Month: June 2024

CMLL

CMLL (FRI) 06/14/2024 Arena México
1) Capitán Suicida & Diamond vs Calavera Jr. I & Calavera Jr. II
2) Blue Panther Jr. & Dark Panther vs Crixus & Raider
3) La Catalina, Lluvia, Tessa Blanchard vs Kira, Stephanie Vaquer, Zeuxis [Relevos Increíbles]
4) Flip Gordon, Neón, Star Jr. vs Bad Dude Tito, Che Cabrera, Zandokan Jr.
Flip Gordon replaced Volador Jr. on Friday
5) Michael Oku vs Templario
6) Esfinge, Máscara Dorada, Místico vs Averno, Euforia, Soberano Jr.
Mascara Dorada replaced Atlantis Jr. on Friday (leg injury)

Oku/Templario is the big one here, both in trying to get over a specific wrestler and the importance of RevPro. Oku doesn’t have a look that’s going to immediately impress CMLL fans (or wrestlers), but he should be plenty good enough in the ring to have an impactful match with Templario.

The rest of the show is a lot like last week; everything looks good and is fully capable of being Great if it works out. The third match should build towards Catalina/Vaquer. Match 4 is about the Zaddy Daddys.

Atlantis Jr. appeared on Informa to give an update on his leg injury. It sounds like it turned out to be minor – he’s resting and rehabbing, but won’t need surgery or anything like that. He’s out for now, but should be back soon.

Volador is back the next day…

CMLL (SAT) 06/15/2024 Arena Coliseo
1) Galaxy vs Pequeño Violencia [lightning]
2) Eléctrico, Leono, Retro vs Grako, Inquisidor, Sangre Imperial
3) Futuro, Legendario, Max Star vs Arkalis, Pegasso, Rey Samuray
4) Lluvia, Persephone, Tessa Blanchard vs Sanely, Stephanie Vaquer, Zeuxis [Relevos Increíbles]
5) Dragón Rojo Jr. & Terrible vs Bad Dude Tito & Che Cabrera
6) Volador Jr. vs Michael Oku

CMLL puts the foreigners on every show possible but they’re really making Oku work by booking him in two singles matches in two days. Third match might be good, but these Saturday shows haven’t been strong late.

CMLL (SUN) 06/16/2024 Arena México
1) Angelito & Shockercito vs Mercurio & Pequeño Olímpico
2) Kemalito vs Tengu [lightning]
3) Lluvia, Tessa Blanchard, Valkiria vs Náutica, Stephanie Vaquer, Zeuxis
4) Ángel de Oro, Gran Guerrero, Último Guerrero vs Bad Dude Tito, Che Cabrera, Michael Oku
5) El Hijo de Octagón & Octagón vs Euforia & Soberano Jr. and Máscara Dorada & Panterita del Ring and El Hijo de Stuka Jr. & Stuka Jr. and Blue Panther & El Hijo De Blue Panther and Felino & Felino Jr. and Valiente & Valiente Jr. [Copa Dinastias]

CMLL, in a Twitter reply, announced this show will air for members the top two tiers. I’m pleased not to have to dance around how I’m seeing this shows for at least one week.

The main event will be a seven father/son team tournament. Atlantis & Atlantis Jr. were scheduled. I can’t think of an obvious father/son left in CMLL – they could bring in Rey Bucanero’s son if they really wanted to do something, but seven is fine. KeMaltio/Tengu should be something.

CMLL (MON) 06/17/2024 Arena Puebla
***Mistico 20th Anniversary***
1) Amnesia, Blue Shark, Millenium vs Rencor, Rey Apocalipsis, Sombra Diabólica
2) Rayo Metálico vs Dragón de Fuego [lightning]
3) Astral, Diamond, Eléctrico vs Multy, Perverso, Prayer
4) Guerrero Maya Jr., Stigma, Xelhua vs Brillante Jr., Max Star, Neón
5) Magnus, Rugido, Volador Jr. vs Bad Dude Tito, Che Cabrera, Michael Oku
debut of the foreigners in Mexico
6) Místico vs Averno

Same card as announced. Match four is worth watching to see if they’re setting up a title match.

CMLL (TUE) 06/18/2024 Arena Coliseo Guadalajara
***Mistico 20th Anniversary Celebration***
1) Ángel Rebelde, Gallo Jr., Rafaga Jr. vs Calavera Jr. I, Calavera Jr. II, Prínce Drago
2) Adira & Náutica © vs Hatana & Valkiria [OCCIDENTE WOMEN TAG]
3) Exterminador & Maléfico vs Perverso & Prayer [hair]
4) Atlantis, Blue Panther, Panterita del Ring vs Felino, Rey Bucanero, Satánico
5) Brillante Jr., Máscara Dorada, Valiente vs Hechicero, Soberano Jr., Templario
6) Gran Guerrero, Stuka Jr., Último Guerrero vs Averno, Euforia, Mephisto
7) Místico vs Volador Jr.

The hair match is a late add to the rest of this card, announced previously. Seven matches is a lot of matches, especially with Guadalajara sticking close to two hour shows of late.

Arena Coliseo Guadalajara posted photos of some remodeling. They’re replacing some of the wooden chairs that have been there for decades with newer and more comfortable wooden ones.

CMLL announced the 06/25 Tuesday Arena Mexico show will have an international cibernetico featuring seven Mexicans and seven foreigners. It will not be World vs Mexico – I guess the idea is they do that already for the Gran Prix – so they’ll have a battle royal to set teams.

Those in the match: Shigeo Okumura, Neon, Rocky Romero, Mascara Dorada, Volador Jr., Star Jr., Flip Gordon, Titan, Hiromu Takahashi, Dark Magic, Templario, Tajiri Ishimori, Zack Sabre Jr. and Mistico.

Titan gets that quick turnaround back. Romero, Ishimori, Sabre and Takahashi may all be headed to AEW after that Tuesday show. Titan too.

NJPW announced the first four matches for 07/13 FantasticaMania USA:

• DOUKI & Mistico vs Rocky Romero & Volador Jr.
• Stephanie Vaquer vs Lluvia
• ZSJ & Bad Dude Tito vs Hechicero & Virus
• Adrian Quest vs DKC vs Viento vs Cucuy in Copa FantastiaMania.

Announced but no match yet: Ultimo Guerrero, El Desperado, Yota Tsuji

Viento & Cucuy are regulars for Pro Wrestling Revolution. This full show will air on NJPW World in English as a standalone PPV. No price is announced yet, but the usual price is 20 USD. This is a good start to being worth it – the two 2v2 tag matches look fun, they’re just missing the one big match.

Felino did some media interviews to promote his Anniversary shows in July. He mention he would like his children to be at this celebration, but “one of them took a different path.”

CMLL’s tease of Hechicero going to AEW didn’t seem to come through; he didn’t wrestle on Dynamite or Rampage. Maybe later, or maybe plans got changed. The WON notes Volador, Rugido, Magnus and Esfinge found out they were need for AEW at 11 pm Tuesday night, got on a flight at 3 AM, and got to the building to 4 PM. That seems not fun.

This is a next week issue, not a this week one: Mistico has been doing so much press for his Anniversary shows. He’s seemingly talked to any media outlet in Puebla, Guadalajara or Mexico City that’ll have him. The narrative is Mistico being the most recent big star, and as someone who wants to put his name near El Santo and Blue Demon as among the biggest stars in Mexico ever. Mistico is really great, it’s also really hard to do those sorts of rankings because the context changes so much over time. Anyway, if mainstream press means fans, those shows are going to draw very well. CMLL and TuriLuchas unveiled a special Mistico themed bus as part of the celebration. I assume the driver welcomes everyone with “Buenas Noches, patron” and, if you should want to get off the bus, they encourage you to take “una parada mas.”

A funny bit is last week’s Mistico/Magnus match sure seemed booked as a end for now on the program; it was clear if you watched the match. There’s a lot of people in Mexico who watch lucha libre but don’t seem to understand it, ignored Magnus getting beat clean in the middle, and focused instead on Mistico’s demand for Magnus to shake his hand or put his mask on the line. (Magnus did shake Mistico’s hand before attacking him, getting beat up for a second time and running away.) Mistico, in Guadalajara, tried to one again nudge the interviews towards understanding that Magnus match wasn’t actually happening – he pushed for a bigger name as an apuesta opponent for an Aniversario show.

a lot about about the CMLL Tunel

The deal with the CMLL Tunel being demolished seems part local complaints and part local politics, based on an interview with one of the people who asked to have it taken (David Fukuy Fernandez) down by El Grafico’s Sergio Trejo. The idea is the group opposing it filed a lawsuit was the Tunel was even opened, because they saw it was being built on the local sidewalk and they argued it was disrupting a public space, especially on days when CMLL wasn’t running and nothing was going on. The other part of this seems like an ongoing fight between the borough mayor (Sandra Cuevas) and people who live in the borough who weren’t fond of her. Cuevas pushed for the idea, was at the opening, and had her office fighting the lawsuit. The courts ruled against the Tunel in December, but her office was still appealing the decision. Cuevas left the mayor’s office to run for Senate at the end of February, her successor was elected on June 2nd and made taking a symbol of the previous mayor one of their first acts. (And then posted a video celebrating it.) Fukuy Fernandez claimed he had nothing against lucha libre, but objected to the Tunel being used as private property when it was on public ground. Fukuy Fernandez said he may have less of an objection if the building had been open for public use, but it was locked shut when CMLL wasn’t using it.

Sergio Trejo also has an interview with Rey Bucanero on how that Tunel came to be. Rey Bucanero had a micro-restaurant with Olimpico close to the spot where the Tunel was located. Shocker eventually joined them with his own food truck. It became a fan/wrestler meet up spot after a while. Other wrestlers wanted to get in on this, but there wasn’t the space for everyone. Rey Bucanero formed an official group to petition the local government for help in finding them a space to support both current and retired wrestlers, and they came back with the idea of the Tunel. Bucanero remained in contact with both the mayor’s office and the group of wrestlers using the Tunel, so they were aware it was being shut down and cleaned out the shops before the demolition began. Bucanero says the new mayor did let them know they were going to allow the demotion, and has said they’ll find an equal or better place for them instead. Bucanero said he respected the law and the wishes of the people who live in the neighborhood, but believes the Tunel was a positive. His view is the street was abandoned, dirty and dangerous, and the Tunel brought improvements. He also say he doesn’t understand how taking up that sidewalk affected the people who live in the neighborhood, because it’s all businesses on that street.

A Grafico gossip column claims rent (paid by CMLL?) on the building cost 18,000 pesos a week, no one knows who got the money, and the city itself paid five million pesos to construct it. Those numbers are hard to believe. As usual with Mexican wrestling promotions, this is a story that all their fans are talking about but CMLL itself has not said a word.

AAA

I have AAA TV results. Well, someone else had them and then I put them in my database, that’s generally the process.

AAA TV (TUE) 06/11/2024 Plaza de la Mexicanidad, Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua [Adverture Producciones, Invaxion Wrestling (FB), Mas Lucha, Vlissmag]
1) Miss Kath, Payaso Balin, Ráfaga Jr., Sakura ?? Felina, Samuray VIP, Steven Juárez, Venus
Dark match? Mystery person appeared to be a Japanese person (whoever was seconding CIMA on this trip.)
2) Aéreo b Kempo Jr. [JUAREZ ABSOLUTO]
Kempo did a dive off the the light scaffold (and mostly missed). Foreigners beat up the wrestlers after the match.
3) Kamik-C & Skalibur b Colmillo de Plata & Garra de Oro
4) Dalys, Flammer, La Hiedra b Faby Apache, Pimpinela Escarlata, Sexy Star
5) Dinámico, Drago, Laredo Kid b Abismo Negro, El Fiscal, Taurus 
6) Negro Casas & Psycho Clown b Forastero & Sansón [AAA TAG]
Title change, NGD fall on their fifth defense. Casas & Psycho are the 31st champions. NGD attacked and unmasked Psycho after the match.
7) CIMA, Sam Adonis, Satnam Singh b Dave The Clown, Murder Clown, Octagón Jr. 
Jeff Jarrett seconded the rudos. Latin Lover got involved, but the foreigners still won.

I didn’t see it in the recaps I read, but another poster said they did a show ending angle where Latin Lover and Konnan agreed to get along. We’ll see if that lasts even one show.

Clips of Kempo’s dive (a crossbody that came up a little short) is already all over the place. They did use the miss to explain the finish, Kempo’s miss cost him the title. Pagano appeared for the title match since they were in Juarez. The giant Juarez X in the background looks really cool for a wrestling show.

GLEAT’s Check Shimatani was at the show and turns in the photos getting beat up by the foreigners, so he probably got added somewhere in that opener. GLEAT did already announce they’re partnering with AAA.

Jesus Zuniga and Jose Manuel Guillen did the announcing for this show. They also did it in Mexico City. Hugo is not gone – he’ll be back for TripleMania.

I wrote a lot about TripleMania Tijuana over for Voices of Wrestling. The show starts at 9:30 US Eastern time on Triller. Space, Max and Claro Sports pick it up two hours later. This show is going to drift into Sunday morning for most of the country; maybe take a nap that afternoon.

TripleMania Tijuana not a PPV card. Everyone in AAA should thank Faby Apache every day for coming up with the Origenes idea, and they should thank Vampiro every day for going viral on a podcast, because his retirement tour and nostalgia are carrying a badly booked promotion. Neither “old AAA wrestlers” or “Vampiro having another retirement match” is going to get people outside of Mexico to pay for this show in great numbers, and the rest of this card doesn’t make up for it. There’s also a WWE PPV earlier in the day, which seems to decrease viewership for all other wrestling even if not head to head. Triller doesn’t make PPV purchase numbers public, but I suspect TripleMania Tijuana is going to end up the least bought TripleMania on that platform.

I’m tired of writing about AAA not being any good. It would be easier if they were good. They can’t do that for me. So I’ll try anyway. What’s the best case scenario for every match?

1) Anubis, Keyra, Mamba, Toto vs Faby Apache, Mr. Iguana, Niño Hamburguesa, Pimpinela Escarlata

An easy stressful fun match where a guy like Anubis does something impressive that makes you want to keep following him. The foreigners don’t come down to the same attack and same promos they do on every show.

2) Flammer, La Hiedra, Maravilla vs Havok, Rosemary, Tasha Steelz

Las Toxicas get over with their dancing and outfits in an fine enough match. No one gets hurt.

3) Komander, Laredo Kid, Octagón Jr. vs CIMA, Nick Wayne, Willie Mack vs D Luxe, Destiny, Noisy Boy

AAA comes up with a fun replacement for Nick Wayne. Willie Mack’s dancing happens in the first minute and then the match picks up. There’s lot of cool spots. Octagon Jr. keeps his momentum going and fan start to pick up that there’s something positive happening with him.

4) Cibernético, Dark Cuervo, Dark Ozz vs Dark Scoria, Dark Spíritu, El Mesías

It’s short. La Secta look better than Tijuana (and remember the finish.) There’s a direction other than Cibernetico and Mesias next.

5) Rey Horus vs Bestia 666 vs Mecha Wolf

It’s a violent brawl. Bestia comes out looking strong to keep the rivalry hot for the Tijuana fans.

6) Brazo De Oro Jr., Negro Casas, Psycho Clown vs Dr. Wagner Jr., Galeno del Mal, Hijo del Dr. Wagner Jr.

The Wagner sons impress the AAA fans who haven’t seen them (or haven’t seen them in a very long time.) There’s a tag team title match set up for TripleMania Mexico City.

7) Alberto el Patrón, Dave The Clown, Murder Clown, Vampiro vs Parker Boudreaux, QT Marshall, Sam Adonis, Satnam Singh

Vampiro’s not asked to sell much and gets to make the superhero comeback in the third fall. Match is centered more on QT Marshall and Sam Adonis as the key rudos. There’s a direction that’s not another atomicos match for Mexico City.

The WON confirms Nick Wayne is not appearing at TripleMania, though neither AAA or AEW would confirm it. AEW was running a commercial promoting Collision that implies Wayne would be on that show. I think there’s a chance Konnan absolutely loses his mind on this one. AEW has Wayne under contract, they have the absolutely legal right to do this, but they’ve done it a bad way. It’s not like “Father’s Day” and “One Year Anniversary of Collision” were late breaking ideas, it was obviously the idea of Christian doing a promo that came together late.

Unimas is running a commercial for the AAA show. I haven’t seen any mention elsewhere, but that’s Unimas viewers are the people who most need to know it exists.  The extent of AAA’s push is a post on social media every couple of days. In their defense

AAA on Unimas is starting with TripleMania Monterrey. That show was terrible but it fits with AAA’s priorities: they want to look have a major league presentation, so they’ll run a show with the biggest crowd and entrance possible. AAA on Space is about a one hour show without commercials, and the Unimas slot is 15-20 minutes shorter than that.

Mas Lucha, as they often do, posted a bunch of videos from the Juarez taping. (I still don’t have results. No one cares.) It does not make logic how Mas Lucha can produce all this social media content for AAA shows and AAA can not. Laredo Kid explained La Fraternidad as three friends, inside and outside the ring. Octagon Jr. is overjoyed to go Japan for the first time, and says he’s been preparing every second to have the best match on the show. He jokes that he’s even preparing in his dreams.

IWRG

IWRG (THU) 06/13/2024 Arena Naucalpan [IWRG]
1) Avisman b Freelance 
2) Arez b Príncipe Centauro 
3) Spider Fly b Oni El Bendito 
Spider Fly won with a Dragon Rana (referee coutned three when Oni
4) Puma de Oro b Relámpago 
5) Cerebro Negro & Tonalli DRAW Látigo & Toxin 
Scheduled as a tag title defense but Cerebro Negro Jr. had a leg injury (and appeared to say he will be out three weeks.) Tonalli made a surprise return as a replacement.

I’ve never seen someone fight off a referee to try and stop his hand from being raised, but Spider Fly innovated. They obviously had more to do, the referee messed up the count, but also you can’t actually do that. Everyone should be home for a bit. Anyway, Bendito surely had this appearance in mind when he said he was quitting Big Lucha – there’s bad history between IWRG and Big Lucha – and he’s a welcome addition to Naucalpan if this is more than a one off. Iron Kid was also shown as one of the possible Lucha Random people, Tonalli’s back around again and IWRG could accidentally turn into a good promotion if they keep improving their roster. On the other hand, Spider Fly fighting off a referee.

IWRG (SUN) 06/16/2024 Arena Naucalpan
1) Auzter & Sky Man vs Rey Aztaroth & Simon Blanco
2) Multifacetico Jr. & Tornado vs Príncipe Centauro & Rey Halcón
3) Aramis, Noisy Boy, Spider Fly vs Gran Pandemónium, Hijo de Pandemónium, Pandemónium Jr.
4) Pantera vs Misterioso Jr.
5) DMT Azul, Hell Boy, Hijo de Canis Lupus vs Arez, Látigo, Toxin
6) Estrella Divina vs Shamila, Bugambilia, Miss Gaviota, Sexy Star, Keyra, Bengalee, Paymon, Zoy Raymunda, Mary Caporal [mask, hair]

After their singles match here, Keyra and Sexy Star said they would like to face each other again but not the IWRG women – they didn’t consider them worth fighting. Well, too bad. Welcome to the La Jaula de Las Locas. My guess is Zoy Raymunda is losing, but it could just as easily be Bugambilia or Paymon.

Pantera versus Misterioso is a rematch of a infamous mask match. Both were in CMLL, both were in a cage match, Pantera lost his mask to Misterioso. Pantera left CMLL a few months later and put the mask on, claiming he hadn’t been paid so he had the right to put it back on. (Pantera looked much older with the mask off, which might be the real reason it went back on.) Pantera came back to CMLL last year for some legend’s matches, with his mask on, so whatever happened there seems settled. This match probably addresses the rest of it – and I wonder if anyone would remember Misterioso was the one who unmasked Pantera if there wasn’t this controversy around Pantera remasking.

IWRG , LLB (SUN) 06/30/2024 Arena Naucalpan
1) Cybercan, Demencia, Robo Can vs Juanma Sanchez, Mr. Koi, Mr. Maicool
2) Príncipe Centauro vs Hijo De Sparta, New Level, Sparta, Oro Blanco, Perro Wisin, Pinochito, X-Devil, Sol
3) India Mazahua & Mary Caporal vs Princesa Azul & Shamila
4) Fandango, Noisy Boy, Spider Fly vs Brazo Celestial, Brazo Cibernetico, Brazo De Oro Jr.
5) Lunatik Xtreme & Toto vs Demus & Joe Lider and Hell Boy & Puma de Oro
6) Charly Manson, Cibernético, Electroshock vs Dr. Wagner Jr., Galeno del Mal, Máximo

That’s definitely a Lucha Libre Boom show.

Other Notes

Baja California Vaquero Jr. (Gabriel Tirana, 34) passed away on Thursday. He started wrestling in 2010, mostly in Mexicali, and seems to mostly stopped around 2022. This is not the Vaquero Jr. who wrestles primarily in Arena Coliseo Guadalajara.

CMLL isn’t the only promotion with a busy international show on Friday. Robles is running probably one of the most expensive cards in the history of Arena Neza:

Robles (FRI) 06/14/2024 Arena Neza
1) ?, ??, ??? vs ????, ?????, ??????
2) Máscarita Sagrada & Mircroman vs Gallito & Guapito
3) Hijo de Mr. Niebla & Reiyel vs Majestic & Medieval III
4) Aero Queen, Big Mami, La Chapita, Sagitarius vs Goya Kong, La Perra, Pequeña Tiffany, Tiffany
5) Estrella Divina, Intocable, Pimpiebla vs Alan Stone, Jessy Ventura, Mamba
6) Laredo Kid, Marco Corleone, Metalik vs Austrailan Suicide, Marty Scurll, Rey Horus
7) Penta 0M vs Samuray del Sol

Penta/Samuray del Sol is explicitly playing off Samuray’s very short time as Octagon Jr. This Pentagon Jr. was created specifically and only to be a foil for Samuray del Sol Octagon Jr., someone who was a good base for his big moves, but not to get any push outside that feud. AAA gave Samuray del Sol the gimmick without getting him locked down, maybe guessing he’d mark out at getting to be an Octagon Jr. Samuray instead went to WWE and made a lot of money. AAA stumbled into Penta becoming the star they hoped Octagon Jr. would be. Samuray hasn’t killed it since leaving WWE and Penta’s not been doing all that great lately either, but the match still means nothing.

Marco Corleone has a booking coming up in Guadalajara too. “Pequena Tiffany” and “La Chapita” look like micros; I wonder if they’re from the same Micro promotions Microman and those guys work. Lot of people getting on flights to Tijuana in the morning. There’s no way to see this one live – the YouTube fan cams will make their money on this one.

06/15 RIOT

• Hijo de Canis Lupus vs Demonio del Aire
• Zuzu Divine vs Dulce Tormenta
• Erik Ortiz (c) vs Travis Banks vs Rene Rocks for the RIOT Championship
• Arez, Toxin, Latigo vs Prometo, Kratoz, Vengador
• The Beast Mortos vs King Rex
• Iron Kid vs Aero Boy
• Willy Banderas vs Gravity – new

NOAH on Sunday has Daga vs Starboy Charlie for the GHC Junior Heavyweight Championship. NOAH tags me on every Mexican wrestler tweet and it’s really annoying but I probably wouldn’t have thought to put their match here otherwise.

SuperLuchas has a podcast talking about forgotten and probably lost Mexican wrestling video.

There’s a benefit show for Tabasco luchador Gatubeda.

 

CMLL

Long time CMLL Guadalajara referee/trainer/wrestler (Wlialdo Estrada Espinoza. 68) passed away Wednesday. He’d been mentioned as being ill last month. Estrada had been the lead referee in Guadalajara as long as I can remember and was trainer at the in-house school. He also did legend’s wrestling matches as recently as last year. Estrada seemed a central part on the Arena Coliseo Guaadalajara and I’m sure they’ll remember him on next week’s show.

CMLL (MON) 06/10/2024 Arena Puebla [El Sol del Puebla, Grada, Mano A Mano]
1) Meyer & Rayo Metálico b Dreyko & Rencor
2) Shockercito b Mercurio [lightning]
around 9 minutes.
3) Multy, Perverso, Prayer b Hombre Bala Jr., Robin, Valiente Jr. 
4) Brillante Jr., Max Star, Neón b Guerrero Maya Jr., Stigma, Xelhua 
5) Averno © b Esfinge [CMLL LH] 
Averno won with Esfinge’s Nudo Egipico
6) Místico b Ángel de Oro 

Averno keeping his title is no surprise, but winning with Esfinge’s hold is more definite than I’d normally expect. Match four was said to be good and should air on TV. Neon beat Stigma and those teams rematch next week, so they may be headed to a CMLL Super Lightweight title match

CMLL (TUE) 06/11/2024 Arena México
1) Dr. Karonte I & Dr. Karonte II b Astral & Leono
11:52.
2) Espanto Jr., Nitro, Okumura b El Audaz, Hombre Bala Jr., Legendario
11:02. Okumura replaced Raider on Tuesday
3) Hera & Olympia b Metálica & Reyna Isis
12:38.
4) Fugaz, Guerrero Maya Jr., Star Black b Gemelo Diablo I, Gemelo Diablo II, Kráneo
10:17
5) Hechicero b Blue Panther
15:40.
6) Ángel de Oro, Soberano Jr., Stuka Jr. b Atlantis, Flip Gordon, Máscara Dorada
10:00.

Hechicero/Blue Panther was great, but it was great in the way Blue Panther matches in front of tourists crowds are – a big comeback, and an old man doing things the fans don’t expect fans to do. They did more mat wrestling and llaves than almost all matches, but it wasn’t all about that – it may have been they didn’t trust the fans would be with them to keep doing that style. (It’s why ZSJ/Hechicero could be better for being in Arena Coliseo, which seems to be less of a tourist crowd and perhaps more patient for a slower building match.)

Nothing to watch on the rest of this show.

Villano IV was seated ringside and CMLL announced him as a new member of Mexico City’s lucha libre commission.

The Tunel Arena Mexico was apparently dissembled today. The Tunel – a small building on one of the sidewalks around Arena Mexico – was installed last June. It was billed as a 90th Anniversary thing but had stuck long after. El Grafico says it’s gone due to legal action filled by neighbors filed even before the Tunel was opened. Those neighbors complained the Tunel violated city rules, including by taking up public roads and walking space and disrupting the living space with additional people. Judges ordered the removal of the tunnel back on December 7th, 2023 – who knows how it stuck around for six months after that.

The Tunel had booths where CMLL and their wrestlers could do meet and greets and sell merch prior to shows. I was skeptical of it when it was introduced, feeling it existed to take away business from the vendors outside the building. I think I had it wrong – it probably did, but it more offset it in allowing those luchadors to make more money selling directly to fans, which the interior of Arena Mexico isn’t really set up to do. The CMLL wrestlers are going to really miss it if there’s no replacement.

CMLL (TUE) 06/11/2024 Arena Coliseo Guadalajara [CMLL]
1) Avispón Negro, Cosmos, Último Ángel vs Abigor La Pesadilla, Rav, Shezmú 
2) Adira, Magia Azul, Náutica b Diablita Roja (Puebla), Estrellita Mágica, Lady Metal 
3) Exterminador & Maléfico DQ El Perverso & Prayer 
Excessive violence DQ. Hair match challenges followed
4) Bestia Negra, El Elemental, Furia Roja DQ El Hijo del Villano III, Villano III Jr., Zandokan Jr. 
Zandokan unmasked Elemental (after whiffing on a foul)
5) Gran Guerrero & Último Guerrero DQ Averno & Euforia 
Euforia unmasked Gran Guerrero for the DQ
6) Magnus & Volador Jr. b Místico & Titán 
Volador pinned Mistico after a mask pull.

DQ, DQ, DQ, mask pull is a very odd way for CMLL to run a show. Some of those must have a purpose. Volador and Mistico have their singles match next week, and the Infernales and Guerreros are also scheduled to rematch. The rudos/rudos tag feud could be a match for either Puebla or Guadalajara Anniversary shows coming up. The Zandokan/Elemental match doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, so that’s one that could’ve been better.

Titan says he’s headed back to Japan today. (Not straight away today, I guess – more in a few paragraphs.) Ring of Honor has not promoted his match as airing this week, so maybe they’re saving it for some time they’ll be able to follow up. NJPW has a break between June 23rd and July 3rd to allow their wrestlers to appear on the AEW/NJPW Forbidden Door show (and TV around it), so that’s maybe when we’ll next see Titan on this side of the Pacific.

The next NJPW tour is the G1 Climax. CMLL wrestlers have been in a G1 for a very long time. It’s even less likely now that NJPW is shrinking the field back to 20 names. But, if you’re holding out hope, NJPW will announce 18 of the names on their show Sunday. The last two will be determined in a play tournament happening immediately; one would assume any CMLL wrestler participating in that portion would already be going to Japan. (I don’t think Titan’ is getting a G1 spot.)

CMLL teased Hechicero as going to AEW today. (They posted both a wizard and a fire emoji, but I believe they’re both for Hechicero and not for a second wrestler. AEW is not lucky enough to get Fuego.) Tonight’s Dynamite’s match card seems pretty close to full already. Zeuxis faces Mercedes Mone on that show, Rey Fenix wrestles Will Osprey, Rush has a match, and that’s just the lucha libre component. Hechicero seems likely to wrestle on Rampage, if that’s what he’s even doing.

Today’s CMLL Informa has

• Octagon & Hijo de Octagon – Copa Dinastias
• Titan – Best of Super Juniors
• Atlantis Jr. – (Copa Dinastias)
• Templario – the singles match in the next paragraph
• Magnus, Rugido, Esfinge – AEW

CMLL (FRI) 06/14/2024 Arena México
1) Capitán Suicida & Diamond vs Calavera Jr. I & Calavera Jr. II
2) Blue Panther Jr. & Dark Panther vs Crixus & Raider
3) La Catalina, Lluvia, Tessa Blanchard vs Kira, Stephanie Vaquer, Zeuxis [Relevos Increíbles]
4) Neón, Star Jr., Volador Jr. vs Bad Dude Tito, Che Cabrera, Zandokan Jr.
5) Michael Oku vs Templario
6) Atlantis Jr., Esfinge, Místico vs Averno, Euforia, Soberano Jr.

Oku, Tito and Cabrera start their tour on Friday. Oku get a chance to impress against Templario before his title match on Tuesday. Catalina and Vaquer meet before their title match. Soberano makes a rare Friday appearance. Atlantis Jr. is listed as wrestling, so his injury appears to be minor.

AAA

Haven’t gotten full results from Juarez but there is some news

• Negro Casas & Psycho Clown did win the tag team championships from Forastero & Sanson. That seems like the right call. It is the first time NGD have lost a direct title match in AAA, and the first time they’ve lost any sort of major title match. They’re also really not that over for that long of a win streak and the Casas family is, so right call.
  • Forastero posted in Instagram about losing but getting Psycho Clown’s mask afterwards, so it doesn’t look like they’re taking off. NGD joining Wagner back in Monterrey sure didn’t go anywhere so far but maybe this is all supposed to lead to something for Mexico City.
• Laredo Kid, Drago and Dinamico are now trio La Fraternidad. It hasn’t been built to at all – Dinamico is a rudo leading a Mexicali group last we knew, and Drago missed the Mexico City taping entirely – but they had matching gear so knew something was coming. They did win their debut over Los Vipers. Perhaps that’s a trios title match to come or perhaps this is AAA and they’ll never team again.

AAA posted a video promoting their Unimas debut this Saturday. Psycho Clown, Octagon Jr., Negro Casas, Vampiro, Dalys la Caribena, Faby Apache, Laredo Kid, Pimpinela Escaralata, and Latin Lover are shown in a studio shot with smoke. No footage from shows is used. It’s very generic but it’s better than nothing. I didn’t see the commercial in on screen during my Unimas watching Monday, but I didn’t watch more than couple of hours and maybe it rolled out later in the week.

AAA and Triller did get the link up to purchase the Tijuana show. It’s a 9:30 pm ET start. (And the Triller time is the same that AAA is advertising, so it’s probably right.)

Violent J will appear on TripleMania, according to MechaWolf. Hooray.

GLEAT announced Octagon Jr. will team with Soma Watanabe against SBK & TAKUMA on their July 1st show. Dorian Roldan will also be in appearance. There’s been hints of something brewing between GLEAT and AAA for the last few months, and especially so when CIMA showed up on the TripleMania lineup.

CIMA and his then marauding group of ex-Dragon Gate wrestlers (T-Hawk and El Lindaman) were introduced as a faction in AAA in early 2020. The pandemic hit, and the idea ended before they even wrestled a match. CIMA and his friends have since settled in GLEAT. Takuma and Kento have also ended up in GLEAT after leaving Dragon Gate. They’re probably the conduit to get AAA and GLEAT together, after the Big Lucha/GLEAT partnership fell apart. Octagon Jr. is an interesting pick because it’s another sign AAA’s picked him to now be one of their key guys, and he goes back with some of these guys; T-Hawk pointed it was Octagon Jr. (then Golden Magic) who helped learned him lucha way back in IWRG.

(Roldan going means they’re probably announcing a long term agreement and I wonder if it’ll last any longer than recent past short AAA/Japan deals. GLEAT doesn’t seem to be doing great at the box office. Maybe AAA will help, maybe this a bit of relationship building in case CIMA needs another place to land in the future.)

IWRG

IWRG (THU) 06/13/2024 Arena Naucalpan
1) ?, ??, ??? vs ????, ?????, ??????
2) ?, ??, ??? vs ????, ?????, ??????
3) ?, ??, ??? vs ????, ?????, ??????
4) ?, ??, ??? vs ????, ?????, ??????
5) Cerebro Negro & Cerebro Negro Jr. © vs Látigo & Toxin [IWRG IC TAG]
7th defense

I have no idea if Mala Fama is going to end up with more belts, but I wanted to point out that seven defenses of a title in about a year is an epic title run by IWRG standards. Usually someone’s quit by now.

Big Lucha

Oni el Bendito announced he was leaving Big Lucha immediately. He’d appeared less often this year in Big Lucha. He was listed on the original lineup for Big Lucha’s show at the racetrack this Saturday, and is not on the latest poster. (Texano posted a poster with a different lineup; I have no idea which of three are now correct. It’s Mexican wrestling, the reality is all the lineups are probably wrong.)

Bendito was a day one Big Lucha roster member. He wasn’t even Bendito before he got there, he was unknown IWRG rookie Blue Monsther Jr. He progressed as much as any one in that time. My understanding is Big Lucha deals work somewhat similar as other Mexican wrestling contracts, where the home promotion gets some cut from the wrestler’s work outside the promotion. The contracted wrestlers get a free room at the gym and access to the gym itself. It’s a great deal if you’re a wrestler from outside the Mexico City area, and if you’re a young wrestler just trying to build your name. Once you build that name and can get booked fine on your own, a Big Lucha deal doesn’t offer as much. A healthier Big Lucha, running regular shows and getting guys attention, would have more value to people sticking around, but that’s also not the Big Lucha of 2024. Bendito’s Mexico CIty matches outside of Big Lucha will probably just be the random scrambles and tag matches of the indie scene, none of the others who’ve ended up in the indies have really excelled, but he’ll get to control his dates and at least try his luck at getting into one of the big two groups.

Still no date announced for a next Arena Big Lucha show.

Other News

06/15 RIOT

• Hijo de Canis Lupus vs Demonio del Aire
• Zuzu Divine vs Dulce Tormenta
• Erik Ortiz (c) vs Travis Banks vs Rene Rocks for the RIOT Championship
• Arez, Toxin, Latigo vs Prometo, Kratoz, Vengador
• The Beast Mortos vs King Rex
• Iron Boy vs Aero Boy – new

This would be a card I would’ve been very excited for if not for presence of Travis Banks.

Dr. Lucha has a good obituary for El Signo. He mentions Signo was hospitalized after a fall, and then passed away in the hospital due to complications from diabetes.

There’s a new lucha libre exhibit in Ocotlan.

CMLL

CMLL (FRI) 06/07/2024 Arena México [CMLL, Esquina Caliente, Excelsior, Kaiser Sports, Mas Lucha, Telediario, The Gladiatores (video), thecubsfan]
1) Xelhua b Disturbio [lightning]  
9:10.
2) Futuro & Max Star b Espíritu Negro & Rey Cometa   
13:14
3) Akuma, El Hijo del Villano III, Villano III Jr. b Gemelo Diablo I, Gemelo Diablo II, Kráneo    
14:08. Villano III Jr. hit his head on the barricade attempting to springboard off Akuma’s shoulders on a dive and match ended abruptly.
4) Esfinge, Magia Blanca, Rugido b Difunto, Star Black, Zandokan Jr. [Relevos Increíbles]  
12:21.
5) Máscara Dorada, Star Jr., Volador Jr. b Ángel de Oro, Euforia, Templario   
10:42.
6) Místico b Magnus      
14:35. Los Depredadores attacked Mistico as the match started but were taken away by security. Mistico won with La Mistica clean in the middle. Mistico told Magnus to either shake his hand and put the feud behind them or agree to a mask match. Magnus shook Mistico’s hand, tried to surprise attack him, and was sent packing – he left through the crowd.

Mistico/Magnus was the sort of feud CMLL should’ve been doing more often over the last two years. A midcard rudo annoys Mistico for a couple weeks, gets his big chance in a singles match, people show up to see it, the rudo gets a little bit something out of the being in the singles match, and Mistico completely vanquishes him at the end. Magnus interacted well with the crowd to get reactions, Mistico sold a lot for him, it felt like an earned win at the end.

Mistico/Magnus also in no way felt like it was going to be the main event of the Aniversario show. They teased it at the end enough to get the press (and Magnus) to keep talking about it like a possibility, but it’s not happening. Magnus didn’t come across as an important enough to force that match to happen, and Mistico was booked as definitely better than him at the him, there was no question to it. There is enough there to do random tag matches (though those will usually also include Volador, who will overshadow Magnus as a Mistico rival) and perhaps it’s strong enough for them to be a red herring tag team if CMLL runs another incredible pairs apuesta tournament, but I don’t think that’s the September match. We’re back to not having any idea what that might be yet.

A lot of “good but not great” on this show. Semimain was rushed and short on time. Match 4 was a weird mix but good. Villano III Jr.’s injury overshadowed a fun match. Viajeros Espacios versus Atrapasuenos had some great moments but also had Max Star & Futuro struggling to execute their big moves in third fall. Max Star has messed up his Phoenix Splash enough times that he really needs to reconsider that as a finish (or at least have a plan to do something else when he misses it.) Xelhua defeating Disturbio was surprising and a good sign for his progression.

CMLL (SAT) 06/08/2024 Arena Coliseo [CMLL, thecubsfan]
1) Kaligua & Pequeño Magía b Full Metal & Pequeño Polvora
9:20
2) Amapola & Olympia b La Vaquerita & Maligna
12:33
3) Dark Magic, Espanto Jr., Vegas b Fuego, Hombre Bala Jr., Legendario
14:42
4) Felino b Fugaz [lightning]
9:00
5) Hijo del Villano III, Mephisto, Villano III Jr. b Blue Panther Jr., Dark Panther, El Hijo De Blue Panther
15:33
6) Dragón Rojo Jr., Hechicero, Terrible b Blue Panther, Flip Gordon, Volador Jr.
14:16. Hechicero snuck in a foul on Blue Panther to win.

The minis opener was the best match here, and many others had some obvious errors. Fugaz accidentally unmasking himself is unique, but the Barbaros weren’t good in the main event (third fall especially) and Villano III Jr. and Espanto Jr. each had moments that would’ve gone attention if more people were watching this. Felino beating Fugaz was surprising to me; maybe it’s Felino getting a win before they honor him.

Barba Producciones had a CMLL spot show in Saltillo. They’re the same group that partnered with CMLL on the musical festival shows earlier this year, using a mix of that CMLL talent and their own northern Mexican names. This show had the same scheduled, but one match notable changed. Mascara Dorada was supposed to face Prometeo in a singles match, and it instead became a three way match with AEW’s The Beast Mortos. (Atlantis Jr. is out after getting hurt on the ramp dive on Tuesday, CMLL sent Esfinge instead, Barba asked for and got permission to add Mortos as well to add a bigger name to the show overall.) The Beast Mortos and CMLL wrestlers are probably a one off and it mostly just means AEW will have no problem using Mortos on the same shows as CMLL people. We can safely assume that restriction only applies to Komander and Vikingo right now. The idea of Mortos mixing it up with CMLL wrestlers still is highly appealing, but it may not happen more than an indie show here or there.

(Mas Lucha was at this show so they’ll have that match up – but it could be tomorrow, could be three months from now, no one knows. Lucha Libre Ciudad Victoria was there too and sometimes posts stuff on their YouTube channel.)

(In other delayed injury news, Minos also left Tuesday’s Arena Mexico show hurt. Early word is it’s was a serious injury that we won’t be seeing him in the ring for some time.)

CMLL (SUN) 06/09/2024 Arena México [CMLL, thecubsfan]
1) Mercurio & Pequeño Violencia b Acero & Aéreo
9:49
2) Emperador Jr., Platino Kid, Rayo Metálico b Astral, Leono, Robin
13:29
3) El Coyote, Okumura, Pólvora b Dulce Gardenia, Fuego, Volcano
14:45
4) Hera, Reyna Isis, Zeuxis b Kira, Sanely, Skadi
12:48
5) Valiente b Zandokan Jr.
7:44
6) Atlantis, Máscara Dorada, Titán DQ Bárbaro Cavernario, Dragón Rojo Jr., Terrible
18:14. Dragon Rojo was pulling at Titan’s mask when Mascara Dorada did a springboard sunset flip on Dragon, which caused Titan’s mask to go flying and Dragon Rojo to be called for the DQ.

The women’s match was better than most. The main event finish was strange. Cavernario was hurt at the end of the match but I take no guesses about lengths of injuries. Villano III Jr. looked like he broke his head and then was back the next day.

Televisa Puebla aired their first episode of CMLL on Sunday night. It did air on their YouTube live stream and they indicated that’s the plan going forward. I honestly have no idea if anyone who reads this watches the streams of the weekly CMLL shows on AMX or MVS show. (Or the Heraldo TV show, but if you’ve found a way to watch that and haven’t told me for years, I will be annoyed with you if you start telling me now.) It’s the exact same presentation as those, it’s the basically the same presentation CMLL’s done for all their in-house produced TV for twenty years now. CMLL Puebla is a one hour show, the show has no particular name, there are three matches, the entrances are cut, there’s instead a quick twenty intro with highlights of the matches and all the wrestlers introduced, there may be some light editing to make all three matches fit the hour. This is a Televisa Puebla show so they’re airing matches from the previous Monday’s Puebla show. It was the top three this week, no idea if they’ll bounce around. I had no chance to actually watch the matches, but it was a CMLL show that looked like a CMLL show.

Ex-CMLL wrestler Ramstein appeared in person at the benefit show for him Sunday in Arena Azteca Budokan. No one seemed to explain what was going that resulted in needing a benefit show, but better that he was able to be there than not.

CMLL (TUE) 06/11/2024 Arena México
1) Astral & Leono vs Dr. Karonte I & Dr. Karonte II
2) El Audaz, Hombre Bala Jr., Legendario vs Espanto Jr., Nitro, Raider
3) Metálica & Reyna Isis vs Hera & Olympia
4) Fugaz, Guerrero Maya Jr., Star Black vs Gemelo Diablo I, Gemelo Diablo II, Kráneo
5) Blue Panther vs Hechicero
6) Atlantis, Flip Gordon, Máscara Dorada vs Ángel de Oro, Soberano Jr., Stuka Jr.

The quality of match 1 and the quality of match 5 are likely to be much different. The poster lists Hechicero/Panther as a singles match with no special rules; Panther asked for no rope breaks.

Nitro hasn’t been wrestling much this year. This will be his first streaming appearance since December; when he works in CML, it’s the lesser important shows (Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday GDL.) He’s worked more on outside CMLL spot shows, which may be connected to his role as leader of the CMLL union.

Milenio has an interview with Hera.

AEW

Titan wrestled on the Ring of Honor tapings in Council Bluff, facing Aaron Solo. I believe that match airs next Thursday. (CMLL had teased it earlier in the week, but the real scoops are in the Instagram Stories, as always.) Titan working ROH is random but it’s probably just setting him up for something else. AEW often uses ROH the same way they use Rampage and Collision, giving someone a win before having them lose on Dynamite or another show. Titan’s LIJ teammate Naito is getting the IWGP title shot at Jon Moxley at Forbidden Door, so I wonder if AEW is setting up Titan versus Moxley or another BCC wrestler as a preview match in upcoming days. (AEW did something similar with DOUKI and Jack Perry last year.) It won’t be this week though; Titan is heading to Guadalajara on Tuesday and then back to Japan for the All Together show on Saturday.

AEW is doing a special Collision One Year Anniversary show next Saturday. One of the bits advertised is Christian Cage celebrating Father’s Day. In AEW, Christian’s the (kinda) adopted father of Nick Wayne, and it would probably help a Fathers’ Day bit to have the son involved. The son is currently listed as wrestling on TripleMania Tijuana that day. Maybe he will, maybe he won’t, who knows.

Reina Dorada mentioned the mask she won in AEW was an homage to Frida Kahlo. It’s a lot clearer in photos than it was in video. As a rule of thumb, I believe it’s always a better idea to weird the most iconic version of your normal gear when a wrestler shows up some place new, because the unfamiliar fans don’t know that wrestler well enough to appreciate a variation. Dorada was trying to project her Mexican-ness by representing a famous Mexican painter, but that may be making it too complicated.

AAA

AAA wrestlers performed in a soccer stadium in Monterrey. It wasn’t sold out for a wrestling show. The Kings League – a 7v7 real life soccer league where international famous internet streamers are the ‘team owners’ – has a tournament semifinal and final on Saturday in Rayado’s Stadium. La Fiscal, Lady Flammer, Dr. Wagner Jr. and Octagon Jr. were there for a match before the games started. The idea was each was representing a team and a team owner streamer, who’d manage them for the match. The twist was the streams got involved, doing some practiced spots (but maybe more risky ones than you’d expect.) Having a internet famous non-wrestler do an AAA wrestling match was shot down by the commission last year with Adrian Marcelo; he had to get licensed and didn’t pass the test. This year, AAA and Kings League hinted the streamers might get involved but were careful not to advertise them as actually being in matches. They didn’t wrestle a full match like AAA planned for Chessman/Marcelo, but it’s also something las year’s commission would’ve had big issues with if they knew it would happen. It’s a different year and the commission/Marcelo angle hasn’t come at all in the coverage, so I think it may just slide by.

For AAA, it was helpful promotion in front of an audience that may not see them much – they used to be streamer friendly pre-pandemic and now have pretty much abandoned that audience – and whatever residual attention they get from it nice. Attendance for the entire day was said to be 51,237 though it appeared as though the stadium was still filling in when the wrestling was taking place. Lady Flammer’s streamer won the tournament, and she was part of the championship presentation.

AAA TV this week was a “TripleMania Tijuana preview” in that they aired a bunch of old matches and then hastily ran down the lineup at the end. Whoever edits AAA TV did try to put together existing footage in way to explain why Bestia 666 and Mecha Wolf are feuding, but it’s impossible – the footage doesn’t exist. They desperately needed sit down interviews with each guy to try to get the story over (or even just come up with one), but that appears to be beyond AAA’s resources.

The Mecha/Bestia/Horus feud has been set up and locally on The Crash shows. Their May show had a cage match with all three men, where Bestia is definitely the rudo but Horus and Mecha fighting over who gets to beat them up. They all used about weapons and bled and worked hard and I still didn’t like it like I don’t like any lucha libre cage match. It did have the one good finish to a Mexican wrestling cage match, the one that every other promoter must use going forward: the Beast Mortos entering the cage and just destroying everyone (besides Bestia.) The angle they’re running for these shows is Bestia, Mortos, and Daga versus Horus, Mecha and whomever on The Crash shows – but Mortos and Daga are both not working with AAA, so Mecha Wolf had to strangely challenge for a three way rematch instead that could actually be booked on TripleMania. There was no story to see that three way match again, it’s instead something The Crash could fans could skip without really missing anything. If AAA had just booked the Mechawolf/Bestia match, it would’ve been different. I like Rey Horus matches but it’s unclear why he’s doing in Saturday’s match besides being “the other Tijuana guy who always works these shows.” There’s a better TripleMania card possible if AAA booked two matches differently

• Mecha Wolf versus Bestia as a 1v1, essentially becomes the Pagano stunt show match without Pagano
• Rey Horus takes Noisy Boy’s spot, teams with D-Luxe and Destiny against Laredo, Octagon and Komander

Nick Wayne, CIMA and Willie Mack now have the night off. I don’t know if Nick Wayne is making it, and obviously Willie Mack is at least the third choice for that spot so they’re easy guys not to book. If there are bigger reasons to book CIMA, maybe he gets D Luxe’s spot and D Luxe gets Anubis spot in the opener. Everything goes better with fewer people involved, but AAA always wants more more more.

(Aside 1: the bit at the end of the cage match had the locker room and security hitting the ring one by one to try to stop the Bestia/Daga/Mortos trio, and getting destroyed as soon as they step foot in the ring. The idea was Damian  666 ran in, almost got attacked, but was able to talk them down. Super Beast wasn’t booked on the show and somehow was in full gear to be one of the guys walking into the cage, the last guy before Damian. He was also not much interested in selling this heinous beating he was getting, grabbing a shoulder but just not wanting to go down when everyone else was selling like they’d been shot on first impact. Very hilarious. Gotta keep Super Beast strong, Nacion Lucha Libre might be back at any second.)

(Aside 2: I’m never going to have a reason to talk about this show again, so I’ll mention here that the three way tag team match was good – the Wagners came off as super impressive. Poder del Norte settled into doing close to their old AAA TV matches if you’re looking for that. The entire show is up on The Crash’s YouTube channel – but be aware they don’t have their cameras in sync and the announcers are seconds behind the action by the end of the show. They’re only a couple decades behind in production.)

As of Monday afternoon, Triller has not put up AAA Tijuana on their schedule. You can see (and buy) the bundle and the Monterrey show, but the Tijuana is not listed. I would bet large sums of money that this is an issue of Triller thinking AAA needed to do and AAA thinking Triller was handling it. Someone may see this message and get it done by the next news post and it’s not something to be concerned about yet.

(Also, there’s really no point in buying the Tijuana show as standalone show. You either got it as part of the bundle, or you should just wait a week for AAA to put it on YouTube for free. AAA booked nothing that has to be seen in the moment.)

AAA officially announced Verano de Escandalo will take place on 08/02 in Aguascalientes. They had mentioned the location earlier in the year, not the date. The upcoming AAA taping schedule stands at

• this Saturday in Tijuana for TripleMania
• this Tuesday in Ciudad Juarez – will air out of order
• 06/22 in Mexico City
• (no tapings all of July)
• 08/02 in Aguascalientes
• 08/17 in Mexico City

A Tuesday AAA TV taping would be a real treat back in the days of live Twitch streaming; now this is a show fans will see a month from now.

AAA TV (TUE) 06/11/2024 Plaza de la Mexicanidad, Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua
1) ?, Miss Kath, Ráfaga Jr., Sakura vs Felina, Samuray VIP, Steven Juárez, Venus
2) Aéreo vs Kempo Jr. [JUAREZ ABSOLUTO]
3) Colmillo de Plata & Garra de Oro vs Kamik-C & Skalibur
4) Faby Apache, Pimpinela Escarlata, Sexy Star vs Dalys, Flammer, La Hiedra
5) Dinámico, Drago, Laredo Kid vs Abismo Negro, El Fiscal, Taurus
6) Dave The Clown, Murder Clown, Octagón Jr. vs CIMA, Sam Adonis, Satnam Singh
7) Negro Casas & Psycho Clown vs Forastero & Sansón [AAA TAG]

AAA’s trained fans not to expect results or info about their tapings until the show airs. This one is five days before a TripleMania with some of the same special guests. It’ll be tempting to run an angle anyway, but I’m know sure anyone outside of Juarez will be aware of anything that happened on this show. Even if AAA taped something to push it on social media, I’m not sure their fans expect to see social media angles at this point.

The Ciudad Juarez main event was surprisingly good back in Saltillo. Psycho & Casas winning would make for an easy to put together TripleMania Mexico match against Dr. Wagner Jr. and whichever of his sons is available that day. It protects Casas by putting him in tag matches, and it gives Psycho something to do that he’ll probably be happy with. The flipside is AAA seems to like NGD and wants to do something with them, they never get around to actually doing anything, and so they’re in this loop of being forever undefeated champions (who never defend them against important people) to keep them from going elsewhere. I’m not sure AAA can bring themselves to move on from those guys, so they’re all stuck doing nothing. (This is a common AAA problem.)

Nothing else here jumps out; maybe matches three and five can be good.

AAA starts on Unimas this Saturday. I’m having difficulty in figuring out what ratings number would be “good”. USTVDB has some ratings data; of the three May Saturdays that are listed, Unimas averages around 299,000 total viewers and around 103,000 viewers between 18-49. Those numbers are likely skewed upwards by soccer coverage; those are the highest rating shows. AAA is airing between Chinese action movie Ip Man (a favorite of Space as well) and year old repeat of “Nosotros Los Guapos.” That’s seems about as low expectation spot as it gets. Maybe AAA would be doing great if they got 200K viewers and 65 in the demo, well below station average, because that’s not a timeslot Unimas normally expects to do well in.

Unimas’s already signaling this AAA show is not important to them. Unimas’s website lists the show in a generic fashion; like someone clearly saw “wrestling” and pulled a stock photo of guys in headgear wrestling on yellow, red and blue mat. Not quite the correct kind of wrestling. There’s been no Unimas social media promotion of AAA yet (and not much from AAA either past that original press conference.) I haven’t watched Unimas, maybe that’s the project for tonight, so perhaps there’s some promotion on the channel itself. AAA going to Unimas is a big deal for the people who run AAA but it hasn’t come across as a big deal to anyone else as of yet.

(TUDN, which will air a repeat of this AAA shows on Tuesdays, has ratings around the same level of AXS where TNA or El Rey had for Lucha Underground if you’ve been around this blog long enough: so low that I believe the week to week variances are more a story about sampling variations and error bars than actual changes in viewership. I have no doubt that AAA could do well enough to stick on TUDN, but I would also assume TUDN isn’t offering much for non-sports programming and that’s why AAA is airing on Unimas first.)

Konnan discussed the Unimas TV deal on his sixth podcast of this past week. Konnan says the target is to do well in the 12-34 demo, and the goal is to get moved from Unimas to Univision, which he believes will allow AAA to compete with AEW and WWE. They are getting paid to be on the Unimas deal. Konnan’s asked if there will be English commentators on SAP; he doesn’t know. Konnan’s ask about how up to date the shows air; he doesn’t know. Konnan doesn’t believe there will be a live specials until they do ratings.

(I’m sure there will be no English commentary. I think Konnan would be sure too if he reflected on it – part of his job is to work with the English commentators, so he would know if English has been done. He doesn’t know, so it hasn’t been done. AAA is spending as little as they can get by on English language outreach as possible and you’d think Konnan might pick up on that as well.)

Konnan’s also asked on he podcast about the Latin Lover Director of Talent announcement, and he says Latin Lover’s job is exactly and only that, “talent”. Latin Lover is working on managing the wrestlers, letting them know when they’re doing things right or wrong, stuff that Konnan says he hasn’t enough time to do himself. Konnan has no problem using any good ideas Latin Lover – or anyone else – has, but he insists he’s still completely in control of AAA creative and nothing has changed there.

Konnan heard, but doesn’t know if it’s true, that AEW had to pay CMLL to lift the prohibition on non-CMLL wrestlers appearing on the same AEW shows as CMLL ones.

Lady Shani and Hijo del Vikingo both did autograph signings at a show produced by Psycho Clown. They’re both sidelined from AAA right now, though it’s Shani having a kid and Vikingo (surprisingly) having a knee injury and not having a kid. Vikingo says his next check up on his knee is July 15th and he hopes to get good news. He’s been doing some light bicycle work. He’s also been going to a bunch of lucha libre shows as a fan, because he just loves lucha libre that much and misses participating it. Lady Shani also seems like she misses lucha libre once. She doesn’t give a timeline for her possible return – she still hasn’t had the baby yet, remember – she just wants to be 100% ready when she does come back. She is taking advantage of the ‘break’ to rehab and take care of injuries she’d been working through.

Stopping to think about it, it’s kind of pointless for AAA to have stripped Vikingo of the megachampionship given what little they’ve done with it. There’s just been the one match in Monterrey where Nic Nemeth won the title. He’s probably losing it to Alberto in Mexico City. The second most likely outcome isn’t Nemeth keeping it, it’s Vikingo getting totally cleared on that July date and winning it himself in Mexico City. The Monterrey match didn’t mean a lot and it’s hard to believe the Mexico City one will either. The AAA diehards would be loudly complaining about not having a the title defended for months if AAA had just left it on Vikingo, but that’s basically what happened anyway.

NJPW rookie (Young Lion) Masatora Yasuda debuts in NJPW on June 16th. NJPW’s preview mentions that he is actually Zumbido’s son, born in Mexico and then moving to Japan at age three. I don’t believe I’ve ever heard of Zumbido having a half Japanese son prior, but that’s too random to not be true. I totally forget that Zumbido’s supposed to be back in AAA on the June 22nd Mexico City taping; assuming he shows up, I hope someone asks him about his NJPW son.

Vampiro will have his farewell tour match in Arena Neza on 07/06.

Frontera TV interviews Mr. Iguana about TripleMania Tijuana.

The Under the Ring podcast has Larry Dallas on as a guest.

IWRG

IWRG (SUN) 06/09/2024 Arena Naucalpan [IWRG]
1) Drakula Ng b Histeriosis 
2) Sol b Águila Roja 
3) Halcón Suriano Jr., Multifacetico Jr., Tornado b Pequeño Centauro, Puma de Oro, Rey Aztaroth 
4) Bengalee & Shamila b Diosa Quetzal & Mary Caporal 
5) Arez b Hijo de Canis Lupus 
win via foul
6) Hell Boy, Máscara Sagrada, Noisy Boy, Spider Fly b Hijo del Fishman, Imposible, Puma de Oro, Vangellys and Bugambilia, Caballero de Plata, Shocko, Veneno and Estrella Divina, Jessy Ventura, Paymon, Zoy Raymunda 

Attendance looks good for this. Arez/Canis sounds like it was worth watching.

I thought the Spider Fly/Noisy Boy match on Thursday was Great. A lot of young guys doing young guy lucha, but with different enough ideas (and better execution) that it felt fresh. Keyra/Sexy Star was good; I wanted more from Sexy Star in that match, both on offense and showing more fight when Keyra was dominating the match.

Did you know: this new Sexy Star has been in AAA for four years now and never had a singles match as Sexy Star? She had a couple under her Marvel lucha libre gimmick. She has now also had two in IWRG under this name. There’s not many opportunities with the relatively small amount of matches AAA runs, but also AAA has little interest in booking women in singles matches.

Other News

Box y Lucha 3607 has El Signo (and Latin Lover) on the cover. CMLL put out a remembers on Saturday.

06/15 RIOT

• Hijo de Canis Lupus vs Demonio del Aire
• Zuzu Divine vs Dulce Tormenta
• Erik Ortiz (c) vs Travis Banks vs Rene Rocks for the RIOT Championship
• Arez, Toxin, Latigo vs Prometo, Kratoz, Vengador
• The Beast Mortos vs King Rex – new

There’s a new lucha libre exhibit in San Luis Potosi.

El Signo 

El Signo (Antonio Sánchez Rendón, 69) passed away on Wednesday. No cause of death was mentioned. Signo was in good enough health to be part of a delegation of retired wrestlers meeting with Mexico’s congress earlier this year, but had been noted as having mobility issues for years. El Signo’s retirement match was in 2013, though he essentially stopped wrestling around 2006.

El Signo wrestled for both CMLL and AAA, but he’ll be always remembered as a El Toreo (UWA) classic luchador of 70s and 80s. Signo was a successful young wrestler in the mid 70s. He had long runs as the UWA lightweight and the welterweight champion. Holing those belts meant something closer to the US -based NWA championships of the time; crisscrossing the country and defending them weekly, if not more often. Signo was respected as a worker, enough to be drafted to carry Huracan Ramirez, close to the end of his career, in a hair versus mask feud to end 1981. The promotion, then called Promociones Mora, came up with the idea of teaming Ramirez with all-time legends Blue Demon and El Santo as a legendary team. Negro Navarro and Texano, a promising undercard duo trying to get a gimmick of “Los Cowboys” over, were paired with Signo for the night. The young rudos won the match on November 2, 1980, but the story was El Santo having a medical issue during the match. Promociones Mora and the friendly wrestling press, first tried to cover it up as a minor health issue – then later pivoted, confirming mainstream reports that El Santo had a heart attack during the match, and using that heart attack to get heat on the rudos. The three young men who had nearly beaten the wrestling legend of Mexico to death were to be known as Los Misionarios de la Muerte, and El Signo went from solo star to the leader of the first and greatest trio act in the history of Mexican wrestling.

The Santo heart attack started out the Misionarios hot, and they kept it going as they were sensation works. El Signo doesn’t look physically impressive in photos, but he was said to be a great wrestler – maybe the best of the three. Los Misionarios, with Black Power II eventually replacing Texano, would win the UWA trios championship 7 times before the promotion folded. Signo, on his own, headlined Promociones shows with various top tecnicos in apuesta matches. His record wasn’t great in those once he became a trios wrestler, but he was good enough as a wrestler to get into those positions. Signo was also respected enough that CMLL frequently brought him in for co-promotional matches. (Promociones Mora/LLI/UWA shows were not taped by the promotion until the early 90s, so there’s very little footage of his time there available today.) Many of the long-time UWA wrestlers were cast adrift as that promotion fell apart in the early 90s. Signo was no different, with short and less memorable runs in CMLL and AAA. (Signo spent most of his career unmasked, but had a very short run as Piromaniaco in 1995 AAA, one of dozens of vet Antonio Pena put under a mask in hopes of finding some magic again.) His last major feud was with Villano III around 2001 in CMLL, which really was just a revival of a feud done many times before in UWA. Signo did not have that great second act in another promotion and did not re-invent himself in the way that partner Negro Navarro was able to; he just faded out in a way where fans and journalists remembered him when he passed away, but no promotion gave his passing the acknowledgment it deserved.

SuperLuchas has an El Signo obituary.

CMLL

CMLL (FRI) 06/07/2024 Arena México
1) Xelhua vs Disturbio [lightning]
2) Futuro & Max Star vs Espíritu Negro & Rey Cometa
3) Akuma, El Hijo del Villano III, Villano III Jr. vs Gemelo Diablo I, Gemelo Diablo II, Kráneo
4) Esfinge, Magia Blanca, Rugido vs Difunto, Star Black, Zandokan Jr. [Relevos Increíbles]
5) Máscara Dorada, Star Jr., Volador Jr. vs Ángel de Oro, Euforia, Templario
6) Místico vs Magnus

The biggest match of Magnus’ life. It also may be one that could signal what the Aniversario main event be, and also inform if it’s a good idea – from match quality, from crowd interest. No pressure. With a few days to think about it, I’m still skeptical CMLL would book Mangus/Mistico in a mask match as the main event of their biggest show of the year, Magnus is just a notch below of where CMLL pulls guys for that event. My opinion is worthless as soon as the whistle blows on this one. If Mistico without hassle, then we can be pretty sure this is just a fun thing to do in June. If Magnus wins, through any means, then it’s time to start penciling it in.

There’s nothing in miles of importance on the rest of the show, but where everything has a chance to be good. If Mistico versus Magnus draws, this could be a very hot show with the ation to match. I couldn’t even guess which one of those will be the best. Match 3 is the hardest bet, but the Gemelos have to know they’ve got to impress on a rare Friday night chance. The fourth match feels like a setup for something, but the odd number of rudos could just mean it was a programming quirk resulting from the earlier tecnico/tecnico tag match.

CMLL (SAT) 06/08/2024 Arena Coliseo
1) Kaligua & Pequeño Magía vs Full Metal & Pequeño Polvora
2) La Vaquerita & Maligna vs Amapola & Olympia
3) Fuego, Hombre Bala Jr., Legendario vs Dark Magic, Espanto Jr., Vegas
4) Fugaz vs Felino [lightning]
5) Blue Panther Jr., Dark Panther, El Hijo De Blue Panther vs Hijo del Villano III, Mephisto, Villano III Jr.
6) Blue Panther, Flip Gordon, Volador Jr. vs Dragón Rojo Jr., Hechicero, Terrible

Mephisto is not quite Kid Stuka or Zandokan but the semimain might be good. It’s a lot of left overs otherwise.

CMLL (SUN) 06/09/2024 Arena México
1) Acero & Aéreo vs Mercurio & Pequeño Violencia
2) Astral, Leono, Robin vs Emperador Jr., Platino Kid, Rayo Metálico
3) Dulce Gardenia, Fuego, Volcano vs El Coyote, Okumura, Pólvora
4) Kira, Sanely, Skadi vs Hera, Reyna Isis, Zeuxis
5) Valiente vs Zandokan Jr.
6) Atlantis, Máscara Dorada, Titán vs Bárbaro Cavernario, Dragón Rojo Jr., Terrible

Titan being back in Mexico is very strange; he’s booked back in Japan on June 15th. I thought that was the last booking on his current tour, but maybe it’s the first booking on the next one? Maybe he’s got other quick stops to make in the US anyway?

CMLL (MON) 06/10/2024 Arena México
1) Meyer & Rayo Metálico vs Dreyko & Rencor
2) Shockercito vs Mercurio [lightning]
3) Hombre Bala Jr., Robin, Valiente Jr. vs El Perverso, Multy, Prayer
4) Guerrero Maya Jr., Stigma, Xelhua vs Brillante Jr., Max Star, Neón
5) Averno © vs Esfinge [CMLL LH]
6) Místico vs Ángel de Oro

A rare double singles main event, along with a lightning match earlier. Averno is defending the title he won from Cavernario a few months ago. Esfinge is national light heavyweight champion, so he could unify the titles if he wins. (He is surely not winning.) Match four is already scheduled to be rematched next week; it’s odd how this card and the 17th have both that trios and a Mistico main event. The foreign wrestlers are a difference between the two cards.

CMLL (TUE) 06/11/2024 Arena Coliseo Guadalajara
1) Avispón Negro, Cosmos, Último Ángel vs Abigor La Pesadilla, Rav, Shezmú
2) Adira, Magia Azul, Náutica vs Diablita Roja (Puebla), Estrellita Mágica, Lady Metal
3) Exterminador & Maléfico vs El Perverso & Prayer
4) El Hijo del Villano III, Villano III Jr., Zandokan Jr. vs Bestia Negra, El Elemental, Furia Roja
5) Gran Guerrero & Último Guerrero vs Averno & Euforia
6) Místico & Titán vs Magnus & Volador Jr.

Mistico faces the guy who’s he wrestling tonight and the guy he’s wrestling next Tuesday. Hopefully Titan doesn’t betray him too. Match 4 seems to be missing Yutani (or maybe Guerrero de la Muerte is the one missing and Elemental is the sub.)

CMLL announced there will be a Mistico led pilgrimage and mass on Thursday June 20th, the day before his Aniversario show. This is the same bit AAA does every year leading into TripleMania Mexico City, though it’s Mistico honoring Mistico instead of AAA honoring Antonio Pena and Joaquin Roldan. Additionally, Mistico, Michael Oku and Amira Blair will do the LuchaTour meet and greet on Friday June 21st.

Mistico did a lot of press Wednesday and Thursday for his Anniversary shows. Mundo Deportivo’s angle is on Mistico’s appearance in La Quinta Estacion’s “Me Muero” music video. That group doesn’t really exist any more, lead singer Natalia Jimenez went onto a solo career, and then recently reunited with Mistico in videos for her social media. That meeting (1 million views on TikTok) regained some interest in the song, and Mistico’s said he’d like to make it work that he can use Me Muero as his entrance music once again for the show on the June 21st. It is not official, just something he hopes they can work out.

Mistico was asked about not actually being Mistico for twenty years – he was off in WWE for a while, Dralistico had the name for a while even when he returned – but to him, he was always Mistico. He’d wrestle as Sin Cara and get Mistico chants, he’d wrestler as Caristico and get Mistico chants, it was all one thing. Mistico also noted he gets requests to sign photos from adults of when they were kids and met Mistico, or to take photos with their kids now. He says, instead of making him feel old, it rejuvenates him. Mistico would like everyone to show up in his colors for tonight’s shows – white, silver or gold.

Also on Wednesday’s CMLL Informa, CMLL aired a Zack Sabre Jr. video to lead into additional match announcement for the weekend following FatnasticaMania. The idea seemed to be ZSJ just sent into this promo which caused the matches, though it was also clearly the same ZSJ promo they aired when they originally announced FantasticaMania. Maybe they meant to air an older promo from when ZSJ challenged Hechicero a match, because that’s what was announced next:

CMLL (SAT) 06/22/2024 Arena Coliseo
4) Ángel de Oro vs Rocky Romero [lightning]
5) Hechicero vs Zack Sabre Jr.
6) Místico & Taiji Ishimori vs Hiromu Takahashi & Volador Jr. [Relevos Increíbles]

Anyone who is paying for the CMLL subscription for FantasticaMania is also getting the Hechicero/ZSJ match expected for FantasticaMania. It may even be a better venue for it. So we won. But what happened here?

1. CMLL always planned to do Hechicero versus Zack Sabre Jr. the day after FantasticaMania, and decided to roll out the announcements in a way that made people very upset with CMLL, on purpose
2. CMLL saw to the bad reaction to not running it and decided to make it good the next day.

CMLL would like people to believe the answer is 1, incredibly. It may be! Whatever, everyone who wanted to see that match take place in Mexico won.

Dr. Landru semi-seriously made the best point about this whole situation: everyone who wrote on Facebook complaining to CMLL about not booking ZSJ/Hechicero, everyone who complaints about there’s not being enough ‘real’ wrestling in CMLL has to show up for this match. This is absolutely a “put their money where their mouth is” situation, as a US promoter might have said last year in a slightly more profane way. No asking for pirate links or finding something else to do that day; you’ve got to prove to CMLL you’ll really give them money if they do the match you say you want. CMLL does not believe people truly care about Hechicero in the way they claim, and the performance of his match at the box office (and at the YouTube virtual one) is either going to confirm their entrenched biases or force them to admit that – at least this one time – they might be underrating the appeal of this guy and his type of wrestling.

The safe bet, as always, is unfortunately to be on wrestling fans talking a big game on Facebook and not always backing it up – to not show up, to ask for pirate links rather than putting their own money down for something they say they want to see. I think this might be a big leverage point if people back it up.

(RevPro is teasing running this ZSJ/Hechicero match too. Maybe FantasticaMania USA still does it as well and they’ll go at it three times over a few months.)

CMLL also announced the top matches for the Sunday show.

CMLL (SUN) 06/23/2024 Arena México
4) Averno vs Rocky Romero
5) Hiromu Takahashi, Magia Blanca, Rugido vs Hijo del Villano III, Taiji Ishimori, Villano III Jr.
6) Máscara Dorada & Místico vs Magnus & Zack Sabre Jr.

A main event I couldn’t have conceived of this time last year. I think CMLL put Ishimoi and Takahashi on the wrong teams; Hiromu needs to be with the crazy Villanos (if only so they don’t kill each other.)

CMLL also announced the Felino 40th Anniversary show will no longer be one show, but “due to popular demand”, would be a three show event similar to the Mistico 20th Anniversary shows. Felino’s shows will take place on July 1st in Arena Puebla, July 2nd in Arena Coliseo Guadalajara and July 5th in Arena Mexico. I’m not really as sure what main events there will be since a lot of Felino’s rivals and friends aren’t around CMLL now. Certainly he’ll team with Felino Jr. and Rey Bucanero, the current unnamed trio. Negro Casas won’t be appearing, Heavy Metal won’t be appearing, I wouldn’t expect Pepe Casas either. (Maybe it’s a chance for Puma King to return, but he’s been out of wrestling for months and I have no idea what’s going on with him.) Maybe a Pesta Negra reunion with Barbaro Cavernario? I wonder if he’ll fight Brillante Jr. in one of them.

AAA

AAA held a press conference on Thursday to announce three items, also announced in a useful press release:

• Latin Lover is the Director of Talent
• They’re back on US TV with Unimas and TUDN.
  • Shows will air Saturdays on Unimas at 3 pm eastern, and repeat Mondays at 7 pm on TUDN, starting June 15th.
  • There’s no answers of the episode order or anything like that.
• They’re partnering with the KidZania entertainment complexes

The last one is quickest: KidZania has a bunch of kid themed indoor sort of education sort of entertainment centers where kids can learn about all sort of jobs. This’ll probably be some luchadors making appearances so kid’s can learn about those jobs.

Latin Lover as Director of Talent feels like old news – AAA’s been setting that up since TripleMania Monterrey – but this was the first time it was rolled out for the press and so it got played up big. Latin Lover said he, Dorian Roldan and Konnan (not present) would all be working together to put together stories all fans will like. AAA’s press release lists Latin Lover’s responsibilities as working with wrestlers inside and outside the ring to develop them. Latin officially starts on the job at TripleMania Tijuana.

The US TV seems like the biggest deal but got far less attention than Latin Lover. Mexican wrestling press barely cares about TV deals and has even less interest on international deals. The press conference itself was set up as if to give credit to Latin Lover for the deal happening, even though it was likely in the works for months and doesn’t have anything to do with his stated role. There was no mention of AAA moving to Televisa in Mexico; it appears CombateMX saw AAA was signing with Televisa and just missed the information on for which country the deal was being made. Again, Mexico wrestling sites do not care about international TV so it probably didn’t even occur to them AAA could be doing a US deal.

I didn’t have a chance to relisten to entire Q&A portion of the press conference, so there may be some more news scattered in there I haven’t grasped. Latin Lover was asked about the comments about making announcing changes that went viral. He said that decision was up to Dorian Roldan, and Roldan did not seem like he would be making changes. They both mentioned Andres Maronas was still in poor health; there’s been no update on his status after requests for blood donations about two weeks ago. It came off like they’ve reached out to Maronas to see how he’s doing.

Latin Lover and Dorian Roldan did interview scrums after the press conference. Latin was interesting, as always. The big mentioned was Latin Lover claimed he had received messages from CMLL wrestlers who felt undervalued and not heard in CMLL and were interested in jumping. He took those names to Roldan to discuss and Dorian will have the final word on if any of it happens. There are perennially people who are unhappy and talk about leaving every wrestling promotion, but the ones who actually do by their own choice are few – this may not come to anything.

Latin’s mantra is he wants AAA to be more of a show and more like a telenovela that you follow week to week. He wants the wrestlers to be characters and superstars that people notice at airports. Latin plans to sit down with each and every talent and want to give all them a chance. He wants to focus on Mexican talent, rather than foreigners. I’m not sure if he knows there are two Japanese wrestlers under AAA contract, but the general idea is he wants to concentrate on AAA wrestlers and not outsiders – he pushed back at the idea of working more with outside promotions (AEW/ROH/NJPW) when brought up in the Q&A, wanting AAA to make AAA stars. This is obviously a difference from the way AAA’s been run for years. Latin also wants to better intermix the “Origenes” talent and the newer wrestlers to hep give them exposure. He’s high on the young talent; Latin says he felt the best two matches on the May Juan de la Barrera taping were the first two (Karis La Momia vs Noisy Boy vs Bengala + Vengador vs Tigre Blanco vs Brazo de Oro Jr.), and that the main event was not good. Latin repeated a story he told at that taping, where he felt Konnan was too hard on the guys in the opener (for time cue reasons) but that Konnan’s Konnan, he’s a rudo, and Latin Lover is much more a tecnico. Latin says the only time he’s talked to Konnan is at the TV tapings he’s attended so far, but he’s also said not really started yet so they may not have had reason to interact.

Latin is asked about TripleMania Mexico and say he’s got two big surprises coming but overall pushes the idea of change. He doesn’t care if people credit him with change or Latin Lover with change, but that people will notice the changes. Latin’s asked specifically about Fresero Jr. coming in. Latin Lover had Fresero Jr. on his podcast a few weeks back, and the indie name wrestler has teased coming into AAA since that point. Latin Lover made it sound like a possibility, but not a definite one – he wants to concentrate on the people who work for AAA already. Latin’s podcast comes up and he mentioned Mistico and Ultimo Guerrero as among those people he’d like to have on; I don’t think they’ll be appearing on an AAA podcast.

Dorian Roldan‘s interview has less new information in it, but it’s tough to compete with Latin Lover right now. Roldan explains Latin as someone who has lots of knowledge in entertainment but also has a complete understanding of wrestling; sometimes people come into wrestling without understanding the industry but that’s not a problem with Latin Lover. Roldan says he and Latin Lover agreed that when they first started talking about him coming back that it’d be as an executive, not a wrestler. Roldan referenced criticism Latin had of working conditions from wrestlers in his day by saying he feels AAA has improved a lot in that area – Latin mirrored those sentiments in his interview – and Roldan feels his roll is to grow the revenue pie as big as possible so everyone is better off. He feels like the mix of Konnan and Latino’s skills and work will be great for the fans.

Roldan was asked about the Unimas TV deal and said that was the part he was most excited about at the press conference; it’d been a long time to get there. He also feels like it’s a great time to re-introduce US fans to the product, since the Origines tour has brought in a lot of wrestlers fans might know from the last time AAA aired in the United States. Roldan confirmed AAA’s still with Azteca in Mexico and looked for positive things to say about the relationship: he felt they were doing good at the original Friday afternoon spot, and then personal and other changes during the pandemic moved them to late Saturday night that hasn’t been as well received. Roldan feels fans still want to see lucha libre, they just have to be able to find it.

There’s an AAA TV show this week! No idea what they’re airing. Latin Lover’s repeated point is that fans should want to tune into these shows each week to see what happens and that’s sure not the case right now.

Destiny, in promoting TripleMania Tijuana, reveals he’s such a fan of lucha libre that he flew to Mexico City to see the Psycho Clown versus Dr. Wagner Jr. mask match at TripleMania. Now he’s going to be on one.

AEW 

This section is confusingly long.

The CMLL/AEW relationship has progress slightly:

• started as CMLL wrestlers will not appear on shows with people CMLL considers as AAA or otherwise undesirable.
• moved to CMLL wrestlers and AAA/other wrestlers can appear on the same show, but can’t both wrestle on the same show
• moved to CMLL wrestlers and Fenix can both wrestle on the same show, though not each other.

There is progress here, even it feels small. It’s enough to makes AEW’s life easier. The WON further clarifies that it’s not a CMLL change in policy towards AAA wrestlers, it’s more CMLL allowing non-AAA Mexican wrestlers to work on shows with their CMLL wrestlers, and being sufficiently convinced that Fenix is not an “AAA” wrestler at the moment. The same reasoning may apply to Penta, Rush and other Mexican wrestlers, but the WON was not certain enough in each case to state it definitively. If I had to guess, Penta is likely a “OK” and Rush is “who even knows”, but I think it’s only AEW and CMLL who know for sure. Komander is 100% on the other side – he’s an AAA wrestler and he’s AAA’s Cruiserweight champion, so he’s as AAA as it gets to CMLL and will not be wrestling on shows with their wrestlers. (I suppose it’s possible Komander would be allowed to still do non-wrestling segments on AEW TV but that takes us to fictional lands of unicorns and rainbows and we need not concern ourselves with them.)

Like everything else in this policy, there are no hard rules to any of it, it’s just what CMLL and AEW can work out, and it’s always subject to change. AEW proving themselves to be a valuable partner to CMLL has surely helped AEW convince them to give them extra leeway.

(More about Penta many paragraphs down. More about Komander father down too.)

As it goes with wrestling news, this was quickly overstated. Here are things that haven’t happened and might never happen.

• AAA and CMLL are not working together.
  • Tony Khan and Rocky Romero have not gotten AAA and CMLL to work together.
• CMLL wrestlers are not working with AAA wrestlers in AEW
• CMLL wrestlers are not wrestling on the same show as AAA wrestlers in AEW
• Non-AAA Mexican wrestlers are not wrestling CMLL wrestlers, yet
• Non-AAA Mexican wrestlers are not wrestling NJPW wrestlers, yet

AAA is not really involved; they might have not even know something happened unless they watched Dynamite. CMLL did not change their policy towards AAA. It’s just that fuzzy group that CMLL considers AAA no longer includes Fenix, and likely doesn’t include Penta either.

Notable lucha libre things that actually did happen on this AEW Dynamite

• Stephanie Vaquer versus Mercedes Mone is official for Forbidden Door, and will be a title (TBS) for title (NJPW Strong) championship match; the winner will have both belts.
• Rey Fenix won a four way match, will face Will Ospreay for the AEW International Championship this coming Wednesday
• Team CMLL (Volador, Magnus, Rugido and Esfinge) lost to the BCC, when Rugido taking the pin. There were hints of further Wheeler Yuta/Volador Jr. in social media interaction.

Vaquer/Mone being for both titles is a little bit of a surprise, and probably means Mone is going to be a double champion. Stephanie Vaquer raised the value of that championship but NJPW’s talking about cutting down the number of their belt. That’s an easy one to drop. The bigger question is if there’s a follow up to come in Arena Mexico for the CMLL title. AEW announcing that title match now kills any suspense in the FantasticaMania Mexico NJPW Strong defense against La Catalina Vaquer but a) Catalina never beats Vaquer and no one though she was going to do it this time and b) an AEW title match spoiling another title match happens to NJPW all the time with AEW and they’re all fine with it, right? Right? Ok, sorry I asked.

The Team CMLL/BCC match was good if it didn’t totally click. There still seems to be some issues with getting all the people who should be in AEW there, or AEW has some very eclectic tastes to end up with Esfinge and Los Depredadores. The bulk match took place at the start of the second hour and the quarter hour ratings were significantly up from previous weeks. That could be for lots of reasons having nothing to do with Team CMLL – BCC are among the most popular acts, there was less sports competition this week, there was only one ad break – but going up significantly is still useful to quiet the doubters ever so slightly.

Tony Khan announced Thursday night that Mercedes Mone would defeat TBS championship against Zeuxis on Wednesday’s episode of Dynamite. I’d love to go see that and Will Ospreay versus Rey Fenix, but Des Monies is about a four hour trip on a Wednesday – I think I’d have to take two days off to make that work.  Truth to be told, I’ve been thinking about a month about heading out to the Collision taping in Council Bluff on Saturday. That’s an even longer drive, six hours each way, but it’s a weekend and I don’t have many pressing obligations on this one, I could make it happen if there was a good reason to do it. I watched Dynamite hoping AEW gave me that reason; what they gave me was no matches announced. No wrestlers either. AEW’s made a shift to announcing their matches on social media in the days before the show, if at all. I’m sure they have their reasons, and maybe it works for them, but that shift in match announcement philosophy meant I’ll be around home this weekend.

Now, for reasons I don’t totally grasp, it would actually possible for me to try to ask people in AEW who’s booked on their show on Saturday and have a chance of getting an answer. That was my choice not to do it, not to ask for that special privilege. I’m not big on special privilege. I did tell someone (not in AEW) about this situation and their understanding is there’s no CMLL people booked.  The CMLL show in Saltillo on Saturday scoops up some people AEW would be interested in. (They’re surely putting Vaquer in a match on TV at some point.) I’ll be fine writing a TripleMania preview instead.

CMLL additionally appears to be teasing Titan for an upcoming AEW appearance. Of everyone in CMLL, he always felt the most likely to appear on a Forbidden Door because of the LIJ tie-in.

Wrestlenomics, a website that has earned my respect, reported Wednesday on AEW’s deal to run a series of shows at a Texas venue over the next few months. The story is worth reading; AEW got themselves a sweet deal was my takeaway. There is a mention of an email exchange between a venue official and a AEW one about offering use of venue to NJPW and CMLL as well. It doesn’t appear AEW had extended that offer – the AEW official mentions wanting to make sure AEW dates were all set before talking to anyone else – so it’s likely CMLL hasn’t been contacted and doesn’t even known any of this.

I only take note of this because I think if AEW proposed CMLL run their own show in Texas, CMLL officials heads may explode. Mine definitely would if it happened. AEW themselves promoting a FantasticaMania special in Texas would be fine. Subletting the building to a Martinez Entertainment and letting them bring in some CMLL wrestlers, that’s cool too (though they’d never need a building with TV production.) CMLL spending entirely their own money to run anyone else’s building would be completely outside of their business model that it would completely change the way I think about the promotion. CMLL has the least “manifest destiny” of any promotion in the world; they’re fine where they’re at, they’re focused on making that place better. They’ve got no reason to take the risk to run some place they don’t own with a guarantee, and no burning desire to conquer the world. They’re CMLL, the world comes their front door. The venue operator surely doesn’t know that and the AEW official probably doesn’t it either.

Lucha Libre Online reported Pentagon Jr.’s contract expires between August and September, and said there would be some WWE interest. WWE seems to want their wrestlers to relocate to the United States, Pentagon has shown no interest in leaving Mexico, so I’m guessing it would take WWE paying a significant increase over what AEW would offer to get him to move. (I don’t think Penta in WWE would go well at all creatively, but there’s plenty of people who’ve built some really nice houses and pools for themselves through taking big money deals that weren’t ever going to work out creatively.) Overpay is something a previous version of WWE may have done, just to mess with the competition. This version of WWE seems less aggressive, less willing to go over the top to retain even their talent. I’m doubtful TKO is going to offer enough to make Penta switch his mind. I think it’s probably the opposite – WWE surely has interest, but if Penta’s people already knew WWE had the number he wanted, they wouldn’t need to float a story about his free agency. It’d be a done deal.

The Lucha Libre Online report doesn’t mention Fenix. The Lucha Brothers would’ve signed the same time. It’s possible AEW has used a clause in Fenix’s contract to extend his contract for the time missed due to injury. It’s also possible contract expiration information is being spread out for maximum impact and there will be a report about Fenix’s contractual status in the next few days.

The Lucha Libre Online report also doesn’t mention returning to AAA as a possibility. That looks like an early sign the Unimas deal is not a game changer, because “bringing home” someone like Penta would be a top priority if AAA was suddenly flush with new revenue. AAA may still be doing well with this new Unimas deal, but it’s just another step to the long term goal.

I have a theory about these contract expiration information leaks. I know there was a theory that WWE was doing it, so they could later sign those WWE free agents and claim this as a hard fought wins. (For their part, Fightful says that’s not the case with their reports, they’re not getting them from the WWE side.) In sports, when there are big loud stories about pending free agents and where they might have interest in going, those tend to be from the player’s side – often their agent. And it’s not being done for the people who would normally sign them, the people at the GM level who make most of these deals. They’re the talent relations people in wrestling, and they almost always are going to know who’s a free agent when no matter which side they’re on. That’s part of the gig. Leaks like this, if they’re leaks, are usually intended to either poll fan sentiment about a player/wrestler, or to go over the head of talent relations. AEW’s hired some new people, changed around the front office a bit, but it seems to be generally the same process there. The power structure in the other company sure has changed a lot in the last year, and that may be what is at play here – agents and other representatives hearing one thing from talent relations, and poking and prodding around to see if there’s someone at a higher level with different interests who might overrule them. This 100% happens in sports, where an canny agent will look to find ways to go around a GM and straight to an owner, who might more moved by feelings to go to pay a bit more for their player. (See: the past Washington DC Football team. And definitely the baseball team. And maybe the basketball team too.) I don’t know that’ll work for this WWE/TKO structure, but I think that’s the whole bit – no one’s completely confident where might get involved, so they’re throwing lines out there to see if someone bites. In this case, maybe there’s a talent relation team coming up with a dollar figure keeping in mind their current talent and goals of places to run, and the hope there’s some TKO executive who’s kid just loves the 0M handsignal enough to overrule his team and go higher. Maybe TKO has a tight structure and there is just 2-3 people who are making these decisions, and all of this posturing means nothing. (It hasn’t seemed to mean much for high profile WWE people who’s contracts have come up.) No one’s going to be sure how that new WWE/TKO machine is actually going to work until they try pressing all the buttons, so this is a period of people pressing the buttons just to see.

Getting back to Penta, Mas Lucha posted a great sit down interview with him from the Martinez Entertainment show in April. There’s a lot in there and it’s a good listen – Penta saying Cody Rhodes was his idol in and out of the ring was unexpected – but this post is going to be a million words long as it is. The Mas Lucha tease on the interview is Pentagon talking about AAA status. Penta says he likes the Origines tour, it’s great to see old friends people who were stars when he was just breaking into the promotion returning. Penta, however, is taking a break from AAA. He’s got no problem with Konnan, no problem with Dorian Roldan, no problem with anyone AAA, he just has a surprise he’s working on. This leads into extended period of talking around what the actually situation is. Penta says it’s something international, he wants to get the pieces in place, he doesn’t want to do anything bad, and he’s hoping to achieve one of his goals. “There are certain things I have not been able to achieve in this sport and, in order to achieve them, I have to sacrifice certain things.” This leads into talk about CMLL wrestlers in AEW and again talking around the issues that block guys like Penta from wrestling them. Penta says he has no problem fighting whoever his boss wants him to fight, he has a contract with AEW and only AEW, and he’s ready to take advantage of any opportunity given.

Again, that interview was taped in April, so the things that are happening now – the Lucha Brothers being allowed to work this Forbidden Door cycle – might be what Penta was hinting at two months ago. Penta does mention internationally, mentions things he never has be able to achieve, and so I don’t think that’s working a bunch of Dynamites. Even wrestling CMLL people wouldn’t make sense – he’s done that before, and it’s not really international. The story about WWE having interest might mean it’s that, but there’s no reason he’d have to distance himself from AAA to go to WWE – Dragon Lee was working there up until the minute he signed. The only places where avoiding AAA helps are CMLL and NJPW. There was a tease of the Lucha Brothers in NJPW earlier this year – El Phantasmo dropped their names in daring a whole bunch of teams to come challenge for the IWGP Tag Team Championship – and a NJPW trip would fit as one thing internationally Penta hasn’t done. The Lucha Brothers have worked for smaller Japanese promotions but not for the big ones. You can even go back to that NJPW press conference talking about the 10 things they wanted to improve, where one of them was to demonstrate to their fans that NJPW and AEW were equal partners and were going to do so soon. Bringing in more AEW names, like Fenix and Penta, might help with that.

The WON mentions that Komander and The Beast Mortos (Black Taurus) have been sidelined due to work US visa. Komander last appeared on the April 24th episode of Dynamite, Mortos a few days later on the April 27th Collision. (I felt, at the time, that Mortos definitely should’ve defeated Rey Fenix in that match but – knowing now that he’d be gone for a month anyway – that would’ve been a waste.) Komander and Mortos are said to be approved for visas and simply are waiting for the paperwork to show up before returning to AEW. That sometimes takes a little time in Mexico. Komander will likely be sidelined anyway this month due to Forbidden Door so it may be moot there. Mortos is 100000000000% not with AAA any more so maybe he has a shot.

(1) – Can you imagine a universe where CMLL would sit down for a press conference to talk about 10 things they wish to improve on? AAA? IWRG? RIOT? Maybe RIOT. These promotion admitting something they did wasn’t perfect would be harder then them working together. There’s nothing they can possibly improve on.

Impact

Sure why not

Laredo Kid lost the TNA Digital Championship on Thursday’s edition of 20th Anniversary episode of Impact to “Top Dolla” AJ Francis. Francis and Rich Swann are a group, Laredo sort of lost because he was too busy going after Swann. Maybe there will be follow up to that, maybe not. Laredo got no real run with the belt; the one defense he had was because travel issues changing around a PPV card, and TNA got it off of Laredo as soon as they could – they may have only waited this long to have a title change for that 20th Anniversary episode.

I don’t really care about the third most important TNA men’s singles championship. It’s alright if Laredo is losing if he’s getting a more creative attention in a feud with AJ Francis and Rich Swann. I also have no reason to think it’s happening. My hunch is Laredo Kid was just a transitional champion: New TNA management wanted to get the belt off former champion Crazzy Steve because they weren’t as high on him as the old management, Laredo’s been around for years and has been a good solider so they rewarded him with a token reign while figuring out what to actually do with the belt. Laredo Kid was supposed to face Swann in his first match after winning the belt (on a PPV pre-show, because it’s always a pre-show with Laredo Kid and TNA), so TNA probably immediately knew they were getting the belt to Francis and were working a story to get it there. It’s not really a change for Laredo; it didn’t appear the old TNA management believed him and the new one doesn’t seem much different on that. Laredo Kid does get to add “former TNA champion” to his list of accomplishments, but he’s stuck in a promotion that doesn’t seem to have much interest in doing anything with him.

GALLI is helping to promote next week’s TNA Impact tapings in Cicero. There will be a match two GALLI wrestlers (Quintero and someone TBA) versus two TNA wrestlers. The GALLI ad lists Laredo Kid as wrestling on Saturday. In also has Tasha Steelz pictured. They’re both supposed to be wrestling on TripleMania Tijuana that same day. I assume they’re all ending up in Tijuana and not Cicero, though I now notice Laredo Kid isn’t actually pictured on the TripleMania Tijuana poster. Probably nothing but bad organizing.

Vaquer/Cuatrero

Antonio Nieto (Siete Letras) posted an update on the case, which is actually more a status quo check in. Cuatrero had a hearing on Wednesday to see if he’d be released from jail awaiting trial, the judge said no, Cuatrero still poses a threat to the victim (Stephanie Vauqer) even if he has not been found guilty. The same ruling happened in a previous hearing, which also cited social media threats by fans of Cuatrero toward Vaquer as a reason to keep Cuatrero behind bars. Nieto mention those treats are being investigate.

Cuatrero has been in jail for well over a year at this point; there’s no mention of when his case might go to trial. Mexico does not have a digital public docket in the way the US does; there’s no public way to know what’s going on in a case outside of what leaks reporters get and choose to pass on.

IWRG

IWRG (THU) 06/06/2024 Arena Naucalpan [IWRG]
1) Fauno & Histeriosis b Águila Oriental & Ajolotl
2) Rey Halcón & Sol b Águila Roja & Halcón Suriano Jr.
Sol foul on Aguila Roja for the win, challenges followed
3) Sexy Star b Keyra
sets up an IWRG Women’s championship match on Sunday
4) Spider Fly b Noisy Boy © [IWRG REY DEL AIRE]
title change
5) Látigo & Toxin b Cerebro Negro & Cerebro Negro Jr. [TLC]

Both the women’s match and the title change were said to be worth watching. I guess I have more time to maybe do so?

Other News

Family of murdered Puebla luchador Rey Komodo are upset there’s been no movement in the case in the last two weeks. They all seem pretty sure they know who did it, but are afraid of retribution for saying it and want the police to act instead.

MexaWrestling, which was a hot Mexico City area indie for a while, returns on Saturday in Arena San Juan. They’re running the same Pigs vs Pandemia trios match seemingly run at Arena Neza every third week, but there is some more creative ideas on the undercard.

06/15 RIOT

• Hijo de Canis Lupus vs Demonio del Aire
• Zuzu Divine vs Dulce Tormenta
• Erik Ortiz (c) vs Travis Banks vs Rene Rocks for the RIOT Championship
• Arez, Toxin, Latigo vs Prometo, Kratoz, Vengador – new

Lady Apache is headed to Barcelona.

A story about a lucha libre school for kids in Queretaro.

CMLL

CMLL (MON) 06/03/2024 Arena Puebla [Grada, Mano a Mano, Porra Fresa]
1) Espíritu Maligno & Sombra Diabólika b Amnesia & Blue Shark
2) Astro & Mercurio b Galaxy & Shockercito
Astro replaced Pierrothito
3) Lluvia & Sanely b Persephone & Zeuxis 
4) Crixus, Difunto, Raider © b Arkalis, Pegasso, Rey Samuray [OCCIDENTE TRIOS] 
first defense
5) Esfinge, Fugaz, Star Black b Averno, Euforia, Mephisto
Esfinge beat Averno and asked for a title match.
6) Ángel de Oro, Hechicero, Soberano Jr. b Gran Guerrero, Místico, Último Guerrero [Relevos Increíbles] 
Angel de Oro again pulled Mistico’s mask to pin him.

CMLL no longer airs these shows on YouTube (though they intentionally made it unclear; the local Puebla paper thinks they’re still on). They’re scheduled for Televisa Puebla on Sunday at 8 p.m. Televisa Puebla has a YouTube stream, but it typically only shows news programming. It’s also a live-only stream, with no VOD (though it’s easy enough to start recording).

Attendance seemed up. Maybe Fuerza Poblana in a title match was a draw? Maybe the answer is Mistico like always? Not sure if Esfinge/Averno or Mistico/Angel de Oro is next week, but it’s odd they’re setting up a singles match when Mistico’s got another singles match in two weeks.

CMLL (TUE) 06/04/2024 Arena México [CMLL, Kaiser Sports, Mas Lucha]
1) Angelito & Último Dragóncito b Minos & Pequeño Olímpico
Minos was stretchered out after the match
2) Dr. Karonte I, Dr. Karonte II, Grako b Capitán Suicida, Diamond, Valiente Jr.
3) Guerrero Maya Jr., Pegasso, Stigma b Cancerbero, Luciferno, Virus
4) La Catalina b Reyna Isis [lightning]
5) Felino Jr., Hechicero, Rey Bucanero b Atlantis, Blue Panther, Brillante Jr.
straight falls, Hechicero using the ropes to beat Blue Panther. Panther challenged Hechicero to a singles match next week – but one where neither man would be allowed to use the ropes.
6) Gran Guerrero, Stuka Jr., Último Guerrero b Atlantis Jr., Máscara Dorada, Neón
Atlantis Jr. suffered an injury on a spot went wrong, and Guerreros took advantage of the numbers to win.

Atlantis Jr.’s injury did not seem serious. Blue Panther/Hechicero in a no-touch-the-ropes match is a novel experiment (and more effort put into ideas for Tuesdays shows than CMLL had all of in 2019.) Minis opener sounds good.

CMLL (TUE) 06/04/2024 Arena Coliseo Guadalajara [CMLL, Mas Lucha]
1) Infierno, Mr. Trueno, Rey Trueno b El Malayo, Rey Apocalipsis, Siky Ozama
2) Gallo Jr. & Rafaga Jr. b Calavera Jr. I & Calavera Jr. II
3) Dark Magic, El Elemental, Yutani b Arlequín, Bestia Negra, Gallero
4) Kira DQ Persephone
Persephone unmasked Kira for the DQ.
5) Bárbaro Cavernario, Furia Roja, Zandokan Jr. b Flip Gordon, Halcón Negro Jr., Valiente Jr.
5) Bárbaro Cavernario, Furia Roja, Zandokan Jr. b Flip Gordon, Halcón Negro Jr., Star Black
Star Black replaced Valiente Jr.
6) Esfinge, Místico, Volador Jr. b Averno, Euforia, Soberano Jr.
Volador betrayed Mistico, unmasking him and saying he’d get the better of Mistico (they meet in a singles match here in two weeks)

Sounded like Volador did well to build up the title match.

AEW tonight has the full Blackpool Combat Club (Bryan Danielson, Claudio Castagnoli, Jon Moxley and Wheeler Yuta) versus Volador Jr., Rugido, Magnus, and Esfinge. That’s the most “Magia Blanca doesn’t have a US work visa” lineup possible. Wheeler Yuta hasn’t wrestled in months, including missing H2L, reportedly due to a concussion issue. It’s nice to see him healthy enough to get back in the ring. No idea if this is a match with a direction or just a reprise of the feud from the spring.

Informa has

• not announced anything yet

CMLL (FRI) 06/07/2024 Arena México
1) Xelhua vs Disturbio [lightning]
2) Futuro & Max Star vs Espíritu Negro & Rey Cometa
3) Akuma, El Hijo del Villano III, Villano III Jr. vs Gemelo Diablo I, Gemelo Diablo II, Kráneo
4) Esfinge, Magia Blanca, Rugido vs Difunto, Star Black, Zandokan Jr. [Relevos Increíbles]
5) Máscara Dorada, Star Jr., Volador Jr. vs Ángel de Oro, Euforia, Templario
6) Místico vs Magnus

A bit weird card. The Gemelo Diablos (big versions) haven’t been on a Friday show since March 2023. Magnus’ last Arena Mexico singles match was against Blue Panther Jr. (His last Arena Mexico singles loss was against Misterioso Jr.) Villanos are teaming with Akuma even though Zandokan’s booked. An Xelhua singles match!

Mistico’s current singles schedule is

• 06/07: vs Magnus
• 06/10: vs Angel de Oro, maybe?
• 06/17: vs Averno
• 06/18: vs Volador Jr.
• 06/22: vs Hiromu Takahashi

Mistico did press in Guadalajara (video) and Puebla to promote his 20th Anniversary shows. El Sol del Puebla also did an email contest where 15 people who sent in letters would win a chance to meet Mistico, and are publishing some of the letters.

Guadalajara’s Fantastico is wrestling in San Diego on Sunday. That’s a random appearance.

Amapola will wrestle in Big Japan Pro Wrestling on June 23rd. This is the normal miscellaneous booking that CMLL luchadoras pick up on trips of Japan. It’s notable here because BJPW mentions this is actually Amapola’s return to the promotion after more than 20 years. I couldn’t find a record of her previous appearance looking around this morning, but I would guess it was when she was wrestling as Lady Pentagon and spent time in Arison.

Box y Lucha #3606 has Star Jr. on the cover.

AAA returning to Televisa

AAA appears to be getting back onto the Televisa networks, including onto US’s Unimas network. An AAA episode is listed airing the afternoon of June 15th. I believe it’s 3pm eastern, and it’s a one hour episode. CombateMX first reported AAA was returning to the Televisa networks, mentioning the same June 15th date and saying it would include “the original announcers.” ComabteMX says AAA will also appear on Televisa’s VIX streaming platform. Neither AAA nor Televisa has announced anything official yet; I’m under the impression there will be an announcement on Thursday.

Unimas is around a top 20 network 18-49 viewers, and a near top 30 overall viewership. That means AAA should have high visibility, but some network expectation for results. If Unimas rings a bell for wrestling fans, it’s probably because it was the network that carried the Spanish-language version of Lucha Underground Season 1. It did not Season 2-4; my impression was it didn’t hit those numbers.

Unimas is an over the air network – it’s not Telemundo, it’s not Univision, it’s the third one. It is also not cable network Galavision, which used to be the home of US lucha libre broadcasts.

ComabtesMX mentioned AAA bringing back “the original announcers.” Two of the original announcers were Dr. Alfonso Morales and Arturo Rivera, who are currently dead. I think what it means is Televisa will be using the AAA announce crew, rather than using a separate Televisa-specific announce crew as they’ve do with CMLL.

AAA has been doing some co-promotional with gimmicky soccer league The Kings League, including

a history of AAA TV for context (you may want to skip it if you just want to find out who beat who)

AAA started as promotion at least partially owned by Televisa, though they divested their ownership a few years into the promotion. The previous AAA TV relationship was complicated by Televisa’s relationship with US media company Univision. Televisa and Univision had a content sharing agreement; as I understand it, Univision got a big bucket of Televisa programming to air on their networks as they wanted, whenever they wanted, and if they wanted. This worked fine for AAA (and CMLL) for many years, but became a problem in the 2000s when Univision became less interested in putting lucha libre on Univision’s Galavision network. The shows got pushed to worse timeslots, weird schedules and finally dropped completely in 2011. Univision deal with Televisa meant they still had the rights to the US TV show, even if it they weren’t airing it, and AAA could not shop it around to other networks. CMLL got around this by slicing their other weekly events into more and more TV shows. AAA could not get Univison to air their show in the US or give the rights back. Their choice was to either leave Televisa to get their US rights, or try to find their own workaround. They stayed with Televisa through 2018, and ideas like Lucha Underground and even Lucha Libre USA have a bit of their origin in AAA trying to find solutions to being locked out of the US. Even when Galavision was airing AAA, the promotion tried to get around the exclusivity by selling a TV show named after heel invasion group “LLL” and selling it to a US network. None of these ideas worked out for the long term.

AAA moved their Mexican AAA TV from Televisa to Azteca in 2019. Azteca told the press it was a two year deal with an option for an additional two years. The US rights limitation was a factor, but the Mexican station had also followed the US partner in treating its lucha libre content terribly in the last few years; it moved around a lot, it was loaded with commercial breaks, and it was sometimes strangely re-edited. Azteca promised a bright new start and willingness to treat AAA prominently. Azteca appeared to have success at times with the Lucha Libre Elite promotion, and was likely just looking for a more stable partner than that group. Azteca promised live TripleMania live specials; the Psycho Clown/Dr. Wagner Jr. mask match aired the night of a Canelo Alvarez fight. Most importantly, AAA said they would be getting a rights fee from Azteca, where Televisa had been paying nothing.

Azteca did not take AAA’s US rights. AAA instead tried to market them on their own. They had limited success. Televisa’s TUDN network aired a series of taped TripleMania specials. EstrellaTV aired the three TripleManias on delay in 2023; it was so forgettable that everyone forgot they were doing it by episode two. AAA’s big hope has been to get a significant US rights deal – any US deal would be many times larger than Mexico media companies offer for content – and use that money to expand their business and compete for the wrestlers who’ve left the promotion in the last few years. It’s likely AAA could’ve taken a smaller deal just to get back on US TV sometime between 2019 and 2024, but didn’t want to set their market value low or get stuck in a contract when the right one finally came along.

Azteca7 originally aired AAA on Friday afternoons, originally talking up their high viewership among kids. They moved it to late night Saturday in October 2020. This seemed intended as a way to help ratings – pair the lucha libre show with boxing figuring a similar audience. The problems is the boxing show started late, and ended indiscriminately; it was going to go as long as the boxing matches happened to go that night, which meant the AAA show could start as late as 1 AM. No more kid’s audience, and it didn’t seem like there was much of an audience. Azteca would also re-edit the original AAA footage, airing matches in different orders or skipping them entirely. They used their own announce crew for the first couple of years, who were not as in tune with AAA. It was an worse version of the AAA show, and easy to miss once it became a late night show. Azteca moved the show again, to digital subchannel A Mas, in September 2023. It had a better time – Sundays at 4pm – but at much smaller outlet. The TripleMania specials were also mostly dumped; a delayed version aired of TripleMania Mexico shows the last two years.

(What TV Azteca has been was interesting from a business sense but irrelevant as a attentive fan with internet access. This was the period where AAA was airing every taping live on Twitch, so there was no compelling need to jump around geoblocks or sketchy internet video feeds to see the same matches airing a few weeks later. AAA would sometimes air backstage segments on the TV show that weren’t included on live broadcast, but those would also show up on social media later. It was only the start of the pandemic – ending AAA’s Twitch deal and starting empty arena tapings – where keeping track of the TV mattered. Even though, AAA airs their programming first on cable network Space, and would post the episodes on YouTube within a day of it airing on Azteca. It’s probably more people saw AAA on Azteca during those years, but it’s not something I watched weekly or wrote much about because AAA’s setup made it irrelevant.)

There were rumors earlier this year of AAA working out a deal with Televisa, but no news source reported it until Monday night. There’s still a lot of questions to answer, like

• Is this a long term agreement to air in the US? How long?
• Is Televisa now paying AAA? Are they paying AAA a business changing amount of money?
• Will Televisa (or Unimas?) promote AAA past the first few episodes?
  • Adrian Mendoza, who does work for AAA and also fills in on the CMLL Televisa, had a running Twitter joke for years about how the Televisa social media accounts would absolutely refuse to mention the existence of CMLL on their network. Televisa wasn’t much better with the AAA show last time it was around?
• Does this affect CMLL’s status with Televisa? Will the network air both shows?
  • Televisa brought CMLL back to their network in response to AAA jumping to Azteca in 2019. Will they want to have around four hours of lucha libre every weekend?
• Will AEW wrestlers be able to appear on a show that now has US TV?
  • My understand is AEW contracts restrict their wrestlers from appearing on any other US TV show, though it’s up to AEW to decide if they want to enforce that on AAA.
• Will Space still air the new episodes first? Will Unimas/Televisa be one week behind?
• Will there be any specials for TripleMania or other events?
• Does “original announcers” mean Jesus Zuniga is back to announcing? Was Hugo Savinovich missing the May Mexico City taping just a one off or a permanent change?

(Amusing sub plot: because distinguishing the on-screen roles and the behind-the-scenes one are intentionally hard to do, the AAA fan base is crediting new director of talent Latin Lover for making this happen. I’m skeptical that’s the case.)

Back to Other AAA News

I did catch up on the AAA TV show from Saturday. (I think I’ve got all the files labeled wrong in the drive; they didn’t air in the order I was expecting.)

• Tiffany made an effort in her return but didn’t magically get any better moving from CMLL to AAA. Centella and Adelicious didn’t make a strong impression but there’s no real shot for them to do with the rudas they had to work with.
• The five way cruiserweight match was a lot of one guy doing all their moves for a long time, and then another guy, and then another guy.  It didn’t have great flow or rhythm. Australian Suicide had what I would describe as Bad Vibes when he came out for the match and I couldn’t figure out why someone who looked like they didn’t want to be there ended up jumping off a balcony. It appeared he just needed another move for his run of offense, so why not jump off the balcony. Dinamico continues to get fatured the most of the other rudos, though AAA isn’t committing to actually doing something with him. I didn’t care much for the match, but they did well enough that they got a Taurus chant. (This match also had Zuniga exclaim Taurus was eliminated when Belcegor got pinned.)
• Scoria spent the entire trios title match not getting along with Ozz and Cuervo, though he waited eight minutes to actually betray them. Maybe he thought the fans were owed a eight minute match.
• Electroshock broke out his old shock gun to use on his brother for the win. Sometimes it feels he and Zorro are getting booked primarily so Zorro can do the prophetic vignettes.

Laredo Kid defends the TNA Digital Media championship against AJ Francis on Thursday’s edition of Impact.

IWRG

IWRG (THU) 06/06/2024 Arena Naucalpan
1) Ajolotl & Golden Power vs Fauno & Histeriosis
2) Águila Roja & Halcón Suriano Jr. vs Rey Halcón & Sol
3) Keyra vs Sexy Star
4) Noisy Boy vs Spider Fly [IWRG REY DEL AIRE]
5) Cerebro Negro & Cerebro Negro Jr. vs Látigo & Toxin [TLC]

Maybe a good show? A random TLC match makes it feel like the Mala Fama guys are getting a lot of their ideas in. Halcon Suriano showing up in a second match in IWRG isn’t great for him.

Other News

Monclova lucahdor Demonio Negro (Abdel Eduardo Garcia Medellin, 35) was shot and killed at his home Wednesday night. A co-worker arrived at his home drunk and with a revolver, and ended up shooting Garcia Medellin in the heart. The alleged shooter was captured and is being held in jail.

Luis Mante lost the Dragon Gate Open the Dream Gate to Ben-K on Tuesday. The former Diamante had made three successful defenses of Dragon Gate’s most important championship before losing it. My impression is Mante did OK as champion, not an issue but definitely didn’t have a strong enough personality or performances to become the center of the promotion. On Wednesday, Flamita lost in his challenge for Open the Brave Gate Championship against Hyo. That was the expected outcome. The promising news is the reviews for Flamita’s work since returning to Dragon Gate are strongly positive.

I’ve been wondering if Black Generation was still a thing in Big Lucha. A notice for a training session at Bandido’s Gym today mentions Emperador Azteca & Oni el Bendito representing Black Generation, so that seems like a Yes.

06/15 RIOT

• Hijo de Canis Lupus vs Demonio del Aire
• Zuzu Divine vs Dulce Tormenta
• Erik Ortiz (c) vs Travis Banks vs Rene Rocks – new match

There’s a story that Fray Tormenta, needing money to pay for medical bills, has opened a car wash. I do not believe a wheelchair bound 79 year old priest has opened a car wash; he’s probably lended his image to a project.

Tu Plan De Juego writes about the Noche de Rivalidades show in Orizaba.

A cultural show in Chile including Bolivia’s Cholita luchadoras was said to draw 3,000 people.

A catch up with the stars of Argentina’s 100% Lucha. We have Heddi Karaoui to thank/blame for Hip Hop Man moving to Mexico.

CMLL

CMLL (FRI) 05/31/2024 Arena México [CMLL, Esquina Caliente, Estadio Deportes, Kaiser Sports, Telediario, The Gladiatores, The Gladiatores (videos), thecubsfan]
1) Capitán Suicida & Valiente Jr. b Alom & Infarto   
6:55
2) Micro Gemelo Diablo I © b Chamuel [CMLL MICRO]   
10:24. 1st defense
3) Reina Isis, Stephanie Vaquer, Zeuxis b Persephone, Tessa Blanchard, Valkiria  
12:50
4) Euforia, Soberano Jr., Templario b Akuma, Villano III Jr., Zandokan Jr.   
17:38
5) Star Jr. b Ángel de Oro [Copa Junior VIP, final]   
14:28. Star Jr. was given the trophy, which shot fireworks.
6) Magia Blanca, Magnus, Volador Jr. b Máscara Dorada, Místico, Neón    
10:31. Straight falls. Mistico got Volador with La Mistica, but Magia Blanca distracted referee Edgar, Magnus ripped off Mistico’s mask and Mistico pinned him in the third. Mistico challenged Magnus to a mask vs mask match for Aniversario.

That main event finish got a lot of talk about September plans. I’m unconvinced Magnus/Mistico is locked in as the Aniversario main event at this point; it’s a little too early and it’s Mistico, who wants every feud to be the Aniversario main event. This has been a year of Magnus, but putting him in an Aniversario main event without him winning some tournament first doesn’t fit their booking patterns. (The Leyenda de Plata in July would be his best last chance.)

Angel de Oro/Star Jr. was good at the end, but not something that will end up among the best twenty singles matches CMLL will have this year. Star Jr. borrowing from others for his moves makes him less interesting and less definable. It’s hard to come up with the one thing Star Jr. does that’s unique, that makes him stand out compared to the other CMLL wrestlers. He’s good, but this tournament win didn’t succeed in making him special. (Star Jr. was also overshadowed by the exploding trophy but most people would be.)

This was a top to bottom good show. It didn’t peak as high as some other shows, but the fourth match was Great and nothing was just OK. CMLL seemed to expect it to be a big show in terms of attendance – they broke out the drone camera again. It didn’t seem like the fans bought tickets that way, though maybe that helped the effort level a bit.

CMLL (SAT) 06/01/2024 Arena Coliseo [CMLL, thecubsfan]
1) Astro Boy Jr., Leono, Retro b Dr. Karonte I, Dr. Karonte II, Grako
14:05. a bad match
2) Kemalito & Micro Sagrado b Periquito Sacaryas & Tengu
10:23. A bad match
3) Dulce Gardenia, Espíritu Negro, Rey Cometa b Cancerbero, Luciferno, Virus
13:38
4) Tessa Blanchard b La Catalina [lightning]
9:15
5) Atlantis, Blue Panther, Fugaz b Gemelo Diablo I, Gemelo Diablo II, Kráneo
12:08
6) Atlantis Jr. & Máscara Dorada b Gran Guerrero & Stuka Jr.
16:31

The opener was a bad match in the usual ways the Dr. Karontes are bad. The micros match was terrible, with those wrestlers failing at advanced spots and having basic communication issues. It’s not a good idea for CMLL to run Micros matches that are three falls long and it’s a horrendous idea to run them without Chamuel or at least the Gemelo Diablos. The Micros don’t have a lot of depth, but CMLL has a need to get these guys dates monthly, which leads to institutionalized bad matches. The main event was good, but the rest of this show can be skipped.

CMLL (SUN) 06/02/2024 Arena México [CMLL, thecubsfan]
1) Astral & Diamond b Enfermero Jr. & Inquisidor
2) El Audaz, Guerrero Maya Jr., Hombre Bala Jr. b Dark Magic, El Coyote, Espanto Jr.
13:21
3) Difunto b Max Star [lightning]
9:40, via rope walking dropkick
4) Kira, Sanely, Tessa Blanchard b Lluvia, Olympia, Stephanie Vaquer [Relevos Increíbles]
12:21
5) Flip Gordon, Star Black, Valiente DQ Hechicero, Sagrado, Zandokan Jr.
straight falls, Zandokan unmasking Valiente for the DQ to set up a singles match next week.
6) Esfinge, Místico, Star Jr. b Averno, Euforia, Mephisto

Zandokan was going after Valiente the whole match, so no surprise when it ended up setting up a match next week. Max Star and Difunto couldn’t pull off the springboard tijeras to the floor but otherwise had a good match. Difunto took most of it. Blanchard appeared to pick up a hip injury in the second fall of her match, but returned after talking to the ringside doctor.

Tonight’s Arena Puebla show will be the first one to air on Televisa Puebla. The shows will air Sunday nights at 8pm starting this week.  (I had Saturdays previously.) They’ll repeat Tuesdays at 5pm. Fuerza Poblana had a good shot of dethroning the makeshift Crixus, Difunto, Raider team for the Occidente Trios titles anyway tonight, but it seems even more likely with that being the kickoff TV episode. Figure on Angel de Oro/Mistico for episode 2.

CMLL (TUE) 06/04/2024 Arena México
1) Angelito & Último Dragóncito vs Minos & Pequeño Olímpico
2) Capitán Suicida, Diamond, Valiente Jr. vs Dr. Karonte I, Dr. Karonte II, Grako
3) Guerrero Maya Jr., Pegasso, Stigma vs Cancerbero, Luciferno, Virus
4) La Catalina vs Reyna Isis [lightning]
5) Atlantis, Blue Panther Jr., Brillante Jr. vs Felino Jr., Hechicero, Rey Bucanero
6) Atlantis Jr., Máscara Dorada, Neón vs Gran Guerrero, Stuka Jr., Último Guerrero

The main event would be great on a Friday and hopefully will be good here. Good luck to the tecnicos in the second.

CMLL (TUE) 06/04/2024 Arena Coliseo Guadalajara
1) Infierno, Mr. Trueno, Rey Trueno vs El Malayo, Rey Apocalipsis, Siky Ozama
2) Gallo Jr. & Rafaga Jr. vs Calavera Jr. I & Calavera Jr. II
3) Arlequín, Bestia Negra, Gallero vs Dark Magic, El Elemental, Yutani
4) Kira vs Persephone
5) Flip Gordon, Halcón Negro Jr., Valiente Jr. vs Bárbaro Cavernario, Furia Roja, Zandokan Jr.
6) Esfinge, Místico, Volador Jr. vs Averno, Euforia, Soberano Jr.

The CDMX wrestlers don’t give the strongest efforts on Thursdays, but match four might be an exception. Two young wrestlers getting a rare singles match might produce something memorable.

Hechicero joined a group in AEW with Brian Cage, Toa Linoa and Bishop Kaun on AEW Rampage. That was random. It seems a safe bet Hechicero’s got a match on Forbidden Door if they’re putting him into a group (and probably a 4v4 one.)

Speaking of AEW, I’m told the Reina Dorada/Thunder Rosa match was about five minutes live and 3:13 on TV. AEW referred to her as an (major) independent star, which is consistent with how they’ve ramped down the mentions of “Lucha Libre AAA” this year.

AAA

I failed to watch AAA TV in total this week yet. The good news is I’ve got an extra week to get it done; AAA aired the last four matches they have taped, so there’s probably nothing much new airing next week.

The vignettes were

• Latin Lover asking Zorro for answers on Konnan and getting the usual unclear response
• Electroshock asking Charly Manson to bring back their brother team, Charly Manson passing because he’s doing the Vatos Locos team, and Electroshock then opting to let Charly get beat up by Los Vipers without helping. Not really sure why Los Vipers beat up Charly Manson.
• Tiffany saying she’s happy to be back in AAA and is aiming for Faby Apache
• Flammer asking for new challengers, the same bit they have the Toxicas do every other TV taping
• Mecha Wolf wanting a rematch with Octagon Jr.

It’s AAA so these are notes for historical purposes, not because there’s reason to believe these are actual directions. To be fair, Octagon Jr. winning title matches on two straight Mexico City tapings (and being set up a #1 contenders match on the next one) is something a promotion trying to get over a wrestler might do.

AAA ran an ExpoLucha in the days before TripleMania Monterrey. That concept will be back for Tijuana. There will probably be something like it for Mexico City as well.

Working a lightly attended Arena Neza show on Friday, Daga mentioned he hadn’t been under AAA contract since leaving in 2017. Daga (and Tessa) were regulars on TV in 2019 up to the pandemic.

IWRG

IWRG (SUN) 06/02/2024 Arena Naucalpan [Estrellas del Ring, IWRG, La Tijera]
1) Príncipe Centauro b Sacro 
2) Sky Man & Tornado b Histeriosis & Rey Aztaroth 
3) Bizhota, Diosa Quetzal, Mary Caporal b Bengalee, Estrella Divina, Shamila 
Diosa Quetzal pinned Shamila after a mask pull. A brawl between both side broke out, with Sexy Star running to be part of it, saying she came to IWRG to find real luchadors.
4) Bugambilia, Caballero de Plata, Shocko b Imposible, Ivan Rokov, Sangre Azteca 
Ivan Rokov replaced Misterioso
5) Freelance, Látigo, Toxin DQ Hell Boy, Hijo de Canis Lupus, Noisy Boy 
Freelance replaced Arez (US booking). Hell Boy accident fouled referee Reyes Rosas for the DQ.
6) Galeno del Mal, Hijo del Dr. Wagner Jr., Hijo Del Silver King b Gran Pandemónium, Hijo de Pandemónium, Pandemónium Jr. 
rematch challenges followed

IWRG’s back to recapping their shows, and said the top two matches got very good reactions. Attendance seemed strong for a show that had nothing special beyond the three Wagners in the main event; that’s a good sign for Wagner 3’s drawing power and the Riddle/Wagner AAA TV main event later this month.

Sexy Star showing up in IWRG saying she wants real competition is odd (you showed up in IWRG for that?), but also that she’s a AAA wrestler so that’s kind of taking a shot at her home promotion. Logically, if she left AAA, she wouldn’t be called “Sexy Star” any more, but it is odd she was left off the Tijuana show in her home area. Everything in AAA is odd though. Her big show for June looks to be this IWRG La Jaula de las Locas show on 06/16 instead.

Other News

A profile of Oaxaca exotico Diva de Chocolate.

Segunda Caida watches some Robocop lucha.