CMLL
Tonight’s the CMLL Gran Prix de Amazonas
CMLL (FRI) 10/08/2021 Arena México
1) Diamond, Magia Blanca, Magnus vs Akuma, Espanto Jr., Okumura
2) Gemelo Diablo I, Gemelo Diablo II, Sagrado vs Cancerbero, Raziel, Virus
3) Místico, Titán, Volador Jr. vs Gran Guerrero, Templario, Último Guerrero
4) Amapola, Dark Silueta, La Jarochita, Lluvia, Marcela, Princesa Sugehit, Reina Isis vs Avispa Dorada, Dalys, Momo Kohgo, Sonya, Stephanie Vaquer, Tsukasa Fujimoto, Tsukushi [Gran Prix de Amazonas]
The show remains a $11 iPPV. Ice Ribbon, Mr. Cacao, and other Japanese outlets have strongly pushed the show based on their wrestlers appearing. I hope it works for them. This should air on TV on 10/16 and YouTube 10/24, though it’s always possible the main event won’t air on Televisa like recent major show main events.
2021 CMLL knows how to lay out a good elimination match. Those have tended to get a bit fuzzy and turned in 3/4 ways as they get down to the final two, but the Gran Prix Mexico versus the World structure should prevent that. I’m sure the women will work very hard and this will be a match where the simple things are done well but they’re not going to be as complicated/difficult in moves as seen elsewhere. The hometeam usually wins the patriotic match, especially when many of the foreigners won’t be around next week to set up a rematch, but I wouldn’t rule out Stephanie Vaquer getting a win to make up for one she might’ve gotten during the August’s women’s match. It also wouldn’t be a bad idea for an Ice Ribbon woman to win the spotlight that new relationship. It’d be a nice moment for whoever gets to lift the cup but there’s no real right or wrong answer.
There are plenty of logical title matches coming out of the semi-main and it’s hard to believe Ultimo Guerrero will be without a precious belt for long. Los Gemelos Diablos and Sagrado did separate interviews pushing the idea of them as a regular trio so the segunda might be the start of it. (Note that Sagrado’s partner Misterioso hasn’t appeared in Arena Mexico since the empty arena tapings stopped airing in June; he’s still wrestling in Torreon but obviously, something is up there.) For all the talk about the Deperdadores having five to six moments, it’s effectively been a set Diamond/Magia Blanca/Magnus opening card trio.
ESTO has an interview with Princesa Sugehit, going with the idea that CMLL fans wanting her and Zeuxis in the main event of the 2017 Aniversario show started the promotion down the path to the women’s main events CMLL’s had this year. Even back then, the argument wasn’t totally just “Sugehit/Zeuxis should main event” but also “Gran Guerrero/Niebla Roja isn’t a big deal as a feud, maybe this is a chance to try something different for attention sake.” That’s about the same reason the CMLL women are in top positions now. Their star power or in-ring work hasn’t gotten suddenly better in four years (it’s arguably gotten worse), it’s more those same factors have declined much for the men. The bar is just lower in 2017. Sugehit/Zeuxis was not some legendary feud and didn’t necessarily merit the main event, but it would’ve been a decent attention-getting marketing bit. Gran Guerrero/Niebla Roja was a really good match that no one remembers four years later.
Sugehit also mentions she signed a three-month deal with WWE back when she worked the Mae Young Classic but quickly figured she wasn’t going to be kept around past because she was too old and they wanted to invest in younger wrestlers. Luckily that’s not an issue in CMLL. Sugehit praised opponent Kay Lee Ray, saying she saw the abilities in her to be a champion in that match.
El Universal interviewed many of the foreign women. Avispa Dorada & Sonya both indicate they were surprised to get a call from CMLL; they both seem to want to return to Mexico but did not have immediate plans to do so before getting called in for this tournament. CMLL talked about the Gran Prix de Amazonas becoming an annual tournament and I’m sure they’d like to do that – current CMLL likes following the WWE pattern of monthly gimmick events. I also suspect what happened here is the Ice Ribbon ladies were scheduled to come in, someone belatedly got the idea to do a Gran Prix, and Avispa and Sonya were among those urgently contacted to fill out the teams. (The smaller than usual 7v7 field hints an 8th foreign woman was asked and turned it down, though I have nothing but guesses at whom.) If Ice Ribbon sends enough women to fill out a Gran Prix team each year, then CMLL will keep having a women’s Gran Prix. NJPW hasn’t sent people this year, and so there’s no men’s Gran Prix.
Lucha Memes says their Arena Coliseo debut will be on Saturday 12/18. Tickets will be on Ticketmaster soon. It’ll be fascinating to find out if this is Lucha Memes announcing their show before CMLL reveals they’re returning to regular Saturday Arena Coliseo shows or if Memes is running a show in a building CMLL isn’t any more. It’s a big deal for Memes to run Arena Coliseo and they should be congratulated for finally pulling it off.
Mas Lucha
Mas Lucha (THU) 10/07/2021 Arena Naucalpan [IWRG, Mas Lucha, thecubsfan]
1) Dick Angelo 3G, Puma de Oro, Tonalli b Mexica, Noicy Boy, Sol 
10:40.
2) Laredo Kid b Emperador Azteca [Mas Lucha Supremo, quarterfinal]
9:56. Laredo Fly.
3) Sangre Azteca b Villano III Jr. [Mas Lucha Supremo, quarterfinal]
11:43. Sangre Azteca landed the low blow dropkick (estacas aztecas) to win
4) El Bandido b Jessy Ventura [Mas Lucha Supremo, quarterfinal]
6:45. Bandido suddenly submitted Jessy Ventura.
5) Cuatrero b Rayman [Mas Lucha Supremo, quarterfinal]
9:12. Cuatrero beat Rayman after Saruman and Hijo de Mascara 2000 got involved.
6) Laredo Kid b Sangre Azteca [Mas Lucha Supremo, semifinal]
8:34. Tirantes refereed and favored Laredo Kid, including ignoring a tights pull on the finish.
7) El Bandido b Cuatrero [Mas Lucha Supremo, semifinal]
7:47. Rayman hit Cuatrero with a guitar to set up the 21 Plex. Rayman, Saruman, Hijo de Mascara 2000, Forastero and Sanson all got involved in the post match.
8) Kratoz & Prometeo © b Caballero de Plata & Manchas and Cometa Maya & Elemental and Ciclón Infernal & Mr. Leo [IR TAG]
12:11. Announced as a 4v4 match, challenges changed it to a tag title defense. Manchas betrayed Caballero de Plata before Kratoz & Prometo won. Hip Hop Man and La Mosca appeared to attack various people.
9) El Bandido b Laredo Kid [Mas Lucha Supremo, final]
10:12. Tirantes refereed and refused to count for Laredo at one point before fast counting for Bandido on the finish.
I thought this was a standalone tournament. This actually was a jam show, mostly about building rivalries for other Mas Lucha partner promotions. There’s an inverted world where this makes sense – this is the free show to get people onto the service and you have to pay to see the blowoffs. Instead, I saw a big chunk of the paid show dedicated to hyping a Rayman/Hijo de Mascara 2000 match that’ll eventually show up for free. (To be fair, there’s no way I’d pay for that match after seeing them both here so maybe it’s for the best.) I have nothing against Hip Hop Man, but when he and La Mosca showed up to get over whatever bit they’re also doing in some other promotion and not the show I was actually watching, that’s when I finally grasped this show was not for me at all – somewhere, there’s a person with both the interest in all of the promotions Mas Lucha puts up and the time to watch it all, and maybe they’re going to enjoy seeing where is going. Assuming any of this goes anywhere.
the tournament finishes again
- Laredo Kid beats Emperador Azteca clean (!)
- Sangre Azteca lands his usual low blow dropkick and V3 Jr. make sure we knew it was a foul
- Bandido submits Jessy Ventura suddenly, Ventura sells it like she had an injury and couldn’t continue, the next few minutes are Bandido praising Ventura until Ventura will finally get up
- Cuatrero uses interference and a foul to beat Rayman
- Tirantes randomly helps Laredo Kid to beat Sangre Azteca
- the 500th recreation of the Rayo Jr/Cien Caras guitar spot sets up Bandido’s win (and then they run three more angles to hide that Cuatrero lost)
- Tirantes randomly works against Laredo Kid to help Bandido win
That’s not including the tag title match where partners turned on each other to set up the pinfall. None of this protects anyone or gets anyone excited to see these matches when it’s done this match, it’s just a lot of annoying noise.
It’s possible to have a long debate (probably on Whatsapp) if the reason there are so many crap finishes on shows like this is either because any Mexican wrestler with the slightest bit of star power refuses to lose clean in Mexico or because promoters are convinced fans go to shows so they can argue about the crap finishes later. It’s like some of both. Whatever the reason, crap finishes and they ruin my enjoyment of many of the matches. That’s a personal thing – plenty of people in the chat seemed to like the shenanigans and the crowd live enjoyed it – but it was certainly enough to put me off from paying for another one of these.
Arturo Rivera not only didn’t seem to know much about the wrestlers, he didn’t even seem to remember the names of the other announcers who were talking to him. That’s exactly what you expect out of him in 2021 or for many years prior. The same goes for Tirantes. The audio mixing was terrible – your choice was either hearing a little bit of the crowd and very loud announcers or turning the announcers down to normal audio and hearing nothing beyond them – but that too is about what we get all the time for these shows. I hoped the wrestling would just surpass. It did not. I liked the main event the most but it probably won’t be among the best 25 matches Laredo Kid and Bandido will have this year. Most of the other matches were fine. The tag matches had some moments of brilliance and a lot of sloppiness. This was not a terrible show. Like many CMLL shows, this would’ve been a decent thing to watch for free if it was available and you were bored. This was also another recent experience where I wondered why I was spending my time on lucha libre. If this is good then maybe it’s just not for me.
The women’s Mas Lucha Suprema tournament was announced for 11/18 and I can’t imagine a scenario where I’d pay for that. That show will likely have worse wrestlers and near the same amount of silliness, it’s not worth my time. I’m not against giving Mas Lucha money; I don’t mind that they got my $8 here because they do a lot and the Mexican wrestling would be incalculable different without them. I may even consider staying a subscriber if they offered more compelling perks – early releases? ad free viewing? just spitballing – but the premium video content is not for me.
Again, Mas Lucha seemed to do well. The attendance was far better than a usual Thursday night IWRG show. Not a sellout, but in line with a well-attended Sunday show. YouTube doesn’t show the viewer count on screen for Mas Lucha’s subscriber-only videos, but you do apparently get a glimpse at it if you watch on your phone. I was told it peaked just above 250 live viewers (so actual subscribers are likely significantly more when you factor in people who just didn’t watch the show live.) That’s a bit more than I would’ve guessed, given most of Mas Lucha’s content remains free. I’d guess it’s higher than the number of buys CMLL is getting on their PPVs.
AAA
I wasn’t really happy with the Mas Lucha tournament, the CMLL show is probably going to be fine but the iPPV stuff still has me seeing red … and so should I be fearful Vikingo/Laredo versus the Lucha Brothers is not going to go well? It’s not going my way right now.
Here’s the card for the show that’ll air on Saturday
AAA TV (SAT) 10/09/2021 Coliseo La Concordia, Orizaba, Veracruz
Heroes Inmortales, 2021
4) Fénix & Pentagón Jr. © vs Hijo Del Vikingo & Laredo Kid [AAA TAG]
5) Pimpinela Escarlata vs Mamba, Keyra, Sexy Star II, Aerostar, Argenis, Dave The Clown, Villano III Jr., Arez, 10, 11, 12 [Copa Antonio Pena]
6) Carta Brava Jr., Mocho Cota Jr., Tito Santana vs Cuatrero, Forastero, Sansón
7) DMT Azul, Puma King, Sam Adonis vs Monsther Clown, Murder Clown, Psycho Clown [cage]
The Space broadcast is supposed to start at 8 pm CT. It’s possible AAA will run like a well-oiled machine and get the three matches for next week (along with whatever locals matches they’re doing) all done in time. People do win the lottery every day. My plan is to stream this on my Twitch, and I may start the feed around 7:30 and play old matches until the feed starts assuming this isn’t going to confuse everyone. It seems like a better idea than watching non-stop ads, as happened with Verano de Escandalo’s delay. The flipside of AAA starting late is the best match is airing first – one that should be a MOTYC unless AAA goes out of their way to screw it up – so you want to be there at the start of the show, be it 8 pm or some later time. They won’t screw it up, right? Please tell me they won’t.
Copa Antonio Pena probably won’t be any better than the other Copas but also probably will have some new names showing up. (A thing to watch is how AAA handles any angles that might be taped in the first half of the show; I expect there are things that’ll happen that’ll affect these matches.) There’s 0% chance of a clean finish in Poder del Norte versus NGD; hope instead to get more of feel if this is going to be like NGD’s last CMLL work or Poder del Norte/OGT. La Empresa should win a bloody match in the main event if there’s a TripleMania coming up again in December, but we still don’t know if that’s happening.
The Wrestling Observer Newsletter has a paragraph talking about AEW having a plan for the AAA Tag Team Championships. That seems to necessitate the tag titles staying with the Lucha Brothers here. Maybe someone in AEW and AAA had a talk between when that angle was started last week and when it wasn’t mentioned this week and the titles will change hands after all, but I’d bet again it. In the big picture, Vikingo’s likely losing the tag title match, and Psycho Clown’s team almost has to lose the main event to keep the La Empresa going, and one of those two dudes are going from that to challenging Kenny Omega in a couple of months. Not ideal! That’s nothing new with AAA and titles though. In the kayfabe storyline world, they might as well steal a bit from Dragon Gate and throw a dart at a board to determine who gets the next shot.
Next week’s half may be the better all around card, but nothing’s beating that tag match.
Other News
Alberto el Patron is involved in a lawsuit, but in a change from usual, he is the person suing instead of being the defendant. Alberto is suing former employer Combates America, which is covered in many places including the WON. The short version is Alberto says he wasn’t paid for his 2019 fight and that the MMA promotion took control of his social media and won’t give it back. If you are bored/deranged enough to check out Alberto’s Twitter account, or occasionally get it RT-ed into your timeline like me,, you can see that he sure does seem to have control of the account there. The tweets are bad attempts at getting attention, I would try to blame someone else for them if I was writing them, but I don’t think Combates America is spending time hyping Alberto’s friendship with the Robles promoter. Maybe he’s talking about his Instagram, which hasn’t been updated since the pandemic.
The WON also reports Alberto is telling people he’s going back to the WWE in six months while noting Alberto constantly lies that he’s going back to the WWE in six months and it never happens. I think Alberto is telling people this not because he sincerely believes it, but as a way to convince indie promoters that they better pay for him to come in now while they still can and to generally make him a hotter item for those indie promoters to want in the first place. The fact that he has to keep on doing this suggests he’s not getting booked on his own all that much.
A documentary on Perro Aguayo, “Un Mexico Perro. El héroe verdadero”, premieres as part of the DocsMX film on October 14th. It’ll be available online to a limited amount of people. Trailers for the movie appeared early last year; it seems to be a lot of talking-head interviews with people who knew Aguayo. The directors previously indicated that the movie was essentially finished last year but they were holding off in hopes film festivals would be able to go back to normal. This isn’t exactly normal but they’re doing outdoor showings of some of the movies in the festival.
Dr. Wagner Jr., in his weekly column, talks about his memories of Antonio Pena. Wagner claims Pena wanted him to jump to AAA on immediately, but Wagner insisted on serving out his contract, and Pena brought in Shocker instead. That would put the jump in June 2005. Wagner says he was contacted while in Monterrey and he did work Monterrey a couple of days before Shocker debuted.
An article listing Super Crazy‘s international work says he missed his GCW appearances with an ankle injury.
LuchaWorld has the latest Lucha Report, including a recap of this week’s Informa.
Critero Hidalgo has a story on two returning wrestlers; el Aspid from a gas tank explosion and Principe Salvaje Jr. from COVID-19.