CMLL
CMLL (FRI) 11/01/2024 Arena México
***Dia del Muertos, 2024***
1) Galaxy, Shockercito, Último Dragóncito vs Full Metal, Pequeño Polvora, Pierrothito
2) Brillante Jr., Dulce Gardenia, Pelon Encapuchado vs Disturbio, Felino Jr., Okumura
3) Kira, La Catalina, Tessa Blanchard vs Reyna Isis, Sanely, Zeuxis
4) Bárbaro Cavernario vs Difunto, Xelhua, Barboza [Rey del Inframundo, final]
5) Esfinge, Místico, Neón vs Magia Blanca, Rugido, Volador Jr.
This would be a weak lineup without the Dia del Muertos theme. The main event features people who aren’t typical Friday main events, the tournament has people who haven’t been pushed at that level prior, and there’s not much support. CMLL didn’t put their strongest effort forward – and still it will be a big crowd because it’s Dia del Muertos. The Ticketmaster map shows ticket sales ahead of last week’s Grand Prix than this time last year. Those top two matches could be pretty good. So could be the opener.
Most CMLL Informa was of the “I’d really like to win/I’m happy that I already won that match” interview territory. There was a surprise at the end: Mistico appeared to announce he was relinquishing the Historic Middleweight Championship. He said he was worn down and felt like he had added too much muscle to be a middleweight anymore. He said he would rather new people get a chance at it rather than continue to defend it. Julio Cesar Rivera announced that a tournament would be held soon.
Mistico won this belt in 2018, though I guess that’s technically that’s not correct. “Caristico” won this championship in 2018, and it still was officially referred to as the NWA Historic Championship at that point. Mistico held the championship for an absurdly long time – 2262 days – but defended it only ten times. That’s about one defense every nine months. Caristico beat Ultimo Guerrero to win the title, Guerrero held it half as long and defended it fifteen times – an average of once every two months. Mistico wrestles plenty of singles match, CMLL just doesn’t make them title feuds for whatever reason. This year, when it has been a title feud, it’s been for the MLW Middleweight championship as often (twice) as the Historic one. Mistico once again became the most popular star in CMLL during this title reign but the title had little to do with it.
CMLL’s origins are closer to boxing than most wrestling promotions, and Mistico giving up his title was the same one a boxer might give. He was beat up making these defenses, had added more muscle, and thought it would be better to move up in weight classes rather than continue to defend the title. To wrestling fans, this comes across as Mistico just doesn’t want to lose. Mistico doesn’t lose much in singles matches, but he does lose on occasion – to Star Jr. in the Leyenda de Plata tournament, to Hechicero on the Arena Monterrey Alta Voltaje show, to Hirmou Takahashi in NJPW – and it comes across more like CMLL sees those Mistico losses as very valuable and wants to give them out as rarely as possible. The other part of this announcement is how it directly follows the Fantastica Mania lineup. The biggest shows (that we know about) in CMLL’s near future are those two shows in Korakuen Hall. Those tend to have more title matches than normal CMLL shows. CMLL occasional shuffles titles this time of year to set up those lineups. Averno is (light heavyweight) champion, so he and Mistico can still have a title match as one of the final two matches on the last show for that belt, and maybe two other people will be wrestling for this middleweight championship. We’ll know this was all about Fantastica Mania if someone else on the tour ends up the new middleweight champion.
Mistico is still the MLW Middleweight Champion, or at least he is through his next defense on the 8th. They don’t have a light heavyweight championship there, but they do have a three-way where he could lose the belt without being pinned. I don’t think this says anything about Mistico’s status with CMLL, but there will be people wondering about that if he loses that title as well.
CMLL (SAT) 11/02/2024 Arena Coliseo
1) Último Dragóncito vs Pequeño Olímpico
2) Diamond, Dulce Gardenia, Valiente Jr. vs Apocalipsis, Disturbio, Espíritu Negro [Relevos Increíbles]
3) Pantera vs Felino
4) Zeuxis vs Princesa Sugehit, Dark Silueta
5) Atlantis Jr. vs Stuka Jr.
6) Místico & Volador Jr. vs Ángel de Oro & Averno
These are all one fall matches. Many of them are rematches of past apuesta matches. Pequeno Olimpico unmasked Ultimo Dragon. Dulce Gardenia shaved Disturbio. Apocalipsis lost his mask to Valiente Jr. in a cage match. Espiritu Negro lost his to Diamond (then Principe Diamante) in 2020. That one seems an unlikely result nowadays. Pantera and Felino never unmasked each other but CMLL’s pushed this as a great early 90s rivalry in recent years. Zeuxis won by (Dark) Silueta and Princesa Sugehit’s masks. Atlantis and Stuka famously main evented an Aniverasrio. Angel de Oro took Volador’s shoulder but not his hair. La Mascara, not Mistico, unmasked Averno, but 2024 La Mascara only turns up in YouTube videos where he’s either talking about recovering from issues or seemingly back in the middle of those issues.
CMLL (SUN) 11/03/2024 Arena México
***Tzompantu de Mascaras, 2024***
1) KeMalito & Periquito Sacaryas vs Átomo & Tengu
2) Pequeño Olímpico & Último Dragóncito vs Mercurio & Shockercito [Relevos Increíbles]
3) La Catalina vs Reyna Isis, Princesa Sugehit, Dark Silueta, Tabata, Amapola, La Vaquerita, Persephone [Copa Tzompantli]
4) Virus vs Felino [lightning]
5) Ángel de Oro & Niebla Roja © vs Bárbaro Cavernario & Terrible [CMLL TAG]
17th defense (Chavez counting it as 18th)
6) Averno, Euforia, Volador Jr. vs Blue Panther, Rey Bucanero, Último Guerrero [Relevos Increíbles]
CMLL’s poster indicates this will stream live on the Fan Leyendas tier. If you live in the US, this will be the first stream in winter time – it’s a 5 pm US Central Time start. (I’ll also be up on VOD like all YouTube shows.)
This is the show where everyone who lost their mask gets to put it on for one night (plus the Cuicas wrestle in the opener.) Some of these masks are very famous in the history of the wrestling. Some are Terrible and Barbaro Cavernario, who lost their masks well before becoming national stars. The Chavez will tie the Bucanero/Guerrero tag title defense record if they retain the titles there, at least by their count.
La Catalina, Tabata, and Persephone are all voluntary unmaskings. Persephone wrestled as the masked Black Widow in Texas; here’s her versus the wrestler now known as Roxanne Perez in NXT in a match from three years ago but seems much more distant. Black Widow unmasked upon her AAA TV debut/farewell in April 2023. One of CMLL’s stock images they use of Persephone – the one they used for the Grand Prix – is still in her Black Widow gear; you can see the little spider logos.
CMLL (MON) 11/04/2024 Arena Puebla
1) Astro & Asturiano vs Espíritu Maligno & King Jaguar
2) Shockercito & Último Dragóncito vs Mercurio & Pequeño Violencia
3) Arkalis, Millenium, Pegasso vs Disturbio, El Elemental, Infarto
4) Flip Gordon, Rayo Metálico, Stigma vs Guerrero Maya Jr., Hijo de Stuka Jr., Okumura
5) Magnus, Rugido, Volador Jr. vs Averno, Euforia, Mephisto
6) Místico vs Ángel de Oro
Mistico and Angel de Oro was set up last week. Elemental makes another appearance. Rayo Metalico is much higher than he would’ve been six weeks ago. I keep booking defenses for him that aren’t going to happen but Rayo Metalico defending against Stuka would be fun.
CMLL (TUE) 11/05/2024 Arena Coliseo Guadalajara
1) Astro Oriental, Avispón Negro Jr., Último Ángel vs Infierno, Mortis, Ponzoña Jr.
2) Calavera Jr. I, Calavera Jr. II, Prince Drago vs Obek, Rav, Temerario
3) Arlequín, Leo, Omar Brunetti vs Bestia Negra, Guerrero de la Muerte, Halcón Negro Jr.
4) Brillante Jr., Neón, Xelhua vs Draego, Makara, Persa
5) Barboza & Zandokan Jr. vs Hijo del Villano III & Villano III Jr.
6) Máscara Dorada vs Soberano Jr.
This is a strong-looking Guadalajara card. Dorada/Soberano probably won’t be going 100% on a Tuesday, but they are still special enough to make that interesting. The guys in Match 5 will be going 100% because they’re insane and don’t know another way. Match 4 is an interesting test for the locals against highly regarded younger members of the CDMX crew.
This week’s Guadalajara upload went up for free briefly on Thursday, then went behind the paywall. Either way, the show was missing the end of the main event. They re-uploaded the show Friday afternoon. That broadcast also was airing promos for the Rey del Inframundo in between matches, spoiling anyone who didn’t know Barboza was winning the qualifying match on that show.
Mercedes Mone writes a weekly magazine-style newsletter for fans interested enough to sign up. In this week’s issue, she mentioned she was in Oaxaca – not Mexico City – this past Sunday, saw a poster for a CMLL show, and wanted to do a surprise appearance. The problem is her CMLL contact is Rocky Romero, and Rocky Romero is on Japan time because he’s part of the Super Junior tag league, and he didn’t see her message until it was too late to help. I think Rocky Romero may be off the hook there. Mone did the thing most foreigners figured saw a show a show with CMLL logo, and figured CMLL people must be running it. Mexico and Mexican wrestling just works very different and very less rigidly than the US. There is a CMLL logo on that poster because they got ahold of someone who has a CMLL contact, and that person went to the CMLL office to book out talent for that show. That’s the extent of CMLL’s involvement. Rocky would’ve had to work out who was coordinating with CMLL on the show to help out. (Maybe Robin, maybe on of the Karontes since they’re booked on the next show in that promotion.) But also it’s a random show in Oaxaca, Mercedes could’ve just wandered in and been welcome. These are not the very formal things.
Explosivo and Barboza were part of CMLL’s weekly media interviews on Wednesday. Both mentioned they’re now full-time in Mexico City. They’ll be among the people competing for those match spots in the 2/3/4 range. Barboza always seems to have found a place with Zandokan. Explosivo was part of the tecnico trio with Adrenalina and Fantastico. I guess his moving to Mexico City helps explain why they never won the Occidente Trios titles back from Raider, Crixus, and Difunto.
Barbaro Cavernario is the guest on the CMLL podcast this week.
Capitan Suicida and Tiger Mask avoided the goose egg, winning their first match on the last day of group place over Ryusuke Taguchi and Dragon Dia. The match sounds like it was a showcase for Suicida, and he did pretty well with the opportunity. I assumed Suicida pinned Taguchi this morning because it’s Taguchi. I looked at the results closer and saw he actually beat Dragon Dia, who is currently the Dragon Gate Open the Brave Gate champion. NJPW hasn’t booked Dia strongly (they’ve instead booked him like a CMLL luchador) so it’s probably not meant to be leading anywhere.
Suicida’s tour appears to finish up with the 11/04 (Monday) Power Struggle show. That show will also likely announce the participants in the World Tag League. Soberano Jr., Atlantis Jr. and Zandokan Jr. wrestled on that tour last year after a long stretch of no CMLL participation. The tournament runs from the 11/19 to 12/08.
MLW announced their 11/08 show as a sell out. As with the previous taping in Cicero, the event will start at 7p, the CMLL focused YouTube live stream will start at 9pm. Much, though not all, of that crowd is coming for CMLL luchadors and will see only Okumura wrestle in the first two hours. In a sense, this is like an authentic CMLL spot show in Mexico – like the one Mone saw in Oaxaca – where the preliminary matches are non-CMLL (and usually local) luchadors, and the local promotion is paying CMLL to bring in their stars while mostly running the shows. I have tried MLW shows before, they’re not for me, but maybe I’ll try again. Or maybe I’ll read some books on my phone while I’m sitting in the GA bleachers for those first two hours. Notably, the MLW press release says the only way to see this show will be on YouTube, which suggests MLW implies no longer producing shows for US TV partner BeinSports. It may be just meaningless hype.
Last Wednesday, Sanofi (a pharmacy company) sponsored an event in Arena Coliseo to urge people to get their flu vaccine shots. I really need to get mine, so this is a useful reminder. The thrust of the event was to find unconventional ways to reach people like me and make sure they get it done. As part of the event, Team Vaccine (Mascara Dorada & Audaz) defeated Team Flu (Disturbio & Raider). There are some highlights on Instagram here and here. Never has a show more called for a Virus booking. I don’t know why he wasn’t there. CMLL doesn’t like to publicize these types of events for whatever reason – maybe they don’t want fans showing up uninvited – but this one in particular seems like good and easy PR to put out there.
Back in 2017, CMLL ran a Torneo Natalia Vazquez. That name was unknown to almost anyone, but CMLL explained that she was a Mexican-American who was technically the first Mexican woman to wrestle in Mexico in 1935. CMLL’s historians did note that there wasn’t much known about her beyond a publicity photo or two for the tour – not much about her career before or after. Turns out there are some great reasons no one knew more about the career of Natalia Vazquez: SuperLuchas wrote an explainer and released a podcast to reveal there wasn’t a real Natalia Vazquez, it was a gimmick name used by a non-Mexican American to try to get her over in Mexico, and it didn’t actually get her over. (The fans instead got behind a Canadian – who also wasn’t actually Canadian.) SuperLuchas makes the case that an 18-year woman named Celia Torices appears to be the first Mexican woman wrestler – she was wrestling men in 1913. There’s more in the story if you want dig in..
That press conference rollout of Torneo Natalia Vazquez included someone in the press asking why CMLL was using this name; no one knew much about Vazquez, why not honor someone with more historical significance like Irma Gonzalez? I don’t recall the exact the CMLL answer. I do remember that CMLL never ran a Natalia Vazquez tournament again. They’ve recently started running Copa Irma Gonzalez in the spring each year. I thought CMLL eventually agreed with the media member’s take and that’s why the concept was brought back under a different name. Now I wonder if after the first Vazquez tournament, perhaps another researcher quietly revealed her true identity to CMLL folks, and that’s why we haven’t heard her name mentioned much again. It would be unlike a wrestling promotion to admit to a mistake, and like one to move onto another subject quietly.
AAA
Thursday on Instagram, Hijo del Vikingo announced doctors found no damage to any ligament or muscle in his right knee. He’ll still be out 15-20 days, but that’s a relief after it seemed serious. Vikingo’s recovery timeline means he’ll definitely miss Guerra de Titanes in Juarez, and he may be back in time for the show in Saltillo the following week.
TV this weekend:
- Space: a “road to Guerra de Titanes” filler show
- Unimas: Heroes Inmortales part two (of three total parts now)
- YouTube: Monterrey part 2
The 12/07 AAA TV taping in Mexico City taping is back on schedule. This one was advertised about five TV episodes ago, then immediately disappeared from the upcoming events, and now is happening anyway. It’ll be back in Gimnasio Juan de la Barrera. AAA usually announces a lineup a week out, so it may not be long until a lineup is out. The matches themselves may not air until 2025 on Space, as they usually take a long holiday break. It might pop up sooner on Unimas.
AAA starts a stretch of three weeks of Sunday tapings with the final Showcenter event of the year. The main event, the Psycho Circus versus Fiscal, Taurus and Galeno del Mal, sort of continues the current trios title match. The rest looks to be unexciting filler. This taping will likely air out of order in Mexico.
This week’s Pollock and Thurston podcast noted they had spotted the attendance and gate for this year’s TripleMania Mexico City on Pollstar. They also sent me the data; the Pollstar arena charting site’s subscriber-only database lists 18,986 attendance and a gate of $420,561. Pollstar, for unknown reasons, has some but not all of the recent TripleManias in their database. Let’s put that number in some context:
| Date | Show | Location | Reported # | Pollstar # | Capacity | Gate (USD) | Notable | Avg Ticket |
| 8/9/2015 | TripleMania | Arena Ciudad de Mexico | 18000 | 14713 | 16,909 | $153,441 | Rey Mysterio vs Myzteziz (Mistico) | $10.43 |
| 8/28/2016 | TripleMania | Arena Ciudad de Mexico | 14000 | 14038 | 15,750 | $125,994 | Psycho Clown vs Pagano, hair vs hair | $8.98 |
| 8/25/2018 | TripleMania | Arena Ciudad de Mexico | no report | 12803 | 19,691 | $282,328 | LA Park vs Pentagon Jr. vs Psycho Clown vs Hijo del Fantasma, mask match | $22.05 |
| 8/14/2021 | TripleMania | Arena Ciudad de Mexico | 4500 | 5007 | 19,691 | $149,666 | Psycho Clown vs Rey Escorpion, mask/hair match (COVID attendance restrictions) | $29.89 |
| 8/17/2024 | TripleMania | Arena Ciudad de Mexico | no report | 18986 | 19,691 | $420,561 | Domed cage match, Alberto/Nemeth | $22.15 |
It is striking that this year’s TripleMania – one with a weak main event that came together later – drew 4,000 more people than the closest known show while also doubling the average ticket price. (The Dr. Wagner/Psycho Clown mask match, the show that most would figure drew the most fans to a TripleMania show, took place in the unrecorded year 2017.) Visually, TripleMania did not look like it drew this well – I feel like I could go back and spot more than 700 empty seats, though I know it doesn’t work exactly like that. AAA’s also not behaved in a way where they drew nearly 19,000 fans to a show – they’re prone to bragging when something goes well, which is undeniably excellent. That number would inspire a normal promotion to run in Mexico City a lot more often. AAA instead stayed away from Mexico City until December. If “18,986” came from other sources, I would just roll my eyes and ignore it. Pollstar is an industry-standard trade organization that could care less about (stupid) wrestling arguments about who’s a draw; they have no motive to make up a number. These numbers exist because venues want to know which acts sell tickets before booking them. That means the number probably was submitted by the venue, Arena Ciudad de Mexico. AAA’s run this venue for years, and they have a strong relationship. Still, there’s no strong reason for the venue to jeopardize their credibility by submitting false numbers on behalf of a group that’s using the venue for one show a year. It’s possible to come up with conspiracy theories about how that number came to be, but it doesn’t seem possible to prove any of those theories.
18,986 makes no sense based on what I know, but I know there’s no reason for Pollstar’s database to have a false number. It’s a poor idea to discard facts just because they don’t match what you already know; the only way to learn anything is to absorb unexpected information, and this number is really unexpected. That gate of $420K is the number for a company that should be flush with success and cash. AAA instead saw those ticket sales, saw that huge gate, and immediately told their color announcer they could no longer afford to bring him in and he should find a job elsewhere. Did Luchatitlan cut such a big hole in AAA’s budget that even this sort of number can’t fix? It doesn’t add up otherwise.
In an interview with La Tijera Lucha Libre, the now-former Parka Negra said he’d return to the Angel Mortal Jr. and will be wrestling in the independents. That news confirms his time in AAA is done. Off the top of my head, AAA’s seen Aramis, Black Taurus/Beast Mortos, Arez, Latigo, Toxin, Sexy Star II, and now Parka Negra all leave this year among featured television performers. They’ve certainly added new people along the way, but it’s been a fair bit of turnover.
Other Notes
Rock Power lost his mask in the Castillo del Terror. IWRG didn’t post results and I don’t have time today to put them together for them.
Penta will be appearing at 11/08 The Crash show in a non-wrestling capacity.
A new lucha libre art exhibit opens in Loen on 11/21. This one focuses on local luchadors.
Migala says all the young women wrestling today are making wrestling worse because they’re not trained enough.
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