top ’08 lucha libre rookies

or, reposting emails while waiting to for your pizza to get done:

I got asked in email about ’08 Lucha Libre rookies, because apparently Rookie of The Year is a discussion on the F4 board at the moment.  This year is going too fast if we’re already takling OfTheYear stuff (though I believe the cut off here is September to September – I probably should’ve known for sure at some point.) This is what I wrote back…

It’s very difficult to define rookies in Mexico, because a lot of guys
are regional names before they come to CMLL or AAA and a lot of guys
work early matches for a few years before they get much of a push.
They’re never really rookies, but they’re a new star when they’re
pushed that way.

Out of CMLL, the closest to ROTYC are
– Hijo del Fantasma (who’d been wrestling occasionally in IWRG and
other small/mid Mexico City metro area groups AND had a few matches
for AAA’s TV back in 2005 as part of a middleweight title tournament
but only started full time with CMLL this year after graduating from
college – see what I mean about it being difficult?)
– Dragon Rojo Jr./Diamante Negro

Fantasma is clearly the better worker, Dragon Rojo Jr. is slightly
pushed better (won a mask this Friday in Arena Mexico, to a
disappointing turnout.)

AAA doesn’t really have any rookie standouts – most of their guys
people think of young were 2006 or 07 startups. Guys that might
qualify include

– Argenis (Mistico’s brother, bad and in a minor role)
– Jesse (had a minor role before, had a slightly less minor role this
year and is good)
– Black Abyss (midlevel role, but had short runs with the company in
’04 and ’05 under different names, probably not really a rookie)
– Killer Clown (pushed more than the rest of these, but no one’s quite
sure who’s under the mask – it stands a good chance it’s someone from
Puerto Rico or elsewhere and not a new person.)

I’d stick with Hijo del Fantasma and Dragon Rojo Jr.

So who was obvious that I missed? CMLL’s brought in lots of novatos and near novatos (Metalik! Hijo del Faraon!) this year, but I don’t that they really qualify or do much enough to matter.

ROTY comes up every year in the Tapatias, and I don’t go with it because there’s no criteria that completely works for me. I think either you have to go really strict (only promotions X, Y, and Z count, and you’re DQed if you’ve appeared on TV X many times) or something really simple (you’re a rookie only if you’ve never recieved a vote for any award before) – most rookie awards end up in some nebelous middle ground. And I generally don’t think these awards are that useful – a most improved/biggest riser award does a better job of telling what happened that year in wrestling than something that’s going to include/exclude based on arbitararly divisions.

BTW, when Paco Alonso gets in the WON HOF in the next week or so (which I assume is happening), I think I’m going to lose my mind. Even if you believed he should belong, it’s going to be the greatest bad timing award ever.