Mexico City will remain in the Yellow health code for the next two weeks, through July 18th. COVID hospitalizations are slightly increasing, as are deaths. Mexico City hasn’t rolled back rules despite going back to yellow – Arena Mexico appears as if they still can have 1,500 people in attendance – but they also aren’t loosening them up. I’m back to being worried about TripleMania taking place on August 14th.
A bit of positive news is Mexico City will start vaccinations for adults between 30-39 this Tuesday. That’s the first time people that young have been able to get shots in Mexico City.
Mexico State will stay at the green health code.
Arena Guatemala Mexico, which hosted a Robles Promociones show last week with many names from Mexico, has canceled this week’s card. COVID cases are increasing in the country and mass public events are suspended agian. Robles announced a follow up card on July 18th, which is unlikely to occur.
Tonight’s CMLL card
CMLL (FRI) 07/02/2021 Arena México
1) Shockercito vs Pierrothito [lightning]
2) Drone & Magia Blanca vs Disturbio & Okumura
3) Princesa Sugehit © vs Stephanie Vaquer [CMLL WOMEN]
1st defense
4) Atlantis Jr., Dragón Rojo Jr., Flyer vs Espíritu Negro, Pólvora, Rey Cometa [Relevos Increíbles]
5) Ángel de Oro, Niebla Roja, Terrible vs Euforia, Hechicero, Negro Casas [Relevos Increíbles]
6) Carístico, Titán, Volador Jr. vs Gran Guerrero, Templario, Último Guerrero
Most of the matches look fine. None of them look special. Sugehit/Vaquer could be the best match, but I haven’t been that excited by Sugehit matches. Maybe the main will be good or maybe they’ll just go through the motion. Much of this will likely air on TV on July 10th, then on YouTube on July 18th.
CMLL offering a package deal is a good idea, if only because I probably wouldn’t bother to get this lackluster lineup if it was only the standalone option. It is easier, if more expensive, just to take care of the whole month and not have to debate a purchasing decision every Friday. (I don’t want to overplay may hand, but I may personally be 3% to 1% of the entire people purchasing this show; I don’t think they’re cracking triple digits on buys.)
The Sunday lineup is also out.
CMLL (SUN) 07/04/2021 Arena México
1) Aéreo vs Mercurio [lightning]
2) Arkalis & Sonic vs El Coyote & Grako
3) La Guerrera, La Magnifica, Skadi vs Amapola, La Seductora, Metálica
4) Guerrero Maya Jr., Pegasso, Stigma vs Dark Magic, Sagrado, Vangellys
5) El Audaz, Esfinge, Star Jr. vs Cancerbero, Raziel, Virus
6) Atlantis & Atlantis Jr. vs Panterita del Ring & Panterita del Ring Jr.
Every Sunday show in July will have an Atlantis main event. He’ll face Ultimo Guerrero & Gran Guerrero and Negro Casas & Felino in tags and Blue Panther in a singles match over the next few weeks.
We left off Arena Puebla on Wednesday with the building saying they were going to reopen, while the local government declared the building has not gotten the currently required health inspection and would not be allowed to re-open until they did. Later Wednesday, Arena Puebla’s Benjamin Mar insisted it was simply an oversight, he talked to the regular public event people and had no idea he had to do this health inspection but he’ll get on it right away with hopes of still running on Monday. That’s hard to believe; even if he didn’t read the news, it’s likely the public events people made sure he knew.
Mar says he’s trying to get the inspection done in time to still run the show. Tickets remain on sale and the poster by the building has been updated for the first time since March 2020. Arena Puebla could just easily reschedule the tickets and the card until the first Monday they can run. At the moment, it comes off as if Arena Puebla is planning on running Monday with or without approval.
Tuesday’s CMLL Guadalajara debut will include the debuts of Misterioso Jr.’s son, Misterio Negro & Misterio Blanco. They’ve been active in Torreon. They’re the fourth and fifth sons of active wrestlers (joining Cachorro, Hijo del Stuka and Panterita del Ring Jr.) who will have debuted in the last few months. Those kids have mostly wrestled in Guadalajara.
Verano de Escandalo
AAA finished announcing their card for one of their major shows of the year just over a day before it is going to happen. Again, they’re not selling tickets so it’s not as urgent. Common sense tells you it’s still good to have these things well ahead of time because it takes people a while to find out about them. It’s o better to have people talking about these matches for a while.
- Alas de Oro (no names announced)
- Deonna Purazzo vs Lady Shani
- Mr. Iguana & Maximo vs Chik Tormenta & Arez vs Flammer & Abismo Negro Jr., the winner gets a shot at the mixed tag team championship
- Laredo Kid, Faby Apache, Nino Hamburguesa vs Poder del Norte
- Psycho Circus vs Los Mercenarios (Rey Escorpion, Texano Jr., Taurus)
This show will be good. AAA has a lot of good wrestlers and generally can put them in the right spots for a big show. AAA as a whole is a frustrating product to watch, full of promising (and some not promising) ideas that go nowhere.
It’s not Poder del Norte’s fault, but AAA’s managed to make that trio boring by constantly booking them in meaningless matches against a random tecnico trios non-stop. I’m sure they think it’s going somewhere, but it’s moving at the speed of a glacier and that doesn’t really work.
There’s also the bit of AAA Laredo Kid and Texano Jr. constantly having issues since Rey de Reyes, only they’re not wrestling here and they’re not wrestling at TripleMania. Maybe nine months from now AAA will get around to doing something about it. It seems to fit in with the half-dozen other feuds either because they start them without having any idea of where they’re going or are doing them specifically with no idea except to ‘reward’ the wrestlers by giving them a meaningless feud. This is not just an AAA problem, it’s just that AAA has such talent that they’re could be so much better if they were trying to have anything go anywhere. They’re not trying and it’ll still be fine.
(I would be concerned if Konnan adding a regular AEW gig would take his focus off AAA if he didn’t have 500 other jobs going on already and didn’t seem that focused on AAA already.)
Arez & Chik Tormenta were put together as a team by the same mystery texting person who summoned them last week. Maybe that mystery will be solved someday. I think I actually got a spoiler of where it’s all going but I’m not sure so I’m not going to waste your time telling about it, especially if they don’t get there anyway.
The mixed tag titles have traditionally been a male and female team, but there are no strict rules to it – there are no strict rules to anything in AAA – and so an exotico and an iguana is perfectly mixed. It’s more notable to see Maximo around AAA; he’s only been on one show prior to this year.
I’ve tended to find out where and when AAA is taping from Hugo Savinovich’s social media posts announcing it. Either AAA got him to stop or he’s not around this cycle.
AAA/FMV Case update
In an unsurprising turn of events, Lucha Libre FMV filed a response to prove they were truly intent on prosecuting their case against AAA. The short version is the lawsuit remains alive and there’s no obvious hope of it ending in the near future. FMV says there has been no negotiations since the last update in March, and AAA’s lawyer has stopped returning messages seemingly in hopes FMV would just forget about it and the case would be dismissed. FMV is still set on it and proved it by saying they’re paying for the lawsuit to be translated to Spanish, sent to Mexico, and served there. They estimate that process could take six to twelve months, which seems insanely long and could mean it’d be well in 2022 before AAA has to even acknowledge they’re being sued. If this has to completely play out through the legal system, the region blocks and the workarounds are going to be a way of life to watch AAA for the foreseeable future.
The only way this is going to be solved soon is via settlement. That’s not impossible. Lucha Libre FMV claims they own the AAA names and rights outside of Mexico, but what they really want is a lump of cash. FMV’s fillings suggest AAA has offered a lump of cash at various points, just not enough for FMV’s liking. The two sides could agree to an amount at any time, but FMV says there’s not even talk in that direction right now. Somewhere in AAA, someone’s made a calculation that the money they may make from AAA outside of Mexico isn’t worth the price it’ll take to make this go away right now. That may be correct. AAA also may prefer to delay this case long enough so they can start making money in a normal fashion (selling tickets to shows) and they’d more easily be able to afford a settlement.
Outside of Mexico, you might as well pirate AAA content. It appears to be technically illegal, but no one cares. AAA is putting TripleMania out for free, they don’t care who sees it. Lucha Libre FMV has no interest in AAA content beyond being leverage to extract money out of AAA directly, not from using the content themselves. (And, since the ownership of the content is the central focus of dispute, they may get the same takedown notices trying to market it as AAA’s gotten from them.) I figure the worst that’ll happen to me for streaming will be a DMCA ending my Twitch channel or a strongly worded letter to knock it off – and I’ll knock it off if I get one. If you’re just watching it, you’re in no particular trouble.
Other News
IWRG (THU) 07/01/2021 Arena Naucalpan [IWRG]
1) Black Shadow II b Kenji 
2) Baby Star & Caballero de Plata b Cyber & Kempo Jr. 
3) Apolo Estrada Jr., Atomic Star, Chris Stone DRAW Guerrero Astral & Hijo Del Pandemónium
4) Dick Angelo 3G, Epidemia, Legendario, Lunatik Xtreme, Mexica, Puma de Oro, Shalom, Tonalli b Carrillo, Doverman, Hernan, Jorge El Salvaje, Pistolero, Purasanta Jr., Radical, Reptilium [Copa High Power] 
Puma de Oro got the win for his team.
5) Baby Xtreme, Diva Salvaje, Jessy Ventura b Estrella Divina, Galeno del Mal, King Charro 
Didn’t see this one. Doesn’t sound like there was much too it outside of the usual post-Copa High Power fight between the two teams. InterneTV is still streaming most of these shows, but I haven’t been including the links often because there’s not enough time in the day and Mas Lucha usually has the fuller broadcast. This time around, iTV got the opener (which they usually skip) and Mas Lucha did not.
Notable indie shows this weekend include
- LA Park, Dr. Wagner Jr., Blue Demon and DMT Azul are in a four way in Arena Neza.
- AAA has a full spot show near Toluca, a rare one of those this year.
- Penta headlines both Arena Lopez Mateos and Arena Rey Bucanero Saturday night. The Arena Lopez Mateos show also includes a Bandido/Flamita match.
- MexaWrestling is back at Arena San Juan, with the Wagner kids versus Corsario Negro Jr. .& Drako and a IWRG title match
- Corsario & Drako usually work Lucha Strong, which has a Sharlie Rockstar vs Dement Extreme main event Saturday night at CAR The Crash
- IWRG has the Festival de Mascaras shows honoring Canek.
- Lucha Memes is running a Black Terry tribute show, which he may have to duck out of early to go to the IWRG show
- Super X is running matches at the Chinampa Luchas site, for all of you demanding to know when the Super Juvy Cup will resume.
Averno appeared at a press conference for a 07/10 Arena Lopez Mateos show where he’ll team with Hechicero against Mistico & Caristico. He stated he was totally independent, he is out of AAA. CMLL seems to now believe that they’ve allowed Caristico to face him elsewhere. Averno teased going to Arena Mexico to face Caristico and talked about it how it would be a privllage to return. There’s no sign on the CMLL side of that happening. Mephisto, when talking in a CMLL media interview about Ephesto/Panterita del Ring betraying him by joining the tecnicos, avoided mentioning Averno by name when he came up. That’s normal CMLL behavior for people who aren’t meant to exist in CMLL.
ROH’s Best in the World first hour will include a Rey Horus versus Demonic Flamita singles match. That first hour airs free. The same news update mentions Bandido will appear on ROH’s podcast this upcoming Monday.
Vanguardia has their combination show with GCW on 07/17. Of note, Miedo Extremo & Ciclope defend the GCW Tag Team Championship against Jimmy Lloyd and G Raver. Los Mazisos won the titles in 2018 and haven’t been able to return to Mexico in the last couple of years, though they’ve occasionally defended in Mexico. The fact that GCW has tag team titles that haven’t been defended in GCW for years and haven’t just stripped Ciclope & Miedo of the belts has been a source of increasing frustration for people who follow GCW. GCW hasn’t seemed to care; they also seem set on finding a way to bring back Ciclope & Miedo. To a person who follows Mexican wrestling, a promotion not getting around to a title defense for multiple years seems normal. Anyway, most people who are about GCW are going to expect a title change though I’m not certain that’ll happen.
Bandido kicks of his BIG Lucha brand of shows on 07/17. No matches are announced, but Rush is featured prominently on the poster. That would be Rush’s first match in Mexico since the start of the pandemic and, more prominently, since the collapse of Federacion Wrestling. Flamita is pictured on the poster for both this show and the Martinez show that day; he can’t be at both.
Alberto says Nacion Lucha Libre will run the Pepsi Center in Mexico City this fall as part of the Nacion Lucha Libre relaunch. Nacion Lucha Libre’s first launch took place in July of 2017, where they ran Sala de Armas in Mexico City, drew disappointingly, and never came back to Mexico in the short run of the promotion. There’s no reason to believe this will go any differently. Alberto is also slow teasing the names for an 08/01 show in Monterrey, unaware the lineup was announced weeks ago, or maybe they’re changing the lineup.
RIOT has started to announce participants for their La Rina tournament (08/20-21)
- Erik Ortiz
- El Mago
- Jimmy – new
LuchaWorld has the latest Lucha Report.