Volador versus Ephesto & Euforia, La Rebelion in Monterrey, FULL/Dristomanía

CMLL (SUN) 02/19/2017 Arena Coliseo Guadalajara [CMLL]
1) Quca b Avispón Negro Jr.
Quca took 2/3.
2) Cosmos & El Alteño b Thunder Boy & Vitela
Vitela (new?) replaced Relampago. Tecnicos took 2/3.
3) Linterna & Mr. Brisa b Mágico & Reycko
Reycko was hurt in the second fall, leading to a straight fall win.
4) Explosivo, Metatrón, Neutrón b Demonio Rojo, Difunto, Gran Kenut
tecnicos took 1/3.
5) Flash II, Star Black, Vaquero Jr. b Frezzer, Furia Roja, León Blanco
tecnicos took 1/3.

Vitela hasn’t wrestled before, so maybe that’s a typo I haven’t grasped yet. Reycko leaving a match injured might be important later, since he’s supposed to debut this Sunday in Arena Mexico in the minis cibernetico. I’d guess he’ll be in that match if it all possible.

CMLL (MON) 02/20/2017 Arena Puebla [CultIcon, El Popular]
1) Flyer, Millenium, Zaeta Roja b Guerrero Espacial, King Jaguar, Perverso
2) Lestat, Pegasso, Tigre Rojo Jr. b Disturbio, Espíritu Maligno, Policeman
3) Kráneo, Olímpico, Ripper b Blue Panther Jr., The Panther, Tritón
4) Hechicero, Rey Bucanero, Terrible b Ángel de Oro, Máximo Sexy, Valiente
5) Dragón Lee, Mistico, Volador Jr. DQ Euforia, Niebla Roja, Yoshitatsu
Euforia fouled Volador, then fouled Tirantes too. This set up a Volador/Euforia match for next week.

Sounded like a show of a lot of OK matches, and a main event angle to set up a match next week. Maybe someone in CMLL decided just to push everyone with E to start their name and big times are coming for Espanto Junior? I dunno, Volador/Ephesto should at least be good.

CMLL’s told the press there will be a press conference on Wednesday to decide the main event of Homenaje a Dos Leyendas. There’s other feuds – Volador wants to face Cavernario! – but the thing that’s gotten the spotlight has been Diamante Azul versus Pierroth. Like I wrote on Saturday, it’s not official until they do the contract signing, but doing the contract signing already is not a good sign for people hoping for a good match. The Informa guests were announced as Princesa Sugehit, Pequeno Joker, Reycko, Pequeno Relampago, Diamante Azul, and Ultimo Guerrero. CMLL usually has one or both of the people in the contract signing on Informa after, and Diamante Azul is right there.

Today’s Arena Mexico has a strange main event. Volador defending the NWA Welterweight Championship title isn’t weird, but Ephesto getting the title shot is odd. There’s so many interesting people could’ve picked, and it’s as if CMLL couldn’t get Mephisto so they went to the next guy in the normal trio. Ephesto’s match with Guerrero Maya last December was his first singles match outside a tournament in years, and he hasn’t been in a singles title match since losing the CMLL Light Heavyweight Championship to Rush in 2011. Ephesto’s not the worst guy in CMLL, but his performance is about what you’d expect when I’m defending him by saying he’s not the worst. Ephesto was a great luchador when he was young and a perfectly OK singles luchador who was useful in trios for many years, but he’s slowed down since passing the age of 50. This main event isn’t really a great use of Volador, or Ephesto, or a Tuesday CMLL show in general. The most positive theory I can think of is CMLL getting Ephesto some solo ring team to set up a mask loss, which he’s kind of over due for, but there’s no real feud set for him right now. There might be a Volador/Ephesto challenge after this match (which could help build suspense for tomorrow’s announcement), but there’s nothing that close.

The upper half of the card looks like better than usual for the Monday/Tuesday shows, but the opening matches are not so great. The semimain has Titan, Mistico and Maximo facing off against Cavernario, Casas and Mephisto. The fourth match has a unique match of Puma & Tiger teaming with NGD’s Sanson against Rey Cometa, Fuego and Stigma. That could steal the show. The women are in the tercera, with Sanely, Skadi and Princesa Sugehit versus Zeuxis, Tiffany and Reina Isis. That’d be a good time to do a Sugehit/Zeuxis feud before their match on Saturday. Principe Diamante has his best chance to get a win yet, teaming with Starman & Oro Jr. against Canelo Casas, Hijo del Signo and Espanto Jr. (back from injury). The show opens with Metatron & Bengala vs Inquisidor & Apocalispis, a very skippable match.

CultIcon also previews the show, which airs at 7:30 pm on CMLL’s YouTube channel.

Guadalajara has Atlantis, Diamante Azul and Valiente versus Pierroth, Rush & Yoshitatsu tonight. Their facebook says Hechicero will replace Dragon Rojo in the semimain. It’s not clear if Dragon Rojo’s wrestled since he was hurt on Saturday; he was scheduled for a match on Sunday in Delta.

CMLL posted the minis cibernetico from Sunday. They still haven’t mentioned it anywhere but it’s on their YouTube if you look for it.

CMLL’s also changed the Sunday card from what was listed in Box Y Lucha. They’re adding a Mistico vs Cavernario to replace the trios semimain. Titan & Gran Guerrero replace Blue Panther Jr. & Tiger in the second match, and everyone else is just not booked. If CMLL is going to post the cibernetico from this show too, they should do something with Mistico/Cavernario.

La Rebelion held a press conference last night in Monterrey. There was a lot of talking about their situation with AAA, though not much new if you’ve been following so far. (You should check out the translation of Penta’s interview with Los Reyes del Bitiful for more, especially his thoughts on PWG and Chris Hero.) They did announce a The Crash/Llaves y Canados show at Arena Coliseo Monterrey on April 9th with all these guys. They also aired a video announcing Garza Jr. & Zorro vs Cibernetico & TBA for next week.

Konnan and Octagon, who said very not nice things about each other last year, are now old friends meeting on Sunday at Arena Coliseo Monterrey. Changing times makes for changing feelings about each other.

FULL held a press conference today, with the same Octagon and Alberto el Patron. Tinieblas pushed this as the start of the new era for his promotion, but there wasn’t a lot of new news. As with recent AAA press conferences, the promotion put out the main details (Dristomanía on May) out on social media first, and then just mostly repeated that again for the sake of TV cameras. Maybe there will be more later, but there was a lot of Twitter posts from reporters saying they were at the FULL show, and then not a lot of actual news following that up. They put out a list of people scheduled to appear, which also includes Blue Demon Jr., Zorro, Cibernetico, Garza Jr., among usual names. (The Argentina guys are going to be back by then, it appears.) Alberto said Dristomanía was the start of a deal to send talent back and forth between the UK and FULL. The UK Hooligans (who are Paige’s brothers) and Drew McIntyre (a good friend of Alberto) have been announced as coming into from the UK; I’m skeptical there will be more to it until it’s announced.

Everyone needs to stop using Mania in their new names.

Alberto also posted a note on Facebook that he was coming to Lucha Libre Elite. That’s a pretty good sign Elite is alive, and Alberto is a big enough star to keep them on TV. Plus, Combate Americas is on Azteca, so it could be a good tie up. There’s still no news on when Elite might be running.

Prensa Libre has a story about Mascara Negra, a Guatemala luchador who passed away after a match in 1964. He was only 29. He’d been complaining about chest pains after a match on February 1, went to the doctor, and his wife said the doctor told him it was no big deal and gave him so pills. He had two more matches, appearing to have broken a rib somewhere along the way but just taping up his chest and going, before returning to the hospital on February 10th and passing away. The doctor disputed the story afterwards, and an investigation says Mascara Negra was referred for future treatment after the first visit, but didn’t go back until it was very severe.

ESPN’s wrestling section writes about Marco Corleone, wrestler and telenovela star. I think being in the media hub of Mexico City many times a week helps in getting this attention for Sam Adonis and Marco. They’re not sending reporters to Tlaxcala for lucha libre stories (which is bad for me because I would go for some Tlaxcala lucha stories) and it’s easier to be noticed when someone might go to your show any day of the week than when you’re running TV 3 times a week.

The Yaneth Cantando performance didn’t air on CMLL’s stream, but there’s photos of it here. Hechicero and Mephisto got involved.

+LuchaTV has a new edition of their podcast, which is still not on a RSS feed and so takes me like a half hour just to get to my phone to listen. You should probably just listen to it on YouTube. The title says “the birth of Titanes del Cosmos” and Aerostar’s a guest, so I bet they have a name for the Aerostar/Drago/Argenis trio.

The WWS Women’s promotion says they’re on pause for a while, but will announce someone going to Japan (Stardom) for three months and will run a title tournament when they come back.

AJPW says Jun Akiyama will return to Mexico for this year’s DragonMania show. Other AJPW wrestlers are coming, and they’ll be here from 05/25 to 05/31. That’s longer than usual; I wonder if they’ll work IWRG or something.

A few photos and a quick report of PILLA (Cuernavaca)’s 1st anniversary show. Skadi has a giant scary wolf/dog mask that I don’t think we’ve seen in Mexico City.

LuchaWorld has this week’s Poster-Mania, the latest Lucha Report and a new Lucha Clasica episode on Chavo Guerrero.

CultIcon pleads for Rush vs Atlantis.

PCW has Rey Fenix vs Extreme Tiger and Penta on 03/24 in Wilmington (Los Angeles), California

SWF has Penta el Zero Miedo vs Alberto el Patron on 06/10 in New Jersey.

LG Promociones in Veracruz is working with a local group to help people fighting cancer.

Conan O’Brien got lucha libre lessons from Casandro, Magnus and others on Facebook Live.

Blim has the Hijo del Santo movie on their service now. Blim has the Blue Demon TV show, so this is getting similar programming around it.

Vulcano Jr. took Pirata Fantasma’s hair in Arena Aficion, and Super Crazy took Golepador’s hair in Deportivo 11 de Julio.

There’s a memorial show for Morelia luchador Copernico, who passed away recently..

Lineup

CMLL (SAT) 02/25/2017 Arena Coliseo
1) Leono, Marvel, Sensei vs Artillero, Camorra, Cholo
2) Astral, Príncipe Diamante, Starman vs Metálico, Nitro, Virus
3) Zeuxis © vs Princesa Sugehit [MEX WOMEN]
8th defense, fourth straight against Sugehit.
4) Blue Panther, Blue Panther Jr., The Panther vs Ephesto, Luciferno, Mephisto
5) Cavernario, Euforia, Mr. Niebla vs Atlantis, Máximo Sexy, Mistico

Sugehit probably should win – failing four times in a row is not great, both because she keeps failing and CMLL has no other ideas. The problem is Zeuxis is the best luchadora CMLL has and there’s no path for her to win the main title while Dalys is still world champion. I suspect Zeuxis retains but I wouldn’t rule out a change.

Principe Diamante isn’t winning that match. He’s got to win tonight.

CMLL (SUN) 02/26/2017 Arena Coliseo Guadalajara
1) Metal Blanco & Micro vs Linterna & Mr. Brisa
2) Neutrón & Sky Kid vs Évola & Exterminador
3) Gallo, Magnum, Metatrón vs Difunto, Maléfico, Ráfaga
4) El Cuatrero, Forastero, Sansón vs Explosivo, Omar Brunetti, Star Black
5) Diamante Azul, Dragón Lee, Esfinge vs Furia Roja, Pierroth, Terrible

CMLL sending 4-6 people to Sunday Guadalajara shows was the standard until a couple years ago. Maybe it’s coming back, but it’s also strange to see Dragon Lee and Pierroth on opposite sides of a match. CMLL’s gone out of their way to avoid Pierroth facing his sons in the past and maybe a change is coming.

NGD are still the Guadalajara trios champions, facing a group of likely challengers.

Metal Blanco in the opener sticks out. Triton was the most recent Metal Blanco and it’s way too soon to repeat that name unless it’s a family member.

CMLL (MON) 02/27/2017 Arena Puebla
1) París & Zaeta Roja vs Rey Apocalipsis & Toro Bill Jr.
2) Millenium & Robin vs Espíritu Maligno & Policeman
3) Fuego, Oro Jr., Stigma vs Arkángel de la Muerte, Canelo Casas, Okumura
4) Johnny Idol, Máximo Sexy, Stuka Jr. vs Ephesto, Hechicero, Mephisto
5) Volador Jr. vs Euforia [lightning]
6) Dragón Lee, Mistico, Rush vs Gran Guerrero, Niebla Roja, Último Guerrero

Volador/Euforia is only a lightning match, which might mean they do two straight singles matches. Rush is actually on the tecnico side when teaming with his brothers.