CMLL
CMLL (FRI) 10/11/2024 Arena México [CMLL, El Grafico, Esquina Caliente, Excelsior, Fuego en el Ring, Kaiser Sports, Telediario, The Gladiatores, thecubsfan]
1) Crixus, Hijo de Stuka Jr., Okumura b El Audaz, Rey Cometa, Volcano 
10:00. Rey Cometa (returning from injury) replaced Hijo del Pantera on Monday night.
2) Dark Magic, Espanto Jr., Raider DQ Barboza, Difunto, Zandokan Jr.
11:49. Straight falls, pirates getting DQed for excessive violence in the second.
3) Dark Silueta & Zeuxis b La Catalina & Samantha Black 
13:41. Replaces scheduled Toni Storm/La Catalina match. Mexico debut of Costa Rica’s Samantha Black.
4) Volador Jr. b Hechicero
10:57. Hechicero tried tossing his mask to Volador to draw the DQ again, but Volador avoided the mask (and Edgar caught it), then Volador cradled Hechicero to win.
5) Persephone b Tessa Blanchard, Lluvia, Sanely, Reina Isis, Skadi, Kira, Tabata, Valkiria, Hera [CMLL Universal de Amazonas, semifinal]
31:03. Order of elimination: Valkyria (via Kira, 12:28), Tabata (Skadi, 14:11), Hera (Isis, 19:12), Kira (Sanely, 20:48), Skadi (Lluvia, 21:46), Sanely (Persephone, 22:30), Isis (Blanchard, 23:16), Blanchard (26:43, Lluvia), Lluvia (31:01, Persephone) leading Persephone as the winner.
The sequence of thought in those last few eliminations
- “nice vote of confidence for Persephone to make it this long”
- “oh, I guess Tessa’s going to beat three people straight to win, they’re really going with her”
- “huh, Tessa’s out, they must be doing Lluvia/Zeuxis, weird that Persephone is still here”
- “wait, Persephone won?!?!”
I never believed Persephone was winning that match until the moment she won it. It’s not a wrong decision; it’s an interesting and good call to go so strong with someone so new. The good/bad portion is just totally overwhelmed by the shocking result. CMLL picking one of Kira, Skadi, Olympia, or Hera to go to the final would’ve been a surprise but fit along with how they’ve been focused on stronger in the last six months. Persephone had a well-received lighting match with Blanchard a couple of months ago and has been a solid part of trios matches, but there was no sense she was going to the final of a tournament any time soon. Persephone is also a ruda, which made it unlikely she’d face fellow ruda Zeuxis in the final by CMLL’s typical booking practices. This match isn’t going to draw but it is a surprising investment in a new name.
Persephone’s teamed a bit with Zeuxis since Stephanie Vaquer’s left, but played down that relationship in a post match promo. Persephone’s big line was that she’s the future of CMLL, and the future is now.
Volador/Hechicero was fun but not their best work. Samantha Black is as green as should be expected from someone who works only a dozen times a year in Costa Rica. They still got the crowd into the end of that match. Match two seemed to be pointing toward a Zandokan/Espanto Jr. feud, but Zandokan’s not on Fridays the next two weeks. It is that point of the calendar where something gets set up for 01/01.
CMLL (SAT) 10/12/2024 Arena Coliseo [CMLL, thecubsfan]
1) Galaxy, Shockercito, Último Dragóncito b Full Metal, Pequeño Polvora, Rostro De Acero
9:12. Galaxy replaced Fantasy
2) El Coyote, Nitro, Pólvora b Diamond, Eléctrico, Robin
16:07.
3) Kira, Skadi, Tabata b Candela, Maligna, Metálica
15:31. Tabata & Kira replaced Dulce Tormenta & Jazmin Allure on Tuesday. Kira left the match early with a shoulder injury (and missed her match the next day.)
4) Guerrero Maya Jr. © b Xelhua [MEX MIDDLE]
14:44. 5th defense. Maya refused to shake hands with Xelhua post match, declared he was joining the rudo side, and that he’d destroy Fuerza Poblana.
5) India Sioux, Princesa Sugehit, Tessa Blanchard b Dark Silueta, Persephone, Zeuxis
14:25
6) Bárbaro Cavernario, Soberano Jr., Terrible b Dragón Rojo Jr., Flip Gordon, Máscara Dorada [Relevos Increíbles]
11:45. Straight falls, Cavernario using the ropes to beat Dragon Rojo – Dragon Rojo wants a singles match.
The Guerrero Maya story is interesting. Maya sees Xelhua as a young guy getting too much hype and appears to be jealous of that attention. Earlier in the week, Xelhua mentioned he’d be interested in joining Fuerza Poblana if offered a spot, and Guerrero Maya Jr. (on Instagram) threatened to leave that group if they brought in someone who didn’t earn it. He said he would consider it a betrayal for Fuerza Poblana to add Xelhua. Pegasso and Stigma both left comments saying the group is a family, they’ve always welcomed any Puebla wrestler with sufficient ability because the strength of the group has been that unity, and that group existed before Maya came aboard. Jumping back to Saturday, Maya refused to shake hands with Xelhua post-match, declared the match showed the difference between someone giving a lot of cheers and someone actually good, and declared he’d now be the #1 rudo. He also vowed to destroy Fuerza Poblana for not standing with him, then attacked Xelhua. Fuerza Poblana members Stigma and Arkalis responded Sunday, saying Maya was the one who wanted to leave, Fuerza Poblana would be stronger together, and they’d welcome Xelhua to the group if he wanted to join. I suspect there’s a lot of energy from the wrestlers themselves into this angle – building an issue up through Instagram posts is novel for CMLL – but new rudo Maya running his way through the Fuerza Poblana guys would be fun.
The match itself was pretty strong, too. They wrestled as a totally technical match, in classic title match fashion. They played off the story in the build-up: Xelhua demonstrated a lot of new holds but couldn’t always get them locked in, and Maya went back to an old standard (la suastica) to defeat him. I think it’s a match that’ll will be interesting even outside the feud.
Roster de Acero is Pequeno Polvora’s brother and that seems to be the main reason he’s in the mini division. He’s taller than all the other minis (and the minis who are no longer minis.) CMLL’s graphics listed Rostro de Acero as “Luchador Profesional”, rather than the normal “Luchador del CMLL.” I guess he’s not meant actually to be on the roster. Looking back, CMLL did the same for the four women in the indie women’s match and continues to do so for Candela.
CMLL (SUN) 10/13/2024 Arena México [CMLL]
1) Pequeño Olímpico & Pierrothito b Angelito & Pequeño Magía
2) Arkalis & Stigma b Disturbio & Pólvora
3) India Sioux, Náutica, Skadi b Amapola, La Maligna, Olympia
4) Hijo del Villano III, Star Black, Villano III Jr. b Akuma, Fugaz, Magia Blanca [Relevos Increíbles]
5) La Catalina, Princesa Sugehit, Tabata b Dark Silueta, Reyna Isis, Sanely
Tabata replaced Kira (on Sunday), but got hurt during the match
6) Ángel de Oro, Niebla Roja, Soberano Jr. b Flip Gordon, Templario, Volador Jr.
Villanos seemed in full Villano mode on match 4.
Mistico lost to Hiromu Takahashi in NJPW. That was always the most logical outcome – Mistico wins in Mexico, Hiromu wins in Japan – but it was fun to imagine something more. Speaking of having fun imagining something that is not going to happen, Mistico and Hiromu made challenges for a mask versus hair match to the main event of the CMLL Aniversario show. That’s not going to happen.
CMLL (TUE) 10/15/2024 Arena México
1) Angelito & Kaligua vs Pequeño Violencia & Pierrothito
2) Capitán Suicida, El Audaz, Hijo del Pantera vs Disturbio, Hunter, Infarto
3) Dulce Gardenia, Espíritu Negro, Rey Cometa vs Crixus, El Elemental, Okumura
4) Sanely vs Reyna Isis [lightning]
5) Samantha Black, Tessa Blanchard, Zeuxis vs Dark Silueta, India Sioux, Princesa Sugehit [Relevos Increíbles]
6) Templario, Titán, Volador Jr. vs Bárbaro Cavernario, Hechicero, Terrible
Elemental, a former Big Lucha wrestler who’s wrestled about once a month in Guadalajara this year, makes his Arena Mexico debut. He usually teams with Yutani, who isn’t here (yet?) and either Dark Magic or Okumura. Sanely/Isis is a rematch of the recent title change.
CMLL (FRI) 10/18/2024 Arena México
1) Futuro, Max Star, Pelon Encapuchado vs Dark Magic, Espanto Jr., Raider
2) Amapola, Metálica, Olympia, Sanely vs Alex Windsor, Red Velvet, Samantha Black, Viva Van
3) Lluvia & Tessa Blanchard vs Sayaka Unagi & Sumika Yanagawa © [CMLL WOMEN TAG]
4) Atlantis Jr., Místico, Neón vs Gran Guerrero, Stuka Jr., Último Guerrero
5) Zeuxis vs Persephone [CMLL Universal de Amazonas, final]
6) Toni Storm vs La Catalina
CMLL was unspecific when it came to when the Storm/Catalina match would take place, which makes it a bit of surprise it is just getting pushed back a week. Seems like they would’ve had that figured already. There’s going to be some CMLL fan discontent about the tournament final being semi-main to an AEW wrestler coming in, again. I see it a bit more palatable than the Aniversario decision: Persephone is not as big a star as anyone in that four-way match, and it’s not a mask match. On the other hand, Toni Storm isn’t as big a deal as Chris Jericho; it didn’t seem like she was any special draw when she was advertised last week. This might be one where it can be better explained once we know the result: if Catalina is beating Toni Storm, yea, might as well make it the main event. If Toni Storm is winning, that’s not going to go over great as a main event.
All the Grand Prix participants start with this show, except for Willow Nightingale. The Japanese duo get a tag title match, the rest are in an atomicos. Match four should be a good match for those who aren’t interested in the women.
Octagon says he has no plans to retire; he says everyone thinks he’s older than he actually is. (He’s 62.)
Felino’s asked about the same thing and answers about the same way. He does mention his initial mask was hard to see out of, which must’ve lead to the change.
Los Hermanos Calaveras, Trono, and Optiums made an appearance at Opening Day for the Charros de Jalisco baseball team.
AAA
Last week, I missed AAA because my grey market feed didn’t work. This week, I missed AAA because my gray market TV service expired and I didn’t realize it. I could’ve watched AAA on Unimas, but that show aired 2.5 hours early because Unimas was airing an MLB playoff game. (Some online listings had the change, but my DVR didn’t get it.) I should be able to get the Tuesday repeat on UTDN, and AAA did post the first part of Heroes Inmortales on Sunday night, so I plan to try to catch up through those the next couple of days
Neither AAA nor Unimas publicized the time change of their show. This is unsurprising on AAA’s part, as they do little to promote their TV shows on all their networks outside a generic social media post or two, and I usually pick up on a time change before they do. This inaction makes no sense to me – AAA’s big hope has been to do well enough on Unimas to get promoted to Univision and earn real money, so they should be incentivized to do as much as possible to make that Unimas show successful. AAA, instead, seems to do as little as it can get away with. I don’t know if that means they’ve already given up or they just don’t understand what’s required of them.
The other half of this issue Unimas also does as little as possible to promote AAA or seemingly keep them in the loop. It would’ve been simple for Unimas to give AAA a heads up on a possible time change – “if this series goes five games, you’re going to be moved to a different time” in enough time for AAA to promote the change. Either Unimas didn’t bother, or AAA didn’t pass that message along to their viewers. It’s no different from when Unimas moved the permanent start time up an hour, or when TUDN moved the repeat of the episodes. If you’ve been around long enough, it’s no different from the various time changes and even promotional changes Galavision used to do when it aired CMLL and AAA. The circumstances were the same there: AAA had great hopes of getting on Univision, and the network had treated them like filler programming. It’s not a bad relationship, more a disinterested one – like they’ve got one person behind them to get them on there, but the rest of the network doesn’t care all that much. We still don’t know the number of viewers watching those AAA shows, but this could be another sign – if AAA was doing strong numbers, Unimas would be making a better effort.
To get back to something you can actually use; next Saturday would have at most one MLB playoff game, it’d be a night game, so AAA will (probably) be back on it’s normal time.
AAA put up a video with CIMA talking about wanting to run a TripleMania in Japan. AAA ran TripleMania 8 in Korakuen Hall, at a point in their history where they were struggling to draw in Mexico City and happily took a deal to put the show elsewhere. It drew a reported 1,700 fans, something like 16% of the numbers AAA claims today. AAA’s different now, running multiple TripleManias a year, and they could certainly add a TripleMania Tokyo to the group if GLEAT wants to pay for it. The risk of AAA stretching the name of TripleMania too far and ruining the value has already passed; AAA’s fans already know the only ‘real’ TripleMania is the one in Mexico City.
AAA also put up a promo with JBL
Pagano hypes up an upcoming spot show match with Chessman.
Todo x el Todo
Sunday’s stop in Arena Monterrey looks to be the best drawing show of the run. I know there was a late-minute special discount and other things were probably going on. Still, there were way more people in that building than when CMLL and Alto Voltaje ran that building two weeks prior. The bulk of the show was a tag team tournament, unsurprisingly won by Hijo del Santo and Santo Jr. They defeated the Bobby Lees, Dralistico & Bestia del Ring (by DQ) and Dr. Wagner Jr. and Silver King Jr. to win.
Mas Lucha streamed the 10/06 Leon show on 10/13 for members. I expect they’ll do the same with the Arena Monterrey show, though it may not be for a couple of weeks; the Torneo Suprema takes priority this weekend. The Mexico-based Todo x el Todo tour is off until 11/09 (the Puebla show with no lineup announced); the next Santo show will be the London shows on 11/01 and 11/02.
Other Notes
Medico Asesino Jr. will take over as Tijuana commissioner, with a term running until 2027. I’m uncertain how that’ll affect those recent street fight related suspensions. A Medico Asesino has been working EMW shows.
Violent People has a recap of the best lucha matches of July.
Coloso Colosetti is said to be in a bad health situation.
A story on a teacher using a luchador outfit in school.
Noro writes about Rubi Gardenia.
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