Arena Mexico preview, Fantasticamia (UK & Mexico), Pagano and Rey Espectro injuries

CMLL

CMLL (FRI) 05/03/2024 Arena México
1) Astro Boy Jr. & Rayo Metálico vs Draego & Persa
2) El Audaz, Legendario, Max Star vs Alom, Crixus, Infarto
3) Magia Blanca, Magnus, Rugido vs Hijo de Stuka Jr., Hijo del Villano III, Villano III Jr.
4) Hechicero vs Zandokan Jr. [lightning]
5) Averno, Euforia, Mephisto vs Gran Guerrero, Stuka Jr., Último Guerrero
6) Máscara Dorada, Místico, Templario vs Ángel de Oro, Flip Gordon, Niebla Roja [Relevos Increíbles]

Every Friday show has had some tournament or special match until this show. Templario and Angel de Oro wrestle again after last week’s singles match, that’s about the closest thing to a story here. Not that CMLL needs a lot of story for a good show: the main event looks good, the lighting match is an interesting test, and both rudo/rudo battles could be fun.

The Copa Junior starts on 05/17, so perhaps CMLL will set up a title match for something to do next week.

CMLL (SAT) 05/04/2024 Arena Coliseo
1) Aéreo & Fantasy vs Pequeño Polvora & Pequeño Violencia
2) Diamond, Eléctrico, Leono vs Dragón de Fuego, Hunter, Inquisidor
3) La Maligna, Sanely, Tabata vs Amapola, Hera, Metálica
4) Fugaz, Star Black, Volcano vs Gemelo Diablo I, Gemelo Diablo II, Kráneo
5) Esfinge vs Euforia
6) Místico, Neón, Star Jr. vs Ángel de Oro, Hechicero, Niebla Roja

Esfineg/Euforia was set up last week. The Torneo de Escuelas wrestlers are filtering more into the regular matches, which helps declare if they’re meant to be a rudo or a tecnico. Wouldn’t have guessed Dragon de Fuego as a rudo.

Next Saturday’s show might be a bit bare with the crew heading to MLW.

CMLL (SUN) 05/05/2024 Arena México
1) Galaxy vs Shockercito [lightning]
2) Astral & Valiente Jr. vs Nitro & Sangre Imperial
3) Guerrero Maya Jr., Pegasso, Stigma vs Cancerbero, Luciferno, Virus
4) Espíritu Negro, Hombre Bala Jr., Rey Cometa vs Difunto, Rey Bucanero, Sagrado
5) Blue Panther Jr., Dark Panther, Hijo de Blue Panther vs Hijo del Villano III, Mephisto, Villano III Jr.
6) Titán, Valiente, Volador Jr. vs Bárbaro Cavernario, Dragón Rojo Jr., Terrible

Galaxy/Shockercito could be pretty good, but being in the opener will limit. No Dulce with Los Astrpasuenos this week.

CMLL (MON) 05/06/2024 Arena Puebla
1) Asturiano & Black Tiger vs Fénix SO & King Jaguar
2) Rayo Metálico & Valiente Jr. vs Espíritu Maligno & Rey Apocalipsis
3) La Catalina, Lady Metal, Sanely vs Hera, Lady Amazona, Olympia
4) Guerrero Maya Jr., Multy, Rey Samuray, Stigma, Xelhua vs Disturbio, Dulce Gardenia, El Audaz, Felino Jr., Virus [COPA Cinco de Mayo]
5) Atlantis Jr., Flip Gordon, Místico vs Gran Guerrero, Hechicero, Último Guerrero

Cinco de Mayo is a Puebla-only holiday in Mexico, and CMLL will run a CDMX/Puebla match to recognize that.

The CMLL staffed 05/01 Arena Coliseo Acapulco seems like a sell out.  That was the show that was being offered as PPV (but only away from Acapulco.) I didn’t order that one. Their Facebook page says it’s airing on TV and will go up on their Facebook later. That local promotion is next running on 06/29 with Penta.

05/19 RevPro FantasticaMania UK

Show 1 (noon)

• Mistico, RKJ, JJ Gale vs Templario, Gabe Kidd, Magnus
• Barbaro Cavernario vs Robbie X
• Hechicero vs Connor Mills
• Stephanie Vaquer vs Kanji
• Atlantis, Atlantis Jr., Dulce Gardenia vs Okumura & Lycos Gym
• Neon, Futuro, Mascara Dorada vs Luke Jacobs & Grizzled Young Vets – new

Show 2 (6 pm)

• Zozaya vs Angel de Oro
• Stephanie Vaquer vs Rhio
• Grizzled Young Vets versus Atlantis & Atlantis Jr. for the Undisputed Tag Team Championship
• Jordon Breaks vs Neon for the Universal British Cruiserweight Championship
• Mistico vs Templario

Just the one match announcement over the last couple of days; they had been doing two a day. The full lineup is expected to be out by Tuesday.

CMLL Informa was both a celebration of the CMLL talk show reaching 10 years and announcements for  the 06/21 FantasticaMania show. CMLL bounced back and forth between wrestlers announcing their participation and congratulating CMLL in a way that made it exceptionally confusing to figure out what they were talking about. Many of the videos were sent from NJPW wrestlers, with no captioning or translation. I’m uncertain if this was poorly produced or purposefully confusing; all it did was make fans annoyed when they thought Naito and Desperado were coming to FantasticaMania and they’re not on that lineup. CMLL also promised a full list of FantasticaMania participants and then ended the show by saying that the final person would be announced next week.

Those people actually coming for 06/21 FantasticaMania

• Rocky Romero
• Taiji Ishimori
• Bad Dude Tito & Che Cabrera
• Zack Sabre Jr.
• one more NJPW wrestler TBA

Tito & Cabrera are the Wolf Zaddies, a very indie wrestling tag team name. They popped up on the 12/03/2024 Lucka Libre show with CMLL wrestlers, and would have connections with Rocky Romero. Tito and ZSJ wrestled Virus & Barbaro Cavernario last year on a NJPW USA show as well. That NJPW USA show teased a Virus/ZSJ match at some point, but the initial fan reaction very much wants the Hechicero/ZSJ match both teased in promos earlier this year. I suspect that’s happening. Sabre is currently NJPW World TV champion; it would be a plus if a NJPW title was defended in Arena Mexico for some fans but it would also mean a 15 minute time limit. Edit: Sabre lost the TV title after I wrote that paragraph but before I hit post so it’s pretty irrelevant.

The English language interest in this FantasticaMania Mexico show, and events like the MLW show and FantasticaMania UK is a good reminder that CMLL itself needs English commentary, even if it’s just for the biggest shows. It will in no way affect those who are already paying 35 USD a month to watch this shows on YouTube, but there’s a market that’s there to be tapped. I’m looking forward to going to that MLW show next weekend, I also know it probably won’t be as good as an Arena Mexico show and yet I expect it’ll get much more attention for CMLL because a) it’s available for people already paying for TrillerTV’s month subscription and b) it’ll have English commentary (and c) being available on Triller means it’ll be easier to find illegally that most CMLL Mexico stuff that’s usually not even pirated.) CMLL could take some of those fans for their own with English commentary, and FantasticaMania Mexico is the good time to do it.

CMLL had guests and wrestlers in the audience for the CMLL Informa. Some of the non-CMLL people did promos talking about how great the show was, but otherwise they were all off screen for the show. CMLL ran a couple of matches for the live crowd before the taping.

Neon says he went to wrestling for the first time at three and decided he wanted to be a luchador at age seven. His parents weren’t high on the idea, but his sister called the CMLL office and found out he could start training there at 14 as long as his parents said OK. His mom required Neon to also get a professional career. He wasn’t a great student but he worked at it to be a wrestler, and finished high school.

La Fashion spoke to Mas Lucha at a recent Arena Jalisco show. Fashion had been teaming with Dulce Gardenia on Guadalajara shows fairly regularly until March, and hasn’t appeared on a CMLL show. It was always unclear if Fashion was meant to be a CMLL wrestler or just was someone the Guadalajara office was bringing in on their own. Fashion was asked about the situation and implies that CMLL wanted more control of his bookings and weren’t promising enough to make it worth it for him, so he decided to move on.

AAA

Pagano underwent right shoulder surgery, AAA announced Thursday. No return date was mentioned. Pagano hurt the shoulder in a hair match in Juarez on 02/18, though it’s probably more like he made a pre-existing injury worse. He did not wrestle on the AAA tapings in Saltillo and Mexico City in March, then did wrestle at the Crash and on TripleMania in April. Pagano was favoring that right arm though the TripleMania match; it reminded me a lot of AAA La Parka. It is not a surprise Pagano needed surgery, it is a surprise he actually went in for it.

Pagano’s listed as wrestling on the 05/11 taping. AAA did not announce a replacement; they’re advertising the lineup with Pagano still wrestling.

AAA will air part 2 of TripleMania Monterrey, airing matches that didn’t air on Space live. I believe that’s just the opening two matches. There will also be the usual promos teasing matches that may or may not happen.

The AAA Triplemania Tijuana press conference is Wednesday at 11 am local. I’m otherwise busy at that time so I’ll miss it if it starts within an hour of that time. It’s AAA so I may not miss it. There was minimal interest in the TripleMania Monterrey press conferences, outside of dunking on Alberto, so it wouldn’t be a bad thing to miss later.

(I’ll probably post late on Wednesday as a result.)

IWRG

IWRG (WED) 05/01/2024 Arena Naucalpan [Estrellas del Ring, IWRG]
1) Águila Roja © b Príncipe Centauro [IWRG IC Light]  
2nd defense
2) Sexy Star b Spider Fly  
Random Match
3) Arez b Noisy Boy © [IWRG IC MIDDLE]  
1st defense
4) Vangellys b Hell Boy © [AIWF LA]  
2nd defense. Win by foul.
5) DMT Azul DRAW Hijo de Canis Lupus [chain]  
Canis won but referee ruled it a draw due to interference from Mafia Rusa

Don’t have much to say about this show. I did take a look at to see how they managed to explain Sexy Star being on the IWRG roster. IWRG has a wrestler chooser graphic with people on their roster, with a selector scrolling through and randomly stopping on whoever’s being chosen. Sexy Star isn’t normally on that list, but she magically happened to be added (they pasted a photo of her over a usual roster member) and it just happened to land on her the one time she was on the list. If IWRG was going to do this intelligently, they’d add a “?” or mystery wrestler field to the end of the list, and then landing on the space could be used for whatever it needed to be. But that’s not important here.

Still haven’t watched IWRG matches. Mas Lucha was back to pretending a taped show was live against this stream.

IWRG (SUN) 05/05/2024 Arena Naucalpan
1) Sacro & Sky Man vs Príncipe Centauro & Rey Aztaroth
2) Cerebro Negro & Cerebro Negro Jr. vs Látigo & Toxin
3) ?, ??, ??? vs ????, ?????, ??????
will be a title match
4) 1 vs 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30 [Rey del Ring]

The only way to get all 30 people in this match is to watch this live myself, so I guess I probably have to watch.

Big Lucha

They’re back on Saturday.

Big Lucha (SAT) 05/04/2024 Arena Big Lucha, Iztapalapa, Distrito Federal
1) Helios & Sangre Nueva vs Nordico & Ryu Orochi
2) La Brava & Sussy Love vs Marushika & Sairley
3) Cósmico, La Bomba, Reiyel vs Auzter, Borgdan Klimov, Brujo
4) El Potro de Oro, Mr. Win, Tirano vs Argenis, Limbo, Torito Negro
5) Ricky Marvin vs Australian Suicide
6) Atómico Jr., Elipse, Iku vs Big Tao Tao, Orbita, Viajero
7) Súper Nova & Texano Jr. © vs Cometa Maya & Radioactivo [BIG LUCHA MIXA]

I realized that, this Saturday, there’s only two shows airing at the same time on Saturday night that I want to watch. It’s this Big Lucha show and the regular Arena Coliseo show – AAA is a largely a repeat and AEW Collision is pre-empted. What a odd world where there’s four wrestling shows I feel somewhat compelled to watch every Saturday. Anyway, I’d probably watch this one live to knock it off except there’s a 50/50 chance of the stream working right. There’s nothing that looks for sure great here, but there’s a bunch of stuff that looks interesting. I have no feel for the ideas here; I would do the title change in the main event but I’m not sure that’s the direction.

“Big Lucha” luchadoras interfered on the WWS show on Wednesday. (WWS is an all women’s promotion that runs maybe once a quarter.) The Big Lucha luchadoras were La Brava, Satania, and La Vecinita, so it was barely more authentic than “The Crash” team appearing on TripleMania. One of the people they attacked was Marishka, who was on a Big Lucha show more recently than any of these women. WWS signaled they’ll be doing something more with Big Lucha soon.\

The Crash

The Crash (FRI) 05/17/2024 Auditorio de Tijuana, Tijuana, Baja California
1) Mirage vs Anubis, Gallo Extreme, Bamboo, Rey Furia, Ángel Metálico [Trofeo Querubin]
2) El Rey, Keyra, Mamba vs Goya Kong, Mr. Maldito, Tony Casanova
3) Destiny, Noisy Boy, Toto vs Carta Brava Jr., Mocho Cota, Tito Santana
4) Daga vs Gringo Loco (Indie), Jeff Cobb, The Beast Mortos, Willie Mack [Copa Hector Garza]
5) Galeno del Mal & Hijo del Dr. Wagner Jr. vs Dinámico & Laredo Kid and Nick Wayne & Timothy Thatcher [The Crash TAG, #1 Contenders]
6) Bestia 666 vs Rey Horus, Mecha Wolf [cage]

Dragon Bane and Alpha Wolf are the tag team champions. I expect this is building to a match on the next The Crash show and not TripleMania, but I’m guessing just the same as you.

I think the Bestia/Mecha Wolf feud is something that strongly exists in the minds of AAA and The Crash bookers, but has not at all played out in front of the fans. More plainly: I don’t think anyone knows why they’re fighting. I’m not sure I even do. Look at that, look at bringing in Timothy Thatcher – who’s skills are in physical mat based wrestling – to work a three way high spot tag match and it feels like booking is as nonsensical as ever in Mexico.

Jeff Cobb’s name appeared on this lineup. About 15 minutes later, Jeff Cobb announced he was suddenly in need of a booking for this day. I suspect Cobb had no idea The Crash was back to booking AAA wrestlers and would no longer be able to work this show due to the NJPW/CMLL agreement. (The Crash shouldn’t known though.)

Other News

Rob has a recap of a Fanastik interview with the Arte del Gotch YouTube channel.

There was a scary scene on Wednesday’s Arena Neza. Rey Espectro was wrestling the Psycho Circus in the main event. Monsther Clown hit him in the back of the neck with a broom handle; the stick broke. The impact looked hard but not especially so. Rey Espectro collapsed over the middle rope. DMT Azul checked on him, realized Espectro was non-responsive, and urgently called for medical help. A motionless Espectro was quickly put on a stretcher and taken to the back. The other wrestlers returned to finish the match and Psycho Clown said Espectro was doing better; there’s been no updates since then. You should probably not hit people in the back of the neck with a broom handle but there may have been other issues at play.

Brazo de Platino lost an eight man elimination match (last to Brazo Cibernetico Jr.) to lose his hair Thursday night. He then announced he’d retiring. He’s lost his hair dozens of times and I think claimed he was retiring prior too.

Laredo Kid faces Rich Swann and on TNA’s Under Siege tonight. That’s a TNA+ PPV. No one seems quite sure if it’s meant to be for the Digital Media championship or not; it’s one where people assume it must be for the title but Impact hasn’t said as much yet.

05/04 NOAH

• Hijo del Dr. Wagner Jr. (c) vs Kaito Kiyomiya for the GHC Heavyweight Championship
• X & Shuji Kondo vs Yo-Hey, Tadasuke vs Dragon Bane & Alpha Wolf for the GHC Junior Heavyweight Tag Team championship
• Daga (c) vs Alejandro for the GHC Junior Heavyweight Championship

NOAH continues to promote these hard to the Mexican market. I still don’t sense much Mexican interest; it’s hard without people who are working Mexican promotions.

05/05 House of Glory

• Penta vs Fenix
• Violette vs Sexy Star for the HOG Women’s Championship
• Psycho Clown vs Mike Santana for the HOG Heavyweight Championship
• Laredo Kid vs KC Navarro for the HOG Cruiserweight Championship
• Arez, Dios del Inframundo, Aerostar all announced.

This one airs on TrillerTV as part of their membership. So does the GCW Wrld On Lucha show using some of the same names (Arez, Laredo.) Both start at around 4 pm. There’s about a 2 hour drive between the venues, so that’ll affect when and how those matches happen.