AAA to LA’s The Forum on 10/13, CMLL results, Metaleon show tonight

CMLL (TUE) 06/18/2019 Arena México [Lucha Central, R de Rudo, The Gladiatores]
1) Cholo & Yago b Arkalis & Bengala 
Tigre Infante (Metalico) debuted as referee.
2) Magia Blanca, Oro Jr., Retro b Akuma, Espanto Jr., Nitro 
Tecnicos took 2/3.
3) Amapola, La Comandante, Metálica b Avispa Dorada, Lluvia, Maligna 
Rudas took 1/3.
4) Vangellys b Esfinge [lightning] 
5) Black Panther, Blue Panther, Blue Panther Jr. b Ephesto, Luciferno, Mephisto 
Tecnicos took 1/3. money thrown in.
6) Místico, Titán, Volador Jr. b Felino, Mr. Niebla, Rey Bucanero 
Tecnicos took 2/3.

Metalico – now Tigre Infante – debuting as a referee was the only news from the show. I’m not sure about the ice cream man white shirt white pants look, too distracting as a referee, but he seemed better at doing the job than most of the ones he had now. He talked about his new role and Vangellys talked about his win. Esfinge/Vangellys held no surprises. The Panther match was said to be best on the show.

CMLL (TUE) 06/18/2019 Arena Coliseo Guadalajara [CMLL]
1) Frenético, Fúnebre, Jabalí b Amperaje, Cosmos, Micro
rudos took 1/3
2) Guerrero de la Muerte TLDRAW Furia Roja [lightning]
another added singles match, though this one went the full ten minutes
3) Cancerbero, Paymon, Raziel b El Alteño, Sangre Imperial, Star Black
Rudos took 1/3. Paymon’s debut unmasked. El Ateneo replaced Magnus.
4) Guerrero Maya Jr., Pegasso, Rey Cometa b Ráfaga, Sagrado, Virus
Tecnicos took 2/3. Pegasso’s return from a concussion. Rafaga replaced Misterioso.
5) Ángel de Oro, Kráneo, Niebla Roja b Difunto, La Bestia Del Ring, Terrible
Tecnicos took 2/3. Difunto replaced Negro Casas.
6) Rush b Cavernario
Rush took 1/3, the first with the super quick dropkick finish and the last with the Rush Driver.

That’s the first Rush/Cavernario singles match. Hope the feed is running Saturday.

A lot of changes on the card and another one of the unannounced lightning matches to lengthen these shows. The fourth match was Pegasso’s return from a nine-day concussion layoff. No sign of Princesa Sugehit still.

Last night’s show in Arena Aficion included a bit where Dr. Wagner Jr., Hijo de Dr. Wagner, and Galeno del Mal were doing a tribute to Silver King and Blue Demon interrupted to attack. Demon hit Wagner Jr. with the giant Silver King photo. I assume something like that is coming to TV at some point, though it might be considered too far if they do it too soon.

AAA in LA

AAA held a press conference today in Los Angeles to officially announce a show in The Forum for Sunday, October 13th. The press conference is going on as I type this, but AAA didn’t stream it. They didn’t even say a press conference was happening until about a half hour before (despite the luchador all chatting about on Twitter that day.) AAA did post the same exact message from a number of dead twitter accounts and then RT-ed them on their main one, which is not useful to anyone at all but something that seems to be done a lot. They could be telling us what happened at the press conference but no one seems to be doing that.

AAA had previously announced plans for an LA date back when they announced the 09/15 Madison Square Garden show. This suggests the MSG show tickets are selling better than believed, or at least well enough not to cancel this second show. The Forum is a 17,000+ seat venue, though they seem to have closed it down to around 12,000 based on the site map.

Tickets are already on sale if you use a presale code. (LUCHA and LULUCHA both work.) The tickets run from 30 to 300, about the same range as MSG. There are no more details on this show than the MSG one, down to AAA using the same (and probably erroneous) list of talent for this show. It didn’t make much sense for the previous show and will probably change. Dr. Wagner Jr. & Blue Demon Jr. both appeared at the press conference to promote the show, though both have said they will retire after TripleMania if they lose. Demon at least amended it to after the MSG show. They’ll be amending it for a long time to come.

This is is not an ideal date. WWE will be running a RAW house show that night in nearby Anaheim (listed in a court filing, wrestlenomics has a full list of WWE’s 2019 schedule.) In theory, AAA’s drawing from people who are interested in lucha libre and not WWE. In reality, they need to draw from as many different types of fans as possible if they’re going to fill up this building. AEW hasn’t mentioned anything about this show, if you’re still hoping for them to get involved with this show or the MSG one. AAA believes they’re going after a market than the people who pay for AEW, but we know the people who pay for AEW or even those who pay for WWE truly do exist and AAA’s having to prove another type of fan both exists and is willing to pay for them. It’s an incredible challenge.

(Likewise, I’m slightly surprised there wasn’t some attempt to leverage any remaining goodwill for Lucha Underground into pushing this show. That is consistent with LU being left out of the short-lived Gladiadors shows; AAA will still use LU’s social media to promote their own shows but that seems as far as the relationship goes.)

The MSG show was said not to be airing on Twitch stream. I’d guess this would be the same.

The last time AAA ran a full show in Los Angeles was 2009, part of the tour of US venues sponsored by a cheese company. AAA did actually run matches a year late in Los Angeles was as promotion stunt at the E3 video game convention to promote the video game. (And of course, this doesn’t count Lucha Underground.) The dream here is to draw the same overwhelming fan support AAA had in the early/mid 90s in Los Angeles. A key difference is AAA was airing multiple times a week on cable systems via Galavision in Los Angeles at that time, and they are not on TV at all right now. Maybe some of that is mitigated by the YouTube/Twitch presence that didn’t exist then, but the real hope is local media promotion (mostly radio) will drive people to buy tickets the day of the show. This show is happening one month after the MSG show and the success or failure there will probably have a big impact on how the LA one is promoted.

I wish I was excited about one of these idea; I was writing about how bad an idea Nacion Lucha Libre was last week and I’m not much higher on this. Anything jump into a new market like this is going to inherently have some risk and there’s going to be a lack of perfect confidence until it actually works. For this project, if AAA had gotten TV – even if they were just on a UTDN an hour a week with a show that was hard selling the US shows – I could see the path to success to this. The stuff they’re doing here (radio/local media promotion) is all stuff that can’t be seen as working or not working from far away, so it’s hard to believe if even AAA will have a really strong idea if this is working until they open the doors that day. The one difference is they’ll have ticket sales and we might now; the ticket page for the MSG show seems to have turned off the seat picker map, which obscures exactly how many tickets have been sold.

Other News

IWRG tonight will have a Metaleon benefit show at 7:45 pm. Most Naucalpan shows have been streaming on InterneTV Deportes of late and it is possible this might be live on +LuchaTV as well. The main event has the Traums vs Emperador Azteca & Hijo del Dr. Wagner. Aramis versus Demonio Infernal might be the best match on the show, though the Year 2010 wrestlers versus the Year 2019 might have crazier spots.

On +LuchaTV’s videocast, Hip Hop Man read off a list of upcoming Arena Naucalpan shows. I think these must’ve just been PALL related, since the 07/04 AAA show here is not mentioned.

• 06/23 a Torneo FILL show (vs Argentina Mexa Wrestling)
• 06/30 Octagon, Mascara Sagrada, ? vs Canek, Fuerza Guerrera, Villano IV
  • Vampiro was booked for this match until he did the “I may die if I have another match” speech
    • he’s going to have another match
    • people who are still in this match seem like they may also be one match away from dying
• 07/07 Jaula de Locas
  • this is an annual exoticos cage match, loser loses mask or hair
  • IWRG has a history of putting people under exotico gimmicks for one night to lose in this
  • it sounds like there will be non-exotics included
• 07/14 a Mexawrestling show
• 07/21 Dr. Wagner & Los Traumas vs Mesias, Dragon Bane, Hijo del Canis Lupus
• 07/28 a NOBA/Lucha Libre Boom show
• 08/04 El Mesias headlines
• (nothing was mentioned for 08/11)
• 08/18 Blue Demon headlines
  • Hip Hop Man was overly confident this would be a chance to see Blue Demon unmasked.
• 08/25 “the best of AAA vs the best of IWRG”
  • Aramis vs Hijo del Vikingo was immediately suggested by the panel

Viceland’s The Wrestler TV series has an episode tonight at 10 pm on rising Mexican wrestlers, including Pentagon, Fenix, Daga, Ultimo Maldito, and Arkangel Divino. These episodes seem to be taped a year or two ago and a lot has changed (and unchanged) since then; the teaser suggests this will be focused on The Crash when all those people were working there.

Pentagon Jr. is being teased for the AAA taping in Aguascalientes on 07/18. If Pentagon and Cody are actually on that show, that seems like the last big show before TripleMania.

GALLI’s show this Sunday – with Caristico, Barbaro Cavernario, Titan Aero Boy among others – will be airing live on nothingelseon.tv. It looks like you can get it as part of a $5/month subscription. Exact matches don’t appear to be announced yet.

LA Park headlined his hometown Arena Coliseo Monclova last night and appeared to sell out the arena. The story that made news sites was Guerrero Negro III being knocked out earlier in the show. He needed an ambulance and was taken to the hospital, but it was not considered serious once he got there. There’s video of the show (because LA Park) but I don’t see one of the injury. This article describes it as Negro taking a huracanrana badly. General newspaper recaps of injuries aren’t usually solid at describing moves though. This isn’t the Guerrero Negro who was in CMLL.

The Chavez Brothers believe Friday’s match will be tougher than Homenaje a Dos Leyendas, because La Bestia del Ring will fight harder while teamed with his son.

Atlantis, Atlantis Jr. & Okumura talk about their trip to Spain. This will be Okumura’s first in-ring match in three months after suffering from appendicitis.

Casandro will have a wrestling seminar and match in Chicago on June 29th.

07/21 Pro Wrestling Mexico (Arena Coliseo Monterrey, debut show)

• Dragon Bane vs Latigo vs Arez – new

Lineups

PWR (SAT) 06/22/2019 John Oconnel High School, San Francisco, California
1) Colt Stevens vs Rey León, Fuego, Bestia 666 © [PWR JH]
2) Brittany Wonder vs Lady Apache
3) Titán (CMLL) vs Misterioso (California)
4) Carístico vs Bárbaro Cavernario

The lineup was announced a week ago but sometimes I’m slow when it’s not actually on the poster. PWR didn’t stream the last show anywhere so I’m not sure it’ll happen this time – but Caristico/Cavernario should be fun if you’re in the area. This I also didn’t know: Lady Apache is training at the Pro Wrestling Revolution school this summer.

Lucha Memes , G21 (TUE) 07/16/2019 Arena Querétaro
1) Fantasma de la Ópera & Lucifer vs Dragón De Oriente & Galáctico Dragón
2) Alex Guajardo & Lince vs Multy (Puebla) & Prayer
3) Alas de Acero & Iron Kid (Estado de México) vs Arkángel Divino & Último Maldito and Gremlin & Speed Demon
4) Angeluz Fly, Homicida vs Rey Apocalipsis, Toro Bill Jr.
5) Arez, Lunatik Fly, Murciélago Plateado vs Kastigador, Ricky Marvin, Vengador
6) Caifan vs Puma King
7) Místico II & Octagón vs Carístico & Fuerza Guerrera

That main event is not going to be good but money might be thrown in if there are enough rose color glasses. Caifan/Puma is an interesting match. I don’t know how much show to show continuity a promotion like this can do when they run different venues and there’s really no way of keeping track of what happened in the last for most of their fans. Still, most of the matches feel like the same bag of names (and a few local wrestlers) thrown in random combinations for context-less matches. There are likely to be good matches here but these shows aren’t exciting now.