Noches de Campeones, Dragon Lee to WWE, Chavez brothers close the year out strong, Sin Salida

Site Notes

the (end of) 2022 Tapatia awards is now open for voting. You can now vote up to your top five wrestlers. I’ve also added a small poll at the end. You can vote through January; voting closes 12:01 AM on February 1st.

This post ends the 20th year of this blog. I have lots of thoughts about that, but also I have a post that’s a day and half overdue. Let’s do that instead.

CMLL

CMLL (FRI) 12/30/2022 Arena México [CMLL, ESTO, Excelsior, Kaiser Sports, Publimeto, R de Rudo, thecubsfan]
1) Angelito, Kaligua, Último Dragóncito b Mercurio, Minos, Pierrothito  
2) La Jarochita, La Vaquerita, Princesa Sugehit b Dalys, Olympia, Reyna Isis 
17:51. Olympia replaced Hera a few hours before the show
3) Esfinge, Fugaz, Star Black b El Coyote, Hijo del Villano III, Pólvora  
4) Atlantis, Negro Casas, Soberano Jr. b Hechicero, Mephisto, Yota 
12:53
5) Ángel de Oro & Niebla Roja © b Titán & Volador Jr. [CMLL TAG]   
20:15. 7th defense

The tag title match started at top speed and kept going that way for about twenty minutes. It didn’t give much room to build, but those two teams can do a lot and they had plenty of ideas to fill the time. The Cbavez Brothers seem like unsung heroes even instead of CMLL, and it was good to see them get a big win to end the year. It was a great match.

Not a lot to go out of your way to see elsewise. The minis continue to work hard. Soberano is very over. Turnout was strong for this type of show, as shows have ben all week.

CMLL didn’t acknowledge Hera’s absence but it’s said to be another COVID positives. We’re not as bad off as we were two years or even one year ago, but maybe this is just going to be a December/January issue for a long time to come.

CMLL has Sin Salida on Sunday. It has both the first Faby/Marcela singles match and the 12 person cage match. Mask loser pools:

• seem safe: Difunto, Zandokan Jr., Neón, Oro Jr., Valiente Jr.
• you can’t totally rule it out I guess but doesn’t seem the right fit: Nitro, Inquisidor, Millenium, Retro
• no one’s going to be surprised if it happens: Apocalipsis, Príncipe Odín Jr., Bengala

I’ve been thinking it’s Apocalipsis all along, guess we’ll see if I’m right. This is on Ticketmaster Live. Start time on Sundays is 5 pm CT.

CMLL (MON) 01/02/2023 Arena Puebla
1) Micro Gemelo Diablo I, Micro Gemelo Diablo II, Micro Sagrado vs Átomo, Chamuel, Periquito Sacaryas
2) Millenium, Oro Jr., Rey Samuray vs Apocalipsis, Inquisidor, Siky Ozama
3) Guerrero Maya Jr., Pegasso, Stigma vs Leo (Jalisco), Omar Brunetti, Vaquero Jr. (Jalisco)
rematch
4) Esfinge, Fugaz, Místico vs Ángel de Oro, Niebla Roja, Yota
5) Titán © vs Negro Casas [CMLL WELTER]
6th defense

CMLL (TUE) 01/03/2023 Arena México
1) Micro Gemelo Diablo I, Micro Gemelo Diablo II, Micro Sagrado vs Átomo, Chamuel, Periquito Sacaryas
2) Bengala, Eléctrico, Neón vs Apocalipsis, Cholo, Nitro
3) La Jarochita, La Magnifica, Marcela vs Amapola, Dalys, Tiffany
4) Esfinge, Fugaz, Star Black vs El Coyote, Felino, Felino Jr.
5) Atlantis Jr., Valiente, Volador Jr. vs El Hijo del Villano III, Gran Guerrero, Templario

Villano III in a main event is unusual but otherwise nothing jumps out on this card. Apocalipsis is working Monday and Tuesday next week, which is unusual for him.

CMLL (FRI) 01/06/2023 Arena México
1) Mercurio vs Angelito
rematch from 2022-05-27 (minis title match)
2) Dark Panther, Panterita del Ring, Panterita del Ring Jr. vs Cancerbero, Luciferno, Virus
rematch from 2022-11-25
3) Ángel de Oro & Niebla Roja vs Guerrero Maya Jr. & Titán
rematch from 2022-01-23 (CMLL tag title change); Maya replacing Volador Jr.
4) Gemelo Diablo I, Gemelo Diablo II, Sagrado vs Euforia, Hechicero, Mephisto
rematch from 2022-09-30 (then a trios title match)
5) Soberano Jr. vs Templario
rematch from 2022-07-29 (Leyenda de Plata final)

This is the first part of two Best of 2022 shows. They’re the same matches as announced a few weeks ago. All of these are non-title matches. Soberano and Templario might end up back on the 2023 list.

Ultimo Dragoncito posted a photo from micros training with both MicroAngel and Micro Sagrado, so they’re different people (or someone went through a lot of effort to fake it.) That’s good news for the Micros, who could use more participants.

Difunto rates his career so far as an 8 out of 10 and hopes to be a full time Mexico City wrestler in 2023.

Zandokan Jr. says he was inspired by Emilio Charles Jr. and Bestia Salvaje, who both trained under his grandfather. Saying you were inspired by talented rudos from the two decades ago is a great way to win hearts. Zandokan claims he’s staying into the cage until the end.

Dragon Lee & AAA

Actually serious though it sounds like a joke: if WWE wants to conquer the Latin American market, they got to understand it enough not to announce a big signing on the Dia de Inocentes. Wednesday night was full of confused Mexican fans (and one English-speaking announcer) thinking Dragon Lee must be pulling a weird prank by announcing a ‘fake’ WWE deal. Mas Lucha had even posted that exact “signed by WWE” joke a few hours earlier with Tonalli. I’m sure there are people who woke up Thursday morning still confused about what the deal was with Dragon Lee. He is truly signed with WWE.

ESPN’s story on Dragon Lee’s differed a bit from what I had heard, includes some additional details and had WWE quotes. That report has a Dragon Lee start day in January. (I had heard February.) Finn Balor is credited with reaching out to Dragon Lee a few months to start the process. It’s often a fellow wrestler who reaches out from the WWE to a wrestler in these situations; it’s useful to include a friendly voice and there’s less of a worry about contract tampering that way. Dragon Lee said he always wanted to go to WWE, even after appearing on AEW TV. It’s the only thing he can say in this situation, but it also just may be true. WWE talks about this Dragon Lee signing as part of looking more globally again and trying to make in-roads into Latin America.

It was time for Dragon Lee to move on. He didn’t have much left to do in Mexico and it didn’t look like NJPW would be taking him back. ROH was good for him, but that went away and may have alerted him that these US chances are not forever. Dragon Lee and AEW could’ve done cool things together, but his better chances might reasonably be in  WWE at the moment. (Dragon Lee and Bandido, good friends getting signed around the same time, are going to be compared to each other for the next few years.) CMLL’s not bringing Dragon Lee back and Dragon Lee wouldn’t have been happy there if he did. AAA’s not pushing Dragon Lee past Hijo del Vikingo and I don’t know that would’ve been enough if he did. There was nothing left for him out here and his skills would’ve atrophied just doing the same things with the same people. I have the same skepticism as everyone else has for a Mexican wrestler in a WWE environment, and maybe more concern about what mental condition he’ll return to the outside world in if he doesn’t work out there, but it’s still worth taking the risk over doing nothing.

AAA was aware both FTR and Dragon Lee were done in AAA after Noche de Campeones. Others knew as well, and spent the last few days speculating how AAA was going to get out of it – would Rush step it for Dragon Lee? would AAA add another team to win the belts? AAA did the simplest thing for them, going with their originally planned finish and vacating the titles. AAA’s championships have booked their championships into meaning very little anyway, and there was no established AAA pair that would’ve taken much from a win from FTR. Hermanos Lee winning the belts and immediately vacating them was a defensible move, only because of the mistakes AAA had already made.

AAA used the win to celebrate Dragon Lee going to WWE, in a similar way that CMLL did with Mascara Dorada many years ago. The only clip they posted on YouTube was Dragon Lee signing, also got their belt shown on WWE social media, “Lucha Libre AAA” was mentioned in every WWE announcement about Dragon Lee’s signing. Dorian Roldan’s only Twitter post of the night was praising Dragon Lee for going to WWE. A WWE person was on hand at the AAA show to record the moment, though WWE ended up using the AAA footage instead. This came off like AAA trying to take advantage of the Dragon Lee deal to get themselves a little closer to WWE, or at least hope to get a little attention for themselves from the spotlight. (The popular reaction instead seemed to be ‘why would AAA make someone champion who is just leaving, that makes no sense’, but that didn’t seem to matter.) There was a recent discussion about which (if any) company WWE would be more interested in working with after “NXT Mexico” came up again. It’s clear AAA would be eager to work with WWE if given the chance.

The flip side is AAA’s relationship with AEW seems like it’s changing, if not totally going away. Dave Meltzer, in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter, says AAA will no longer book AEW wrestlers to win champions because they just can’t reliably get dates on them. The WON notes Sammy Guevara & Tay Melo weren’t actually scheduled to lose their titles on Noches de Campeones, because AAA had planned on doing a surprise title change back in Madero (which they also missed.) Abismo Negro Jr. & Flammer would’ve won the belts a few days earlier under that plan. Konnan’s speech stripping Melo & Guevara of the tag team titles got attention because Konnan said the AEW couple had made ridiculous demands, and people not watching the show failed to understand that was a storyline bit. Konnan also said Guevara & Melo had missed three shows, specifically not two. That didn’t seem to be a storyline, but I’m not sure what that third show would’ve been.

We also don’t know how many shows FTR were scheduled to be at, but for sure the plan couldn’t have been for them to disappear between March and December. It’s certainly felt like AAA couldn’t switch the titles off of them until AEW had their ROH title change, though I don’t know that’s a fact. FTR still could’ve come back and defended them against random teams, same as NGD, and there are no answers given as to why that didn’t happen. The WON notes Kenny Omega is an exception as a title holder for AAA, feeling that he’s so valuable that they’d put the megachampionship on him if he was interested and just deal with the consequences. The report is also clear that AAA remain interested in bringing AEW wrestlers outside of title matches (and maybe just for one offs), like they did with the Young Bucks in Monterrey and tried to do with the Hardys in Tijuana.

Putting AAA championships on AEW was a miserable failure. It’s great AAA has realized that and will stop doing that. They’ve also got to look at it just not being an AEW issue. Flammer’s probably a mixed tag team champion in part because Taya’s not around to do her title match with Flammer. AAA had similar problems getting dates when Deonna Purrazzo was champion. AAA probably doesn’t consider Fenix or Penta ‘AEW’ wrestlers, but they couldn’t get Fenix in for his last title defense. AAA is not a big deal outside of Mexico, it’s not a place where a foreign star can become a bigger star, and so either AAA’s go to go for people who don’t have as many options in the US (like CMLL’s sort of done) or just focus on people based in Mexico.

AEW pulling people off a NJPW PPV would have the internet up in arms. AEW pulling people off an AAA PPV had the internet shrugging their shoulders and hoping AEW would just switch to working with CMLL instead. It’s part AAA presenting themselves as a mess often, so most figure this must be AAA’s fault somehow, and part just disinterest.

AAA Noche de Campeones

This seemed like a big deal in the moment and feels totally forgotten by the time I’m writing about this on Saturday.

AAA TV (WED) 12/28/2022 Arena GNP, Acapulco, Guerrero [@Fanzine97, AAA, thecubsfan]
1) Arcano b El Engañoso, Gran Mazo, Picadura Letal, Leyenda America [MLL CHAMP]
not shown on the PPV
2) Cuatrero, Forastero, Sansón © b Aramis, Myzteziz, Willie Mack [AAA TRIOS]
3rd defense (2nd when announced). Hijo del Mascara 2000 Jr. interfered to help his cousins win.
3) Abismo Negro Jr. & Flammer b Lady Shani & Octagón Jr. and Komander & Sexy Star [AAA MIXED TAG]
Scheduled to be Sammy & Tay defending, they worked AEW instead. Konnan announced the titles as vacant. (Physical belts were still in AEW.) Flammer & Abismo Negro Jr. were replacements and won the titles.
4) Vampiro b Dave The Clown, Panic Clown, Murder Clown, Pagano, Aerostar, Blue Demon Jr., Niño Hamburguesa, Mr. Iguana, Diva Salvaje, Jessy Ventura, Parka Negra [Copa Mundo Imperial]
Everyone started in the ring, with eliminations by pinfalls/submissions/over the top. Pagano threw Vampiro out.
5) Arez b Taurus, Villano III Jr. [AAA DEMON]
New title, said to be defended once a year. Arez beat V3 Jr. and Blue Demon Jr. presented him the title.
6) Dragón Lee & Dralistico b Cash Wheeler & Dax Harwood © [AAA TAG]
fifth defense. FTR demanded Tirantes as referee, Konnan allowed it but said Tirantes would be suspended if he helped FTR. Tirantes helped FTR anyway. Konnan pulled out Tirantes during a pinfall and ejected him, with Piero replacing him after a delay. Dragon Lee hit the knee on Dax, Dralistico landed his senton for the win. Dragon Lee announced post-match that this was the end of his time in Mexico and he had signed with WWE. Titles presumably vacant.
7) Hijo Del Vikingo © b Bandido [AAA MEGA]
Eighth defense, third on TV. Vikingo retained.

Vikingo/Bandido was a great match. There’s other stuff to talk about on this card, but Vikingo/Bandido being a great match shouldn’t get lost in the shuffle. It was a great match despite some clear problems with the ropes and both guys giving up on spots halfway through. (It seems more likely to be an issue with the ropes than an issue with them because Taurus was having issues earlier.) That just meant they did 6 incredible things instead of 10, and that was more than plenty. Vikingo’s dragon poison rana was the spot of the night, the best and most natural-looking version he’s done of it so far. Bandido’s reverse press slam was impressive too, a much harder move to do in that fashion. This was totally worthwhile as a main event, and I think Vikingo and Bandido have an even better match in them if they go back to it.

Vikingo says he’s still looking for Kenny Omega. It’s hard to believe he’s getting Omega, but what else is Vikingo going to talk about? There’s no next opponent. There’s no feud. There’s a good chance we’ll have no idea who he’s facing next until the Rey de Reyes lineup is suddenly announced because AAA won’t do anything to build to that moment.  Maybe it’ll finally be Gringo, but he didn’t come up here. (He, Septimo Dragon, Flamita and Yutani were wrestling in GLEAT this week.)

The rest of the show was just there. People worked hard, the atmosphere came off as terrible on video, and it took a lot of work to get invested in the match. I suspect the FTR/Hermanos Lee match was the second-best match live with the heat – you could see people reacting well. Arez, Taurus and Villano III Jr. had the better action and came off better on the stream. Both the trios title match and the mixed title match were “everyone did stuff, none of it sank it” AAA standards. The Copa was a Copa that they tried to make meaningful by Pagano beating Vamprio at the end. The main event was great. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed with it if you pay $23 to watch it after the fact, but you might as well just wait until it turns up on YouTube at this point.

I’ve got a lot of complaints about how this AAA show came off on a stream, but it’s worth keeping in mind that AAA wants to be about the live experience, about the vibes of attending a show. That live experience looked terrible too. It was a big stadium, AAA didn’t sell 2/3rds of it, and struggled to settle the rest. Maybe the financial loss wasn’t as bad as it seemed, since the local promoter is also the building owner, but it came off as a failure. There were still plenty of empty seats in ringside areas, and the lights were turned so low as to hide areas farther back. It was a turnout that would’ve looked strong in a 2,000-seat building, but this show doesn’t happen unless it’s happening in this building. AAA and the local promoters presented this show as the first of an annual tradition. I would be genuinely surprised if AAA runs this arena on this date next year. They’ve got to try a weekend day if they’re even going to try it again.

You expect disorganization and poor quality on AAA shows, and AAA delivered once again. The start time was moved from 7 pm to 6:15 pm, then slowly pushed almost all the way back to 7:00. It seemed like they moved up the time to air the Marvel Lucha Libre match, then decided not to air it, and failed to communicate that. The crowd was inaudible for most of the show, killing the atmosphere of the matches. They may have tried adding in fake crowd noise as a solution at times. (Iit’s a promotion where the head booker is laser-focused on getting as much heat as possible and a production style where you can’t hear any of those reactions.) It wasn’t just the crowd mic either, as the ring mic left Konnan and Lady Shani barely audible during a talkative early portion of the show. AAA continued to switch cameras at a manic pace, making it hard to follow the action and often choosing angles that exposed the empty building. These are the same issues that have been there for every show AAA’s run this year and AAA’s unwilling to do things a normal promotion would do to fix them. They’re right, we’re wrong for disagreeing with them. The difference on this show was the presentation quality was less than most TV shows. It was nice not to be staring at a giant advertising board for three hours, but the entrance set being just a black curtain was strange, and maybe a sign of cutbacks due to the poor turnout.

It was also clear that, even with Konnan definitely in the building, no one in AAA was informing the English announcers what was going on. They weren’t told Hijo del Mascara 2000 was coming out with NGD, or even informed who he was. They (and the Spanish announcers) were told the mixed tag titles were vacant before Konnan did his speech to vacate them. I can only guess that Abismo Negro Jr. walked out to wave a US flag during the tag title match because AAA was concerned the match wasn’t getting enough heat and sent him out on the fly, because the announcers clearly didn’t know. Those announcers were prepped on what was on the card and adequately handled AAA doing unexplained things, because they’re no longer rookies and have some experience with the strangeness of the product. I hope (and expect) Joe & Larry are back in 2023 so there are not new people to get onboarded next year. AAA does not give announcers a lot to work with – they were falling back on talking about bio information a lot in the first two matches because there was simply no story to discuss – but the English announcers knew the AAA wrestlers, knew who they teamed with, knew who they had fought on past shows. That’s a step forward and I don’t want to go back to square 1.

Two matches included a moment where Piero counted three when he was not supposed to count three. Marty Elias was not used on this show.

AAA is off until January 212st in Queretaro. I presume the suspended Hijo del Tirantes will be back refereeing by that show. AAA on Space this week is Best of Show.

An amazing footnote to last night was Mas Lucha deciding to debut Big Lucha’s most recent show on the same night. That meant fans had a choice between paying $23 for a (live) show headlined by Bandido/Vikingo or paying $0 for a (taped) show headlined by Bandido/Vikingo. AAA is a bigger name and I don’t think they lost that many people. However,  there was no reason Mas Lucha needed to put up the Big Lucha show on Wednesday, it could’ve just as easily gone up Thursday or another week. Jose Manuel Guillen is both AAA’s Spanish PBP announcer and one of the people who run Mas Lucha, and I would’ve been furious about an AAA person taking away from AAA show like that if I was in AAA’s shoes. There’s nothing about this situation that makes sense from a US perspective – that Big Lucha was allowed to run the same match a few days before AAA, and that Mas Lucha thought it was a good idea to put it on against the AAA show. Maybe the simple answer is AAA doesn’t understand video content, and so things that seem like a big deal to video content is an important thing to English-speaking video just doesn’t matter to AAA.

The good news is you can see the Big Lucha Bandido/Hijo del Vikingo match now, and it is really good. I found the AAA one better (though not 23 USD better), but they are different matches. The Big Lucha wasn’t a rehearsal, it has different spots and action than the AAA match, and they’re both worth watching.

Other News

LuchaWorld has the latest Lucha Report.

Ayako Hamada held a press Friday to announce the opening of Dojo Dinastia Hamada, a Mexico City gym/training center. She’s doing a contest where the best student of a four month training session will win a trip to Japan. Hamada also announced she’ll open an OnlyFans next week.

Terror Negro I took Tackle Jr.’s mask in Arena Olimpico Laguna on Thursday. Tackle Jr is Fernando Flores, 26 years old, 11 years a wrestler.

Also on Thursday, in Mazatlan, Furia Negra took the mask of Aero Dragon (Alejandor Flores), Rynox took the mask of Tigre del Norte (Christian Padilla) and and Mamba took the hair of Sexy Luna

First Wrestling (Minneapolis) has Arez vs ASF vs Gringo Loco vs Komander for their 01/13 show.

El Mago appears for GCW’s Jersey Championship Wrestling sub-brand on 01/01.

the full 02/26 KAOZ/Robles/The Crash show

KAOZ (SUN) 02/26/2023 Explanada Estadio Mobil Super, Monterrey, Nuevo Leon
1) Big Mami & Iron Kid (Estado de México) vs Baby Xtreme & Estrellita Lagunera and Baronessa & Bendito and Baby Love & Cronic
2) Ayako Hamada, Jimmy, Microman, Pimpinela Escarlata vs ?, Dinámico, Guapito, Mamba
3) Faby Apache, Flip Gordon, Mecha Wolf vs Alpha Wolf, Daga, Natalia Marakova
4) ASF, Dragón Bane, Komander vs Dark Cuervo, Dark Ozz, Dark Scoria
5) Dralistico, La Bestia Del Ring, Rush vs Ej Nduka, Enzo Amore, Erick Redbeard
6) Konnan Big, Marty Scurll, The Tiger vs Cibernético, Emperador Azteca, Loco Arreloa

Putting aside the people booked – and I know that’s hard for variety of reasons – the format of these KAOZ shows remains strange. They believe what fans want to pay to see is various stars in random combinations of trios and atomicos matches. There’s no real reason to any of these matches (unless “Wolf vs Wolf” gets you), and most of them don’t even have a real reason to be tag matches. Everywhere else, the thing that draws is big personal feuds in singles match or maybe 2v2s. KAOZ – and other groups as well – feel like they’re booking a wrestling convention rather than a wrestling card.

RIOT has finally uploaded their 2021-11-27 “Mark Tank” show, with Erik Oritz vs Hechiceor as the main event.

El Sol de Zamora has a nice piece on local promotion SCW.

Segunda Caida watches some Panamaian LA Park.