Volador/Mistico/Stuka tonight in CMLL, The Crash, Monterrey licnesing

CMLL

The second stage of the CMLL Universal tournament is tonight’s main event. Stuka Jr., Volador Jr. and Mistico meet in a three-way match that is not a three-way match. It’s instead sort of a round robin. CMLL used to do this type of match in the 80s and 90s, usually as an apuesta match bit. If I understand the rules correctly:

• The series of matches will start with a coin toss to decide which two wrestlers will start and who sits out
• Those two wrestle and someone wins. (No clue what happens if there’s ever a tie.)
• The first match winner takes a break, while the loser faces the guy who sat out
• The winner of the second match faces the winner of the first match to determine the ultimate winner

Hopefully, this makes sense when it happens; they’ll probably do it again for the final. It’s not really clear to me why CMLL has switched to this format, except it’s something they did in the past and so CMLL must go back to it.

The rest of the card is interesting. The semimain is a 4v4, with Los Guerreros & Atlantis taking on Los Infernales & Soberano. Fugaz, Star Jr., and Titan wrestle Cavernario, Templario, and Dragon Rojo in the tercera in a promising match. Rey Cometa makes his first Friday appearance since January teaming with Espiritu Negro & Dulce Gardenia against Depredarores Magnes, Rugido, and Magia Blanca. Los Gemelo Diablos take on Chamuel & Atomo in the opener. It’s the usual 99 pesos on Ticketmaster; it’s a decent card for a regular Friday night.

Thursday’s Arena Olimpico Laguna show, headlined by Atlantis Jr. & Mistico versus Stuka & Averno, looks like a sell out. That Torreon arena seemed to primarily use locals pre-pandemic but has been running with more national names since reopening this year and seems like it’s had some sustained success.

CMLL (TUE) 04/19/2022 Arena Coliseo Guadalajara
1) Atilus & Rey Urano vs Aurelius & Maxiums
2) Adrenalina, Estrella Oriental, Minotauro vs Bobby Black, Carlo Roggi, Fúnebre
3) El Divino, Optimus, Trono vs Joker, Omar Brunetti, Vaquero Jr.
4) Ángel Rebelde, Espíritu Negro Jr., Halcón Negro Jr., Samuray Azteca vs Huitzil, Sangre Imperial, Suicida, Valiente Jr.
5) Atlantis, Dulce Gardenia, Titán vs Maléfico, Satánico, Zandokan Jr.
6) Explosivo, Niebla Roja, Volador Jr. vs Bárbaro Cavernario, Demonio Maya, Principe Daniel

No Cavernario/Titan, boooo.

The fourth match is the start of the schools tournament, with Queretaro versus Mexico City. I presume Huitzil (Instagram) is a CMLL trainee who we haven’t seen in Arena Mexico yet but may see soon. He’s wrestled a handful of times in Arena Lopez Mateos, and participated in IWRG’s 2022 Tryout.

AAA

Saturday’s AAA on Space show

• 4:20 Brothers (Kamik-C & Skalibur) & Ryan Kidd vs Luchas Solos (Arkangel Divino & Ultimo Maldito) & Rayo Star
• Las Toxicas (Hiedra, Maravilla, Flammer) vs Faby Apache, Lady Shani, Lady Lee
• Sammy Guevera & Tay Conti vs Dianmico & Sexy Star II vs Black Danger & Viva Van
• El Dragón (Chihuahua), Jack Cartwheel, Pagano vs Bestia 666, Genio del Aire, Mecha Wolf

Honestly, I think we’d all be weirded out if AAA promoted matches airing a week ahead of time and then those matches were actually the ones that aired.

Fenix turned up in a AAA ad, doing a generic plug saying he’ll be at TripleMania. Every recent indication is that he’ll be cleared in time for the 04/30 show if he’s not already.

Arez told Mas Lucha (way back in Merida) that he’s ready to face Tay Conti & Sammy Guevera whenever. I still don’t understand why that match isn’t happening at TripleMania Monterrey.

Penta teased the idea of doing a rematch with CM Punk in Mexico, something fans in Mexico have been asking for on Facebook since the match was announced for AEW Dynamite. Dorian Roldan amplified the idea. That sounds like a TripleMania match if it ever happens, and Penta needs to save his mask first.

The California-based RGR Promotion posted a photo of meeting with Dorian Roldan recently. Coincidence or not, they haven’t said much about booking Hijo del Santo this week.

The AAA show Wednesday in San Luis Potosi looked like it did well. Vikingo again didn’t wrestle, resting his injury.

Other News

MLW is already airing matches from the Dallas weekend, including the five-way match with Puma King I saw. It was alright, you don’t need to see it, but maybe more luchadors over the next few weeks.

Hijo del Santo announced he’s going to Costa Rica to wrestle for the first time on 04/23. He’s posting all his matches on his own YouTube channel, so whatever he’s doing should turn up. It’s a distant memory, but the pressure point of the AAA/Santo lawsuit over a decade ago was Santo demanding to get paid from AAA’s releasing his TripleMania appearance on DVD, and that seems to have motivated him to make sure he owns the video of every match he has now.

The Crash (FRI) 05/13/2022 Auditorio de Tijuana, Tijuana, Baja California
1) Pod & Terror Azteca vs Mirage & Ryan Kidd
2) Tony Casanova & Torito Negro vs Dante León (Indie) & Rey León and Charro Negro (Nuevo León) & Oro Negro
3) Arandú, Star Boy, Zarco vs Brazo Celestial Jr., Brazo Cibernetico, Brazo De Oro Jr.
4) Lunatik Extreme, Toto, Venganza vs Alas de Oro, Lanzer, Próximo
5) ? & Destiny vs Marty Scurll & Travis Banks
6) Cinta de Oro & Samuray del Sol vs Erick Redbeard & Jonah

As announced on the previous show, Marty Scurll and Travis Banks appear on the card. I presume they’re teamed because Mexican wrestling always teams the white guys together, not just because they’re the people named in Speaking Out who are working in Mexico because they can find no work elsewhere. Lince Dorado pulled out of the semi-main and maybe the show after it was announced to avoid the association with them.

Mecha Wolf posted on Twitter that he was offered “a lot of money” to work this show and but his morals was “among the reasons” he was skipping the date. This led to other Twitter users questioning Mecha Wolf’s morals given his own past incidents and Mecha Wolf apparently deactivating his Twitter account. I think AAA guys are heavily discouraged from working The Crash shows at the moment, Mecha Wolf said he’d be working the Tijuana TripleMania show, and so it’d be a reason not to work this one. Rey Horus was advertised for this show, isn’t on the lineup at this point, and may have the same issue. Ryan Kidd is advertised but I wouldn’t be surprised if he ended up not appearing for similar reasons; he was one of the opening match wrestlers on the AAA show in Dallas.

The Crash uses people with more US exposure, and those wrestlers are more likely to see negative Twitter comments as affecting their ability to get booked elsewhere by promoters who are also on Twitter. That’s a particular pressure point to The Crash, but only to them. The Twitter comments blew up after I posted the lineup on Twitter, but someone would’ve gotten to it eventually. Banks is booked in Naucalpan, Juarez, Villahermosa, and Texas over the next few weeks; those are just the ones I’ve seen so far – I could post those lineups on Twitter and nothing would change with them. The Crash can control the conversation themselves better on Facebook; any negative comment about this on their page gets quietly hidden within a few hours.

I haven’t put the KAOZ poster in the database because I expect the lineup to change, but Travis Banks is booked there too. Konnan’s booked on that show, and was booking KAOZ last we knew – he’s mentioned it on his podcast. KAOZ is a promotion largely booked with locals and names who aren’t going to care about Twitter reaction, so Konnan can ‘safely’ book Banks there. AAA very much does care about international and Twitter reaction, so I don’t Konnan would bring Banks there any time soon. (AEW would also figure to strongly object to AAA using Banks or Scurll for any show they’re involved with.) The decisions to use these guys have generally been economical ones, not moral decisions.

This is a weak The Crash card, gambling on people in Mexico being very into Cinta de Oro and Samuray del Sol; the show built around Cinta and Penta didn’t do particularly well. I’m surprised The Crash isn’t doing the Toto/Proximo hair match just to have something on this card.

El Norte’s wrestling column this week talks about the situation with no one beyond AAA being able to run in Monterrey. I got an explanation of what’s going on there and it’s more a local bureaucracy mess than I knew. Lucha libre magazines in the 70s and 80s would frequently push for nationalizing the wrestling commissions so the same rules were enforced uniformly. It never seemed to go anywhere, and so today Nuevo Leon has a problem of multiple local commissions and differing rules.

Nuevo Leon does not have a state lucha libre commission like many states. Instead, a few different municipalities have their own commissions. Monterrey is one of them, and a new commissioner came in to power last year and decided to change the licensing rules. Typically, only new wrestlers have to go through an in-ring evaluation prior to receiving their license with the lesser prepared aspiring luchadors weeded out. The new Monterrey lead commissioner, Carlos Estrada, unusually wants everyone to go through a test before getting a license in an attempt to ‘clean up’ decisions by previous regimes. That didn’t go over well. Everyone in Monterrey requiring a re-tested means more testing and more frequent opportunities to test are needed, and those haven’t appeared to occur. What has occurred was nearby San Nicolás de Los Garza opened its own lucha libre commission last year. The rules are more standard – anyone who already had a valid license just needs to present the right paperwork on their own schedule and doesn’t need to retest – and many Monterrey wrestlers decided to make the short trip to San Nicolas to get their license renewed there instead. The Monterrey commission did not like that and declared the San Nicolás de los Garza licenses invalid, and Nuevo Leon people had to have Monterrey licenses to wrestle. That’s reached a standoff. Shows in Monterrey aren’t happening in the meantime until either the wrestlers give in and get licensed (the next exam of which isn’t happening until April 30th) or the commission gives in and allows those outside licenses.

This shouldn’t affect TripleMania. Monterrey is still recognizing licenses from other states. (Even someone like Monterrey’s Maravilla probably has a Mexico City license.) Foreign wrestlers are not affected, though there are new (or newly) enforced paperwork requirements for them. AAA was told about those requirements at the 2021 TripleMania Monterrey show, so they should be able to handle them without issue.

El Jornada has an article about how luchadors have dealt with COVID-19. It heavily features Vampiro so your mileage may vary. Matematico is quoted about the death of his son. Matematico II believed he just had a cold and took some medicine, only going to the hospital when it was too late. The older Matematico believes many of the other luchadors who passed away thought the same, that whatever they had was minor and they were very healthy, slowing them from seeking help when it could’ve made a difference. (Mexico’s limited roll out of COVID testing and health care costs probably affected outcomes.) Matematico mentions his whole family got infected with COVID a year later, with himself getting it the worse while still depressed over the loss of his son. He recovered but he’s being very careful at signings now.

The Super J-Cast podcast, through a running bit about food, revealed there are plans for a NJPW/AEW show in the Chicago area on June 23rd. It fits: AEW’s teased an announcement, Tony Khan’s specifically teased AEW returning to Chicago in a special way before their next All Out show, NJPW is running in the Chicago area on Saturday, AEW is running in Milwaukee the night before. I don’t expect this to be much of a lucha libre story, though it’ll be interesting to see which Mexican wrestlers work on a NJPW show and if Mascara Dorada works representing the NJPW side.

Alberto el Patron is teasing a new title belt for Nacion Lucha Libre. He has not teased an actual date for Nacion Lucha Libre to run.

RIOT announced they’ll return on June 4th with Los Ricos Tambien Riot.

Tickets for the 06/19 Republic of Lucha show go on sale to the public today. Nothing announced for the card yet.

Flamita announced that Accion Jackson, who has been hanging out with Black Generation, is an official member of the group now.

LuchaWorld has the latest Lucha Report.