before the shut-down. Rojo tells Reforma (via Criterio Hidalgo) that the right knee just hasn’t recovered as expected. He’s continuing on with his nutrition and fitness business while hoping more time will help his knee feel better. Dragon Rojo still is set on returning but this reads like there’s a real possibility the knee has healed as much as it will and he’s wrestled his final match. It’s hard to remember, given the many injuries he’s dealt with over about the last decade years, but Dragon Rojo was meant to be one of CMLL’s top stars at this point (and for the last many years), and it just hasn’t worked out.

DragonMania is postponed. All shows in Oaxaca are suspended until further notice. As are all in Monclova’s Arena Tigre Padilla.

Jimmy made it into Japan and was on the Dragon Gate empty arena show on 03/22.

MexaWrestling is teasing an Alberto el Patron appearance on their next show.

A column on the history of Hidalgo’s Lucha Libre Vanguardia promotion mentions local TV used broadcast Tuesday Arena Aficion shows in the 90s. They say it was mostly CMLL luchadors, which suggests it was late 90s (post-LLI/UWA) and I always wonder if an old VHS tape will turn up. This comes up because Vanguardia airs on public TV in the state; it seems to be a different broadcast than the +LuchaTV (like the IWRG situation.)

Dave the Clown says he tried all the sports growing up, including being a black belt in karate. He was taught lucha libre by Monsther Clown & Murder Clown.

Shocker says his goal for this year is another jaw operation.

Ovaciones has an interview with Lady Amazona/Adelita. Rey Apocalipsis picked her for the Arena Puebla gig, and she’s trained in wrestling under (Pequeno) Joker, Pierrothito, and Blue Center.

Saltillo referee/promoter Paco Nino has passed away at age 54. He’d been battling diabetes. Guadalajara luchador Indio Vitela Jr. also passed away.

+LuchaTV has this week’s En+Carados.

CMLL sits down with Blue Panther to talk about his 2012 hair match with Negro Casas. They have 11 people on Informa for some reason.

Puma King has a new video on his family

DoradaFan has highlights of the 03/14 MexaWrestling show and a new highlight video of Audaz.