WWE is in the middle of massive expense cutting as I write this. Employees are being furloughed and independent contractors – which includes the wrestlers – are being cut. So far, the most lucha libre relevant name is Dark Angel. Sarah Stock had started out as a trainer in NXT and had worked as a match producer in recent years. The producers are employees, so it appears she’s been furloughed – she gets to keep her benefits, just not her pay, with the idea she’d be brought back later.
WWE’s process is to put up names as they’re contacted, so it’s impossible to know when it’s over or how many more people will be cut. I’m concerned more familiar names to readers of this blog might find themselves out of work in the next few hours, but there’s no knowing. It does appear WWE’s refraining from cutting people who’d have to relocate back to their home country in the middle of the pandemic, but I’m afraid to assume too much. I’ve waited until the close of business to post this, but it’s always possible another relevant name will get out later.
AAA announced Wednesday that they’d resume running shows on an empty arena basis. The Lucha Fighter tournament will air live each of the next four Saturday nights at 8 pm CT. The shows will air on AAA’s YouTube and Facebook. (Not Twitch, though that will still have the eSports tournament.) 16 male luchadors, 8 luchadors, and 4 minis will participate. There will be a fan voting element. The size of the field suggests a single elimination tournament but AAA may do something more complicated. No specific names are announced for the tournament. No taping location is mentioned. No television partners are mentioned; this might just be digital content at the moment. They do not appear to be doing English commentary.
Earlier, +LuchaTV announced they’re also running their own tournament. It’s called Torneo Supremo +Mas Lucha. It’ll be a 16 person single-elimination tournament with various indie luchadors. Metaleon, Hijo del Alebrije, Ciclope, Arez, Payaso Purasanta Jr., Corsario Negro Jr., Camuflaje, Miedo Extremo, Jitsu, Demonio Infernal, Hip Hop Man, Fresero Jr., Ricky Marvin, Super Nova, Hijo del Pirata Morgan, and Aramis are announced for the tournament. The bracketing has not been announced. The matches will air on +LuchaTV’s YouTube channel, though no date has been specified.
There’s no danger in the +LuchaTV tournament being prohibited by a local government; the tournament was taped before it was publically announced. (It’s unclear how the AAA tournament will work.) This also means luchadors have worked between one and four matches and have not been paid for them as of yet. They will only be paid on how many donations come through after the fact. Luchadors did get paid as promised from the Lucha Memes show, so there’s some confidence this system could continue to work. It will take all those people who donated last time to come back again, and there’s no knowing if that’ll happen.
This tournament is also +LuchaTV creating content for itself because it needs new content to exist. The channel put up the last CAR The Crash show before the shutdown last night. It’s possible there are a few more older shows to put up, but they have to be about out. +LuchaTV’s business is built around putting up videos of shows every day, and there are no more shows. They’ve been shifting to putting up interviews and cutting out matches from full shows they’ve already put up or they have to create their own shows. There’s talk about helping luchadors through this tough period, but it’s also about +LuchaTV trying to survive themselves. (“Talk” may be overstating it; +Lucha’s promotion of the tournament on social media doesn’t mention the wrestler pay part of it outside of a brief aside on their podcast.) That seems to lead to things like preferring to keep the money flowing through YouTube, because that’s how +LuchaTV makes their money, rather than trying to push the money towards platforms which might keep a little less of the donations.
This seems like a not great deal for the luchadors. Most of them aren’t normally working shows without some guarantee; there’s an expectation they’ll get paid in the end but they probably wouldn’t take a show like this under normal circumstances. This is also not a normal circumstance, and there aren’t any great alternatives. If this tournament works, it’s going to work because +LuchaTV has a huge channel subscription base and a big social media reach; they can get a lot of eyes on the tournament and are promoting it hard. There are ways the luchadors can take that power for themselves – maybe as simple as promoting the tournament in the usual Instagram posts while giving options for fans to buy a t-shirt or a mask or donate directly – but that’s not in the style of the Mexican independent wrestler.
As a fan, I feel conflicted on supporting any empty arena wrestling right now, be in from Mexico or elsewhere. Everyone can insist that they’re taking all precautions, checking temperatures, wiping down mats, limiting people and more, but body-to-body contact and traveling is ignoring those precautions. (Empty arena wrestling is also not as good as with people, but that seems like a relatively minor concern.) At the same time, I’d like the wrestlers and the wrestling promotions and the wrestling videos channel to continue to exist once this is over and the only way they seem to know how to last that long is to just do whatever they already do on a smaller scale. The pitch is lucha libre as a distraction, but it mostly serves to remind me how messed up everything is at the moment.
(In similar news, AEW announced they still plan on running their Double or Nothing show as scheduled on May 23rd, though as a closed event. It’s unclear who will participate. Fenix & Pentagon have not appeared on the show since the first week of quarantine, and have not appeared as part of any of the additional content on YouTube. It only now occurred to me that this was another day with AEW and AAA running big shows on the same night, which would’ve been a talent conflict in a normal situation.)
Sonora luchador Black Demon passed away. SuperLuchas is reporting this is a Corona virus-related death, which would be the first among Mexican luchadors.
Manuel Ramirez (Kastroso) is the current head of the Ciudad Juarez lucha libre commission, which means Sunday’s empty arena show headlined by Pagano and Ex-Sin Cara is under his watch. Ramirez says the commission has approved Pagano’s empty arena show. Ramirez says Pagano is taking this seriously as far as medical conditions and keeping as few people as possible in the arena – like with the Lucha Memes show, only the wrestlers who are having a match will be allowed to be in Arena Kalaka.
IWRG announced the annual Rey del Ring on Sunday May 17th. This is their royal rumble style match. The winner either gets the championship of the same name or a match against the current champion (seemingly depending on if the champ is around that year.) Demonio Infernal won the match last year and has remained champion all year.
It strikes me as odd whenever a promotion announces a show now. No one is sure when things will get better (or when venues will be allowed to run shows, regardless of when things get better.) On the other hand, that show is more than a month away, they’re not exactly selling tickets for it, and there’s going to be plenty of time to change direction if it needs to be. Even for things where tickets are on sale – like AAA’s Verano de Escandalo (05/23) – anyone buying a ticket now is doing it knowing what the current situation is, and knowing that refunds may be slow coming if the shows don’t happen.
Roberto Figueroa posted a video Monday stating Dr. Wagner Jr. is in talks with CMLL. Figueroa is clear it’s only in talks at this point and nothing is official. Wagner jumped to CMLL from the dying LLI/UWA promotion in 1993 and was a regular there until 2008. He had a brief return in 2015 between AAA stints. Both those terms ended because of LA Park incidents. Park & Wagner had a brawl at the 2008 Aniversario which appeared to get them both uninvited from further matches. A speech declared profane by CMLL got Park fired again in 2015 and Wagner quit at the same time, either in protest or because his best money-drawing opponent at the time was leaving.
LA Park wouldn’t seem to be part of it this time, as he’s one of the main focuses of AAA and seemingly happy there. Still, Wagner reaching out to CMLL seemed inevitable once he left CMLL. Figueroa has a tendency to inflate stories, but this is something which would’ve been assumed to be happening even without reporting. Wagner treats wrestling like a business and is always looking to make the best deal he can for himself. The news here is if/when a penny-pinching CMLL decides they’re willing to pay what it would take to get Wagner to come in. There are likely items Wagner is looking for beyond his payment – LA Park got his son in CMLL bookings during his run, and I’d suspect Wagner would want the same for his children – but money is going to be the biggest factor in it getting done. Wagner in CMLL would be a short term boost, especially when every entertainment business is going to struggle to get people to come back to shows for a while.
SoloWrestling has an interview with Rush about his current Ring of Honor run. There was a recent report about Ring of Honor running live TV shows. Rush is asked about it here, and brings up the possibility of ROH returning in June with those (and looking better than ever.) Maybe it’s just a hope, maybe it’s whatever ROH is targeting as a return. Rush also hints at more Ingobernables members coming in both ROH and AAA.
La Joranda checks in with Matematico & Mano Negra about how they’re doing. Both are retired from wrestling but derive income from selling merchandise at shows which no longer exist. Matematico notes that he can’t even ship out items right now, because going out is too dangerous. Some collectors have been kind enough to send the money now anyway, trusting Matematico will send the items later, and that’s helped. Mano Negra calls on the Mexico City commission to help and, in the same breath, says they won’t because he knows it doesn’t really exist and is just a name on a piece of paper who’s never been of any use.
Add Hijo del Santo to those making or selling customized lucha libre masks as face masks. Santo notes these masks aren’t really up to the techinical standards and should be worn over the top of actual masks.
CMLL put up a video talking to Angel de Oro about his Homenaje a Dos Leyendas main event and Hijo del Gladiador about his career. They’ve reached the point where they’re not bringing in older wrestlers to the studio.
Laredo Kid is doing personal fitness classes via video conferencing.
DJ Spectro/R de Rudo has the second part of their Valente Perez bio.
El Siglo de Torreon has a deep history of the local lucha libre scene.
Lucha Talk has a special episode on La Sombra’s career.