COVID notes
Two years ago, this weekend would’ve had FantasticaMania, a CMLL show and AAA’s first taping of the year. We’re instead deep into pandemic lucha libre again, with many venues not running and no real sign of when things
Mas Lucha’s radio show on Saturday reported CMLL had “around 20” positive COVID test results among wrestlers and staff, which led to the shut down on January 6. It’s described as a “big wave.” It’s not clear how many are positive are now – you’d hope it would be less with people getting better and CMLL wrestlers being isolated, but it may be up with Mexico entirely going through the big wave.
Hopefully, everyone is fine and CMLL can resume before long, but that “around 20” total explains why they’ve gone on pause. CMLL hasn’t given an indication when we might hear from them again. They’ll probably have to say something by Wednesday if they’re running this weekend, but it’d be surprising if they’re running since they’re on “indefinite” hiatus. Maybe next Friday is the earliest we can expect.
The first segment of Mas Lucha Radio also included talk about vaccination cards/recent COVID test likely becoming a requirement for attending CMLL shows, as they now are in Guadalajara, and the lack of testing being done on most indie shows. Hip Hop Man made a good point that if CMLL is this bad, the indie shows are probably far worse. Arena Naucalpan and Arena Lopez Mateos were cited as two places doing testing, but most indie shows are not.
The AAA show Wednesday in San Luis Potosi has been posted to 03/16 due to COVID.
Other Notes
IWRG (SUN) 01/16/2022 Arena Naucalpan [IWRG, Mas Lucha]
1) Carnicero & Kenji b Kunay & Villarreal 
2) Billy Jones, Hell Boy, Legendario b Black Dragón, Cerebro Negro Jr., Rey Halcón
Billy Jones replaced Sol
3) Puma de Oro & Tonalli b Big Boy & Big Mike and Aster Boy & Noisy Boy
4) Cerebro Negro, Hijo del Pirata Morgan, Karaoui b Freelance, Hijo del Alebrije, Toxin
sets up a Pirata/Alebrije title match
5) Súpernova & Texano Jr. DQ Alpha Wolf & Dragón Bane and Diva Salvaje & Jessy Ventura
IWRG continues on with a regular crowd. Mas Lucha had an outage during the show but the InternTV version fills that gap. No Travis Banks this week – Mas Lucha noticeably did not upload his match – but otherwise the usual programs. Hip Hop Man mentioned Las Shotas were sick last week, tested negative for COVID, but were set home to be safe. The main event this week built towards a Texanos/Golepadors match.
I believe AAA should start airing new episodes this Saturday, showing the matches from December’s Mexico City taping over the next two Saturdays. Not confirmed yet and it wouldn’t be out of the question if they held them back in case of a postponement (now or later.)
The return to Arena Coliseo Acapulco show on Saturday seems to have drawn well, maybe 80% full. Konnan Big returning to wrestle in Torreon also looks to have drawn strong, with Lucha Noticias guessing 2,000 people in attendance.
Global Press Journal has an interesting if a bit of a reach of an article on luchadoras. It made me think, which is good enough for me. The idea is the coronavirus shutdowns have led to more and bigger opportunities for Mexican women’s wrestlers. CMLL is brought up as the big example, and they did hold more women’s main events than ever and a women’s Gran Prix for the first time ever. The Gran Prix wasn’t truly related to the pandemic – it happened primarily because there was a group of Japanese women interested in coming over and CMLL decided to build a big match around then. CMLL may have felt safer running that match because of an earlier interest in women’s matches, but that came through fan voting not a decision CMLL made themselves. They did succeed in making the women’s wrestlers more identifiable – La Jarochita, Lluvia and Dark Silueta are among the (few) CMLL 2021 successes – but give a lot of the credit to the women themselves.
It’s possible, maybe even likely, there are more women in indie promotions than there were before. Wrestler pay is nodded at near the end of the article – in that there’s not much to be had – and I wonder if that might a hidden reason for the increase in the percentage of luchadoras. Women wrestlers in Mexico are generally underpaid compared to their male counterparts if paid at all. The pandemic and the empty arena shows led to low or no pay for people of all genders, and maybe the women were more accustomed to dealing with it than the men.
That article mentions Amapola’s been dealing with a neck injury.
02/11 RIOT
- Latigo, Toxin and Arez vs Iron Kid, Kratoz & Prometo
- Erick Ortiz vs Mr. Iguana in a first-round match
- Jimmy vs King Rex in a first-round match
- Blake Christian vs Aeroboy in a first-round match
- El Mago versus Tromba in a first-round match
- Demonio del Aire vs Komander in a first-round match – new
- Alex Zayne vs Rey Horus – not announced yet, but the only people left
Warrior Wrestling announced Bandido versus Dante Martin for their 02/12 show in Cicero, a match postponed from Bandido’s most recent bout with COVID. I caught Bandido’s match with Baron Black from Sunday’s Termius show and you should not get that show just to watch that match. It was disappointing, I’ve seen better from both men. The show included teases for the Gresham/Bandido title match but it’s evident that’s going to be held for the ROH SuperCard of Honor show on WrestleMania weekend.
Saturday’s Arena Neza show was postponed due COVID issues.
Segunda Caida watches some 1994 handheld Los Angeles California lucha libre.
Estado de Mexico profiles a luchador turned photographer.
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>We’re instead deep into pandemic lucha libre again, with many venues not running and no real sign of when things
Your sentence ended early there, gonna guess you meant there’s no real sign of when things will be back to normal.
>CMLL may have felt safer running that match because of an earlier interest in women’s matches, but that came through fan voting not a decision CMLL made themselves.
Siluetabros rise up!
There are probably a few more factors to the decisions with the Amazonas: The utter lack of star power on CMLL’s roster, not helped by the exits in 2021. It might have left the booking department in a territory where the mindset was “fuck it, why not?”
We could also consider the old guard decaying to the point where it couldn’t be ignored anymore. Maybe that Amapola vs Tiffany disaster of a singles match had more of an impact than we thought. As in, more than literally nothing at all.
I would also consider who Ultimo Guerrero is sleeping with. I’m not saying Lluvia got her spot by sleeping with him, more the guy with the most power in CMLL right now has every reason to keep his SO happy by going to bat for her.
If CMLL stumbled into another Dark Angel who wasn’t sleeping with a top guy in the company there is zero chance this same initiative happens. Fuck… look at Dark Angel’s awful send-off match from CMLL. It was a mid-card nothing match that the live crowd boo’ed (I was there). Nobody was pushing for her to be more focused on & I’m sure many guys (including UG) resented her getting her own match on an Anniversary event even though she more than deserved it.
One could argue the CMLL women’s division in terms of talent is the worst right now that it has been since they started it back up in 2005. Yet it’s more focused on than ever before. Talent has little to nothing to do with that. They have stumbled into the 2020’s women’s movement + the right people are connected to the right power brokers.
At least we lucked out into Volador Jr. marrying an edecan. So did he.
Why are the women so bad there? Is there just a failure in training now?
By the way, are there any publications that do reviews of specific matches in Mexico?
There are many factors. One of the key things is most women in Mexico get pregnant very young. Look at the AAA wrestlers who went missing in the last couple years. It wasn’t the 40+ year old Fabi Apache types who already had their babies, it was the young talented ones like Keyra/Chik Tormenta/Lady Flammer types. Usually the women will have babies at a young age, raise them, then when the kids are older the women continue their careers at an older age where they are in far worse physical shape.
Look at someone like Dalys who raised 3 kids before deciding randomly in her 40’s – hey I’m a pro wrestler. They even invented some story about how she was an athlete when she was younger but she was always known as a stay-at-home mom. Once the parenting was done, she felt being a wrestler was owed to her for whatever reason.
Same deal with La Infernal who retired young to have the baby Villanos & then decided in her 50’s she was ready to return to the ring. Absurd. She’s already gone thankfully.
I always joke around calling the CMLL division the abuelas division but the truth is most of them are, in fact, grandmothers. If they aren’t actually grandmas, they all at least have kids who are at the age where they can be moms at any moment. This isn’t to say a female wrestler in her 40’s/50’s can’t still go but facts are facts when you watch the CMLL women wrestle.
As for the younger ones who aren’t moms yet – the fact is women hate training with women in Mexico. So you have all these women who train with men but wrestle with women. All the spots they practice in training with strong men basing them cannot be done when you have a green barely trained woman on the other side. It’s a fundamental flaw that will always exist. IWRG has Diosa Quetzal training the very green women there & look how that’s turning out. That division is a joke & they’re all terrible. Quetzal is barely passable on her own so it’s the blind leading the blind.