Month: March 2021

CMLL Informa has Angel de Oro, Sanson, Drone, Akuma, and Espanto Jr. announced. The next PPV is still months away, so these are guests primarily talking about TV matches this week.

The price for that next PPV is now 196 MXP. CMLL and Ticketmaster are continuing to do the bit of raising the price as time goes by, though they’re not advertising it or explaining it at all.

Dragon Lee & Kenny King won the ROH Tag Team Championship on this past week’s ROH TV show. Rush retained the ROH Heavyweight Championship. Dragon Lee is currently TV champion, so that group has three of the five active championships in the promotion. There is a four-way #1 contenders match for Rush’s Heavyweight Championship next week; Jay Lethal is most likely to be that next opponent.

ROH has a bonus Dragon Lee versus Brian Johnson TV title match airing on YouTube today at 6 pm CT; Johnson earned the title shot via fan poll on ROH’s private Facebook group, where the match will also air. Next Tuesday (noon CT), ROH’s Week By Week show will include a Bandido vs LSG vs Tracy Williams match. Both of these are exclusively online, will not air on TV, something they seem to be doing more of as tapings go by.

MLW today (6 pm CT) has LA Park & Hijo de LA Park defending the MLW tag titles against Simon Gotch & Daivari. Laredo Kid faces Calvin Tankman on the show, which also has a MLW World title match. I still assume Laredo’s taking another L, though I’m not sure it even serves MLW purposes to book Laredo Kid this badly if he’s going to eventually beat Lio Rush to get the AAA title back and so he needs to get some credible win eventually. Maybe Laredo Kid won’t be the guy who wins the AAA title back, or maybe MLW will just pay as little attention to that change as AAA’s paid to Rush’s win so far.

AEW Dynamite tonight has Fenix teaming with Pac tonight against unnamed opponents. It makes some sense – AEW says more teams will be added to their PPV Tag Team Battle Royal tonight, and this establishes them as a team before being added. Fenix & Pac in a tag team battle royal is less than exciting given the level of those guys, but it may be a roundabout excuse to run a Young Bucks vs Fenix/Pac match people will really like in a few weeks since the winner gets a title shot.

The Tlaxcala government, in talking about their plans to revive tourism in the area, mentioned AAA’s broadcast “with a reach of 400 million people around the world” 400 million is just slightly suspect. Of course, the bigger issue is AAA’s Facebook and YouTube are not available around the world. Someone down the line clearly doesn’t know that, and I just wonder how far down the line it is.

This is probably not a thing but I’m going to feel dumb later if it turns out to be a thing and I didn’t note it: AAA’s YouTube TV version of TripleMania included five of the matches. They left off the Psycho Circus/Demon/Park trios, which is no big deal. They also left off the Marvel Lucha Libre match, which surprised me. That relationship still seems fine, so maybe it’ll show up in some other form or location.

If you donated to the Lucha Memes show, check your email for some WeTransfer links to download the first two matches from the show, with a promise the rest would come later this week. The email mentions music issues; it seems the plan was for the show to be a private link on YouTube instead.

You don’t have to wait until later in the week to watch the entire show, though – it’s already up on IWTV. I think it’s a bad look to make the show available on IWTV before the people who paid for the show get it. Even if it was the same day, it’d feel off. The fundraiser didn’t specifically mention any timed exclusivity, but it seems like a courtesy to give those people who specifically donated a week or two to watch the show before the general public. Going up early may be an IWTV call for all I know, since they do appear to have edited it. It’s annoying but not the end of the world.

RIOT is teasing an upcoming show, COVIDIOTAS. It’s planned to be a no-fans event relying on donations. It’s going to be an uphill battle because Mexican promotions have not done well fulfilling the expectations of the public on these events, as seen above.

Box Y Lucha #3462 has a lot of recent news stuff – NJPW/CMLL, Mistico doing a press day (he promises he’ll ask CMLL if he can leave before ever leaves), a Taya retrospective. There’s also an interview with La Infernal, who says she was out of lucha libre until Lucha Libre Real asked her if she wanted to work the Lyger retirement show in Arena Coliseo. That was enough for CMLL to call her up for the Universal tournament. Infernal was happy to still be remembered, but I can not imagine how dispiriting that must’ve been if you were one of (few?) women training at CMLL’s gym and got leapfrogged.

Mas Lucha has a new edition of their podcast.

GCW announced Hijo de Canis Lupus for a 04/08 show,. Dragon Bane was announced for a different GCW, so Los Golpeadors are going to be on all sorts of GCW events. I’ll check in back on this once they get to announcing matches.

Indy Army Wrestling is advertising a secret show. No dates, no location.

Nacion Lucha Libre continues to tease a return.

boring story time: About 10 days ago, +LuchaTV posted a show from Guadalajara’s Nueva Generacion Independiente. There’s little information about the show on the video – just the main event apuesta match – and what I believe is the promotion’s Facebook page hasn’t been updated in two months. I took a quick glance at it, noticed that it was packed building with no one wearing masks, and figured it must be an old show being put up. I was then surprised to read on Mas Lucha’s website that this was the first apuesta match of 2021. (Looking again, you can spot one or two people who masks at the show.) There’s no difference between this show and the CAR The Crash show except one got raided and the other didn’t.

various COVID related openings and closings

Arena Coliseo Guadalajara posted full results for last Tuesday’s show, though only the main event video ever turned up online. They’re trying again this week, though it’s again only interesting if you’re really into Guadalajara trainees. (Big news: Frenetico is now Infierno, though not the same Infierno who was wrestling there as recently as 2017. I got one guess who’s coming up with names.) There are strong rumors Arena Coliseo Guadalajara will have limited fan shows later this month. I’ve seen people mention it happening, but so far neither the promotion nor local press has confirmed it. One of the local soccer teams is hoping to open to fans in April, so an indoor lucha libre event getting permission in March may be jumping the gun. It’s up to the Jalisco health board to approve any re-opening policy.

CAR The Crash will not be open for a while. Anlca & Hantar, as people in charge of the building, held a fifty-minute press conference discussing their side of last Saturday’s shut down. They were told the building would be close for events for 30 days, which means they’d be closed until at least March 21st. (That’s a Monday, so the first show is likely the following weekend.) They’re hoping to get it reduced. Their claim is this punishment is not for breaking COVID-19 protocols or for selling beer without a permit, but because the building wasn’t zoned/permitted for that sort of mass gathering. (This is explained as if it’s a lesser issue, though it would seem to mean that no events can happen in that building without a permit/zone changing.) Ancla acknowledged they had “a little over 30% capacity” but felt it was unfair they were punished when others ran shows and got away with it. Ancla seemed particularly angry at Mas Lucha for their reporting and what they had said about the situation on last week’s podcast.)

Arena Lopez Mateos will try a third time to hold their first show of the year, this time on March 13th.

Lucha libre training has resumed in Chetumal after Quintana Roo reached a yellow light status.

AAA on Space notes

I was able to watch AAA’s third week of shows from Tlaxcala, the first I’ve seen of this year’s shows. (Week 1 is around on YouTube if you look for it, I haven’t seen week 2 available, and all of these should start appearing on AAA’s YouTube this upcoming Sunday.) I know Konnan’s talked repeatedly about wanting to do wrestlers at ringside similar to AEW’s presentation, it hasn’t happened quite yet, but I hope he keeps pushing for it. AAA does not add crowd sound and the matches feel empty. It does feel like AAA’s been able to ease back on the restrictions slightly – the announcers are no long separated, and there’s no obvious barrier between them. If that’s deemed safe, I’d think someone could set some barriers a far enough distance from the ring for people to stand behind and yell. But I’m not a doctor. Hopefully, there really is a light at the end of the tunnel and we’re a few months away from “how do you handle a no fans show” becoming an irrelevant discussion.

AAA overall just seems to be doing their best to pick up from where they left off, now a year in the past. Pentagon restated his challenge to Averno, which was an actual feud early last year. Averno hasn’t been onscreen since the shut-down. Penta also issued an open challenge for the tag team titles, the concept for last March’s scheduled defense against the Rascalz. Those two are in AEW WWE now, but it’ll likely be that sort of foreign team. Los Mercenarios are going after the trios titles, which was also the Rey de Reyes scheduled match. (That challenger combo was Texano/Tauros/Hiedra, Hiedra’s now otherwise occupied, so maybe Escorpion slides in.) The Flammer/Hiedra/Maravilla group is one of a few things that started during the pandemic, but everything still remains on hold until AAA announces what they’re doing with Taya’s title. It does vaguely feel like AAA has a big show coming up, though there’s no indication it’ll happen in March.

None of the matches were must-see. The effort level, like during AutoLuchas, is still strong but things didn’t come together well. Vikingo/Taurus is not bad, but also not near their other work – both were playing against type and trying ideas that didn’t work out well. They’re going to keep fighting so maybe it’ll help them next time. (I’m not sure how I’m going to do a recap for this show when I feel like I’ve already said everything; I might just bundle them together like the AutoLuchas thing.)

The Arez & Latigo vs Aramis & Dinastia match was advertised but didn’t air. The announcers said they were starting the Tlaxco show next week. AAA’s believed to have taped eight matches in Tlaxco, they’re airing three matches a week, the math leaves them one match short, so maybe it’ll air later. Maybe.

My hope is to record the AAA on Space shows going forward rather than be weeks behind. I’m not going to break AAA shows on YouTube before AAA has them on YouTube, but I’m betting just uploading them on the Google Drive is enough to antagonize people. Check the AAA folder on the weekends to see if I’ve pulled it off. It’s tricky and I’ll run into some issues as time goes on. so I’m not guaranteeing it’ll be there every week. I’m not going to advertise this on Twitter, consider it a “blog exclusive”.

AAA show on Azteca was scheduled to follow the telecast of the latest Canelo Alvarez boxing match; the idea about AAA being on late night Saturday/Sunday is it would be a good pairing with boxing action, and it doesn’t get bigger than Alvarez in Mexico right. It technically happened, except the Canelo fight went short. Instead of going to AAA, Azteca showed some of the undercard and repeated the fight to fill out the length the show had expected to last. AAA did promote they would be next, but ‘next’ turned out to be a couple of hours later.

Other Notes

Dalys & Stephanie Vaquer versus Lluvia & La Jarochita on 03/26 is non-title match; I must’ve misunderstood CMLL saying Jarochita/Lluvia were the champs as being that the titles were on the line.

Pasala’s El Planchitas has started a podcast, and his first interview is with Vampiro. I have not listened to it, but the clip they pull out is Vampiro claims he was fired from his position of AAA Head of Talent Relations over Whatsapp. Vampiro also claims he’s suffering from both Alzheimer’s & Parkinson’s, and jokes that his biggest concern is the affect it may have on his video game playing. He feels his lifestyle changes have slowed that progress.

Blue Demon was interviewed for an hour on “El minuto que cambió mi destino” about his career and his campaign. The highlight clip has Blue Demon mentioning he’s currently vetoed by CMLL and don’t know why. Working for AAA seems like a likely reason he’s vetoed right now, though he’d been used for years before hand.

Bandido made a surprise appearance in Arena Azteca Torreon, part of an attempt to safely restart wrestling in the city.

Guatemalan luchador Rayo Laser (Otto Wilfredo Salguero Lopez) passed away Saturday. (Real name here.) He was a local star in the 90s.

Remo Banda was honored for forty years of wrestling by the Monclova mayor.

The most Lucha Libre Vanguardia show will air this upcoming Sunday on Mas Lucha.

GCW announced Dragon Bane for their 04/08-09 Acid Cup, a WrestleMania weekend show. It’s likely Hijo de Canis Lupus is in to since they’re usually booked together. Both being in Tampa would normally mean them appearing a host of shows that weekend, but this year’s WrestleMania weekend isn’t going to be normal. They could pop up on other of the many GCW shows.

Joining the 21st century, the Ensanda Box, Lucha and MMA commission says they’ll soon have an online portal to enter information and physical licenses with QR codes that will link back to their licensing and health records. Aaron Cota is the president, the son of a local boxing/MMA trainer. There’s no talk about how/if this would apply to wrestling. I don’t know of any lucha libre commission that has a significant online presence; they tend to be led by men who are not tech-savvy (and don’t have the resources or inclination to be more tech-forward.)

Carlos Labastida  Cristian Granados is now the head of the Tijuana boxing, lucha libre, and MMA commission, replacing Carlos Labastida (suddenly resigned for personal reasons last week.) The term seems to last until October 2021. They’re intending to have specific lead commissioners for each sport, but there isn’t one for lucha libre at the moment. The article believes Diego Frias will eventually get that spot. He was in charge back in 2017, and appeared to be hands-on, suspended the entire Rebelion Amarilla essentially for being rudos. That didn’t appear to take, so maybe he was part of angle.

R de Rudo has notes from Flyer’s media day interview: Flyer was working at an Oxxo at 17, earned enough money for a bus ticket to Mexico City, and left with no return ticket. He was wearing flip-flops and he didn’t tell his parents he was going. Luckily, his uncle Volador was there to pick him up and help him find work.

Titan talks about his various mask designs, crediting Colombia’s Sangre Nueva for inspiring his recent run of masks with the oversized jaw.

Fresero Jr. says he’s not a talented wrestler, but a persistent one who hasn’t given up.

Marca has the story of a Swiss woman who didn’t know any wrestling beyond WWE, met Bandido in Europe, and then decided to come to Mexico to train wrestling. Bandido has strange effects on people. She originally planned to come to Mexico for three months but feel in love with the idea of wrestling and is currently training under Skayde.

A profile of Toluca luchadors/photographers Fuego & Dragon de Fuego.

Segunda Caida writes about a late 1995 match.