Lucha Fighter week 3, restart date still unknown, Mr. Niebla, CMLL/WWE

AAA , FIGHTER (SAT) 04/18/2020 Ciudad de México, Distrito Federal [AAA week 3, Lucha Central week 3, thecubsfan week 3]
1) La Hiedra b Big Mami 
9:30. Hiedra beat Big Mami.
2) Lady Shani b Lady Maravilla 
5:27. Shani submitted Maravilla. Mami & Maravilla fought post-match.
3) Psycho Clown b Texano Jr. 
8:13. Psycho Clown won via Canadian Destroyer.
4) Chessman b Pagano 
6:59. Chessman fouled Pagano.
5) Pentagón Jr. b Hijo Del Vikingo 
9:44. Pentagon won via Factor Miedo.
6) LA Park b Dr. Wagner Jr. 
7:47. LA Park won via spear after Wagner was distracted arguing with Piero.

Pentagon/Vikingo was great and everything was watchable. Hiedra/Mami going longer than LA Park/Wagner is strange. Either something got set up or the older guys were focused on pacing themselves.

The final episode airs on Saturday, with three matches announced:

• Laredo Boy vs Dinastia
• La Hiedra vs Lady Shani
• LA Park vs Pentagon Jr. vs Psycho Clown vs Chessman

and then? It’s not clear. On Keepin’ It 100, Konnan mentioned AAA is playing it by ear as far as future shows, with no firm places. They’re guessing the building will have severely reduced capacity even when they do start to run. It’s not addressed, but it’s another thing that makes me wonder if it’s going to be worth running a normal TripleMania if AAA can only put six thousand people in Arena Ciudad de Mexico.

More generally, Mexico’s current plan is to start opening up on June 1st, but it’s not clear when entertainment and sport will be given the go-ahead. An article about Tijuna’s Arena Big Punch has May 31st as the day they hope to start running boxing events, which means lucha libre is suspended in the city until that time.

(Keepin` it 100 does bring up Cain Velasquez getting released by WWE, but they fall into a digression before his possible return to AAA is discussed. The hosts believe WWE would just bring back Velasquez if they had an idea for him.)

Ring of Honor canceled their June dates on Friday. There’s no next date announced for the promotion right now. Similarly, Japan announced the countries’ lockdown until to 31st. That means NJPW’s Best of Super Juniors will not happen as originally planned, though it could be moved to last in the year. Dragon Lee has contracts with new promotions but neither promotion seems likely to be running soon.

Super Muneco and Ciclon Ramirez Jr. talk about trying to stay in shape while staying at home.

Komander and others were delivering food packages in Reynosa.

Last week, an article appeared in Pasala about Mr. Niebla’s death, with his widow Mariela Rodriguez blaming CMLL’s medical staff for not identifying his infection in time. I missed this (credit to R de Rudo for finding it) but Mariela Rodriguez wrote a follow-up matches on Mr. Niebla’s Facebook page disavowing the article. She does say talked to the report but feels he took what she said about the situation out of context and with an aim just to write a negative story about CMLL. The original article goes with the idea that Mr. Niebla would’ve lived had CMLL’s medical staff had identified his infection in time, while she says Niebla would’ve passed away anyway from the kidney failure or diabetes. (To me, the kidney failure being unnoticed seems like a serious problem for both version of this; Rodriguez says Niebla was very tough and optimistic enough to ignore the pain he was in.)

Miguel Reducindo’s weekly column about CMLL topics touched on the Arena Mexico anniversary – by talking about the original Arena Mexico, which is where the parking lot now stands. There’s also a fascinating story I don’t recall hearing before: WWE reached out to CMLL about running Arena Mexico when they first came to Mexico in 2006. This was a couple of years before Arena Ciudad de Mexico opened and WWE ended up running Palacio de los Deportes instead. The conversation between WWE and CMLL got far enough along that Vince McMahon and Paco Alonso had a conversation; there were moments where the two companies were close to working together or actually allied in the 90s and 80s, but it had to be a long time between chats.

Starman talks about returning from a year out following knee surgery only for wrestling to quickly get shut down. He says the injury break saddened him more, and now at least he’s not watching other people wrestle while he can not.

Add Iron Kid to the list of luchadors making face masks. It looks like he was doing it for a while but just this weekend got the same story Hijo del Soberano, Gato Gris and others have gotten. I thnk you can message Iron Kid about the masks on his this Facebook account.

Rob Viper looks back at matches on May3rd in history.

Segunda Caida watched a 1994 Rey Mysterio/Sabu trios.

CMLL posted part one of a video interview with Satanico.