Month: January 2021

Black Taurus is scheduled to appear on upcoming episodes of Impact Wrestling. He was at their tapings this weekend (and revealed as much on a private social media account). Impact has not announced his debut. Taurus previously appeared on Impact tapings in Mexico City; he likely would’ve been back sooner had Impact been able to tour and run more shows there. I’m not sure what Taurus’ role will be or how soon he’ll turn up.

Taurus was, by his choice, working as a freelance with AAA and not under contract; there’s a chance the Marvel deal might have changed that. The deal with Impact appears to be direct with Taurus and not through AAA. Any AAA deal in the US seems like it’d have to go through Lucha Libre FMV at the moment, so it’s useful for everyone that Taurus not be an AAA wrestler for the purposes of an Impact deal. It also means anyone under contract to AAA might not be able to work a US TV show – or at least, AAA can’t send them to the US on their behalf. (I don’t think anyone, including myself, knows what the hard rules are here but most promotions tend to play it safe when it comes to an ongoing lawsuit.)

The viral lucha libre story of the moment is Blue Demon Jr., Caristico, and Tinieblas Jr. running for political office and insisting they will not reveal their true identities as doing so. All three have been a public part of the Redes Sociales Progresistas in recent months. Tinieblas is running for Venustiano Carranza mayor, Caristico for Cuauhetmoc mayor, Demon is running for Gustavo A. Madero mayor. Celebrity is a theme for this political party: the Tlalpan candidate is an actor/TV host, the Iztapalapa candidate is a singer, and so on through the rest of the country. All the candidates say they’re taking their first-time candidacy and possible elections seriously, but it comes off at the least as a brand-building exercise; I’m left wondering which billionaire is secretly funding all of it.

Demon says he will be listed on the ballot as “Blue Demon Jr.” and will govern while still wearing the mask. Demon does say the election officials know his name and would be able to confirm he’s the actual Blue Demon should he win, but he’s not going to reveal his name publicly. Mexico’s elections allow running under a nickname or alias, so “Blue Demon Jr.” can appear on a ballot. Blue Demon Jr., Tinieblas Jr., and Caristico’s real names are simple to find for any journalist who’s interested in and would likely be revealed if they’re competitive in the election.

The next step appears to be officially entering as a candidate between February 17th and March 3rd. The full list of candidates are set on April 4th, they’re allowed to campaign until June 2nd, and voting day is June 6th. There’s a long time before this goes anywhere (or before these names are actually on a ballot.)

The new CMLL show Heraldo Television appears to be airing two-year-old matches, previously broadcast on YouTube. It’s not important for people who follow CMLL closely, but it’s another way for CMLL to make a little extra money.

Leo Riano’s column in Record says AAA & CMLL revenues dropped by “more than 70 percent.” Riano’s facts aren’t always accurate and he’s doesn’t list a timeframe; it’s at least a decent guess.

Ultimo Guerrero and Diamante Azul had a title match on Sunday in Oaxaca. It’s listed as Diamante Azul’s title, though the angle to set it up suggested it would be Guerrero’s on the line. I haven’t seen results.

MexaWrestling seems to have taped some secret shows. Mas Lucha will air Origen Part 1 on Wednesday with Toxin vs Alan Extreme vs To Be Announced. I don’t entirely understand the purpose of a surprise wrestler for a taped show.

DTU’s Poza Rica show, airing Sunday on Mas Lucha’s ad-supported service, is now being pitched as a return to DTU running one show a month, as they did earlier in the pandemic. Those previous shows tended to be on the premium channel; this one appears to be sponsored.

Jalisco luchador/trainer Monje Cavernario passed away Friday. Facebook posts indicate he’s related to CMLL luchador Difunto.

Mini Psicosis (Jorge Ruiz) passed away Sunday. A few people have wrestled as Mini Psicosis; this one appears to have taken the name from Psicosis Ripper (the second Psicosis) and started under that name after Ripper joined CMLL. This Mini Psicosis wrestled indie dates primarily and isn’t one of the TV ones.

Miguel Reducindo’s Mas Lucha column has a crazy bit of trivia: the movie Tlayucan was nominated (though did not win) in the 35th Academy Awards; it was going for the Oscar for Best Foreign Film. It was based on a book of the same name written by Jesus Velazquez. He’s better known as luchador Murcielago Velazquez, lucha libre star of the 30s and 40s who switched to writing after he left wresting.

Indie Mexico wrestling promotions love announcing alliances with other promotions even more than running shows. Revolucion Lucha Libre Iztapalapa, a group with only four shows in my database and all during the pandemic, announced a promotional agreement with a Estelar Wrestling in Brooklyn. RLLI says they also have agreements with promotions in Salvatierra, Queretaro, and Cancun, while the Brooklyn group has agreements with groups in Panama, Russia, Chile, and India. This is all silly; I assume agreements mean “they’re friends on Facebook” because no explanation is given. the Mexico City group says they’re going to bring in people from New York but they’re definitely not going to run shows until they get health permission. Pretty sure they had been running shows without permission already, but Fantasma was there to endorse them anyway. Luchadors wrestling for RLLI appears at the press conference; none are mentioned in ESTO’s article. (Box Y Lucha also covered the press conference in a note and mentions many names.)

An attempt at a show Saturday in Arena Gomez Palacio was shut down by the authorities.

Generacion XXI hopes to run a show in Guanajuato on 01/31.

Pale Pro Wrestling in Texas on 02/12 has Psycho Clown versus Sam Adonis.

NVINoticas’ writes about Furia Poblana, who wrestled in Oaxaca & Puebla in the 90s and is the cousin of Mogur.

El Siglo de Durango talks to local wrestler Siniestro, who says he’s wrestling a closed door show at the end of the month. It’d be his first match since last February.

Jesus Zuniga posting a video of the AAA Arena Mexico invasion from two decades ago was somehow enough to get people to write about this being a sign AAA and CMLL about to work together. We are all very bored and grasping at straws.

Mexico City will stay in a red health light for another week, to little surprise. Hospitalization rates continue to rise; this is nowhere near ending despite Mexico City pushing the end date back one week at a time.

They’re also changing what “red light” means. The somewhat lucha libre related bit is “sports classes and gyms outdoors” are now allowed. That’s different from sports activities; someone could practice lucha libre but not put on a show. The distinction there is slight and will likely be exploited. Training has continued indoors despite the restrictions, judging from plenty of social media photos.

The Wrestling Observer Newsletter mentions AAA’s current plan is taping outdoors in new locations in February and March, but everything remains subject to COVID.

On CMLL Informa, Dragon Rojo said he was healthy after two years of being out, cleared to return. He hasn’t been in the ring yet, so he may not be in matches any time soon, and he’s currently back home in Torreon to finish his rehab. Astral announced his return to CMLL months ago and hasn’t appeared on any of the empty arena tapings; neither of them might be seen until CMLL can run normal shows.

Elsewhere on the show, Titan and Polvora both said they’d face each other in a mask match that’s unlikely to happen any time soon.

WrestlingInc’s reports WWE and Rush talked about a deal, but WWE didn’t offer what Rush wanted. WrestlingInc says AAA represented Rush during the agreement, which seems strange: Rush isn’t signed to AAA, AAA isn’t in the habit of negotiating contracts for wrestlers for other promotions and Masked Republic has said they’re representing Rush & Dragon Lee. It’s possible “AAA” could just mean “Konnan”, though Konnan negotiating deals for people to WWE is an eyebrow-raiser. The idea of Rush talking to WWE is not a surprise. Maybe it’s news the story wasn’t “Rush & Dragon Lee talking to WWE” but I also may be parsing this too much at this point.

LA Park & Hijo de LA Park won the MLW tag team championship on their show Wednesday. Mil Muertes debuted on the show; the promotion, which is doing a tease of Lucha Underground coming back. Lucha Underground is not coming back, but MLW will likely be bringing in other Lucha Underground characters for a promotion versus (fake) promotion story according to this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter. (No names are mentioned; my guess is it’d be generally US Lucha Underground alumni because of the ongoing AAA lawsuit.) MLW doesn’t have much buzz, Lucha Underground did at one point, so the bet is MLW will get curious people to check them out. This seemed to work for Impact for one combo show back at WrestleMania 2018, though LU was hotter even then and the LU fans didn’t seem to stick around after the show. The last MLW teasing tweet did get a lot of reaction, so maybe they’ll hit upon something here. LU itself isn’t coming back.

Psycho Clown versus Sam Adonis will take place in Arlington, Texas on February 12th. Psycho Clown seems to be wrestling a lot in Texas; Texas is open for wrestling to some extent and Psycho Clown needs the work. Expect to see more Mexican wrestlers who have the ability to work in the US to find whatever shows they can as this hiatus goes on.

Mas Lucha has the 16 people in Lucha Madre’s “Torneo Fuego Madre”: Camuflaje, León Dorado, Tromba, Jerry Calavera, Glenn Calavera, Piraña, Thunder Storm, Yoruba, Cobre, Rey Quetzal, Chavín, El Mimo, Shere Khan, Belial, Yutani, Ciclón Ramírez Jr. y and Tío (Kill) Korton. Mas Lucha will be airing one match a night at 9 pm, similar to their own tournament from last year. The matches will have “more than 10 distinct stipulations”; I presume that means each match has a stipulation. I’ve been warned these may be weird stipulations.

DTU’s most recent show will go up on Mas Luchas on 01/24.

Did you know: Grako’s gimmick is he’s a governor, expects the fans to vote for him. He’s a rudo. That Furia de Titanes has a detailed breakdown of Grako’s finishing move.

Events in Tuxtla Guiterrez, including a lucha libre show this weekend, have been suspended again due to the rise of COVID-19 cases.

LuchaWorld has a list of the top 10 tag teams in Mexican history. One of the weird, and hard to understand, parts of going back through the 60s and 70s results is how there was no real tag team championships at that point in history. There were Arena Coliseo tag champions (which went to young guys who only worked on lesser shows) and Arena Mexico tag champions, but those belts wouldn’t be defended more than once or twice a year and sometimes not at all. It also doesn’t seem to be a pressing issue to anyone; no feels tag team belts are missing or necessary, even though many small promotions eventually seem to have city tag team belts and championship defenses seem to be big draws after the UWA starts up 70s. (The UWA squeezes in more weight classes just to so they can increase the number of title defenses to book out, but don’t create tag belts until around seven years in.) If you go through the kayfabe magazine stories and rankings, Lagarde & Guajardo are billed as the best tag team, but that history isn’t preserved the same way as title reigns.

Canalla II (Miguel Angel Varela Seron) passed away on Wednesday. His biggest success was in the 80s and 90s as part of the Pavillon Azteca crew. He is Ice Killer’s brother.

Colombian luchador Rayo de Plata passed away on Wednesday according to Box Y Lucha.

IWRG announced Alejandro (Coy) Alvarez will be a new programmer. Alvarez is better known as the person in charge of the MexaWrestling promotion. MexaWrestling and IWRG have been working together for a while. The announcement is phrased as Alvarez being part of the programming team, not the one guy doing it, though no one else is mentioned as already existing in that role.

MexaWrestling is not really known for its programming (which is close to what people in the US would consider being the booker.) They tend to have a lot of multi-person matches and often a frustrating lack of storylines or show to show continuity. IWRG tends to be built around a week to week feuds; these are two different styles. MexaWrestling does seem to identify a wider amount of young talent, so that’s something that can be added. Alvarez explained he says his job as more than just making matches, but putting finding the strengths of their wrestlers and helping get those out of them. Alvarez is 30, and having a person closer to the age of the wrestlers involved probably helps relationships. Perhaps this will means MexaWrestling shows in Arena Naucalpan, but the article repeatedly mentions them as being of Arena San Juan.

CMLL Informa has Titan, Polvora, Dragon Rojo, Okumura, Super Astro, and Fugaz on Informa. Dragon Rojo has not wrestled since January 2019 due to chronic knee injuries and unsuccessful surgery to fix them. I can’t recall him appearing on Informa since his hiatus. He last talked about his knee issues in March, where it seemed like he was still holding out hope for a return but may have reached a point where that was no longer possible. Perhaps there’s some finality to be announced, or maybe he’s just on because CMLL is going back to airing older matches and he’s involved in one of them.

El Sol de Centro has a report on a lucha libre show in Aguascalientes. A lucha libre show in a prison, with the prisoners as the luchadors. Ten wrestlers (rudos Victor, Jesus, Uriel, Christian and Alfredo, tecnicos Armando, Carlos, Ivan, Jonathan, Juan Pablo) had trained for a year to put on the show, which drew a captive audience of 85 people. They wrestled under famous masks – the article has a picture of a Rayo de Jalisco & Espanto masks and mentions a Fenix. The referee (Octavio) helped the rudos win. I didn’t find a video of the matches, just some photos.

Forbes Mexico picked Dorian Roldan as one of three Mexican sports executives who “will set the tone for 2021.” The other two are the head of Liga MX (the soccer league) and the head of LMB (the baseball league.) The Forbes name doesn’t mean much in the US – it’s just mostly a content mill – but those are still nice names to be associated with.

Many of the CMLL virtual media deals seem to turn into sessions of journalists reminiscing about something that the wrestler’s predecessor did and asking the current day luchador if they’ll do the same thing. It’s partly because CMLL sends people out to do interviews who have nothing to talk about it, and also partly because it doesn’t seem like many of the journalists are paying close attention to CMLL either. It happened a few days ago with the “Super Astro Jr. wants to reform the Cadetes del Espacio” story; Furia de Titanes fished another story out of that interview with a “Super Astro Jr. wants revenge on Hijo del Villano III for their father’s mask” story. The luchador usually is eager to go along with the question, because it’s a pleasant chat and any idea is better than none. Oro Jr. took a different route: he shot down reforming Los Metalicos because he feels second parts and nostalgia acts are never truly accepted by the fans. I think he’s right, though that flies in the face of most of what CMLL tries to do.

SuperLuchas notes Septimo Dragon has made it home. That’s great news. There’s been no talk about how long it’ll take for him to wrestle – it may be quite a while – but at least he’s not missing shows right now.

Bernado Guzman’s column mentions some upcoming shows for the Mas Lucha channel

• Lucha Madre returns for “Torneo Fuego Nuevo” mid month
• KAOZ will have another “Rey de Monterrey” (a rumble last year, when it was a premium show)
• IWRG will hopefully have their Guerreros de Acero cage match show at the end of the month (probably premium)
• MexaWrestling, Kriminal Lucha Libre and AULL are all preparing shows for when the red light is lifted.
• Matamoros’ Kingdom Wrestling refurnished their arena and hopes to actually use it soon.

The Madre shows are usually taped much in advance. The KAOZ shows are always taped in advance too. I was a little surprised there wasn’t more stuff being taped in advance; this red light stoppage seemed inevitable for weeks before it happened and live shows were going to be impossible again.

Kriminal Lucha Libre is planning a new wrestler tournament for whenever they can run again. It’ll be a 16 luchador tournament with special rules. Using a Canadian Destroyer, a headscissors, a Spanish Fly or a package piledriver will be grounds for immediate disqualification. (Those moves are considered overused in Mexican indie lucha libre.) The matches will have judges who decide who advances, not the in-ring winner. Luchadors will be judged on their creativity and originality, both in their moves and their look. The old CaraLucha promotion once tried this same judging idea, which seemed to work decently well.

Dave the Clown, Murder Clown, and Argenis are raising money for a three-year-old girl battling cancer.

Mas Lucha’s podcast talked about La Parka, one year after his death.

Box Y Lucha 3455’s cover article is about constructing the perfect luchador.

AAA’s YouTube channel has returned – if you have a Mexican IP address. This is the same situation as AAA’s Facebook, which all seems to have to do with the ongoing AAA/FMV lawsuit where FMV claims to have exclusive rights to anything AAA outside of Mexico. FMV believes they’re owed any money generated by AAA on YouTube from non-Mexican viewers and AAA is responding by refusing to generate any money outside of Mexico.

In a weird quirk, you can still get to AAA’s YouTube videos outside of Mexico if you have the direct link. The videos I’ve linked to in the database still work; AAA’s channel appears to have been completely restored. I would not count on those links to work for everyone forever; it’s possible this is an oversight that’ll eventually be fixed. (The AutoLuchas show that went up Sunday is the first new video since the channel has been restored, and it can only be viewed in Mexico. This is the same show that went up on Facebook, which I’ve already put up on YouTube.)

The AAA/FMV situation comes up in another instance: Ciudad Juarez group 915-656 was promoting a “Lucha Libre AAA” show in Odessa, Texas on February 13th. It’s branded as an AAA show, but it’s more accurately a local promotion bringing in a lot of AAA names likely booking them through the AAA office. Lucha Libre FMV’s lawsuit claims they’re the only people allowed to make money from AAA outside of Mexico, so this could be an issue if this show gets on FMV’s radar. 915-656 says they weren’t aware of the legal issue and are getting rid of the AAA name.

Sports Illustrated has an article about Masked Republic. It mentions they’ve added Dragon Lee and Rush to the many Mexican wrestlers they represent, and they’re expected to officially re-sign with ROH this week.

Heel by Nature points out an attempt by “Rey Fenix” to copyright his name was recently rejected because it was too close to Lucha Libre FMV’s “Fenix”. (I went to check it myself, and it’s listed as still Live; maybe there’s someplace else where the rejection notice is mentioned?) Rey Fenix can appeal in the next six months. I believe WWE’s had similar issues where names were initially rejected before eventually being accepted, so this is unlikely to be the end of this situation. Masked Republic said Lucha Central would have more about the situation today, but it hasn’t turned up yet.

The Arena Lopez Mateos show scheduled for 01/16 has been indefinitely postponed. Arena Mamas Lucha ran their New Year’s Show but has since postponed shows for 01/09 and 01/16.

Solo Wrestling interviewed Jonathan Gresham about the upcoming 01/22 Lucha Memes show in Texas. (Text is in Spanish, video is in English.) He’s obviously excited for the show and envisions this as the first of a series leading to a concept show. Gresham mentions the show will appear on IWTV but he doesn’t believe it’ll be airing live. He says every wrestler will be required to take a COVID test before the show; the Mexicans are supposed to do so before traveling. He didn’t know Blue Demon Jr. was on the show until he saw the announcement, so this must be a collaborative process.

Blue Demon Jr. is raising funds for a child who has been wearing a Blue Demon mask during his cancer treatments.

Lucha Libre Online has an interview with El Cuervo de Puerto Rico. Planeta Wrestling transcribed a portion talking about the match with Angel o Demonio. Cuervo says he was never originally booked for the match on his tour and it was presented to him as a gift for doing well. He now suspects it was a trick by jealous people. Even though, it was presented to him as a coffin match – which confused him, why would their first match be a coffin match – and then later was told it was an extreme match. He had been told the weapons were underneath the ring and was bending doing to look for them when he got hit by the brick, which is another reason he suspects it was a setup. Cuervo credits LA Park for getting an ambulance when those in charge were slow and improper to check on him. Cuervo was told by psychologists never to watch the video for his own safety; he eventually did and it sent him down into a big depression.

“Heroes of Lucha Libre” will have a new season according to a headline in Pasala which absolutely should not be trusted. If you’ve already managed to forget, Heroes of Lucha Libe was the superhero-themed lucha libre show taped in 2017 and 2018 and dropped on Crackle late in 2020. The show was not good, didn’t seem to be watched by anyone; this seemed to be an already dead concept dumped off on a VOD provider to salvage whatever they could get. Guillermo Pous, billed in the article as a co-producer of the series, claimed to be preparing a second season of the show in 2021 because the ratings of the first season were so high – in fact, he says the budget went up. Crackle does not have ratings and is likely paying per ad view. Pous says people loved the show because it respected the tradition of lucha libre, which reads like a person who paid a lot of money for a lucha libre promotion he didn’t actually watch.

Alberto Rodriguez (Alberto el Patron) told Record he’s totally innocent of any charges, and will one day show proof of it, just not today. Record also published an article citing R de Rudo & Roberto Figueroa’s posts about Rodriguez’s innocence. Its notable Record says they’re quoting an anonymous source when those outlets mentioned the source was from Rodriguez’s family. Maybe someone figured it plays better that way.

Arena Tigre Padilla in Monclova is re-opening for boxing and lucha libre training starting Monday. The article notes that luchadors must wear proper clothes and a mask and knee pads.

Septimo Dragon’s father says his son has undergone four surgeries in total and is hopeful of being discharged from the hospital in the next few days. Septimo Dragon particularly thanked Mucha Lucha Atlanta for their support.

Violento Jack made a surprise appearance in Big Japan Wrestling. He’s been a regular in FREEDOMS for years. I’m guessing this is the two promotions working together rather than a jump but I don’t know much about it.

MLW announced LA Park Jr. & Hijo de LA Park will challenge for the Von Erichsf or the tag team titles on their TV show next week. Mil Muertes will also debut on that show; it’s a gimmick show produced by Muertes’ MLW manager Salina de la Renta.

Hijo de Coco Verde passed away on Friday. Furia de Titanes mentions he was a CMLL trainee who also wrestled as Mr. Buho.

Box Y Lucha says Gugan Khan (Jorge Ezequiel Rodríguez Valencia) passed away on Friday. He seems to be an older wrestler.

Juan Cabral, who promoted the large Festival Mundial de Lucha Libre in Guadalajara from 2008 to 2011, passed away recently. Those shows brought in both AAA & CMLL (on separate days) as well as indie wrestlers for multiple days of events. The first couple drew very well. The 2009 three day event drew about 20,000 people, Furia de Titanes is among others going back to the Oro II (not current CMLL one) vs Fantasma de la Opera mask match, where Opera took Oro’s mask only to lose his own mask in an immediate rematch, as the most memorable bit from the shows. The most memorable bit to me from those shows was Faby Apache losing a hair match on Guerra de Titanes a few days before, wrestling in an early match wearing a knit cap, and the cap coming off during the match to reveal she’d only got her hair cut down to a shorter hair-style and not shaved bald. It was obvious there had been a bait and switch at Guerra de Titanes, this was just the confirmation – and the photos made it absurd rather than infuriating.

The state of Quintana Roo is working to re-open sport, as long as they stay in the yellow health color. This would include lucha libre events.

NVI Noticas regular features on Oaxaca luchadors talks about la Furia today, including one intensely bloody match.

Debate has an interview with Tony Rivera Jr.

Mexico City announced they’ll remain at the red light health code for the upcoming week due to COVID-19 hospitalization rate. This means sports events, including closed-door lucha libre shows, will continue to be banned through at least January 17th. The COVID color light decision is mostly CMLL and AAA decision; they are too high profile to get away with running without governmental permission. Micro-promotions may continue to attempt to run secret shows in Mexico City, though the venues allowing them have shrunk for the moment. Mexico State has allowed different cities to enact their own rules; Arena Mama Lucha has already re-opened in Tultitlan while other towns are strictly against events.

The actual “January 17” date is unrealistic. Mexico City is setting highs in hospitalization rate and ventilator usage. It’s unlikely those will drop to safe levels within a week; if I understand that, the people making the decisions get it as well. (The Centro Citibanamex expo center, long ago the home of the Lucha Libre Expo, has been converted into a temporary hospital to meet the needs for hospital beds.) I’ll keep reporting what dates they’re saying on Fridays, but it seems obvious the red light health conditions will likely maintain through January and into February. (And again, I know people will keep running and doing what they want despite the regulations.)

IWRG’s all cage match show, scheduled first for 01/01 and then for 01/17, is now pushed back to 01/31. The Arena Lopez Mateos show scheduled for the 16th will also likely be postponed, though nothing had been announced yet. (The building is selling COVID-19 tests this weekend; it occurs to me that many arenas should have extra COVID-19 tests they don’t currently need if they were buying them in advance or buying them at all.)

The full COVID Mexico traffic light map should be announced tonight.

There is a change in CMLL’s programming department. Franco Colombo has retired from that job, according to Miguel Reducindo column on Mas Lucha’s website. Reducindo partially confirms a rumor: Colombo, Juan Manuel Mar (Panico) and Jose Luis Felicano have been asked not to come to Arena Mexico due to health protocols, but it has not affected their employment status and is not a reason why Colombo is retiring. Referee Edgar Noriega has been said to be part of the programming department in the past and has continued to appear on the empty arena shows, though the details about who’s actually in charge of deciding CMLL are scarce. Reducindo is unsure if someone new will be added to the programming team once CMLL is able to resume running shows.

Barbaro Cavernario made an unadvertised appearance on CMLL Informa, saying he’s taking his time to rehab from his foot injury. He needs two more months of conditioning before he’s back in his normal ring shape. I suspect Cavernario might be coming (or might be pushed to come) back a bit quicker if CMLL shows were going on normally; the COVID-19 situation likely is helping him take as much time as he needs.

CMLL announced a new TV partner, Heraldo Television. Heraldo Television is an over the air channel, at least in Mexico City – it’s actually the callsign of the old CadenaTres station, though it’s a different channel number and different ownership. (It makes for a confusing Wikipedia entry.) Heraldo is a newspaper, this is their TV arm, and they’ve had luchadors on their morning talk shows in the past. CMLL will air on Heraldo Saturdays at 7 pm for an hour. The station streams a live feed on DailyMotion though it’s not up all the time.

CMLL's current Mexico TV picture pic.twitter.com/XBmAxKpxpD

— luchablog (@luchablog) January 7, 2021

The Televisa Guadalajara show may return whenever they can run shows again but isn’t currently running. The Azteca America show is using CMLL footage apparently bought off the promotion four years ago but otherwise not connected to the promotion. NJPW World also broadcasts two shows a month, showing between two and five matches on each.

CMLL adding TV and while being unable to produce TV seems like an obvious issue, but it’ll probably be fine. It’s unclear if CMLL has week or months of unaired TV taped and sitting around, but they should have a lot – they were marathon taping weekly even after the PPVs switched to monthly shows. They’ve also sprinkled in a lot of repeat matches – or matches just cycled from one TV show to another. The depressingly repetitive nature of CMLL TV matches makes it easy just to keep showing the same matches in perpetuity.

CMLL’s show tonight on AMX (7 pm) will include a Templario/Bandido singles match. I’ll have it up on my Google Drive later tonight. The CMLL show going up on YouTube Sunday includes a good Stuka/Euforia singles match, which has already aired on NJPW World.

Super Astro Jr. says he wants to form a new Cadetes del Espacio with Halcon Suriano Jr. and Sonic. This would be a fun idea if I wasn’t tired of CMLL luchadors tossing out ideas that CMLL programming never does anything with. I don’t think prelim guys get to even have trios matches right now.

R de Rudo reports a source close to Alberto Rodriguez (Alberto el Patron) claims his recent sexual assault challenges stemmed from an extortion attempt. That same story seems to be sent to Roberto Figueroa, so this is a media campaign to clear Rodriguez’s name. In this version, the story fell apart because the accuser’s family went to the police and told them the accuser was making up the story, and that a drug showed Alberto was clean. There is no documentation provided for these claims. The source close to Alberto says he will not sue because he’s focusing on his wrestling career, though he’s also not wrestling until COVID-19 clears up. Both R de Rudo and Figueroa say they’ve been shown proof this is true; neither seems allowed to share it publicly.

Given Alberto’s history, it is impossible for a reasonable person to believe Alberto is innocent simply because people close to him say so. The point here, though, isn’t to change anyone’s mind. It is to give permission for the next promoter to bring Alberto Rodriguez in, allowing them to hold this flimsy story up as proof they’re not employing a bad person. If you can somehow get past Alberto’s personal reputation, his professional reputation is also recently terrible – the only time he’s been a positive draw in the last half dozen years is when he was in a freakshow MMA bout, but he’s going to get chance after chance because he was a draw long ago. Someone’s trying to use the press to wash Alberto’s reputation, just for the opportunity to lose a lot of money on him and end up with nothing more than a smiling photo at a press conference. The only self-awareness here is Alberto and his family understanding no one will believe this story if they tell it themselves.

Climax III passed away on Wednesday from complications related to COVID-19. He appears to have wrestled in EMLL briefly in the mid-80s, while much more often wrestling in Mexico State. He’s the brother of the original Climax and the uncle of DTU luchador Blaze.

SuperLuchas reports both Tawa Vera and Hercules Negro passed away on Wednesday. Tawa Vera hits me surprisingly hard because he’s a regular name the 70s lucha libre results I’ve been going through, wrestling in midlevel Mexico State buildings and challenging for titles. Those arenas were feeder buildings for Promociones Mora/UWA, and he appeared on their bigger shows as well. Hercules Negro wrestled much more recently in Hidalgo and Mexico City, but most people probably know the name from when he participated in the CMLL bodybuilding contest. He finished 2nd in the students in 2018 and 3rd in 2019. I’m not sure if he was still a student in CMLL this past year. CMLL did not acknowledge his passing.

Septimo Dragon apologized for not posting on Facebook recently. He’s out of intensive care and obviously doing better; he thanked everyone for their support. It was earlier reported Dragon had a fourth surgery.

KAOZ Lucha Libre, which has not run a show in months and has not publically revealed plans to run a show again at any specific date, signed El Impostor & Dragon from Ciudad Juarez to contracts. No length was mentioned. (I presume they’ve secretly taped something and didn’t fly these guys in just to appear in a contract signing video.)