I lost about 1,500 words from this news update thanks to a WordPress error. It’s been a while since this has happened! It’s still a big problem when it does. I’m going to breeze through a lot with fewer links than usual as a result, but somehow nearly as many words
Mexico City Ignores Pleas, Offers More CMLL TV to Mexico City
Mexico City’s plan to help luchadors is to air a CMLL show on a public TV channel. This does not help luchadors much. Mexico City public television aired a CMLL show back in July when they first came back from the pandemic. Most of the people in last week’s protest march were independent luchadors, who do not figure to be included in this television show. Just airing a show on TV is also not going to help CMLL luchadors make much money; if empty arena lucha libre was paying the bills, they wouldn’t be out in the streets asking for fans. The only effect here is people like myself being annoyed by news articles proclaiming “lucha libre now allowed in empty arenas” when lucha libre has been allowed in empty arenas for some time. It’s also so dumb; I’m trying my best not to contribute by dunking on them all.
On the same topic, Fantasma appeared on a Facebook video to announce the Mexico City government is giving out 2,500 pesos to licensed luchadors. Furia de Titanes has the story and the video. It’s not 100% clear, but I’d guess these are actually loans intended for small businesses like the ones handed out in the summer. They’re starting to accept the paperwork this week with the idea of paying out next week.
In the video, Fantasma also claims he was told by the government that opening Mexico City shows to fans couldn’t be allowed because the Mexico City government expects COVID-19 cases to spike after everyone gets together for Easter. Obviously, the Mexico City government’s official statements paint a much more optimistic outlook (CDMX remains in Orange with cases going down). Everyone in Mexico City seems to expect that outcome and another lockdown in late April, but it would still be a big story if anyone noticed a government official admitting otherwise.
Despite everyone believing it’s going to get bad again, the wrestling promotions are restarting as much as possible. DTU, who seemed to be holding out longer than usual, posted a video of Paranoiko restarting his school as a tease of their own impending comeback. Mexico State has 40% attendance restrictions; as last week’s near-full IWRG show proved, those aren’t going to be enforced unless the specific city wants to do something.
CMLL & ROH have PPVs tonight
Start times here. The two shows overlap, annoyingly. ROH had the date first, CMLL doesn’t care. You have to watch the CMLL show live if you want to watch both – ROH had VOD, CMLL does not. Both are about $10 USD – ROH as part of their monthly subscription (which you can safely cancel immediately if you’re afraid of forgetting about it and still get the PPV) and CMLL as part of TicketmasterLive. CMLL’s the slightly more expensive one since they’ve bumped the price up again on the day of the show. CMLL also has the best match – Volador Jr. versus Bandido should be worth the entire price of the show. The rest of the CMLL should be fine up to good, but it’s going to remembred as the Bandido/Volador show and that match will shape the entire perception of the show. I’ve got a longer preview up on Voices of Wrestling; the shorter theme is “will CMLL do anything to make an interesting match beyond Bandido/Volador, or are they done caring until fans can come back?” We’ll know later tonight.
ROH’s really hurt by Dragon Lee needing to get surgery; the card really needs what Dragon Lee versus Tracy Williams would’ve added to it, and putting Bestia del Ring on a PPV match is unlikely to end well. Rush’s match with Jay Lethal should be fine, but Lethal is either the second or third most important guy in his group; it’s only because Lethal has such deep history with Ring of Honor that this could be a PPV main event, but it’s not a strong one. I guess Lethal in the match is going to resonate strongest to diehard ROH fans – as will matches like Matt Taven & Vincent and EC3 vs Jay Briscoe – but I don’t know if this one’s getting much interest beyond that, and it doesn’t feel like there’s a lot of ROH fans very excited for the product at the moment.
Two other things to note on ROH: Bandido, Flamita, Rey Horus get their title rematch for the ROH Six Man Tag Team Championship against Shane Taylor Enterprises in the first, free hour of the PPV. (YouTube, Facebook, the usual places you can find yourself with the slightest effort.) That title change was a good match and this should be the same. The other bit is ROH had a similar card shuffle due to health issues on the last PPV and ended up adding extra matches to their card. They’ve got the last eight matches scheduled for three hours; unless Taven/Vincent is a forty-minute cinematic match, they probably have plenty of time to add something and figure to do so during the pre-show again.
Nuevos Ingobernables
On CMLL Informa, Angel de Oro and Terrible announced Los Terribles Chavez are no more. They are instead Los Nuevos Ingobernables along side Niebla Roja. The explanation is Terrible invited the brothers into the group, presenting it as a continuination of the original group and not a new one.
Terrible was part of the last CMLL incarnation of Los Ingboernables alongside Rush, La Bestia del Ring, and La Comandante. The group name was dropped when CMLL and Rush parted in September 2019, though Terrible kept wearing the gear. Angel de Oro & Niebla Roja started acting as rudos and teaming with Terrible during the early CMLL empty arena PPVs (though CMLL’s inability to air matches in order meant fans watching saw them start and stop this bit.) The origin story for the original Ingobernables was rejected tecnicos who decided to go against the fans; Angel de Oro & Niebla Roja were getting booed last time there were people around to boo. They’d been doing the Ingobernable act without the name, now they have the name.
The timing is suspect. They can’t actually be Los Nuevos Ingborenables at the moment; Niebla Roja is apparently in the US for personal reasons and there’s no indication when he’ll be back. There are no previously taped matches airing this weekend to get the angle over. The only thing that happened in the past week was former Ingobernable La Sombra getting his release. CMLL’s recently acted defensively towards the Felino Jr. name when they believed Puma King was going to use that character. Maybe CMLL wanted to beat Sombra at using the Ingobernables name, though – just like Puma King – there was no indication he was actually planning on using the name. For his part, Sombra wished Nuevos Ingobernables good luck. Rush, who’s already been using the Ingobernables names in both AAA & ROH, was less positive on the CMLL idea via RTs.
It’s tough to tell what’s actually going to get over when fans are back in Arena Mexico; it’s been a long time, it’s been a tough situation, there’s not a lot of useful reactions. The internet feedback to Los Nuevos Ingobernables has been strongly negative, but internet fans didn’t much like them as Terribles Chavez or even as normal tecnicos. It’s possible CMLL feels these three guys will get strong rudo heat over anger for bringing back this name. It’s also possible CMLL doesn’t really care about any of this beyond maintaining control of the IP.
Notably, NJPW pushed this story on their website, playing into how this will affect their Los Ingonernables de Japon. I don’t know if anything actually happens with the two groups, but simply mentioning it does play into the prior statements about NJPW and CMLL continuing their ties. They’re really working together, as long as “running the same generic article” counts as working together. (Another way to work together would be to offer tonight’s show on NJPW World, instead of requiring Miki Moto to do video explainers..)
Meanwhile, Rush told Lucha Libre Online he plans on running a show in June. The middle of a pandemic seems like a poor time to launch a group, but it’s probably not his money. The short version is wrestler-led groups in Mexico sound like a great idea and almost never work out. The most successful one has to be Ultimo Dragon’s Toryumon Mexico, where he’s running 3-4 times a year, using mostly trainees and locals with a few names on top, and getting sponsors to foot most of the bill. It falls apart when groups try to go as a full-time national group – everyone goes too big, doesn’t realize how much money they’re going to lose at first, and doesn’t have the media outlets or resources to make something out of it. It’s unclear what Rush’s concept actually is, and so no idea if it’s a good one.
I think it’s a strong bet Andrade will make an appearance on that show, even if it’s just a walkout and wave in between hanging out with his friends for the rest of the weekend. Which reminds me of a random grenade to throw out: Andrade wasn’t the first person to use the name La Sombra, or even like the third. It’s a name that’s been recycled a not and trademarked more recently. There’s no indication CMLL plans to do it right now, this is not a news report, but there’s also nothing stopping from doing so if they should choose – and if they’re so concerned about “Los Ingobernables”, they just might.
Daga & AEW
Today’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter mentions AEW has some interest in Daga. That may be putting it too kindly: there’s a sentence on Daga and then 402 words on Tessa Blancard with no mention of Daga. There are two realities here
- Husband and wife Daga & Tessa remain linked in employment; Daga is getting hired if Tessa is getting hired, and you can find plenty of coverage of the plusses and minuses of that elsewhere.
- Daga just getting sidestepped entirely sure some unfortunate things about how much (or how little) Meltzer believes Daga would bring to AEW. No idea if AEW sees him the same way, as the extra bit required to sign Tessa, but it doesn’t matter. Daga should obviously sign with AEW if offered because a national TV company, might as well see if he can work his way into changing that afterthought perception, no worse off if it doesn’t work.
I would enjoy seeing Jack Evans, Angelico and Daga bring their llave competition to AEW Dark, even if I’m the only person who cares. In other Daga news, there’s a great interview with him on Solo Wrestling talking about his career. I’m not sure if I forgot or never knew he was another guy training at CMLL’s school during the later stages of his indie career who never ended up debuting there. Those stories are usually like Penta’s, of realizing they were going nowhere and moving on. In Daga’s case, Konnan saw him on the indies and encouraged him to come to AAA. It seems a safe bet that was a good decision, and Daga credits Konnan a lot with helping him in his career.
Other TV/Streaming Notes
(AAA has not posted a preview of their show)
03/26 CMLL AMX (Google Drive)
- Aereo vs Mercurio
- Diamond & Volcano vs Virus & Luciferno
- Volador, Diamante Azul, Valiente vs Ultimo Guerrero, Euforia, Rey Bucanero
03/27 CMLL MVS (Google Drive)
- Magnus vs Hijo del Signo
- Tiffany, La Seductora vs Sanely, La Vaquerita (likely repeat)
- Sanson, Cuatrero, Forastero vs Volador Jr., Titan, Soberano Jr. (likely repeat)
03/27 CMLL Televisa (YouTube next week)
- La Vaquerita vs Reyna Isis
- El Felino, Rey Bucanero vs El Valiente, Guerrero Maya Jr.
- Mephisto, Luciferno, Ephesto vs Soberano Jr., Stuka Jr., Black Panther
- Cavernario, Ultimo Guerrero, Euforia vs Mistico, Volador Jr., Titan
- that’s the return of Cavernario from injury in September
03/28 CMLL YouTube (they forgot to update these matches on the website)
- Diamond vs Disturbio
- Caristico, Volador Jr., Atlantis Jr. vs Ultimo Guerrero, Euforia, Negro Casas
- Espiritu Negro & Audaz vs Raziel & Cancerbero
- Felino Jr. vs Mistico Jr.
- (debut of Felino Jr.)
There’s a strong establishment now that CMLL Televisa is the A show, AMX is the B show and MVS is getting whatever’s left. It’ll change, it always does. It’s good news for me because MVS is the hardest show to capture of the three. If I’m just missing one prelim a match a week that everyone will dunk on me for caring about in the first place, it’s OK.
CMLL has also started adding empty arena matches to their show on Heraldo Television; the show started airing exclusively two-year-old matches. This week it’s a Star Jr. & Audaz vs Okumura & Dark Magic match which doesn’t appear to have turned up elsewhere. Heraldo does have a live stream, but it hasn’t streamed the CMLL show in the past. I don’t think there’s much use in listing matches few people who read this can see, but I’ll try to add them to the database.
I am able to record the CMLL Guadalajara show and am posting it on the Google Drive, but I believe few people care about the matches outside the one CMLL DF match a week. I’ll link to it on Twitter, the entire show is going into a folder. Guadalajara has Caristico versus Sanson this coming Tuesday after the last week’s match in DQed. We don’t have the full card yet – the big question is “will CMLL bother booking anyone besides the NGD and Caristico to Guadalajara?”
Other News That Would Have Things If I Didn’t Lose Them All
Sopitas published an interview about how CMLL’s shifted during the COVID-19, telling a story about how they’re trying digital shows for the first time and how they’ve suddenly found out they have fans outside of Mexico. It’s one of those stories where the author did no work except to transcribe the quotes given to them by the company – CMLL’s done more digital in the last year, but they tried (and failed) at iPPVs in the past too and they knew previously they had international fans – so the real notable thing is this another CMLL piece where Gala Lutteroth ends up as spokesperson for the company in the way Sofia Alonso was for a time. Alonso getting press probably contributed to her ouster (over jealousy and territory marking), so it’s probably a good thing Lutteroth doesn’t do many of them. (One wonders what CMLL’s press department is doing to not be the person answering these calls themselves.)
There’s another note in the WON mentioning Thea Trindad (ex-Zelina Vega) could not come to AEW at the moment (if they wanted to sign her and Andrade) because she’s got a short term deal with another promotion. I’ve got a guess it’s Ring of Honor; if you pay close attention to their social media, you can see they brought back in some of their women wrestlers to the most recent tapings, they’re due to relaunch that division, and they could use a name like Trindad’s to get some attention.
GCW announced Aramis vs Arez in a first-round match for their Acid Cup.