Texano leaves AAA, Alberto says things, CMLL results, Mystique retirement

CMLL (TUE) 07/13/2021 Arena México [CMLL]
1) Cholo b Príncipe Odín Jr. 
Principe Odin’s first match since the start of the pandemic.
2) Oro Jr. & Robin b Disturbio & Hijo del Signo 
3) La Guerrera, Marcela, Princesa Sugehit b La Metálica, La Seductora, Tiffany 
Tencicas took 1/3. La Guerrera replaced La Magnifica.
4) Blue Panther, Titán, Valiente b Negro Casas, Niebla Roja, Pólvora [Relevos Increíbles] 
Tecnicos took 1/3.
5) Cuatrero, Forastero, Sansón b Gemelo Diablo I, Gemelo Diablo II, Hechicero 
Hechicero replaced Euforia Tuesday morning. Rudos took 2/3.

Nothing notable on the lineup. This is still the show not airing anywhere, or at least not airing anywhere I can see.

CMLL wrestlers were thanked for their help in promoting the Mexico Paralympic Team before the show, complete with free track suits. This is a Daniel Aceves (Bobby Bonales’ son) inatitiave. Soberano Jr. appeared at the ceremony; he hasn’t wrestled on a show since fans were allowed back in the building because of an injury. Maybe he’s close to returning.

CMLL (TUE) 07/13/2021 Arena Coliseo Guadalajara [Fuego en el Ring]
1) Capitán Cobra, Estrella De Jalisco Jr. I, Estrella De Jalisco Jr. II b Destello, Destructor, Ponzoña Jr.
debut of Estrella de Jalisco II.
2) Bello Antuan Jr., El Divino, Guerrero Vikingo b Gran Kenut, Paymon, Thunder Boy
3) Bestia Negra, Demonio Maya, Zandokan Jr. b Leo, Mr. Samurai, Omar Brunetti
Mr. Samurai replaced Principe
4) Ángel Rebelde, Halcón Negro Jr., Optimus, Trono DCOR Difunto, Furia Roja, Guerrero de la Muerte, Ráfaga
5) Infierno, Mr. Trueno, Rey Trueno b Crixus, Flash, Gallo
Truenos took Gallo & Flash’s masks and asked for a OCCIDENTE TAG title shot. The Queretaro wrestlers also appeared to ask for a title match.
6) Carístico DQ Mephisto
Caristico tossed his mask to draw the DQ

The main event finish is the usual reversal from last week. Flash & Gallo won the local tag titles in January 2020 and haven’t been able to defend it. Maybe that’s a three way tag match coming as part of Arena Coliseo Guadalajara doing unusual things for CMLL.

Friday’s lineup is up.

CMLL (FRI) 07/16/2021 Arena México
1) Angelito vs Pequeño Violencia
2) La Guerrera, La Jarochita, Lluvia vs Amapola, Dark Silueta, Reyna Isis
3) Blue Panther, Cachorro, Dark Panther vs Fugaz, Panterita del Ring, Panterita del Ring Jr.
4) Ángel de Oro, Cavernario, Terrible vs Euforia, Felino, Felino Jr.
5) Volador Jr. vs Templario, Místico, Mephisto, Star Jr., Dragón Rojo Jr., Espíritu Negro, Raziel [Leyenda de Plata, semifinal]

Standard card. They didn’t cut down the matches despite the (likely long) elimination match in the main event. Panthers/Panteritas looks fun. The rarely seen La Guerrera seems likely to get some of Mystique’s work. No relevos increibles for Angel de Oro. They stay inconsistent on that, but I need to switch him over to being a rudo and be done with it.

Tickets for the bar/restaurant inside of Arena Mexico go back on sale Saturday, with the first show opened on Sunday. That suggests increased capacity or looser requirements.

The Monday Twitch match of the week was Euforia, Raziel, Cancerbero vs Gran Guerrero, Mephisto, and Luciferno. Those matches stay up on Twitch for 30 days. I’ve recorded the last couple but just haven’t gotten around to putting them on Google Drive; it’s empty arena, it seems unimportant.

CMLL Informa will have Mistico, Mephisto, Ultimo Guerrero, Gran Guerrero, Shockercito, Pequeno Violencia, Polvora and Fugaz on CMLL Informa. Gran Guerrero, Polvora and Fugaz could be names for next week’s Leyenda de Plata block. Ultimo Guerrero is booked in Tijuana next week.

Mystique announced she’s leaving wrestling for now in a video Monday night to focus on her dental surgeon career. Filling in some details via LuchaWorld, Mystique said she’d consider returning in two years after she completed getting another dental degree. Mystique felt she couldn’t both do the dental career and the wrestling career, and the dental career was the one to focus on since it could last a lot longer. Mystique said she gave notice to CMLL, wrestled her final match on June 25th, and was told she’d be welcome back. (Her dates seem a little bit off.) It doesn’t come up, but Mystique’s match a week prior (June 19th) had a moment where Mystique fell badly on her head attempting a headscissors, to the point where Metalico looked like he might stop the match for her safety. That wasn’t her first accident and the timing suggests it factored into this decision.

Mystique saying “I can’t do dentist school and wrestling at the same time” will jump out to US wrestling viewers. AEW’s Britt Baker’s entire gimmick is “I did dentist school and wrestling school at the same time and now I do both.” Everyone’s situation is different. Estrellita also has publically dipped in and out of wrestling while pursuing a medical degree.

Texano leaves AAA

Robles Patron Promotions held a press conference Tuesday to hype an August 26th show and push the official start of their new venture together. I’ll get what they announced later but, since I don’t think it’ll amount to much, the big news to me was Texano appearing.

Texano Jr. appeared at the press conference to announce he had left AAA and would start with Robles Patron Promotions. AAA had previously appeared to allow their wrestlers to work for Robles Promotions – Lady Shani & La Hiedra are scheduled this weekend for a show in Guatemala, Psycho Clown is listed on shows – but that may change suddenly if people are leaving from one group to another. Likewise, maybe something changes with the Texano/Super Nova vs Psycho Clown/Maximo main event Thursday in Arena Aficion. Penta is booked for this show and other Robles shows and mentioned Fenix working for them in the future. Those two are likely to be working per-date for AAA.

Texano had been part of Los Mercnarios and was one-third of the trios champions, though there are four people in Los Mercenarios and the trios champions are whomever AAA needs to be at that moment. Texano came to AAA as a top star, becoming the youngest Mega Champion ever (something that would be mentioned in every match for the next half-decade) and wrestling Psycho Clown and Hijo del Fantasma in hair matches. He lost both of those matches and stalled out as an upper-level guy, someone AAA would use in main events when they couldn’t get outsiders in and be shuffled back to the midcard when those names were available. It was likely a frustrating spot but also one that likely guaranteed him to work for many years to come.

Texano seemed to have an interest in working more as a tag with his brother Super Nova, who has been in and AAA over the last decade and never pushed at Texano’s level. There was an attempt to do something with them together during the Vampiro Era, but it got dropped. Texano & Super Nova teamed this year when AAA more freely allowed their wrestlers to work outside dates and pushed the idea of the team as the press conference. Texano has most recently been feuding with Laredo Kid over the Rey de Reyes result, a feud that was built up for a few weeks and didn’t go anywhere. Everything in AAA outside the top TripleMania matches goes nowhere, so it being dropped didn’t seem like an unusual change of plans.

In reality, Texano may end up in the same role as he was in AAA for a group on more questionable footing. He is in the main of the first show, but his team seems to exist to make sure someone will lose. Super Nova is way down in the second match, so that team-up isn’t happening right now. There’s no guarantee Robles Patron Promotiones is going to work out and Texano has been around long enough to know that. He’s not a dummy. This comes off more about being unhappy in AAA. It’s a lot like DMT Azul’s exit from CMLL, where the new thing (Federacion Wrestling) looked interesting but it was more about being frustrated where he was and figuring he could patch together enough work on his own to make the move work.

Texano’s remembered as jumping from CMLL to AAA in 2011, though that’s not exactly what happened. He left CMLL for Perros del Mal in November 2011 first, which was only slightly less a shaky move than jumping to Robles right now. Texano likely either knew he would end up in AAA as part of the Consejo invasion angle or quickly worked out a deal after he left and the Perros del Mal bit was just a side gig. Maybe there’s another part of this deal here. Texano’s friend Hijo del Fantasma made a similar surprising move to leave AAA to jump to Alberto’s Nacion Lucha Libre, and that just ended up being a stopover on his way to WWE. (Texano going to WWE would still be a surprise.)  Or maybe Robles will just collapse in a few months and AAA will welcome Texano back. AAA seems more likely to do that sort of business if it makes sense, with the quick return of Villano III Jr. the most recent example.

AAA taped two more weeks of TV after Verano de Escandalo. Texano may still be on TV through the end of the month.

There are other jumps, though smaller. Long time AAA announcer Arturo Rivera, who’s sparingly appeared with the company over the last few years, was the host of this press conference. Maximo, who was announced but did not appear at Verano de Escandalo, appears part of the Robles group. He hasn’t appeared much this year. Alberto introduced Maximo and La Mascara as guys who weren’t booked enough by their previous company [AAA]; he’s right that both were not booked much lately but they seemed to work their way out of bookings. Estrellita, who last wrestled in CMLL in May 29th and has since worked some shows with AAA names, is also with the group. Bere, who had been AAA’s lead edecan and in charge of that department there, also appeared at this press conference. She’d been working some indie dates when AAA wasn’t using edcanes and has a non-wrestling job that was also affected by the pandemic.

Robles Patron Promotions Mexico City “debut”

This is the announced card.

Robles (THU) 08/26/2021 Pepsi Center WTC, Benito Juárez, Distrito Federal
1) Máscara Mágica Jr. & Rey Pegasus vs Antheuz & Máscara De Ángel
2) Brazo De Oro Jr. & Súper Nova vs Bugambilia & Tonina Jackson Jr. and Estrellato & Rey Astral
3) Diosa Quetzal & Dulce Sexy vs Baronessa & Estrellita and Diosa Atenea & Reina Dorada [COPA ROBLES Y PATRON]
4) Hijo De Dos Caras & Hijo del Fishman vs Dark Cuervo & Dark Scoria and Rayo de Oro (Guatemala) & Voltron (Guatemala) and Hijo de LA Park & LA Park Jr. [ROBLES TAG]
5) Apolo (Puerto Rico), La Máscara, Máximo vs Averno, DMT Azul, Joe Lider
6) Alberto del Rio & LA Park vs Cinta de Oro & Penta 0M and Carlito & Texano

No launch of a new promotion during a pandemic is even going to be based on logic, but this card is dead on arrival. This lineup is full of getting paydays for friends and friends of friends and no matches that are going to drive anyone to show up. The idea of this promotion – generally the idea of the last many years of Alberto’s career – is star power over everything. It doesn’t matter the matches being offered or the actual ability to deliver on those offers, it’s that they (and he) are stars and so the world will fall in place to accommodate them. It may have been true for Alberto at one point, it hasn’t been for many years, and he’s shown no ability to learn from his failures on any level. This too will probably fail because they’re providing the show that Alberto wants to do, not the one people have a reason to want to see. It will be on Alberto, except he’ll find some excuse that it won’t be his fault. The one good thing about the idiotic choice of starting a new promotion during a pandemic is that pandemic’s an easy thing to blame when it doesn’t work out.

There’s no interesting matches here, nothing that excites from a quality aspect or because it’s an existing strong rivalry. The main event has weird teams and a strange matchup that makes the least of the people involved. Maybe the idea is the winning team faces off for the heavyweight title on some future show, but that would require getting a finish out of Alberto and LA Park (and also a future show.) Averno gamely tried to breathe life into the semi-main, reminding everyone of his mask match loss to La Mascara. That’s still a bad match. DMT Azul listed here suggests he’s not under contract to AAA, though he did not actually appear at the press conference. The Guatemalan wrestlers are the 50+ forever champion of the arena Robles uses in that country (Voltron) and his son. I hope Dulce Sexy is recovered from her appendicitis by the time of this show but nothing has been said. Rey Astral & Estrellato are Reynosa wrestlers who started to appear on these Robles shows after Alberto came aboard; I’m not sure the connection.

Not all the wrestlers appeared at the press conference, but those who did signed a Robles Patron Promomciones contracts, which were said to still allow them to work whenever they want. That seems unlikely. Reina Dorada signed a contract with KAOZ in January, now signed a contract with this group in July, and I’m not sure if these mean anything. (Dorada is not on the next KAOZ show.) It is possible these are actual deals. I was sent a contract another similar level Mexican wrestling group is using – it’s very real and very dumb – but I’m not sure if it’ll actually be enforced.

Press conferences exist to move tickets. This press conference did not move tickets because tickets could not be bought. The poster says tickets at Ticketmaster; there were no tickets listed on Ticketmaster as of Wednesday morning. There haven’t been many tickets sold for Hidalgo Robles Patron show, but most of those were sold on the first day. It’s a bad sign for sales that the tickets aren’t available now.

I’m not even confident this show will happen. Here’s the Robles Alberto Promotion schedule so far

• a 07/31 event in Hidalgo, Texas, which has oceans of unsold seats
• an 08/01 show in Monterrey, which was Alberto mentioned in post-press conference interviews is canceled, because he “didn’t want to look bad.” He suggested they’d return there in November.
• a 08/20 show in Las Vegas, which should be successful because it’s the weekend of a big boxing match and SummerSlam, though at a small training facility
• This 08/26 show in Mexico City (on a Thursday?)

That’s one show definitely canceled and one not looking good before they get to Mexico City.

I’m not even really sure about what this group is called. No one there seemed to agree up on it. Alberto originally announced Nacion Lucha Libre would run at the Pepsi Center this summer. As recent as Wednesday morning, the Facebook page for Robles Patron Promotions said this show was going to be held in partnership with Nacion Lucha Libre. After the press conference, Alberto explained Nacion and Robles Patron are two different groups that may help each other. All the different entities, as best I can tell

• Robles Promotions, an existing group promoting local shows in McAllen, Texas now also running in southern Mexico and Guatemala (just south of Mexico); these are the shows with Alberto but use some AAA talent. Fernando Robles is the namesake and the money for all of this.
• Robles Patron Promotions, which are the shows Alberto is involved in. These are the bigger shows, both in venues and costs.
• El Patron Promotion, which seems to not exist beyond a logo
• Nacion Lucha Libre, which already lived and died and may die again

I’d presume the Nacion Lucha Libre show would just be the TV versions of these shows, but Alberto was insistent this show would not air on ImagenTV. Nacion Lucha Libre appears to be still an active concept – a post on their Facebook Tuesday said episodes would be airing on FITE.TV whenever they occur – so it’s not clear what Alberto is doing. The messaging was not clear. Alberto pushing the idea that CMLL & AAA should come work with Robles Patron Promociones when he was keeping his own side project separate was one of many absurd bits.

LuchaWorld has a detailed recap of that Alberto interview, where Alberto took shots at a past accuser (or maybe multiple ones, it wasn’t clear if he was always talking about the same person, or why he was talking about them at all.) Alberto also said a wrestler no-showed the press conference after earlier telling them he’d appear. Alberto didn’t name him and said he didn’t want him, only that he believed the wrestler was concerned about appearing on ImagenTV but the show wouldn’t air there and that Cinta de Oro vouched for him. Cinta de Oro had recently posted teaser photos with Mistico II, so he’s as good a guess as any.

Alberto el Patron pushed the idea of ten shows in Mexico, of shows in the US and elsewhere, of taking care of wrestlers, of his competition being other forms of wrestling and not lucha libre, of wanting to work together with AAA & CMLL, of already getting 24 work visas for wrestlers. It’s hard to believe any of it. Alberto mentioned taking the group to United Kingdom for a comic-con, and that seems so specific that a show probably has agreed upon, though any international traveling is iffy given the pandemic. Alberto talked about more Mexico City shows in September and January.

IWRG

I’ve lost track of IWRG’s COVID count; it’s probably about eight, but even the ring announcer has announced he’s positive. There’s a fundraiser for Dinamic Black, which suggests he’s got a particularly serious case.

I feel just as certain that IWRG should take a few days off as I did when this was happening with CMLL last September, but I’m also exhausted by the people involved just not caring. There’s a better chance something happens here – it’s not a big show for IWRG and the Mexico State commission has publically gotten involved on COVID situations previously in this building – and I’ve been told there’s a chance IWRG takes time off.

Thursday’s lineup; tickets are on sale now.

IWRG (THU) 07/15/2021 Arena Naucalpan
1) Sussi Love & Theirus vs Lilith Dark & Satania
2) Baby Star vs Sobredosis, Noicy Boy, Mr. Puma, Lunatic Xtreme, Redimido, Aster Boy, Puma de Oro [IWRG IC Light]
vacant title (Baby Xtreme quit)
3) Toxin © vs Tonalli [IWRG MEXICO]
third defense (first this year)
4) Villano III Jr. © vs Dr. Cerebro [AULL WELTER]
first defense
5) Hijo del Espectro Jr. © vs Hijo del Alebrije [IWRG JUNIORS]
second defense

IWRG announced Baby Xtreme was no longer their lightweight champion on Monday. IWRG has a lot of titles in limbo, but perhaps this title got decided quicker because they wanted to put one of them back into circulation and had a lot of lightweights available. (This is also the IWRG title most often seen in Mexa Wrestling, whose owner also works for IWRG.) Puma de Oro is the favorite, though it’d be useful if they gave it to another Baby (Star) or (Lunatik) Extreme.

AULL getting roped in here is mildly interesting. AULL’s own shows at Arena Lopez Mateos generally do not do well outside of a few special shows a year. They do better renting out their building to groups like Lucha Libre Boom, who are specifically anti-IWRG at the moment. AULL formally joining IWRG’s PALL alliance would cause those groups to lose a home. It would also cost AULL a lot of money with no way to replace it. This may just IWRG grasping for another available champion for a mostly championship match card when the Thursday shows haven’t drawn well.

Los Negociantes, Los Traumas, and Baby Extreme will hold a press conference Sunday at 2:30 pm to talk about their situation. This is the group of wrestlers who’ve unhappily left IWRG over the last few months, and they’re teasing two more people. The press conference is happening in Naucalpan, shortly before the IWRG show, and a five-minute walk away. This is not an angle, though it will inevitably become one someday. Whatever gets announced, the press conference will likely end with the crew teasing going over to Arena Naucalpan to make an announcement and we’ll see what happens from there.

Something was happening with AAA luchadors at Arena Naucalpan Tuesday, or Faby Apache and Mr. Iguana posting content there was a weird coincidence.

Other News

Rush put his title match with Bandido from the ROH PPV up on YouTube for a few hours Monday and posted a message on YouTube explaining that he wanted his fans to see really happened. Bandido beating Rush was reported in Mexico, so it appeared what Rush wanted people to see was all the outs he gave himself in the match. The video has been removed from the YouTube channel. Rush also filmed a bit of him laying out Bandido just for his YouTube channel. Rush is also about Rush, which has served him incredibly well as a professional wrestler but makes him a difficult employee. Rush is signed to ROH through December and my hunch is both sides are already planning on the end of that relationship – either in December or earlier. Saturday’s Big Lucha show, where Rush will obviously want to ‘prove’ he should’ve won the title match by getting the better of Bandido, is going to be interesting.

Rey Escorpion attacked Psycho Clown on Psycho Clown’s YouTube talk show. My favorite part is how Carta Brava Jr. is not at all interested in getting involved, not even when Escorpion goes shoves his wife Goya Kong.

Cassandro and Gael Garcia, who is playing Cassandro in a movie about his life, met in person for this first time earlier this week while the movie was shooting in the Ciudad Juarez area. Cassandro posted photos on his Instagram. The article said they’d only been able to meet via Zoom prior to this due to the pandemic. Cassandro hasn’t been seen much publically since a brain operation in May and is noticeably in a wheelchair in the photo. (This is not a thing I would’ve thought to check prior, but the most recent photos he’s posted on Facebook and Instragram show him seated and are carefully framed not show what he’s sitting on.) No idea if it’s a temporary issue or even if it’s related to the operation we know about; Cassandro’s gone through a lot of battles.

Diario Cambio, who wrote the “Arena Puebla won’t re-open because it has structural issues” story (and not completely backed away from it), went by the building and found they removed the July 5th poster. They had left up the March 16, 2020 canceled poster through the pandemic in the usual spot. It’s just empty now. They mention wrestlers are still training inside from three to five in the afternoon.

Samuray del Sol will do his first post-WWE interview with Lucha Libre Online tomorrow night.

A giant photo of El Santo appeared on the side of a hotel in Ciudad Juarez. The newspaper reporting on it heard second hand it’s part of a movie, but isn’t quite sure why it’s there.

A lucha libre show in Tonala, Jalisco were among those shut down by local authorities for breaking health protocol.

A story on nine-year-old luchador Lion Boy in Veracruz. He’s not wrestling, he’s working as a mascot.

LuchaWorld has the latest Poster-Mania.

Box y Lucha 3480 is up for free.