Tonight kicks off a busy weekend in lucha libre, and a stretch of big shows over the next fifteen days. Tonight, AAA tapes tehri final TV show prior to TripleMania, and CMLL has it’s second to last Friday night show before it’s Anniversary show. The three most well known super-indie promotions, Cara Lucha, ChilangaMask and Lucha Memes, are all running shows this weekend. Elite returns to running this Sunday, though many people who might work that show are instead working the previous scheduled MDA anniversary show in Monterrey. IWRG also has a show.
It starts tonight in Arena Mexico, where CMLL is two shows away from their Anniversary show. La Mascara and Dragon Lee continue to face off in trios matches leading to their mask versus mask matches. Dragon Lee teams with his brother Mistico and Valiente, while La Mascara partners with Mephisto and Ephesto. Dragon Lee won the last one, and has been on the winning side the last couple weeks.
The other 09/02 feud continues in the fourth match, where Rey Bucanero teams with Bobby Z & Vangellys against Super Crazy and Invasors Kraneo & Ripper in a rudos versus rudos match. Crazy was portrayed as a tecnico up until last week. Maybe we’re heading to a Dragon Lee & Rey Bucanero versus Super Crazy & La Mascara match next week.
CMLL also has another major show in four weeks, and we have no idea what’s happening there. Perhaps something will come out of the semimain, where the dormant Rush versus Maximo & Marco Corleone feud is revived. Rush teams with his fellow Ingobernables (?) Pierroth & Rey escorpion, while Atlantis is the third tecnico. Rush previously took Maximo’s hair in March and it’d be way too soon to go back for that again, but I guess Rush versus Marco or Marco versus Pierroth are possibilities. I don’t really know.
Three other matches round out the card. Estrellita and Zeuxis meet in a lightning match; they’ll be on opposite sides of the women’s opener on 09/02. Los Canceberos take on Pegasso, Hombre Bala Jr. and Esfinge, who’s been absent from Arena Mexico for the last month but wrestling often around Jalisco. Flyer & Star Jr. take on Canelo Casas & Espiritu Negro in the opener.
Cult Icon also previews the show. It’ll air at 8:30pm on CMLL’s YouTube channel. It’ll also air live on NJPW World, but will only be available if your IP address registers you as living in Japan. (There’s no reason to get around it this week, but it becomes slightly useful next week – Claro doesn’t keep the show for VOD – and very useful the week after that if they do it.)
AAA tapes tonight to Auditorio Benito Juarez in Veracruz. That’s the location of their first show, 24 years ago. Tonight, it’s the site of their last show before TripleMania. The main event sets up the last angle for the show, where the winner of a Psycho Circus/Los Fronterizos cage match will get to decide the referee for the Psycho Clown versus Pagano mask versus hair match. Psycho Clown has lost literally every single match in this feud and tonight does not figure to by any different. Hijo del Tirantes is the likely referee pick.
There are two other matches with light implications on TripleMania. Texano Jr. and Pentagon Jr., who were opponents on this week’s AAA TV show, will team this week against Team Trump members Mesias & Hernandez. Texano faces another Trump supporter, Cage, as part of his title match next Sunday. Fenix & Fantasma and Aerostar & Drago are both in the four way tag title match on the big show, and face off in a three way with Daga & Joe Lider. (Jack Evans, who will also be in that TripleMania match, is tonight in Chicago for AAW.)
The undercard is three filler matches trios matches, with a lot of people who didn’t make the TripleMania card. I’d think they were set to be cut out of TV and be put on the internet only, except they’d run out of TV later on. Argenis, Suicide & Bengala taking on the utility rudo crew of Pirata, Super Fly and Dave the Clown. Taya, Lady Shani and El Apache versus Big Mami, Mary Apache and Nino Hamburguesa, which might play on Apache being a referee for Mary’s match. The opener is listed as Gotita de Plata, Lanzeloth, and Venum versus Soul Rocker, Mocho Cota Jr. and a mystery person. That mystery person seems like it should be Herodes Jr. based on recent usage, but Herodes has been so poor again flyers that I’m hoping it’s anyone else.
The show has a listed start time as 8:45pm, which means probably more like 9:30pm after the usual late start and locals dark match. It will air on TV on 08/27 and 09/03. It won’t air live, but there’s usual a few people doing Periscopes during the show if internet quality is good.
AAA is done taping until next Sunday’s TripleMania, and will spend the next week doing publicity for the big show. They do have the annual pilgrimage next Thursday.
AAA said TripleMania would be on iPPV back at their press conference for the event, but have not revealed any more details. It’d might be best to wait until Monday to make any formal announcements, as it’d get lost in the upcoming tsunami of wrestling over the weekend, but it does look like it’s happening. AAA’s iPPV site now lists TripleMania as airing, at 230MXN or $23USD. Note that this same site listed Rey de Reyes, AAA never officially acknowledged it, and then the iPPV was listed as canceled. They got back together for the Lucha World Cup, but the price changed a few times. I would not buy the show until AAA sends out a press release saying it’s on.
1 USD is about 18.5 pesos at the moment, so foreign fans are getting charged nearly twice as much for the same show. Even if it was even, going over $20 USD is a tough sale for a promotion without a lot of buzz and coming of a legendary poor show a year ago. TripleMania is a good lineup, but it’s hard to believe many people are going to buy it, and it’s unlikely AAA believes otherwise based on how little they’ve promoted it. It’ll pick up next week, but it seems completely focused on filling up Arena Ciudadde Mexico and any iPPVs they get are bonus.
The plan was for their to be English announcers, and the flags up top indicate both English and Japanese feeds along with the Spanish ones. There’s no word who that would be, though I suspect Hugo Savonivich will be back based on him doing the promos on TV.
Leo Riano’s column mentions AAA will induct Love Machine Art Barr into their Hall of Fame this year TripleMania. Barr would be the third member of famous Gringos Loco versus Hijo del Santo & Octagon hair vs mask to be inducted, following Eddie Guerrero and Octagon. (Hijo del Santo may be in some day, but probably not soon.) Riano says a second person will also be inducted. You can see the list of those in here. Konnan is a notable omission, but obviously isn’t going in this year. Cien Caras, who headlined the first TripleMania, would also fit.
The same column mentions Sexy Star is planning on boxing professionally before the end of the year, and has an amateur record of 6 wins and 1 loss (so she’s been boxing under the radar for at least a while.)
ROH’s preview for their WrestleMania weekend show says CMLL will be included on their show. It’s so far away that they might not even know exactly who’s going to appear, and more a sign that CMLL wrestlers will regularly or semi regularly appear on ROH’s bigger shows if all stays well.
The Santo Jr. match in Torreon seems to have drawn pretty well, filling the Gimnasio. (That’s probably smaller than the bullring they were originally going to run before reports of rain.) Magnifico II did wrestle in the match judging by that video of the entrance. There was apparently a rumor that there would be no beer at the show, which the promotion were denying on their Facebook. The Arena Olimpico Laguna show across the border in Gomez Palacio with Atlantis is said to have done as well.
Pentagon, Fenix, Drago, Aerostar, Fantasma, Taya, La Parka and La Hiedra are advertised for an 09/18 show in Cicero (outside Chicago.) This is the group
Matt Farmer posted a 1974 letter from the NWA giving EMLL permission to run title tournaments.
Xtreme Tiger talks about his match against Flamita.
Jack Evans talks about his TripleMania match.
Zumbido & Decnnis talk about their appearance in Elite. I’m running low on verbs.
Cross Arm Breaker endures Sangre Chicana versus Cibernetico.
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