Arena Mexico to reopen for fans next Friday
Mexico City will allow buildings like Arena Mexico to open for events on May 17th. CMLL’s decided to start running on the very first Friday after, May 21st. They’ll be limited to 500 tickets based on those same government regulations, but they’re clearly in a hurry to put fans in seats to not wait for the already announced May 28th show.
CMLL has no more details outside of announcing the existence of the show. CMLL released a video to promote the show, one which felt like it had been ready except for the date for a while. No line has been announced; presume Informa will advertise those matches. Tickets have not gone up yet on Ticketmaster; CMLL has said they’ll only be available through the website, not in person. There’s no word if this show will stream, or where it will stream. CMLL has not indicated what their schedule will look like beyond this May 21st show. It seems a decent guess to assume CMLL might quickly revert to at least a Friday/Sunday schedule, but their Guadalajara shows have stuck with just running one day a week so far.
It’s worth noting this is happening while NJPW appears to be shutting down for the rest of May due to nine wrestlers testing positive for COVID-19. Hopefully, conditions continue to improve so more people can be safely allowed around in Arena Mexico but this thing can take many more turns before it’s under control.
This is peak “no one cares, I’m paying too close enough attention” territory, but it stuck out to me that CMLL’s Sunday YouTube upload includes videos to hype the return to live action. It shows CMLL could’ve just as easily done the same to promote their Ticketmaster shows, but didn’t bother. It’s just another sign that they haven’t cared about those shows; maybe it’s an optimistic sign the promotion will be better once they’re back doing the live shows they do care about.
The other outside the ring bit relates to how things are going to look around Arena Mexico on May 21st. Ticket sales only through Ticketmaster might be for tracing purposes, but that might also impact the long-time scalpers outside the building. It’d be nice to see the independently run souvenir stands outside Arena Mexico again, yet those tightly packed stalls might be considered a health risk while the pandemic is still going. There’s always a lot of rumor and gossip about CMLL wanting to change things around the buildings and little of it actually happens, but I think people are going to be waiting for something on the 21st.
I’ve seen nothing about any Arena Puebla return show yet. I’ll keep checking.
Miguel Reducindo’s column mentions Soberano Jr. is out of action following knee surgery. No word about how long he’ll be gone, though it was something Soberano was trying to work thru.
Los Mercenarios win the AAA Trios Championships
Lucha Libre Online revealed the title switch last week and it aired on Space this week; Texano, Rey Escorpion and La Hiedra won the trios belts from Los Jinetes del Aire in a match taped after the live Rey de Reyes broadcast on May 1st. I guess technically Los Mercenarios won two of the belts of the trios championships because the third belt seems to have fallen into the same black hole as the AAA minis title. Los Mercenarios won totally and unusually clean, Texano beating Myzteziz. Taurus came out to celebrate with his teammates to end the show; all four are champions.
The match was a bit of a disappointment; the two teams had much better ones in 2020 and 2019. The tecnicos looked off all match, most prominently on a triple 450 splash where every landing looked bad. Los Mercenarios did well, it’s just not a match you need to go out of your way to see quality-wise.
La Hiedra is the third woman to win the AAA Trios Championship, though the other two are a strange occasion. In Vampiro-manic booked 2017 AAA, Faby Apache defeated Ricky Marvin in a singles match to win the trios titles for herself, Mary Apache, and Gran Apache. Mary Apache never actually appeared on TV with the belt – her last TV appearance was before the title switch – and Faby Apache lost in her first defense with replacement partners. Hope this goes better.
Aerostar says he tore a muscle in an arm on his elimination in the Rey de Reyes match.
AAA should start to air matches from Zacatlán this weekend and will be taping TV either this weekend or next.
Guadalajara
CMLL (TUE) 05/11/2021 Arena Coliseo Guadalajara
1) Avispón Negro Jr., El Divino, Raven vs Conde, Destructor, Persa
2) Explosivo, Fantástico, Star Black vs Mr. Trueno, Rey Trueno, Thunder Boy [OCCIDENTE TRIOS, semifinal]
3) Joker, Omega, Vaquero Jr. vs Furia Roja, Guerrero de la Muerte, Ráfaga [OCCIDENTE TRIOS, semifinal]
4) Leo, Omar Brunetti, Príncipe vs Cris Skin, Javier Cruz Jr., Zandokan Jr.
5) Espíritu Negro & Rey Cometa vs Bestia Negra & Demonio Maya
6) Ángel de Oro & Terrible vs Euforia & Templario
Los Ingobernables in the main event against rudos. Euforia seems not to have to turn tecnico (which is fine) and still is teaming with the same people as always (which is less fine.) The trios tournament is close to wrapping up.
This arena is also teasing Caristico versus a mystery person in “La Rivalidad Perfecta” soon. The implication is the silhouette is Averno. Sure are a lot of mystery silhouettes in 2021 lucha libre. Guadalajara doesn’t tease shows far in the future; there probably will be news on Tuesday if Averno is really coming in.
Indie Roundup
Hidalgo-based DTU went dark earlier this year after wrestlers close to the promotion contracted COVID-19 and trainer Sangre Guerrera passed away. They resumed with a taped no-fans show on May 2nd, with the idea of restarting in May. That got as far as announcing the Anniversary shows in May. (DTU usually celebrates its Anniversary in December.) The first lineup went up last night. Today, DTU put up a message asking for donations to pay for Crazy Boy’s medical bills, as he’s dealing with COVID-19. DTU has been a Crazy Boy project since Day 1, to the point where I’m not quite sure who’s running things in his absence or why they’re still running without him. This doesn’t appear to be new news – you can see people asking about Crazy Boy being on the lineup in the comments at the time it went up – but I haven’t seen where it originally was posted.
Diamante Azul – now DMT Azul – lost his first match since leaving CMLL in IWRG on Sunday. He lost by DQ after giving Hijo de Canis Lupus a martinete (and also giving him the IWRG Rey del Ring title in the process.) Puma King appeared to help his La Empresa ally, with Demonio Infernal and Fresero Jr. running them off to set up a future tag match. Full results here; this was a subscriber-only show, but the semi-main was said to be the best match.
Kriminal Lucha Libre held a show Saturday night in Arena San Juan. Results here; it may go up as soon as Wednesday on Mas Lucha. The semi-main (Arez, Latigo, Tromba vs Jimmy, Komander, and Ninja Mack) sounds like it went the best. The show didn’t draw as well as the recent MexaWrestling show, though I think that might be more to fatigue over anything. All the Arena San Juan shows, no matter what the name is, are all “fun night out” shows targeting the same small group of people; even the most dedicated people aren’t going to every week just to see a normal show.
Low Rider & Ninja Mack on the Kriminal show were there as representatives of Loko Wrestling. That’s a Low Rider-led Texas group, and he’s been talking about running his own show in the Mexico City area in September.
Lucha Libre Boom has a Halloween tribute show on June 5th in Arena Lopez Mateos. It seems disconnected to host Halloween on (an extended) retirement tour due to injuries in hardcore matches on a show full of hardcore matches, but so is the way of wrestling.
ChilangaMask announced their full lineup for June 19th at Arena San Juan. Their annual show features so many of the same names year after year, but I was still caught off guard by seeing Illinois wrestler Mojo McQueen in the main event; he disappeared from GALLI and I wasn’t sure if he even still around. (It looks like he’s wrestling more in central Illinois nowadays.)
Monterrey’s KAOZ has been signing people to contracts. No one’s really clear now what the contracts mean. There’s some talk about luchadors being exclusive to KAOZ, but it hasn’t seemed to change where those wrestlers work. It comes off as a storyline bit, though I’m told there are real contracts being signed. (Just maybe not the ones we see.) Los Negocioantes (Demonio Infernal & Fresero Jr.) are their new KAOZ tag team champions, so it was their turn to sign a contract – but they instead just ripped them up, preferring not to be exclusive to Kaoz.
Other News
If you’re in the US, you can see the 2021 La Luchadoras documentary via the virtual Milwaukee Film Fest for $8, from now until May 20th. There is a maximum number of people who can see the film, no idea how close they are to it. This is a thing I will plan to do and then forget to do.
Pasion Kristal and Jessy Ventura say they were verbally and physically abused by an Uber driver over their sexuality. Ventura streamed part of the incident on Facebook. Police got involved, who sided with the driver and took Kristal & Ventura in. They’re currently trying to lead a campaign to get Uber to drop the charges against them and direct them towards the driver.
Cassandro underwent surgery on Friday. An embolism in his brain was removed. No more details beyond the surgery going well.
Ring of Honor appears to be taping again this weekend. I haven’t seen Dragon Lee check-in yet from their bubble, but his most recent Twitter post suggested he was heading back (and maybe hasn’t kept up with ROH enough to know the TV title changed hands while he was gone.)
For Mother’s Day, Chik Tormenta talked about being a mother in wrestling; she was handling it well with just her son, but having a new young child makes it even tougher for her.
Alushe apparently suffered an injury while filming a movie in Saltillo. The movie is apparently called “Sin Limite de Tiempo”, and the news article is more complaining about how it’s being filmed with no permit or security presence, so the crew mostly yelled at people to stay away and stop taking photos when Alushe was hurt.
Miss Delicious and El Rayado are headed to Spain to work for a promotion there.
Segunda Caida reviews matches include one off Hijo del Santo’s Patreon. That Patreon apparently the only place you can see the recent Rocky Romero/Hijo del Santo match; Mas Lucha’s upload had highlights and Santo plug.