CMLL (apparently) lost it’s main TV outlet; few notice

CMLL’s main live event of the week is the Friday night show. Matches from that show air in Mexico on Fox Sports 2. That may need to be changed to the past tense. The show did not air last week, is not listed as airing on the schedule for this week, and it’s unclear if they’ll be back on the network again. Those Friday night matches will still air on Azteca in the United State. It means the only way Mexican fans can watch the main CMLL stories is by being at an Arena Mexico show or by finding my YouTube channel and hoping I upload the show. (Obviously, this is a poor idea.)

CMLL has said nothing about the situation. CMLL Informa, the weekly in-house show dedicated to talking about about all that’s going on in CMLL, did not directly talk about the situation. The only reference was saying the Reyes del Aire match would air on Azteca (America) and omitting the usual mention of it also airing on Fox Sports 2. Fans asking CMLL about the situation on social media have been ignored in usual fashion.

It may also be only a temporary situation: when small indy promotions like AULL and FULL have found TV outlets this year, it seems likely someone will take in CMLL. It’s still embarrassing – both in losing the TV and how they’ve not addressed it. (The counterpoint is these sort of TV issues play a much lesser role in the discussion of wrestling in Mexico as compared to the US; I’m not sure anyone else is going to report this, but perhaps that’s an even bigger issue with CMLL’s reach.)

This is also not an entirely unexpected development. CMLL’s was bounced from Televisa for reportedly not improving their TV product and low ratings, and seemed to be bumped down from Fox Sports Mexico 1 to 2 for similar reasons. Fox Sports Mexico acquiring the TV rights to WWE in Mexico last year meant they had little need for CMLL. The show was frequently moved around and treated as a filler program and now they’ve got other wrestling for the same purposes.

CMLL still has plenty of TV: 2 hours on Cadena3 (available over the air on Mexico City and in other locations, but not nationwide) and 1 hour each on Canal 52MX and Claro Sports (available on limited systems.) Any of those programs could now start airing the big Friday night matches, but the last two are too small to do much good. Cadena3 has seemed like a better outlet for CMLL’s main action for quite some time, but CMLL’s never made that change. The hold up might be about Cadena3 producing their TV broadcast themselves, while CMLL’s been producing the Friday TV shows completely on their own. (From the outside, there doesn’t seem to be much difference except for the announcers, but it could be the announcers who decide these things.)