CMLL Universal, CMLL/MLW, Latin Lover AAA creative head?

CMLL

Tonight’s show

CMLL (FRI) 04/12/2024 Arena México
1) Legendario vs Forneo [lightning]
2) Blue Panther Jr., Dark Panther, El Hijo De Blue Panther vs Hijo de Stuka Jr., Hijo del Villano III, Villano III Jr.
3) Flip Gordon vs Euforia [lightning]
4) Gran Guerrero vs Averno, Templario, Titán, Stigma, Bárbaro Cavernario, Terrible, Dragón Rojo Jr., Ángel de Oro, Niebla Roja [CMLL Universal, semifinal]
CMLL champions block.
5) Atlantis, Máscara Dorada, Octagón vs Hechicero, Último Guerrero, Volador Jr. [Relevos Increíbles]

I’m never looking forward to an Octagon main event. It will make Dorada look even springier. Magnus was a semi-surprise last week to advance last week. Averno, getting into this tournament at the last moment by beating Barbaro Cavernario for the CMLL Light Heavyweight championship, would fit the same; it could end up Mistico versus two rivals. Cavernario, Titan and Templario are the most pushed on paper. Any of the first three matches could really pop.

I won’t be following this one live, hope to catch up on Saturday.

CMLL luchadors (Guerrero Maya, Neon, Cirxus, Retro, Reina Isis and KeMalito) are at the Acapulco Tianguis Turistico tourism expo, as part of promoting TuriLuchas. There’s been a CMLL presence there for the last few years.  That expo goes through today, so KeMalito may not an Arena Mexico appearance tonight.

CMLL (MON) 04/15/2024 Arena Puebla
1) Centella Roja & Hijo de Centella Roja vs Fénix SO & Sombra Diabólika
2) Meyer vs Prayer [lightning]
3) Diamond, Fuego, Robin vs El Malayo, Rey Apocalipsis, Siky Ozama
4) Arkalis, Guerrero Maya Jr., Multy vs Difunto, Raider, Vegas [Relevos Increíbles]
5) Ángel de Oro vs Hechicero [lightning]
6) Esfinge, Máscara Dorada, Místico vs Stuka Jr., Templario, Último Guerrero

A normal Monday night.

CMLL (TUE) 04/16/2024 Arena Coliseo Guadalajara
1) Johnny Dinamo & Minotauro vs Shezmu & Temerario
2) Leo, Omar Brunetti, Vaquero Jr. vs Canalla, Demonio Maya, Principe Daniel
3) Dulce Gardenia, Espíritu Negro, Rey Cometa vs Ángel Rebelde, Halcón Negro Jr., Trono
4) Hatanna, Lluvia, Tabata vs Adira, Dark Silueta, Dulce Kitty
5) Brillante Jr. & Star Black vs Bestia Negra & El Gallero
6) Atlantis Jr., Máscara Dorada, Místico vs Averno, Euforia, Mephisto

Less CMLL CDMX wrestlers than usual. Hatanna and Tabata are still tag champs, but Tabata hasn’t been here since becoming Tabata.

CMLL announced Wednesday that Saturday Arena Coliseo shows will now air live for Fan Leyenda/35 USD members. CMLL’s previously been posting two matches from those shows the following Thursdays for fans on that level. Last week’s live broadcast may have been a test run. CMLL also may have decided it’s simply easier to stream the show live than to upload parts of it a few days later.

CMLL is running six shows a week currently: the 3 Arena Mexico shows, and 1 each in Arena Coliseo, Arena Coliseo Guadalajara and Arena Puebla. All of those shows are being taped for TV. Four of them are now airing on CMLL’s YouTube channel.

(I’m not sure what I’m going to do for coverage. Three weekly streams was definitely too much before; I’m already running thin without adding another show. Arena Coliseo, AAA and Big Lucha will overlap on their current schedules.)

CMLL Informa’s other big announcements were around the Kid’s Day shows. As previously mentioned, CMLL is running special events on both 04/28 (Sunday) and 04/30 (Tuesday, the traditional Kid’s Day date.) They encouraged children to dress up like Atlantis, Atlantis Jr., Mascara Dorada, Mistico, Templario and Titan on Sunday; the best dressed of each will get to come back on Tuesday to walk their wrestler to the ring. The first 10 kids will also get to hang around with last year’s Kid’s Day Championship winner Volcano. This year’s championship will be decided on 04/28, with the same general idea as last year. Fans can vote on CMLL for their pick of wrestlers from six different themes, the six winners will have an elimination match on 04/28, and the winner is this year’s champion. The groups:

• Espectacular/Spectacular: Max Star, Neon, Futuro, Brillante
• Aterrador/Scary: Difunto, Coyote, Akuma, Kraneo
• Rudo: Espanto, Raider, Magnus, Zandokan
• Fuerte/Strong: Blue Panther Jr., Diamond, Crixus, Astral
• Tecnico: Guerrero Maya, Robin, Virus, Rugido
• Original: Rey Samuray, Fuego, Hombre Bala Jr., Esfinge

CMLL updated Futuro’s status: he’s home and resting after getting knocked out on Tuesday. He will be out at least a week. Capitan Futuro will replace him on Sunday’s show.

CMLL Informa itself will be moving to an 8 pm start time starting next week. It’s been at 4 pm previously. No reason was given for the change. (This may slightly affect how I’ll handle news posts.)

It had been bugging me for days that CMLL hadn’t put up Homenaje a Dos Leyendas for their 9/25 tier; that’s what supposed to happen after it airs on TV for Friday shows. Chat messages during CMLL Informa explained no, that’s not that is happening: any show that steams live on the 35/Fan Leyenda tier will only ever be available on that level. They will never go up on the other levels, they will never accessible outside of that 35 USD tier. (Until this policy changes, as it all polices do.) H2L was the first Friday show to go up on that tier; there may not be another until FantasticaMania.

Magnus, hyping a potential CMLL Universal final, claimed that Mistico’s father didn’t even want him and that’s why he left him with Fray Tormenta to raise. He also joked that everyone claims he’s getting ahead because he’s Tony Salazar son, and so now he’s angry with Tony Salazar – why did he take 15 years to help him? In reality, Magnus says he was an aimless unmotivated wrestler until the birthday of his daughter and getting into religion and credits Volador Jr. for getting behind him.

At one point, Fuerza Guerrera said he wanted to retire on Homenaje a Dos Leyendas 2024. That timeline has changed many times, and he’s since he has no plans to retire because he felt he would die if he retire (and/or he was getting more well paying work and didn’t want to retire.) Still, enough fans apparently asked him why CMLL didn’t book him on H2L anyway for Fuerza Guerrera to talk about in a video; he says he had operation and isn’t ready to wrestle, but plans to come back.

MLW announced Barbaro Cavernario versus Mistico for the MLW Middleweight Championship on their 05/11 show in Cicero, Illinois. The Big Idea is heel lucha libre managers Cesar Duran (Dario Cueto) and Salina de la Renta pitting members of their teams against each other to battle for a mysterious key. That probably means more CMLL versus CMLL matches.

Other wrestlers announced:

• Magnus
• Fuego
• Atlantis
• Atlantis Jr.
• Villano III Jr.
• Virus
• Ultimo Guerrero
• Guerrero Maya Jr.
• Star Jr.
• Felino
• Averno
• Okumura

This is a show definitely affected by the visa issues for some CMLL wrestlers. MLW is likely relying on who in CMLL has a visa rather than getting them themselves. No idea of matches yet. Tickets are as low as $10 for this show, and I expect it’ll be a full house.

Thursday, AEW announced their 2024 calendar of PPV events. Including in those dates is AEW/NJPW Forbidden Door show on June 30th. Last year, Forbidden Door took place on June 25th. CMLL/NJPW ran FantasticaMania Mexico on June 30th, taking advantage of NJPW people already being in the North America. July 5th is the likely FantasticaMania Mexico date this year if we assume they’ll follow the same pattern, though maybe you should just expect “somewhere around that time period.

(That Forbidden Door show is hyped as NJPW/AEW. It is safe to assume CMLL people will be in it. The slight difference is NJPW seems to be part of promoting that show, while CMLL is likely just sending wrestlers.)

DMCAs, Twitch and the Google Drive

Thursday, I got a DMCA strike on Twitch for my most recent stream from CMLL. I’ve been streaming the CMLL Sunday matches. My mistake – besides blatant and obvious copyright violations – is leaving the VOD up to get a takedown notice. Twitch lets you clear a strike if you go through a training seminar, which took about three minutes.

A few hours later (but by the time I was asleep), CMLL also went to the Google Drive and filed takedown notices on the six Homenaje a Dos Leyendas match videos. On Google Drive, that means the videos are permanently changed to user only, and can’t be shared with the public. I saw the DMCA notifications when I woke up, and decided to lock the Google Drive.

That’s where everything is now. I don’t know if this extends to all CMLL content; they’ve given out strikes to people on YouTube this week, but CMLL also seems to have a secret “if it’s under two minutes it’s fine” policy and plenty of other YouTube content remains. I don’t know if it’s strictly a H2L issue, since the other videos weren’t touched. Maybe they would’ve if I just left it up, I didn’t want to find out. I don’t know if this affects GIFs or short videos on other platforms, though I’d guess they’re fine. CMLL could explain what they’re thinking here, but they never do. They have no requirement to do so.

I don’t know what my next step is. There are always options to keep putting CMLL matches out there when and how I’d like. The cat and mouse game has gotten tiring. I was bummed when the YouTube channel got nuked, but I felt like figuring something else out a few days later. Thursday, I exhausted with everything. I’m putting a lot hours in things will inevitably fail. Building a sand castle on the beach is fun for a bit and then dumb later; that tide’s coming in no matter what. Today I feel a little better about it, but I’m also trying to just leave it be for a few days. (If you’ve hit the “request access” button, it’s filtering to a folder I won’t check for a while.)

I appreciate everyone who reached out and said nice things about the Drive and other stuff I’ve done.

AAA

Latin Lover, in Mexico City for the premiere of theatre production Roomix Thursday, talked to YouTube channel La Tijera on the red carpet. In the midst of talking about his different jobs and his podcast, Latin mentions he went out to dinner with Dorian Roldan Wednesday night and they agreed for him to be the creative director for AAA starting with TripleMania Monterrey. That is Konnan’s job with AAA, so this is huge (if true.) I have no idea what that means for Konnan’s status with AAA. Latin could just be contributing ideas and Konnan’s still the main person handling the day to day, or it could mean much more. Latin talked about it for about ten seconds, who knows. Half the people in the comments assume it’s just some angle, which is unlikely given the context but still reasonable given it’s AAA. We’ll no doubt here more about this soon if this is the big change some people want it to be, so further discussion can be saved until then.

Konnan usually is part of the AAA/EMW shows in Tijuana, and there’s one tonight. Hijo del Vikingo is also supposed to appear on that show, his first post-surgery appearance. Since most AAA info seems to come on media interviews, it’s possible we may learn Vikingo’s estimated return date.

That EMW show probably will include some follow up to AAA wrestlers showing up on The Crash’s last show in that city. I didn’t really think about it enough then, but the reason why Dorian Roldan was the AAA rep for that and not Konnan may be because Konnan & The Crash management aren’t yet on good terms; Konnan will take the very occasional shot at “Nacho de la O” on his podcast. It may have been easier on everyone just to have Roldan as the rep.

AAA this week starts the Mexico City taping. This will also be the first time any match for next week’s TripleMania gets mentioned on screen. No knowing which matches will air.

In a recent TripleMania media interview Faby Apache, when asked about Dalys’ comment about one day main eventing an AAA show, says she would love to see it. She also says she doesn’t think it’ll happen any time soon, because there are no women with discipline or wrestling level to be in that kind of match. They’re trying, but they’re not trying hard enough. Faby always says that kind of thing about all other women’s wrestlers but it just stuck me as funny this time.

Octagon Jr.‘s big goal is to be double champion – hold both the Latin American championship and the Cruiserweight championship. Komander is the current Cruiserweight champion has not defended the title in an AAA ring since winning it last September, and no longer is mentioned as champion on AEW TV. He has nothing but generic things to stay about his TripleMania match.

IWRG

IWRG (THU) 04/11/2024 Arena Naucalpan [IWRG]
1) Puma de Oro b Shamila 
Random match
2) Jessy Ventura b Pig Decapitador 
Random match
3) Arez & Látigo b Noisy Boy & Spider Fly 
Random match. Started as Arez vs Noisy but both partners got involved and it was switched to a tag.
4) Vangellys b Hell Boy, Hijo de Canis Lupus 
Vangellys won via foul
5) Hijo del Pirata Morgan, Pirata Morgan, Pirata Morgan Jr. DRAW Pig Destroyer, Pig Destructor, Pig Pool [super libre] 
challenges followed

The idea of these random matches is the participants not selected until a random name picker plays on the screen. Prior to match 3, IWRG put the Mala Fama logo on the screen for a brief second and then the random name picker just happened to choose Arez. I think wrestling may not be on the level.

(That match is on the list of stuff to watch later.)

IWRG (SUN) 04/14/2024 Arena Naucalpan
1) Bumbu & Sacro vs Águila Oriental & Drakula Ng
2) Candy Swing & Shamila vs Danessa & Diosa Quetzal
3) Fussion, Golden Power, Sky Man vs Águila Roja, Rey Aztaroth, Rey Halcón
4) Multifacético & Tornado vs Cerebro Negro & Cerebro Negro Jr. © [IWRG IC TAG]
fifth defense
5) Hijo de Canis Lupus, Noisy Boy, Spider Fly vs Hijo del Pirata Morgan, Látigo, Toxin
6) Axel, Hell Boy, Máscara Sagrada vs Gannicus, Ivan Rokov, Vangellys

Axel’s also in Naucalpan for an expo this weekend.

IWRG’s Golfo de Guerra will take place on 04/21. This is another two stage cage match, where the loser of each cage match wrestle each other in a mask match. Hijo de Canis Lupus will also defend the RGR Heavyweight Championship on the show.

Big Lucha

Big Lucha World (SAT) 04/13/2024 Arena Big Lucha, Iztapalapa, Distrito Federal
1) ?, ??, ??? vs ????, ?????, ??????
2) Reiyel & Zenky vs Depaysman & La Bomba
3) Marishka & Ryu Orochi vs Helios & Sussy Love
4) Caballero de Plata, El Potro de Oro, Mr. Win, Tirano vs Auzter, Black Skayde, Bogdan Klimov, Brujo
5) Elipse, Iku, Vengador vs ?, Big Tao Tao, Cósmico
6) Flamita vs Argenis
7) Hijo del Pirata Morgan vs Jack Evans

Pirata/Jack could be interesting but I’m not sure where the title story is going (if it’s going.) Argenis hasn’t been here in a while (and I guess that confirms the Big Lucha/CMLL thing is dead dead.)

Flamita is listed as wrestling on a pair of Dragon Gate shows in Hong Kong on May 18th and 19th. Big Lucha’s logo is also on the poster. Flamita and Big Lucha had been working with GLEAT, which is very much an opposition promotion to Dragon Gate. Flamita hasn’t worked in Dragon Gate since 2019. This may be a Hong Kong deal instead of a Dragon Gate one; this is a group Ricky Marvin works with, Marvin’s now a part of Big Lucha and maybe Flamita’s heading over to Hong Kong for a spell.

Field Trip: NJPW Press Conference

Thursday, I took in the NJPW Windy City Riot press conference in Des Plaines, Illinois. I though it’d be interesting to go see something like that once. It turned out I was correct, in that once is all I really needed. It was simply wrestlers cutting promos (and/or throwing a chair and threating to shoot someone in the head) in front of an audience that would cheer.

The press conference took place in what was essentially two conference rooms with a divider removed; it was packed but it was also very small, so many fifty people hanging out. Almost all the people were actually there for the paid meet and greet. (The press conference wasn’t really a press event – no questions, no interviews – but it was free so I feel I got my money’s worth.) I had wondered if it would be more AEW fans or NJPW ones, and it was a bit of a mix – or at least a group who were into the names from both promotions. Gabe Kidd took Eddie Kingston from zero to attempted murder very quickly, Nic Nemeth seemed eager to prove himself against a different style opponent than he ever has faced, and Tetsuya Naito was both respectful of Jon Moxley’s abilities while still resolutely trolling him in the photo op.

I’m heading to this show tonight. I feel more like I should go – it’s a big NJPW show in driving distance, CMLL’s Stephanie Vaquer having a match so that seems important, they might actually change the big title in the main event – than excited for the show. I think that main event will be an event, I’m just not there with the rest of the show.

Other News

Actress Lorena Velazquez (86) passed away Thursday. The role that comes up most first in her obits is “Santo Contra Los Zombies“; she was the female lead in the first El Santo movie. El Hijo del Santo sent out condolences on Twitter.

Lucha Memes has Hechicero versus Aeroboy on 04/21, which sounds great.

ELITE announced tickets for their 04/21 show would have a 2×1 deal on Thursday. Tickets haven’t moved much at all since they went on sale. The seat map on Thursday lists a bunch of empty seats, but that central section and the ringside area were never put on sale. They’ve moved maybe a couple hundred; far less than this same lineup would’ve done in a place like Arena Lopez Mateos or Arena Naucalpan. As much as Elite gets treated like a big deal, the brand name hasn’t moved tickets Going to a 2×1 ticket sale suggest ELITE really needs to move some tickets now or else, and I don’t know what “or else” is going to be.

TNA is coming back to Cicero on June 14th and June 15th. So that’s a month after the MLW show in the same building, where MLW is selling tickets at unusually discounted prices. TNA’s press release hypes it around Mustafa Ali; there’s no mention of (promotional partner?) AAA or even Laredo Kid. TNA threw out a token trios match featuring Mexican wrestlers last time out to draw in latino fans and surely will do at least as much again; match announcements will be made in “late May.”

El Sol del Cordoba has an interview with local luchadora Libna Maciel.