CMLL stays quiet, Banks/IWRG, AroLucha asks for more cash

the 2021 tapatia awards remain open for your votes

CMLL

A Valiente Gym show scheduled for Sunday was canceled a few hours before the show. Those Valiente Gym home shows feature a lot of CMLL talent; Volador and Polvora were notably scheduled for the main event. CMLL discouraged their wrestlers from working outside dates during previous shut downs, and this show would’ve revealed a bit about how who’s healthy enough to appear, so it’s no surprise it was called off. Rey Bucanero’s show on Saturday happened as scheduled, though only he and his cousin Hombre Bala Jr. were booked on the show. Past shows have featured more CMLL wrestlers.

CMLL’s Guadalajara branch announced training sessions were off until further notice. Those Guadalajara trainees are a far distance from the main CMLL roster, so either CMLL’s got very widespread problems or they’re taking no chances for the time being.

CMLL made a really nice Year In Review video. I hope they do this every year and other promotions do as well. We talk a lot about how CMLL runs so many tournaments that are immediately forgotten, at least this sort of video gives them one more look at the end of the year. If you keep this up for five or ten years, you’ve got a great set of videos.

Mistico says he’s not trying to get CMLL to hire his brothers Los Dr. Karontes or put them in top positions, but it would make him really happy if that happened. I’m sure he’s making it clear how happy he would be to the people in charge.

AAA

On the Saturday Arena Azteca Budokan show, there was an angle where La Empresa’s DMT Azul & Puma King attacked La Hiedra, who was stretched out. Sunday, La Hiedra posted a note from a physical therapist saying she had a grade two next strain and would be out three weeks. The doctor’s note lists her name as “La Hiedra” with no age, so there’s obviously a bit of unreality to this. It didn’t appear she suffered a real injury in the angle. Three weeks would allow Hiedra to return just in time for AAA’s TV taping in Merida.

Other News

IWRG, now just running a Sunday show, let the kids in free and dedicated the middle of the show to breaking the giant pinata that’d been hanging over the ring for the last month. There were also some changes to the card.

IWRG (SUN) 01/09/2022 Arena Naucalpan [IWRG]
1) Benga Lee, Jessie Jackson, Sagitarius b Amazonika, Baronessa, Satania 
Amazonika & Jessie Jackson added to the match
2) Black Dragón & Cerebro Negro Jr. b Hell Boy & Noisy Boy 
Cerebro Negro announced his son Shalom would be Cerebro Negro Jr. from now on prior to the start of this one. Challenges for a rematch followed the match.
3) Alas De Plata, Asterboy, Freelance b Cerebro Negro, Dick Angelo 3G, Karaoui 
Alas de Plata replaced Hijo de Dos Caras
4) Alpha Wolf & Dragón Bane DQ Hijo del Pirata Morgan & Travis Banks 
Hijo del Pirata Morgan and Travis Banks, making his IWRG debut, replaced Las Shotas. Los Golpeadors are now Los GolpeaBrothers. Pirata fouled and unmasked Alpha Wolf.
5) Hijo del Alebrije © b Hijo del Fishman [IWRG JUNIORS] 
third defense

Around 350 wrestlers appeared in at least one IWRG match in 2021. Travis Banks showing up in IWRG was inevitable because everyone does. Banks continues to tell people in Mexico that he’s been unfairly persecuted (even in promos) and most seem content to just take his word for it or purposefully stay ignorant of the story. Bringing in the guy accused of crimes against a minor on the kid’s get in free show is just another level in thoughtlessness. The public face of IWRG is Ivannia Moreno, so have a woman in charge doesn’t really change how Banks is treated. Fellow wrestlers believe Banks is a good guy to wrestle and so he gets to wrestle; maybe the real issues is there’s probably more Banks in the Mexico lucha libre scene and they’re also probably be welcomed the same. I don’t want to keep writing about this because the story isn’t going to change – those who fear some international pressure will not use Banks, those who don’t care will. All that remains to be seen is if AAA or CMLL are concerned enough not to use him.

Mas Lucha, who earlier avoided mentioned Travis Banks, interviewed him on the pre-IWRG show on Sunday. That’s an IWRG show, they might be choosing the guests, but it still ended up happening.

It’s notable that Las Shotas did not appear; I don’t have a conflicting booking for them. It’s possible Wolf & Bane just wanted to work with opponents that fit their intended style (moves, moves and more moves) and Banks and Morgan would be preference higher on the list than Jessy Ventura & Diva Salvaje. Changing their name to “Los GolpeaBrothers” is a bit obvious: there’s now a whole generation of wrestlers who believe they can go as far as Fenix & Penta if they just model themselves as close as possible to them, just like Mistico for a previous generation. The attendance wasn’t strong for a show with free tickets for kids; the latest pandemic wave may be starting to keep people away again.

Laredo Kid & Black Taurus were at this weekend’s Impact tapings, though they didn’t seem to be involved in much. Laredo Kid’s pre-PPV match is still available on YouTube and is worth a watch. Laredo wrestles Chris Bey again on this week’s Impact show, while Black Taurus appears on the “Before the Impact” pre-Impact show this week or next. The ROH Women’s Championships versus AAA Reina de Reinas champions match airs Thursday on Impact as well. You can read full spoilers here.

Those recent AroLucha mailing list statements seemed to be setting up another round of funding and, sure enough, that’s what started Sunday for “friends” (previous investors), and it’ll open to the regular public in a week.  They’re looking for money through WeFunder, the same investing site they used back in 2017 when this project first started. The project/scheme has changed though. They’re no longer making a fan interactive wrestling promotion, they’re now creating a lucha libre animated series. They’re not planning to a make lot of money off of the series itself, but by merchandising them and running live events with those characters. It’s not an entirely crazy idea. It’s not that far off from what Disney & AAA are attempting with Marvel Lucha Libre and there were wrestlers built around the old (and still well loved) Mucha Lucha series. There’s no real reason to expect AroLcuha will be able to pull this project off. They’ve got to produce an animated series, get it picked up by some worthwhile outlet, make it successful and then run big live events around those characters. They’ve brought in someone with animated experience, but the only thing AroLuchas has tried to do so far is to run live events and they were entirely unsuccessful at it. (Traces of that plan remain; the WeFunder page still brags about signing Sammy Guevara a long time ago.)

I’m on social media, so I see people proudly talking about things they paid money for every day which seem like a total waste to me. I’m not about to say anything about it – it’s your money, do with what you will. If someone is going to invest in this as a lark, for fun with no real expectations of ever seeing the money back, then it makes as much sense as any other weird trinket people buy. But, as a real investment, I’d tell people to go buy an NFT before giving money to AroLucha. NFTs are generally a bad idea but at least kinda sorta exist, it’s hard to imagine this AroLucha project will ever get that far. The animation studio related that’s co0developing this project had a very successful Wefunder project and I suppose the idea is they’ll draw in those investors to this project.

El Hijo del Santo says he’s preparing to retire in two years. This is one I can’t write about on Twitter but can on the blog, because people who’ve been reading this long enough know no luchador saying they’re going to retire in “two years” has ever actually retired in two years. The “two years” retirement length is a cliche and not meant to be taken as a definite unit of time. The one change is Santo is now saying he’d prefer not to have another apuesta match. He’s previously teased one against Hijo del Solitario and that name does come up as someone who’d wage with it if it came to it, though he doesn’t seem as set on it happening. Santo has his usual criticisms of extreme wrestling but believes wrestlers like the Blue Panther and Brazo kids can steer it back. He also specifically singles out Bandido as the next great Mexican star.

Ring of Honor, which both advertised a return on WrestleMania weekend and had much of the roster (on and off screen) audibly unsure if it was going to happen, says they’re running on April 1st in Fort Worth, Texas. It seems like a good guess that Bandido will be back since he still has the ROH title, but we probably shouldn’t make too many assumptions about what will or will not happen until things are announced.

Segunda Caida writes about the Skayde/Cometa Maya vs Negro Navarro/Komander show from Big Lucha, and their thoughts aren’t far from my own.

Box y Lucha returns after a couple of weeks off with Rey Cometa & Espiritu negro on the cover of 3498. I wonder if they’ve got plans for 3500, which should be out in four weeks.