A return to lucha libre shows in Mexico City may exist by the end of the week. It’s a longshot, a product of a politician making a grandiose gesture to play to the cameras, and it may not be a smart move, but it still could happen.
Mexico City lucha libre commissioner El Fantasma held another public food/pantry basket giveaway. Fantasma has utilized different donating sources each time he’s done this. This time, it was the office of the mayor of Miguel Hidalgo who was donating food and it was held at their city hall. (Miguel Hidalgo is one of the 16 municipalities which make up Mexico City.) The Miguel Hidalgo area includes the Deportivo Plan Sexenal arena and surrounding park, where some outdoor sports practice has been permitted and streamed on weekends as a part of a “train at home” public program. The mayor of Miguel Hidalgo, Victor Hugo Romo, proclaimed that a wrestling show might also be held this Saturday to help the wrestlers “make a few cents.” The Miguel Hidalgo government would pay for the show and would go to the government to get approval for wrestling events to be held in open spaces. No wrestlers, no promotion, no other details were mentioned, just the idea that a lineup would be announced on Tuesday and the show would stream via the Miguel Hidalgo government’s website (probably their Facebook.) There was also a mention of including lucha libre in a series of drive-in events. El Fantasma, standing six feet away from the mayor throughout this announcement, noted wrestling events had not been permitted in Mexico City but seemed positive about the idea of this even, saying luchadors needed a (non-clandestine) way to get back to work.
The story changed once Fantasma was a lot farther away from the mayor. The Tuesday headline reads “Lucha libre shows are still prohibited in Mexico City.” Fantasma’s claim is he had no idea the mayor was going to announce lucha libre shows and he had specifically told the mayor he could not permit lucha libre shows without getting approval for the Mexico City ministry of health. Wrestling shows, even in open air, are not allowed under the current rules everyone’s working with. Mayor Victor Hugo Romo is supposed to get back to Fantasma today (Wednesday) to see if those health measures have been changed and approved. El Universal pressed Fantasma on if those health measures would include COVID-19 testing; Fantasma said that would be “fabulous” but it doesn’t seem like he’s strict on including them
I don’t know when on Wednesday we’ll hear more about this if we’ll even hear more about this. Probably not if there’s no show. There are three ways I can see this going:
- No show happens; either Mexico City health department says no or it otherwise falls apart and we forget this conversation happened in a few week’s time
- The mayor lives by his own rules and gets people to put on a show without approval, which becomes a minor story but doesn’t really change anything.
- The mayor gets the Mexico City government to establish rules for “safe” running of outdoor lucha libre shows; the dam bursts.
This is all the usual mess and I’m not sure how likely it is to get a favorable outcome. It’s not even clear if there is a favorable outcome in a COVID-19 world. However, if this all ends up with an approved list of rules for “safely” running a wrestling show, then a lot of people are going to feel like they can start running again. AAA’s AutoLucha concept is about the same as being proposed here – no contact with fans, they’re all in their cars – and they’re solely waiting for health approval to run. This would be it. CMLL couldn’t run in Arena Mexico, but they too likely have been scouting outdoor locations to use. Many smaller promotions already run outdoors or are used to running one-off street shows and could attempt to be the same. Some micro promotions who’ve been running quietly would feel safe to do it publically again. It’d form an easy template for wrestling promotions in other states to push for their return. It wouldn’t be a full return, and it’s hard to figure out how many of the resulting shows would make any money (though that’s not new), but it’d be a big change from the last five months.
I don’t want to be naive enough to believe most wrestling promotions would actually seriously abide by those health protocols. They might if a lucha libre commissioner was around, they might claim to do so if no one was watching. The COVID tests would seem to be the big sticking point; it’s hard to fib about doing them if they’re required, and it’s hard to afford them if you’re running a show with more wrestlers than fans. (Maybe a government could just make it possible for anyone who needs a test to get a test and a result quickly, but that seems impossible for most governments I know.) There may be other sticky points in a health protocol, but luchadors have ways of getting around or ignoring health issues that they feel are in their way.
Zacatecas wrestler/Big Bear promoter Rafaga (Jose Alvardo) passed away on Tuesday. He passed away from pancreatic cancer.
Golden Jr. (Marco Antonio Huerta González) reportedly died after being hit by a car on Monday.
CMLL will have Atlantis, Gran Guerrero, Amapola, and Nitro on CMLL Informa today. These usually tie in with the Televisa show, but that’s not possible with the Perro Aguayo family featured in both big matches. Nitro & Amapola also appear in older matches, so maybe that’s why they’re on. Atlantis & Gran Guerrero are in a match airing on MVS this Saturday, but that seems an unusual reason for them be part of the show.
CMLL will run shows again someday. When they do, one of the shows pending to run is Homenaje a Dos Leyendas. There’s not knowing how CMLL will handle streaming it this year given all that’s happened, but CMLL’s tended to avoid streaming their biggest shows live on YouTube. They tried iPPV, it failed. Lately they’ve just waited until a day later to post them. They’ve also allowed US TV channel Nuestra Vision to air the shows on a weird two hour delay. Few people get Nuestra Vision. They do have an app, but it’s blocked out of the US (and there’s now simple way to stream it.) That problem might be solved for the next time a CMLL show is blacked out, as PlutoTV has picked up NuestraVision on their free online service. It’s channel 768. You may recall PlutoTV includes an AAA channel, though that appears locked to a never ending repeat of 2005-2006 shows and does not include the live Twitch shows. PlutoTV might be blocked in your local, but it’s much easier for someone to stream if need be. NuestraVision also airs “Titanes del Ring” on afternoons, which should be one of the lesser CMLL TV shows, though I’m not sure exactly which CMLL events they’re getting.
Mas Lucha does appear to be putting up new shows this month on their premium channel after all. The ChinampaLuchas show, taped this past weekend and scheduled to be streamed on their Facebook site Saturday will now be streamed on MasLucha’s premium site Saturday. It’s still being streamed by the promoter for 30 pesos. Mas Lucha says “El Rey del Norte” will stream on August 15th. I have no idea what show that is or even if it is an in-ring show; the image seems to feature Bandido and two announcers. Mas Lucha is 99 pesos+fees, which is more than 30 pesos. On the other hand, Mas Lucha takes Paypal instead of having to deal with the nuisance of US to Mexico bank transfers, and there’s theoretically other events on the premium channel. If you were going to watch the ChinampaLucha show and are outside of Mexico, this is a much easier option.
Acapulco’s Black Mask Lucha Libre is running “Black at the Beach” on 08/15, which is listed as airing on Mas Lucha. I assume it will literally be on a beach.
08/30 DTU Cantina Extrema iPPV
This is another 50 pesos show, going up to 70 pesos day of the show. DTU specifically states “this will not be on any free platform”. I guess they don’t want people waiting for Mas Lucha to put up for free later (though likely it’ll end up on the premium channel.) DTU is teasing a Blaze vs Crazy Boy match.
GALLI is running again on 08/15, but they’ll no longer have fans in the building. It’ll be an internet-only instead.
Lucha Strong says they’re running “a closed door show with 100 fans” on 09/12, which most people would call “a show with some buzzwords you’re not using correctly.” It’s a secret location that they say is “five minutes from the metro” but not a usual arena. The hints suggest it’s just outside of Mexico City
Hades says her goals are wrestling in Stardom and winning the AAA Megachampionship. Kenny Omega is surely scared of Hades so I’m not sure of the second one but Hades in Stardom sounds fun.
Hijo del Santo is on Cameo now. $45 is cheap considering Santo.
Mas Lucha’s podcast talked a lot about the history of Tercera Caida.