Daylight Savings Time
The clocks change in the US on Sunday morning. (They changed other places this past week.) The clock change does not affect tonight’s show and does not affect Saturday’s stream. It does mean everything will be an hour earlier for those in the US starting next week until spring. We will all forget about this a few times.
CMLL
CMLL (FRI) 11/03/2023 Arena México
***Dia del Muertos, 2023***
1) Angelito, Kaligua, Pequeño Magía vs Full Metal, Minos, Pequeño Polvora
2) Dulce Gardenia, Espíritu Negro, Rey Cometa vs Magia Blanca, Okumura, Rugido
Okumura replaced Crixus on Monday.
3) Blue Panther Jr., Dark Panther, Hijo de Blue Panther vs Hijo de Stuka Jr., Hijo del Villano III, Villano III Jr.
4) Atlantis Jr., Fugaz, Star Jr. vs Euforia, Mephisto, Terrible
5) Máscara Dorada & Místico vs Soberano Jr. & Volador Jr.
6) Stuka Jr. vs Bárbaro Cavernario [Rey del Inframundo, final]
I felt unexcited by the Dia del Muertos concept this year around, but Tuesday’s show was fine and tonight’s show should be better. Barbaro Cavernario, the self-anointed king of singles matches, gets another one against Stuka Jr. tonight. That should be great. Volador & Soberano versus Mascara Dorada & Mistico should be great, though that’s dependent on how good of shape Team Volador is in. (Soberano Jr. did look about normal in Las Vegas.) Panthers versus Villanos/Stuka could be fun and is another big chance for the younger Stuka. This is on PPV, still for the elevated 12 USD price.
I ordered the PPV earlier than usual this week and I got the code right away, so that problem seems to be fixed. Hopefully it will be smooth sailing for this week.
CMLL has more Dia del Muertos shows on Saturday and Sunday. Both are taped, no idea if they’ll turn up on YouTube. They should, they would when this subscription project started, but I’m not exactly holding my breath on it.
CMLL (MON) 11/06/2023 Arena Puebla
1) Amnesia, Astro, Asturiano vs Fénix, Rey Apocalipsis, Siki Osama
2) Lady Metal, Persephone, Skadi vs Astoreth, Enigmática, Lady Amazona
3) Diamond, Meyer, Robin vs Arkalis, Pegasso, Rey Samuray
4) Hijo del Villano III, Villano III Jr., Zandokan Jr. vs Apocalipsis, Cholo, Disturbio
5) Místico, Stigma, Templario vs Averno, Magnus, Volador Jr. [Relevos Increíbles]
Is Stigma finally defending his title? Or is CMLL correcting the fan vote by setting up a trios title match in the semi-main?
There’s no lineup for Guadalajara yet, but they have announced a partnership with the Gay Games for the show. The 11th version of the Olympic style contest was originally supposed to happen in Hong Kong in 2022, got postponed a year due to COVID, and got split between Hong Kong and Guadalajara later on. The Guadalajara part kicked off yesterday. CMLL is pushing this as support of the LBGT+ community but also that means there are a lot of visitors to the area who might want to see lucha libre and it makes all the sense to promote to them. The side effect is usual CMLL weirdness when it comes to this topic: the poster boy for this show is exotico Dulce Gardenia, who is not actually gay. They tend not to promote the people who actually fit in the LBGT+ community for these things, even those who seem to be open about it.
Critero Hidalgo has an interview with Hidalgo’s Magia Azul, who’s the Magia Azul appearing on recent Arena Coliseo Guadalajara shows.
AAA
AAA and INJUVE announced the rules, dates, and prizes for their “Lucha Por el Barrio” talent search on Friday. This tie-up was announced last week. Wrestlers from Mexico City between the ages of 12-29 can get involved, and any category or gender wrestler can participate. There will be a fitness test next Saturday, then in-ring tests on the 14th, 21st and 28th. The luchadors will be graded by four judges on things like strength, skill in the ring, and charisma. The finalists will all wrestle at Gimnasio Juan de la Barrera in January as part of AAA’s first TV taping of te year. The top 3 will receive AAA contracts for 2024 and prize money (10,000 to the winner, about 570 USD US.) AAA usually opens their year with a taping in Mexico City but that’s the first one has been announced (and no date is mentioned.)
These talent searches have worked out very well in the past, with Hijo del Vikingo and Daga as people who’ve started with AAA through similar contests. Restricting to Mexico City – INJUVE is a Mexico City governmental organization – makes it a little bit harder. There weren’t that many new faces when INJUVE and Big Lucha did this same contest last year. Sol won that, everyone knew Sol, he did well in the Big Lucha shows but also disappeared well before the 1 year deal seemed to be up. Mini Ditto seems like Big Lucha real find as a character, and he did seem to come out of nowhere. For AAA’s purposes, it doesn’t matter if the person is an indie worker whoever knows (like Daga before he won one of these) or someone few people had heard of (Hijo del Vikingo), they win if they just get someone new they can put on TV.
AAA starts airing the mystery San Luis Potosi taping this week on preview. Can’t really preview what to expect if I’m not sure what matches happened. Space does list it at the normal time this week.
Luchatitlan’s Espectofest takes place tonight. It should sell out.
IWRG
IWRG (THU) 11/02/2023 Arena Naucalpan [IWRG, Mas Lucha]
***Castillo del Terror, 2023***
1) Dr. Cerebro Jr., Fussion, Último Legendario b Mr. Mike, Rey Astaroth, Rey Halcón 
2) Lady Maravilla b Keyra, Mary Caporal, Diosa Quetzal, Lolita
3) Cerebro Negro & Cerebro Negro Jr. © b León Dorado & Mr. Leo [IWRG IC TAG]
fourth defense
4) Hell Boy © b Toxin, Aramis, Noisy Boy, Bobby Lee Jr., Hijo de Canis Lupus [IWRG MEXICO]
fourth defense
5) Diva Salvaje, Estrella Divina, Jessy Ventura, Mamba DQ Hijo De Bobby Lee, Hijo del Fishman, Lolita, Rey Espectro
Lolita worked twice, replacing Gizelle
6) DMT Azul b Galeno del Mal ©, Ivan Rokov, Hijo del Pirata Morgan [IWRG IC HEAVY]
2nd defense. DMT Azul celebrated with (disgraced US celebrity) Drake Bell after the match.
7) Águila Roja L Sádika, Bengalee, Hijo de Pandemónium, Pandemónium Jr., Gran Pandemónium, Satania, Relámpago, Spider Fly, Pig Destroyer, Pig Decapitador, Pig Pool, Pig Destructor, Sagitarius, Amazonika, Tonalli [cage, mask]
Spider Fly took Aguila Roja’s mask. Aguila Roja is Luis Garcia Andrade, 25 years old.
Aguila Roja and Amazonika seemed like the only two who would had a chance of losing their mask here, Aguila Roja got the big title win last Sunday, and that set up his downfall here.
I think I must’ve have vaguely heard “Drake Bell”‘s name in the news, but I’m personally unfamiliar with his TV or music work. I do know this man’s Wikipedia spends four paragraphs on “abuse allegations, sexual assault accusations, and attempted endangering of children“, which always seems like a bad sign. Running through his Twitter, it appears Bell’s been hanging out in Mexico for quite a while after taking a plea deal in the US. This is probably as simple as someone running into him and talking him into appearing. Bell is a foreigner with a bit of celebrity, so any wrongdoing is swept under the “if you really got to know them, you’d find out they’re really great people who were the unfairly accused” rug for much of Mexican wrestling. It seems like a bad long-term idea to paint yourself as the place where disgraced people show up, but IWRG’s already painted that way to outsiders. There are many quote tweets reacting negatively to Drake Bell (and a couple of positive ones); most of these people weren’t going to be watching an IWRG match anyway, and it simply re-enforces the image issues Mexican wrestling has to outsiders.
IWRG says this was a sell-out. This show always draws very well.
Big Lucha
I caught the last part of Face to Face. Veneno/Skayde was a Veneno match. Viajero and Brujo showed good intensity but it was a match with a heel ref and that killed my interest. Mr. Win/Tirano versus Helios/Morfosis was fun, just a normal good lucha libre match.
They’re back with Big Lucha World tonight. The main event has been changed to Hell Flyers versus Los Payasos. No Big Lucha World tonight; they postponed it until next Friday.
I think Big Lucha may be doing something subscription based in 2024. Last week’s Big Lucha World has a note on it saying that these will continue to be free until the end of the year. They’ve always been free, so that’s only something to point out if it’s going to change. Commentary during Big Lucha Face to Face also seemed to hint that way. I can understand wanting to monetize the product and would probably subscribe to a Big Lucha YouTube channel but I don’t think most people would pay a significant amount for the streaming version of the shows right now. It would probably need to be a low price or part of a larger bundle to work.
Other News
Hijo del Vikingo vs Komander vs Penta will air on AEW Rampage today. It’s said to be exactly the match you’d expect with those three guys under US TV time restrictions. AEW’s had great matches with these luchadors but it’s the progress to some bigger story that’s been the issue for them. For AEW, the issue is they keep putting great matches on Rampage but don’t apparently have room for them on Dynamite.
Dralistico posted a video of signing his AEW contract yesterday. Rush did the same when he signed a full-time deal, and that’s believed to be what Dralistico did here. AEW hasn’t officially announced it. They don’t always announce signings nowadays, but it’s going to come after Dralistico does something important on TV. May take a while.
Back in June, Andrade wrestled in home town arena Arena Olimpico Laguna, and pushed it as the last time he’d be wrestling in his home area for years to come. No one could figure out why that would be his last match at the time. It will be at the time. He’s now announced as wrestling there again on December 21st. What a strange bit.
ESTO has an interview with Brazo de Oro Jr., to promote a show tonight in Mexico City.