various site issues (a long list!)
- I still haven’t done the match round-up yet for this past week. Maybe tonight.
- WordPress put in a monthly limit of social media shares; it’ll post a link to Twitter, Facebook and similar places only a total of 30 times a month (over all those sites.) That wasn’t a huge problem when I was just posting 3 times a week, but I’m doing a little bit more than that of late and it has become an issue. There are ways I could work around it but the simplest solution is just to stop posting to Facebook, where I’m not sure anyone is actually reading this – posts get maybe a couple likes at most. If you are reading this on Facebook, show up in the comments to let me know. Otherwise, I’ll probably stop automatically posting there next week.
- There is supposed to be a way to subscribe to emails instead but WordPress is really buggy at that and I can’t even find where I’m supposed to link to there.
- I think, if I was starting this from fresh today, this blog would be a substack newsletter or Patreon blog posts or something where I’m not doing the hosting. The advantage to doing this way is there are now decades of history that can be searched through in one place (maybe not easily searchable, but Google helps) and that I’m not reliant on some other platform continuing to exist because I’ve been around long enough to see them come and go. WordPress isn’t going anywhere but things like “you can only post 30 social media shares a month and have to pay $120/year to do more” feel a lot less independent.
- My hosting service did an upgrade, which broke all the accented characters on the Match Finder. I’ve decided to break it in a different way for the moment; all the accented characters appear but are shifted to the end of the alphabet. I have tried multiple ways to fix this and haven’t found one that works yet so I’ll keep working at it.
- The luchadb itself is moving very slowly and some pages aren’t updated. Part of this is some once a year updates that are taking forever to run and using up resources; at the rate it’s going, it’s not getting done until March. Part of this is it seems like something else is running to make everything else go slower, but I’m not sure about it. I’ll keep looking at it.
- The tapatia awards close on 02/01. I should remember to start pushing this deadline on Twitter but I never do. Also maybe this weekend.
CMLL
CMLL (WED) 01/25/2023 Arena Coliseo Guadalajara
1) Estrella de Jalisco I, Estrella de Jalisco II, Obelisk b Persa, Raven, Temerario 
2) Micro Gemelo Diablo I, Micro Gemelo Diablo II, Micro Sagrado b Micro Ángel, Mije, Periquito Sacaryas
Scheduled as 4 vs 4, but no Chamuel and Micro Angel and Mije flipped sids.
3) Barboza, Bestia Negra, Difunto, Draego b Arlequín, Leo, Omar Brunetti, Vaquero Jr.
4) La Jarochita, Lluvia, Náutica, Sexy Sol b Maligna, Nexy, Reyna Isis, Valkiria
5) Atlantis, Blue Panther, Hijo del Villano III b Rey Bucanero, Satánico, Último Guerrero
6) Ángel de Oro & Soberano Jr. b Oráculo & Panterita del Ring Jr.
Soberano used the ropes to get the pin (though just for fun, didn’t really need it, was just having fun playing rudo)
7) Dark Panther, Místico, Rocky Romero b Atlantis Jr., Averno, Zandokan Jr. [Relevos Increíbles]
If you’re going to pick on of the three (!) CMLL Guadalajara streams this week, the Wednesday Pespi sponsored one seems like the best. A lot of the same people as Tuesday but longer matches. Panterita del Ring Jr. had a good night. Just be prepared to jump ahead a bunch between matches, because the giveaways and ads take a while.
Arena Coliseo Guadalajara posted photos from visitors from baseball team Charro de Jalisco. It’s notable because Charro de Jalisco is one of the groups presenting the Lucha Libre World Cup. I suspect they just thought lucha libre is lucha libre and didn’t realize they were supporting rival groups in the same week.
Tonight’s Arnea Mexico show:
CMLL (FRI) 01/27/2023 Arena México
1) Guerrero Maya Jr., Pegasso, Stigma vs Magia Blanca, Magnus, Rugido
2) La Jarochita, Lluvia, Princesa Sugehit vs Metálica, Reyna Isis, Tiffany
3) Capitán Suicida vs Virus [lightning]
4) Místico vs Templario, Atlantis Jr., Gran Guerrero, Fugaz, Stuka Jr., Soberano Jr., Dragón Rojo Jr., Panterita del Ring Jr., Bárbaro Cavernario
5) Ángel de Oro, Niebla Roja, Volador Jr. vs Oráculo, Rocky Romero, Titán [Relevos Increíbles]
This looks good. The main event has a bunch of good names. Reyes del Aire is reliable. Suicida versus Virus is an interesting challenge. The opener should be fun. The women’s match wasn’t much last year but they’ve got a direction coming out of it. It’s on TicketmasterLive, as far as we know.
It’s be fun to go all the way with Panterita del Ring Jr., but this feels like a Soberano Jr. night. Atlantis Jr. and Gran Guerrero should take each other out.
Oraculo and Rocky Romero appear to be finishing up tonight, they’re not on next week’s lineups. I still think Volador/Romero is carrying onto Fantastica Mania, but I’m not sure when/where the Orcaulo/Angel de Oro stuff is going.
CMLL (SUN) 01/29/2023 Arena México
1) Fantasy, Galaxy, Shockercito vs Mercurio, Pequeño Olímpico, Pequeño Violencia
2) Diamond, Oro Jr., Robin vs Cholo, Nitro, Raider
3) Sangre Imperial vs Disturbio [lightning]
4) Dulce Gardenia, Espíritu Negro, Rey Cometa vs Akuma, Dark Magic, Espanto Jr.
5) Blue Panther, Panterita del Ring, Valiente vs Bárbaro Cavernario, Niebla Roja, Templario
6) Místico, Titán, Volador Jr. vs Euforia, Hechicero, Mephisto
That main event will be pretty good if they want it to be pretty good. It may air in two weeks.
CMLL (MON) 01/30/2023 Arena Puebla
1) Astro, Black Tiger, Hijo de Centella Roja vs Dark Soul, Espíritu Maligno, Sombra Diabólika
2) Hombre Bala Jr., Neón, Robin vs El Perverso, Hijo del Perverso, Prayer
3) La Jarochita, Lluvia, Marcela vs Amapola, Hera, Olympia
4) Panterita del Ring Jr., Soberano Jr., Titán vs Dragón Rojo Jr., Stuka Jr., Último Guerrero
5) Atlantis Jr. vs Gran Guerrero
The main event was set up last week. Semifinal could be good. Hijo del Perverso is the brother of this Peverso (who was Perverso Jr. before he started wrestling in Arena Puebla regularly.) Trying to untangle this reminds me the Highspots interview with Hijo del Vikingo included a question why Vikingo never turned up in Arena Puebla. He mentioned he was actually going to start training there in hopes of being booked, but his father told him not to do it: if Hijo del Vikingo got grouped in with the Puebla guys, he’d be stuck there forever and would never get to Mexico City. Hijo del Vikingo’s father told him to go to Mexico City himself if he wanted to really make it. CMLL’s gotten a little bit better about giving Puebla and Guadalajara guys a chance post-pandemic but that was good advice that still seems to hold true.
I missed it, but the casita did get named in the Felino Jr. match on Tuesday. Again, CMLL announcers are not big on move names so I thought it was probably too soon to read into it.
CMLL had a bunch of announcements on Informa Wednesday
The most immediate and less detailed news was an aside that the Torneo Increible de Parejas will take place soon. It typically takes place this kind of year and is often used to set up a Homenaje a Dos Leyendas match. CMLL later sent out a promo video saying the tournament will take place on 02/10 and 02/17, so it’s a smaller field along the lines of the recent Gran Alternativa.
The big focus was the reveal of Torneo de Escuelas, a tournament of young wrestlers aspiring to make it into CMLL. CMLL aired a teaser and will announce the participants next Wednesday. They did explain the format: there will be four teams of wrestlers representing schools of various geographical regions and six wrestlers on each team. Each team will have a maestro to lead them
- Mexico City: Virus
- Jalisco: Satanico
- Puebla: Black Tiger
- La Laguna: Ultimo Guerrero
The four maestros will have a prelim match on Tuesday February 21st. Blue Panther will fill in for Ultimo Guerrero on that since he’ll be on the Fantastica Mania tour. There will be elimination matches on February 24 and 28th, and a final on March 3rd. CMLL didn’t explain how those will work.
CMLL also didn’t name who would be in the tournament, beyond the teaser clip. It’s easy to take some educated guesses.
- Laguna: Misterioso Negro, Mistico Blanco, Hijo del Stuka, Brillante Jr., and Rey Insolito have appeared in Guadalajara so they’re in the system. A Twitter user congratulated Gran Jefe V for appearing, so that’s six (and those six have been privately confirmed.)
- Mexico City: Tonalli is one of the easier-to-identify wrestlers in the video and had been rumored to come to CMLL for a while. Neon is also visible in the video, despite being in CMLL for months. I believe I saw Troyano’s mask (or more, I believe I saw a mask that I think is Troyano’s.) This is the one with the widest possible inclusions since they could pull from many teachers.
- Puebla: Perverso and Rey Samuray came in for Fuerza Poblana so they figured to return. (Siki Osama is a bit too old.) Millenium would seem a good bet to come back. Multy and Prayer would be interesting.
- Jalisco: some combination of Adrenlina, Explosivo, Fantastico, Angel Rebelde, Optimus, Trono, Principe Daniel and Demonio Maya. I guess Zandokan and Difutno too; I feel like they’re already beyond an entry tournament but if Neon is in, they can definitely be in it.
Note that one of the quirks here is splitting up everyone by home school separates Tonalli from his trainer Ultimo Guerrero. Troyano too if he’s in there as well.
(Aside: The Lucha Libre World Cup has bigger names, will draw more people and will have a lot more fanfare than this CMLL tournament, and yet I find myself much more excited about the CMLL deal. Part of that is CMLL/AAA mailase – one promotion is significantly more enjoyable to watch – and I’m sure part of that is not wanting to see people like Alberto and others for sure. There’s still something more: maybe watching people get into a promotion and how their story goes from there is more interesting than tournaments that just exist for one day. Or maybe it’s just simply those AAA meh feelings.)
The last bit of news doesn’t have a date, just a plan. Dragon Rojo and Templario were on Informa to promote Reyes del Aire in theory, but the discussion turned to their mutual feud with Soberano. Templario has the long rivalry, Dragon Rojo filled in for Templario and also wants Soberano. The two rudos agreed to their own match to decide which of them would go after Soberano Jr.’s mask. No date was announced and it’s just something that got pitched on Informa, but this was taken much more seriously than most matches pitched on Informa. Dragon Rojo keeps tweeting that this match is confirmed.
Templario vs Dragon Rojo on its own wouldn’t mean much as a mask match, but giving the idea that they’re building to Soberano makes it something. It’s another possible apuesta match added to the pile. They do have to deliver on these but CMLL seems more likely than AAA.
Templario is still wrestling with a shoulder harness. He explained to the press that his doctors had cleared him and he doesn’t actually need that protection, but mentally he likes having it and he feels it can fit into his medical look.
Informa led off with a Capitan Suicida interview. He explained the name change as “suicida” being something exciting in lucha libre, but with obvious negative connotations outside of it, especially about mental health. He wants it to be fun to cheer for him, especially for his kid fans, so he believes changing his name to Capitan Suicida makes for a more positive image. I still think he needs a hat.
Atlantis Jr. gave his 2022 a 10 out of 10, which seems like a fair grade. Atlantis Jr. says he’s going to japan from February 20th to March 3rd. That’s a few days longer than Fantastica Mania. He may be part of the junior focused show, though he’s got to be really close to the 100 kg limit at this point.
Barbaro Cavernario told Mundo Deportivo that he feels like he’s lost his luster after missing times with injuries, and hopes to regain a top place by going after guys who’ve passed him like Templario. He’d also like to bring the rest of his family (Principe Daniel, Demonio Maya, el Canalla) to Mexico City and believes it could happen in 2023.
Fugaz says Mistico was the one who inspired him to get into wrestling, so facing him in the Reyes del Aire final would be a dream.
I have no more information to add to this, but I did notice it’ll be a year since La Comandante’s last CMLL match in a few day. She last wrestled on the February 4th, 2022 Arena Mexico show, then a couple of weekends later on Valiente Gym event. Comandante seemed to go stretches without wrestling so her not being around didn’t stick out at first, but I’m not sure the reason why she hasn’t been back. Looking for La Comandante (or La Nazi!) information on Facebook doesn’t lead me any place useful.
AAA
AAA on Space has the second part of Noches de Campeones
- Copa Mundo Imperial
- Arez vs Taurus vs Villano III Jr.
- Dragon Lee & Dralistico vs FTR
AAA TV was as aired on the PPV last week – no vignettes or additional content – so this is a week safe to skip if you did buy the PPV. I am sure there are a lot of FTR people who didn’t watch the show. The one thing I got from last week’s show was a reminder Mundo Imperial sponsored this show and didn’t appear to be among the names mentioned at the AAA 2023 kickoff presentation.
AAA airing Dragon Lee’s match before going to WWE will take place a few hours after his first WWE appearance; he’s scheduled on a WWE Spanish language preview show Saturday before the Royal Rumble. (Also, this is a reminder that WWE’s Royal Rumble is a Saturday show, not a Sunday one.)
No taping this week. They’re back Sunday afternoon for Rey de Reyes.
Not too many extra details from the Lucha Libre World Cup press conference. Dorian Roldan mentioned the format will be similar to past years – a single elimination tournament, time-limited matches, singles matches as tie-breakers. Roldan was asked about Alberto coming in and talked him up as being in top form and a very relevant star; that’s what he’s supposed to say in that position. (No one in the media ever asks about Alberto’s scandals, which is a reason why Alberto’s scandals are never a source spot.) It did sound like Alberto is only booked for this World Cup and the TripleMania tournament at this point. He may be done with as soon as Monterrey.
The dark locals match in Merdia will be Angel Infernal, Halcon Rojo Jr., Impact and Panther Boy Jr. vs Eterno Alcander, Fuerza Maya, Persseus, and Shangai Kid, as announced at a press conference this week.
In the hottest take of the week, a TV reviewer says the Mexican government should ban Marvel Lucha Libre because it makes lucha libre look bad. In the fiction universe, the luchadors were inspired by the US Marvel heroes to take on masks, and the evil ones use performance-enhancing drugs, which the writer believes damages the history of Mexican wrestling. I’m glad ridiculous people are checking out the show as well.
This is a good segue into Marvel Lucha Libre in general. I binged through the series (via a pirate site) on Thursday. It’s fine. It’s not aimed at people who read this blog but you wouldn’t mind it if someone threw it on your TV for an hour. I would not call for arrests based on the content. It’s called “Origen de la Mascara” because it is mostly an origin story for each main character through the context of a (alluded to but barely explained) tournament. All the Marvel Lucha wrestling footage is from 2021, with TripleMania XXIX standing in as the final. It’s a very basic plot with some Marvel references, with a narrator and documentary style to provide some connective tissue between a “what is lucha libre”-type explainer and disconnected scenes with the characters. The Marvel characters always appear to be the AAA luchadors – not acting stand-ins – and there are some early Lucha Underground vibes of the production not trusting the characters to handle the dialogue. Vikingo/Arcano surprisingly has the most dialogue make it to the screen. The narrator handles a lot of explaining for them.
One thing that sticks out is either the plans for the in-ring portion of Marvel Lucha Libre changed during the process or the idea all along was just to shoot a lot of stuff and figure out how to put it together at the end. There’s a lot of stuff not shown (like the TripleMania 28 debut of the characters) or moved around in order as it was shot or just edited to make it look like something else was happening. (There’s a character who becomes a key part of the show in the final match, but he never had appeared before, so they have to clip out a few seconds of that match and air it an episode earlier to make sure to set it up.) There are matches that AAA ran that clearly fit what Marvel wanted, but there are other matches AAA ran that don’t get used, or get barely shown at all.
The series ends with that 2021 TripleMania, which seemed to leave all the stuff that was in 2022 as a Season 2. Except, Season 1 ends with a rushed explanation of those Season 2 results. The Marvel title match conclusion at Noches de Campeones was Picudara Letal revealing she was a double agent, Terror Purpura getting arrested and Arcano winning the tournament. The last episode of season 1 quickly summarizes all that in a few captions, instead of waiting to show it. If this Marvel show were a Marvel comic book, that “here’s all the conclusions I didn’t get to show you” bit is a sign the writer is leaving the book or the book itself is canceled. I’m not sure what the deal is here, but it stuck out as some plan got changed late.
IWRG
The big roster reveal for this year’s IWRG Tryout is tonight. There’s not a lot of difference between this and the CMLL idea in the big picture and it seems inconsistent one is interesting to me and the other is a thing I’m probably not going to pay a lot of attention to until they reach the final. Both are doing groups of aspiring wrestlers lead by coaches. The IWRG field is bigger (60 wrestlers), which is a lot more daunting to get through and to get to know people. The reality show aspects IWRG doesn’t interest me and I’d rather see a straight in-ring competition than a lot of judging at this point. The CMLL wrestlers also tend to be more polished, though who knows until we see both the CMLL and IWRG ones this year. Maybe the IWRG idea will be easier to get in to this year.
Another IWRG Retro went up Thursday:
- 2002-02-21 Rambo & Rambo Jr. vs Fantasy & Star Boy
- 2002-08-01 Bombero Infernal, Comando Alfa, Paramédico vs Hijo del Diablo, Guardia, Vigilante
- 2005-05-26 Negro Casas, Felino, Blue Demon Jr. vs Electroshock, Scorpio Jr., Canek
The first two were not available on YouTube. Amazing time to have a main event with Negro Casas against a guy associated with AAA. (Electroshock had just left AAA at that point.)
Other News
ASF, a Texas wrestler who’s been featured in GCW lucha libre trios this year among other places, was accused on various social media platforms on Thursday for sexting underage girls. ASF hasn’t responded and instead has deleted his social media accounts.
Dalys will wrestle on the Saturday Arena Lopez Mateos show in place of Diosa Quetzal. Dalys and Negro Casas appear to be taking indie bookings in addition to AAA, which should make for some unique matches and perhaps some fireworks.