Federacion Wrestling announces debut show for June 19th

Well. It wasn’t a complete mess. If only because we were expecting one.

Federacion Wrestling introduced themselves with about a half-hour video, as notable for the obvious audio glitches as the announcement made. Journalists were invited to a Zoom session which they believed was to ask questions, but instead sat around and watched the same video as everyone else. The video aired late despite being taped and produced in advance. The climax was the surprise reveal of Andrade, cutting his first promo for Mexican audiences – only no one could hear it at all because the sound wasn’t working.

It’s a “third brand” Mexican promotion, this is all living up to expectations. Mas Lucha, hosting the stream, re-uploaded the Andrade promo with the correct sound. The poster, which misspells Rey Fenix’s name and appears to have the women’s match incorrect, will be eventually re-issued (probably.) The PPV website, which currently directs Paypal payments to a bizarre email address *, will be improved. All of those later fixes won’t change the first impression: Federacion Wrestling is indeed another in the line of Nacion Lucha Libre, ELITE, and others who’ve hyped themselves as a new national alternative and are clearly not prepared for the role. This bit has happened so often that I’m not sure anyone watching the video was surprised – there have been so many of these to be goofball promotions, but Federacion is definitely spending a lot of money to be a goofball promotion.

The PPV will cost about $20 USD. The lineup, at least as expressed on the video

FW (SAT) 06/19/2021 unknown location, unknown state
1) Brillante Jr. & Futuro vs Barabas & Shoko
2) Rey Horus vs Flamita, vs ?
3) ?, Red Velvet, Tay Conti vs Ayako Hamada, Miranda Alize, Zeuxis
4) 1 vs 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 [Copa Federacion Wrestling]
5) Bandido & Dragón Lee vs Fénix & Pentagón Jr.
6) ?, Andrade, La Bestia Del Ring, Rush vs ???, ????, Matt Taven, PJ Black

No location was announced, outside of repeated references to wrestlers being back in Mexico for the first time in a long time. No live tickets appear to be sold; this appears closed door. It seems like a show that’d actually be easier to do in the US – what’s the point of flying Matt Taven to Mexico to have him wrestle in an empty sound stage – but contracts might prevent that.)

There’s a lot of mystery people. The idea is some of them will be announced as time goes by, which is a good strategy to keep in mind when there’s no TV or no other obvious way to keep up interest up in those shows. No additional CMLL names were announced; I suspect the idea is they’re intended to fill those spots but Andrade was enough to announce on day 1.

Bandido & Dragon Lee versus Fenix & Pentagon Jr. is a great match, is enough to get people wanting to check this show out. Andrade turning up in Mexico may still have interest six weeks from now. The rest of the show should be good but isn’t really PPV matches. No one’s dying to see Andrade & Rush in a mid-feud atomicos match against Matt Taven. Tay Conti has a fanbase but I’m not sure they’re going to jump to see her in a random trios when she’s on AEW often. Rey Horus vs Flamita vs whoever should be strong but it’s also treated as just a second match. The 20 person match with no names announced sounds most worrisome; it seems to exist to just get everyone’s friend’s, which is not exactly the approach someone seriously getting a serious promotion off the ground. (AEW did something similar, did book a lot of friends, but at least had some names to announce.) We have to just accept a serious thing getting off the ground, just getting paid.

I wonder if Brillante Jr. is going to be Andrade’s +1 going forward.

The video introduced a character named Damiana Vicenzoa (La Patrona) as the storyline CEO of the company. The actual owners of Federacion Wrestling were never named or introduced. Vicenzoa looks vaguely like Rush’s wife but is not her. It’s also not a real name and no one seemed to recognize her.

Perhaps the big takeaway? If CMLL would’ve waited a few days, they might have seen this and realized they didn’t have much to be upset about.

Federacion Wrestling told viewers to watch their social media for more information. While their Facebook did link to the introductory video, only the Andrade trailer made it to YouTube, and their Twitter has stopped being updated. Follow Mas Lucha instead, I guess.

(* I think the email address was a placeholder and the people behind are such a crypto enthusiasts they didn’t think to test to see if Paypal was working correctly beforehand. Though that means any tickets bought day 1 is sending money to the wrong person. It wasn’t Federacion who created the story; they seem to have asked outside people to create a webstore business on short notice – they say four days on their Facebook account – and this show is the very first thing they’re selling. It raises questions about why Federacion didn’t have it done earlier or use the hundreds of other sites that already had a functioning webstore. The story wrestlers are telling around Federacion is it’s backed by a wealthy concert promoter, but one of those would presumably already have plenty of ways to sell physical and digital tickets and not need someone new to the business to create one on short notice. Doesn’t add up.)