Month: August 2020

New CMLL matches will return to TV tonight. Here’s the card.

CMLL (THU) 07/30/2020 Arena México
1) La Jarochita & Sanely vs Amapola & Reina Isis
2) Guerrero Maya Jr. & Stuka Jr. vs Okumura & Vangellys
3) Ángel de Oro, Carístico, Star Jr. vs Gran Guerrero, Templario, Terrible

(Somos el Medio has an article about the show along with interviews. It mentions the opening match as Black Panther versus Dark Magic. CMLL has not advertised that match. The Somos El Medio article also seems to believe Dark Magic is Normal Smiley, so maybe this isn’t the most reliable source. Maybe CMLL did run a singles match, and it won’t air it.)

CMLL quietly taped this show last Thursday; the leaked video showed the second match. It’ll stream on Mexico City’s Capital 21 (channel 21) tonight at 8 pm CT, with a repeat scheduled for the same time on Sunday. I’d suspect it’s an hour show. It does not appear it’ll stream on CMLL’s YouTube, though Capital 21 does stream their video for free on their website. (Their feed has been up and down the last couple of days; I may try to repeat it over to my new YouTube channel if it’s working. I’ll also put up for VOD if it works and if CMLL does not.) A show taped in front of no audience in the first real action for most luchadors in months probably isn’t going to be anything notable. Set your expectations as “happy to see CMLL in any form again.”

Capital 21 is a Mexico City government-owned station. The CMLL airing is in partnership with the Mexico City Secretary of Culture. It’s the city’s tourism department giving the OK for CMLL to run this show, while the health department’s policies state no wrestling (closed-door or otherwise) can happen during orange health conditions. Mexico City’s health department just happened to come up with new rules which permit a closed-door show just hours after the show announcement. The health department sent the policies to the Mexico City Lucha Libe commission, and Dr. Landru of The Gladiatores posted them first. Notable rules include:

• The promotion must sanitize the ring between each match
• everyone participating on the show (wrestlers and staff) must have a temperature check
• shows are approved for established locations, not for shows in the street or for sites not used to accommodating shows

That ruleset allows shows at fixed buildings like Arena Mexico & Arena Coliseo. It does seem to permit the Miguel Hidalgo Mayor’s proposed outdoor show or AAA’s AutoLucha concept. Both are outdoor shows and atypical locations. The intent appears to restrict shows where either the wrestlers might be crammed together waiting for their match or where fans might gather in groups to watch the show. AAA and others might still be able to run if they can show that won’t be an issue. I suspect that’s all of AAA’s focus at the moment.

Those restrictions are harder to abide by the rules for independent promotions. Most lucha libre locations in Mexico City are tight indoor spaces or outdoors. Many of the indie promoters don’t run in Mexico City for those reasons and another big one: the Mexico State commission has historically been laxer than the Mexico City one, so it’s safer to run just across the border. (“The border” sometimes being the other side of the street.) Now is a brief moment where it is easier to run in Mexico City. Mexico State may eventually enact the same rules, though it’s unclear when that happened; other parts of the government are probably not going to step in to help them as they have for CMLL.

COVID testing is not part of the Mexico City regulations, which means these rules aren’t going to do a lot to stop the spread of the coronavirus. It’ll catch people who are already visibly sick, but those who have the coronavirus and are not yet showing symptoms will continue to spread it. These policies mitigate the risk slightly, but it’s still present. CMLL did seem to be going beyond these rules by requiring everyone to wear facemasks during matches. They could also be doing COVID testing on their own, but CMLL’s health policies remain as secretive as ever.

These rules mean CMLL can run shows regularly if they want. It’s uncertain if that’s happening. The show airing tonight is a sponsored show. It’s no different than the Saturday Arena Mexico shows, where photos turn up on social media, but CMLL never acknowledges it happening. CMLL’s generates revenue for typical shows through ticket sales, concession sales, sponsorships, and TV revenue. The first two do not exist for closed-door shows, the sponsorship money may be down with no fans to see the ads, and the TV revenue is minimal. (There are a few good “CMLL TV money” stories over the years. A tale that comes to mind now is it being very hard for other lucha libre promotions to get into the US because CMLL was charging a ridiculously low amount for the TV shows, and it was all the same to channels taking them.) CMLL luchadors traditionally get paid by the ticket sales – with mentions of separate checks for TV – and there are no ticket sales now. The Lutteroth family is believed to be supremely wealthy, enough so that they could eat the costs on the show if they want. They’ve historically left CMLL to fend for itself instead. Maybe that’ll be different this time, but it may be another gap until the next CMLL show. Don’t take it for granted that the old schedule is immediately coming back.

CMLL Informa talked about this show and ended with an announcement of an announcement. Julio Cesar Rivera mentioned next week’s Informa would reveal details on the Aniversario show. This time of year is the usual time for an Aniversario show announcement; we would’ve spent the last few months debating what would be the main event and which day (18th? 25th?) in an average year. This year is anything but an average year. Last year’s cage match was a giant disappointment, but I’d be surprised if there were an apuesta match at all. CMLL running shows in any form are going to be a struggle while fans are out, CMLL running a typical Aniversario show is an impossibility. CMLL is aware of that too, so maybe this year’s celebration will take a different form.

A third notable part of CMLL Informa came early on, when Julio Cesar Rivera emphatically told viewers they should not believe what they read on Facebook or elsewhere, and the only place to find out real CMLL news is from CMLL. It came across clearly that Cesar Rivera (and probably CMLL himself) were upset about one of the recent stories. Both the “Microman coronavirus rumor” (reported by Planchitas as being spread by Cesar Rivera himself) or the MLW story about AAA purchasing CMLL surely upset CMLL. Either story could’ve caused the anger. Both stories appear false. The idea that you should only trust CMLL when it comes to CMLL doesn’t seem reasonable either.

Mexico City expects to stay in orange health conditions this week, with the number of people hospitalized reducing. It’s gotten better in Mexico State as well. Museums and theatres are going toopen with reduced capacity next week. There’s a path to fans being back inside lucha libre buildings in the next couple of months, which seemed unlikely recently. The national health map will be updated next week.

CMLL’s Wednesday virtual media day included Mascara 2000 praising Perro Aguayo, talking about their match, which will air on Televisa this week. Atlantis Jr. finished college during the pandemic. He’s got a degree in animation and digital art. Jarochita‘s interview makes me wonder if there’s someone in those CMLL interviews who asks every single person if they’re going to switch tecnico to rudo or vice versa. It’s never leads to an interesting response.

AAA announced they’ll be turning their annual pre-TripleMania march & mass into a virtual event this year. It’ll stream on all their social media at 1 pm next Friday. I don’t know how it works as a virtual event, but I’m sure they’ve thought of something.

The ChinampaLuchas show airs Saturday night both on their own Facebook page (30 pesos) and on Mas Lucha (99 pesos/month.)

The Wrestling Observer Newsletter says Rey Mysterio will re-sign with WWE. That was the expected outcome. The surprising bit is AEW matched the WWE per match offer, but WWE was offering more matches.

An article on next week’s Arena Neza iPPV pitches it as “streaming saving lucha libre,” and I’m not sure that’ll be true for this show. The iPPV (card, link to purchase) hasn’t gotten much attention. It’s still a week away, and maybe it’ll be a more significant push in the next few days.

08/30 DTU Cantina Extrema iPPV

• Samuray Jr., Dariux, Meta Tiger vs Aero Panther, Dragion Suicida, Principe Aereo
• Blaze vs Crazy Boy – new
• Brazo de Oro Jr., Brazo Cibernetico Jr., Brazo Celestial vs Paranoiko, Pesadilla, Black Fire – new

Should be 2/3 more matches, with Monterrey, CMLL, and the Dragon Gate guys expected for the shows.

Mini Elektra (Guillermo Cortés, 68) passed away Wednesday.

El Fantasma says he’s in charge of the greatest lucha libre commission in the world (according to El Fantasma.) There aren’t many good commissions. He could be right.

SuperLuchas has a good interview with Hidalgo luchador Kulikitaka, who says he doesn’t plan on wrestling even when health conditions are “green” if the coronavirus is still out there. He feels he could survive the coronavirus, but family members who might receive it from him would not. Kulikitaka believes promoters aren’t paying the luchadors even enough to get a COVID-19 test (“3500 pesos”), much less sufficient to compensate for the risk, so he’s not doing it. He does put the responsibility on luchadors themselves on deciding to wrestle or not.

GALLI’s empty arena show has switched to an open-air event in a new location.

Migala talks about wanting to go back to wrestling.

Profiles of Tampico’s Rayo Veloz and Transmetal.

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:

1. 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
2. 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.
3. 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

• Samuray Jr., Dariux, Meta Tiger vs Aero Panther, Dragion Suicida, Principe Aereo

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.

An interview of Reynosa’s Diosa Zohar.

Mexico City ended up remaining in Orange health conditions. Those health codes are supposed to be updated every two weeks and are supposed to determine if it is ok to run wrestling shows. The next update would be August 14, which would be the last chance for any wrestling shows to happen in August. The reality is something different. Hidalgo remains in Red, which means DTU should be announcing a farther postponement of their shows if the Red health conditions was truly the reason they postponed the iPPV the first time. Maybe they’ll wait until August 14th to decide, but most likely the shows which have gone on under the radar will attempt to continue to do so.

There was no wrestling at Arena Mexico this weekend – and there’s still no word on the secret show filmed Thursday – but there was an event in the ring. La Cotorrisa, a comedy podcast, held an iPPV in the arena. The report on the show mentions they sold 36,000 virtual tickets for the events. 20-25 people were in the building, including Caristico, KeMonito, and Microman for parts of the show.

That last name is notable – Planchitas story about Microman being ill and maybe having COVID appears wrong again. (People trying to report stories are occasionally being wrong; Planchitas never acknowledging his misses is an additional issue.) The article on the event mentions those in the building got temperature checks and antibacterial gel, though no COVID testing. It seems unlikely Microman would’ve been allowed in if he was really sick.

PWinsider (so many ads, be careful) noted a recent MLW show included a throwaway line about AAA buying CMLL during a promo. The PWInsider reports claim CMLL & AAA have indeed talked about a deal. It’s an MLW story and they have skill at getting their news picked up anywhere despite the size fo the promotion. MLW sometimes uses that ability to get otherwise normal news sources to report things that aren’t entirely true. This feels like one of those times, though I don’t know that for absolutely certain.

Salvador Lutteroth Jr., in his Comic-Con panel appearance, sounded like a person who emphasized the relationship between his family and this wrestling promotion and suggested they’d be staying unified for years to come. We know very little about the rest of the family. It’s definitely possible someone with Lutteroth in their name touched base with AAA to find out if they’d be interested; not everyone might have the same relationship with the promotion as Salvador. Touching base and actually doing a sale are a far distance away and there’s no other indication than an MLW story that there’s anything to this. MLW is close with AAA, and it comes across as an AAA favorable rumor leaked specifically to mess with CMLL.

It’s hard to figure if AAA could buy CMLL unless the Lutteroths were selling it piecemeal. I suspect the land Arena Mexico sits on, because of the size and the location, is more valuable than either wrestling promotion. It’s hard to imagine AAA has enough access to capital to buy that property, and buying the building would require a total rework of how they run their own promotion. An AAA purchase of CMLL, which is unlikely to occur, would make more sense along the scale of WWE buying WCW. Maybe AAA would pick up the tape library, the trademarks (even though they’re still in Sofia Alonso’s name), and the few wrestlers who are under contract, but it’d only happen after the Lutteroths had already decided they were selling or repurposing the lands and had no room for a wrestling promotion. I don’t think that’s happening.

CMLL usually holds “Copa Bobby Bonales” around this time, which is really just a bit of associating with Olympic medalist Daniel Aceves by honoring some older wrestlers. That wouldn’t fit normally this year. Instead, Aceves held a press event on Sunday where he handed out 36 food baskets to luchadors to celebrate 36 years since he won a silver medal. Luchadors mentioned as receiving packages are Rey Bucanero, Black Panther, Metalico, Sagrado, Mephisto, Volcano, Bengala, Principe Odin Jr., La Jarochita, Stephanie Vaquer, Disturbio, Cancerbero, Reina Isis, Akuma, Espanto Jr., Raziel, Valkiria, Sonic, Ultimo Dragoncito, Troyano, Ricky Marvin, As Charro, Demus, Demonio Infernal, Sstruendo, Principe, and Yoruba. Hijo del Villano III is pictured, so that leaves eight more. I’m not sure who person 37 was, but it was truly not their year. A “Marco Alonso” is mentioned as representing Salvador Lutteroth at the presentation; I didn’t remember the name, but some Googling mentions he was last seen in 2013 when he was in the front rows of a WWE show. He was listed as CMLL accountant at that time.

A group of fans organized food baskets for luchadors in Leon.

DTU & Lucha Time announced an alliance; Lucha Time is sending people to DTU’s next iPPV. This seems a good mix on paper: Lucha Time has some more experienced wrestlers but hasn’t really gotten much attention, DTU has gotten attention for their iPPVs but has a generally younger roster. The issue is this is a show happening during a global pandemic, which particularly makes traveling to another state foolish at worst and deadly at most. Just announcing this sort of thing suggests how non-serious both groups (and MexaWrestling, which will also be involved) are taking current conditions. DTU will announce a card for this at some point and it’ll be fine but the normal announcements that are supposed to make people excited come off as depressing.

Milenio writes about Shocker’s jaw injury, which he’s spoken about on his YouTube show. Diamante Azul broke the jaw in a 2017 match but the bigger problem is the repair job has failed twice. He’s had a plate break and a screw come loose, requiring operations each time.

El Fantasma was asked about appearing at an autograph signing this past weekend in this week’s Box Y Lucha. Fantasma explains it as if he was an invited guest while also mentioning wrestlers have a right to earn money however they can during a time where no shows can happen. He says he attended as a luchador, not as the head of the lucha libre commission. Also, the lucha commission governs wrestling shows but not autograph signings, so wrestlers are free to do those.

Mexico State luchador Potro Salvaje (Salvador Quintana, 80) passed away over the weekend. He was often seen in Arena San Juan.

Fellow Mexico State luchador Golden Jr. (35) passed away Monday, as announced by Golden and reported by Furia de Titanes. Golden Jr. was posting videos as recently as last week, though it looks like Golden knew something had happened a few hours before the announcement.

Pagano says he doesn’t find extreme wrestler dangerous because wrestling itself is dangerous.

A drive-in show will be held in Torreon on August 15th.

Mas Lucha looks back at Rayo de Jalisco’s career and an entertaining tale of how one of the current Mas Lucha members first found the Tercera Caida show. The channel turned 14 years old this week, counting the prior Tercera Caida iteration, which is a long time for any media company.

Mas Lucha seems to have quietly changed their promotional ad copy from “an exclusive event each month” to “more exclusive events.” It is a challenging moment to launch a premium content channel and I’m totally fine with them deciding not to run shows during this time (though it’s probably more logistical than ethical; they’re still taping for other groups.) I think that month change not being explained is more part of the general lack of communication than a specific slight of hand. I’m guessing an explanation deep may be found deep into tonight’s podcast but it’s like an AR mystery game to find out what’s going up and when on the Mas Lucha premium site for the stuff they want to promote right now, so it’s easy to believe other details might just not have been mentioned easily.

Mas Lucha announced Sunday Kevin would replace Fire Boy in the Welcome to Mi Barrio 24 man tournament. It suggests they were taping the tournament Sunday since that’s the time they’d know a substation.

Infobae has an article on the next Chinampaluchas show, which was taped Saturday and will air as a 30 peso iPPV. The full card includes a Guapos main event and a Shun Skywalker/Yoshioka iPPV. This is a show at a nature reserve which featured multiple people going into the water last month (but not the DTU show featuring multiple people going into the water.) You can find some photos here; you can contact a Whatapp group to buy the PPV here. 30 pesos is so low a price that I wonder if even covers the administrative fees in running an iPPV.

The wrestler who used the name “Coronoavirus” on a Generacion XXI show is also a nurse at a Queretaro hospital. He talks about the hard conditions he’s currently working in. It surprises me that a medical professional would also be wrestling at this time, but I’d guess he’s going to get tested all the same. Angeluz Fly is confirmed to be the current Generacion XXI promoter in the article.

Box Y Lucha is offering eight old issues as a bonus if you subscribe for 50 issues at 500 pesos. That’s just over $20 USD. All issues are digital; they’re not printing issues right now. They’ve got five of those issues up now; I think four have been given away for free prior. They’re also talking about putting up 60s/70s/80s issues digitally at some point.

Segunda Caida watches some fun random lucha libre.