Vikingo has his US visa (and a booking in Tempe), Jarochita/Lluvia Universal final, CMLL all women’s show in Guadalajara

CMLL

Today’s CMLL lineup

CMLL (FRI) 10/21/2022 Arena México
1) Esfinge, Fugaz, Star Black vs Magia Blanca, Magnus, Rugido
2) Avispa Dorada, Marcela, Princesa Sugehit vs Dalys, Reyna Isis, Stephanie Vaquer
3) Gran Guerrero, Místico, Volador Jr. vs Averno, Euforia, Soberano Jr. [Relevos Increíbles]
4) Último Guerrero vs El Mesías
5) Lluvia vs La Jarochita [CMLL UNIVERSAL DE AMAZONAS]

Lluvia/Jarochita will be better than Ultimo Guerrero/Mesias and I don’t think I’m going out on a limb by saying that. It’s just hard to see Guerrero and Mesias getting out of cruise control, even in a match that’s teasing a hair match. Jarochita & Lluvia will not hold back; their danger is only trying too hard. Lluvia seems the favorite because Jarochita won last year. Matches 2/3 look solid. I’m not as sure about the mix in the first match but there are worse matches. This show is on TicketMaster Live and will go up on YouTube on 11/04.

La Jarochita and Lluvia are pushing the idea they’ll be professionals and fully fight against other tonight, then going back to being friends after. They did tease a little bit of tension on Informa, Jarochita noting she came out to celebrate with Lluvia after her win but Lluvia didn’t do the same when Jarochita won.

Guadalajara has a free show on Sunday as part of breast cancer awareness month.

CMLL (MON) 10/24/2022 Arena Puebla
1) Centella Roja, Leono, Retro vs Dark Soul, Dreyko, Rencor
2) Mercurio vs Shockercito [CMLL MINI]
4th defense
3) Alex Gracia, Ivelisse, Lady Frost vs Hikari Shimizu, Mei Suruga, Tae Honma
4) Ángel de Oro, Niebla Roja, Terrible vs Gemelo Diablo I, Gemelo Diablo II, Gran Guerrero
5) Hijo de Octagón, Negro Casas, Octagón vs Atlantis Jr., Averno, Fuerza Guerrera

It’s unusual to see all the foreigners facing each other; it’s usually some of Team Mexico included in there. I suspect we’ll not see anything but the main event unless a fan shoots a video, which does happen from time to time with Puebla.

CMLL (TUE) 10/25/2022 Arena Coliseo Guadalajara
1) Hera, Misteriosa, Olympia vs Náutica, Sexy Sol, Valkiria
2) Amapola & La Vaquerita vs La Seductora & Tiffany
3) Alex Gracia, Avispa Dorada, Hikari Shimizu, Ivelisse, Lady Frost, Mei Suruga, Stephanie Vaquer, Tae Honma vs Dalys, La Jarochita, La Magnifica, Lluvia, Marcela, Metálica, Princesa Sugehit, Reyna Isis

This is the first all women’s CMLL show as far as anyone knows. This is a promotion that didn’t have women’s matches in about half the 90 years of the promotions, so getting to a full women’s show is a significant benchmark. An unexpected one too: CMLL’s been focusing more on women this month and generally giving putting women in bigger roles, but an all women’s show felt like something still a few years away. This doesn’t look like the best-ever show – the second match will be diabolical, and the opener has a lot of inexperienced people – but it’s a significant show and a vote of confidence for the division. The one part that’s not a surprise is it’s happening in Guadalajara, where the lineups have been experimental since returning from the pandemic and with more women empowered to make decisions.

The 8v8 match is almost the Gran Prix, with a couple of changes on Team Mexico. Amapola is in the Gran Prix as Dark Silueta’s replacement, but off in the 2v2 match on this show. Faby (Apache) appears to only be in for one night right now. Magnifica is the home town woman so she probably is taking Faby’s place, with Metalica in for Dark Silueta.

Stephanie Vaquer said she saw Dalys was on the Team Mexico side of the Gran Prix and hopes someday she can do the same because she’s been in Mexico long enough to feel at home. She notes she’ll be teaming with the women she just faces in Japan and facing the women she often teams with. Vaquer mentions about the progress women have been making in CMLL and talks about maybe a Reina del Inframundo tournament or a CMLL all women’s show, and hopes they can achieve that with more work. (Didn’t take much more work on one of those; I presume she knew.)

Ivelisse talked about always having a lot of support from Mexico (especially around Lucha Underground) and being excited to back there. She’s only faced Marcela & Alex Gracia of those in the Gran Prix.

Tae Honma is set up to defeat Dalys, after Dalys defeated her back in Japan. She felt it was important to build some trust between Team World before the big match.

Hikari Shimizu said she wrestled La Jarochita four years ago and wants to face her again because she’s looking at facing the strongest CMLL has. She’s studying Spanish so she can talk to everyone when she gets to Mexico.

Mei Suruga is in the US (and showing up on AEW Dark), and has talked to people who’ve gone to Mexico City before. They’ve warned her about the altitude. The Gran Prix is a long match too, so she’s focused on her conditioning. She’d like to be invited back to CMLL for a longer tour someday.

All the foreign women are being polite and respectful and I think it would be better if they had at least one Rocky Romero-like unhinged woman to spice this match up in the promos. This should’ve been Ivelisse’s niche.

Niebla Roja talked to the Sin Mascaras podcast about emigrating to the United States during the pandemic and working odd jobs because he was running out of wrestling money. (He notes he could pick up different jobs quickly, unlike Angel de Oro “who can’t change a light bulb or set up a table.”) Niebla Roja thought about staying in the US but decided he missed his old life too much. This sounds similar to Fuego’s situation.

Valiente & Fuego appeared at a breast cancer awareness event on Wednesday on behalf of CMLL.

AAA

Hijo del Vikingo his US visa and will start working in the US this year, Masked Republic and Vikingo told SI. AAA immediately announced Vikingo will make his US debut on the 12/03 Tempe show and work “select worldwide dates” going forward. Masked Republic, through it’s Lucha Libre Agency, will be in charge of booking Vikingo in the US.

All these work visas have a US company as a sponsor; this group of visas Vikingo was is associated with Seattle’s DEFY wrestling. DEFY has a show on 11/26, though they tamped down expectations of seeing Vikingo there. Everyone’s been waiting for Vikingo to come to the US for years, the fans will live if they have to wait six more weeks. The other indie promotions who might be interested will just bring him in when they can later on if they have to wait for the Tempe show.

It’s also just possible everyone’s going to lose six weeks waiting for a show that doesn’t happen. If Vikingo is going to pass up thousands of US dollars in the next month, AAA should putting forth the same sort effort to promote this show in Tempe. They haven’t done it. The promotional work for the Tempe show has been pitiful – it’s inexcusable for that event not to be pushed hard during TripleMania. Announcing Tempe as Vikingo’s first date will help, but it will not solve all their problems. History shows us that AAA will just cancel or move a show when the tickets aren’t selling, and tickets haven’t sold much. Telling Vikingo to wait a month to take US money for a show, and then not doing the show, would be a disastrous way to start off this new phase in their relationship. I don’t want to see that happen, so AAA’s really got to improve what they’re doing for Tempe.

The SI article is clear that it’s Masked Republic/Lucha Agency who are Vikingo’s conduit for bookings in the US. That’s not AAA. AAA still control Vikingo’s bookings in Mexico, but those aren’t all the most important places for him to work now. The power dynamic in this relationship changed a lot with this visa.

AAA has the final of the Showcenter tournament Sunday. We know nothing except a bunch of people pictured on the poster and I’m not even entirely sure if those are the people who will be on the show. AAA should probably do all posters this way – it’s better than advertising matches they know won’t happen – and I guess this show could be a good gauge to see if that has any effect on attendance. Sure makes it hard to preview.

AAA on Space (6:30 pm) might be.

• Marvel Lucha Libre
• Copa Bardahl

I’m not sure, because AAA seems to be splitting it up in three parts like other TripleManias, and that means Space will be airing the women’s, tag and trios matches at some point in the next two Saturdays. Can’t be certain which of those five matches will air this week. I plan on being back on Twitch with whatever.

Part 1 of TripleMania, covering Ciber/Pagano, Fenix/Vikingo and Penta/Villano IV, goes up on YouTube on Sunday. That’s a quick turnaround; $23 got you to see those matches a week early. I guess boxing historically does that too.

One thing I’ve picked up (10 month into the year) is AAA never puts up the previous TV episode for TripleMania/big show weeks. It’s a good thing they tacked on the Vikingo/Laredo/Taurus match to another upload because who knows when or if the rest of that episode will turn up.

WrestleTix reported 14,100 tickets distributed for TripleMania Mexico City. There’s no indication of how many of those were sold. AAA had repeatedly talked about aiming for 19,000 so that’s a disappointment by their own expectations (though 14,100 for an expensive show is still probably very solid.) The same source had 13,637 tickets for Monterrey and 16,732 for Tijuana, so Mexico City would slide in as the second most attended. Mexico City tickets were higher priced than the other two shows so it’s still probably the biggest gate.

I expect AAA will run three TripleManias again next year. TripleManias are the only shows AAA runs themselves, they drew big crowds with them, and it makes sense to keep going back to Tijuana if you’re going get that kind of turnout. We don’t know what the actual profit margin is – AAA spent a lot on production, especially in Mexico City – and the annual show is tougher to draw than the first time ever one, but it seems from the outside that it did well enough to keep trying. Figuring out the main events for these shows is the challenge: AAA’s passed on building up anyone on their roster outside of Vikingo this year, and they’re going to be reliant on outside names to be part of the matches. It’s not that AAA just wants Kenny Omega back to face Vikingo, it’s that they probably really need that sort of main event for one of these shows. And then they have to come up with two more.

I haven’t been seeking out as much non-lucha TripleMania coverage this time around as in the past, but the stuff I’ve been sampling is universal in their negativity on the audio issues. People watching at home feeling like they can’t hear the action, people in the arena feeling like four hours of Hugo yelling over the loudspeakers grating on his nerves. AAA is insistent those talk to like this idea and have shown no signs of changing it. I’m not sure what it would take to get AAA to stop doing this at this point.

Big Lucha

They’re back with a Big Lucha World tonight at 9:30 pm (or there about.)

Big Lucha World (FRI) 10/21/2022 Bandidos Gym, Iztapalapa, Distrito Federal
1) Éxtasis & Radioactivo vs Forneo & Hannya
2) Accion Jackson vs ?
3) Mexicano & Viajero vs Black Skayde & Vengador

The November Ecatepec show is canceled (someone needs to update Big Lucha’s Facebook header), so we don’t know when exactly the next big show is happening. It’ll have Hannya/Radioactivo whenever it does happen.

La Catalina says she always wanted to go to Mexico and assumed that would be her next big step outside of Chile, but WWE offered her a job at 18 and of course, she was going to take that. (Catalina is still only 22.) She’d like to go back to WWE but now she gets to wrestle in Mexico like she originally thought.

IWRG

IWRG , FILL (THU) 10/20/2022 Arena Naucalpan
1) Chef Benito, Milagro, Skanda b Estrelaris, Legado, Osogbo 
2) Jhon Tito, Rey Minos, Spider Fly b Kenji, Rey Aztaroth, Súper Boy 
3) Fly Star & Torito Negro b Comando Stone & Neza Kid [Torneo FILL 100, quarterfinal] 
Gym Mexawrestling defeats Gym Freelance
4) Hijo de Payaso Purasanta & Payaso Purasanta Jr. b Karma I & Perseo [Torneo FILL 100, quarterfinal] 
Gym WTMB defeating Gym MSLL
5) Dick Angelo & Legendario b Güero De Tijuana & Taurino [Torneo FILL 100, quarterfinal] 
Gym FILL defeating Gym Zeus
6) ABC & Troyano b Alom & Historico [Torneo FILL 100, quarterfinal] 
Gym Ultimo Guerrero defeat Gym Hip Hop man
7) Hijo de Payaso Purasanta & Payaso Purasanta Jr. b Fly Star & Torito Negro [Torneo FILL 100, semifinal] 
Gym WTMB defeat Gym MexaWrestling
8) Dick Angelo 3G & Legendario b ABC & Troyano [Torneo FILL 100, semifinal] 
Gym FILL defeat Gym UG
9) Dick Angelo 3G & Legendario b Hijo de Payaso Purasanta & Payaso Purasanta Jr. [Torneo FILL 100, final] 
Gym FILL defeat Gym WTMB to win

Naturally the in-house team wins the 100th show tournament.

IWRG (SUN) 10/23/2022 Arena Naucalpan
1) Águila Roja, Jhon Tito, Spider Fly vs Brad Alexis, La Mosca, Lucio
2) Satania vs Bengalee
3) Noisy Boy vs Rey Halcón
4) Aster Boy vs Garra Mortal
5) Cerebro Negro vs Hell Boy
6) Hijo del Alebrije, Luka, Tonalli vs Dick Angelo 3G, Hijo del Fishman, Puma de Oro
7) Hijo del Pirata Morgan vs Galeno del Mal, Hijo De Canis Lupus

Not sure why all the singles matches but some of those might be good. Just sort of marking time before Castillo del Terror; I’d guess we’re heading to everyone in the semi-main declaring themselves in the match.

IWRG’s Revolucionando show announced an 11/05 show with Psycho Clown & Myzteziz Jr. vs Hijo del Fishman and Hijo del Canis Lupus, but the location of the event is a secret so far. That’ll be announced next week.

They also aired a bit saying Maniacop 360 will be out of action with an injury after his match with Oficial 911 last Friday. If Maniacop is who I think it is (don’t have it confirmed), then that’s a worked injury, and he’s still wrestling under another identity.  I’m less sure I’m correct because of this angle, so that’s working.

Aster Boy says his name came from Astroboy, spelled differently. He was a big fan off Volador Jr., maybe too big of a fan in his mask design, and ended up changing it. Aster Boy teases a big surprise coming soon.

Mas Lucha announced their Torneo Suprema field, 11/20 in Arena Naucalpan.

• Princesa Azul
• Lady Shani
• Jessy Jackson
• Bengalee
• Satania
• Zuzu Divine
• La Hiedra
• Sakura

The depth is much more of an issue in the women’s tournaments when they can’t use the same women every year. They can find eight women, but it’s tough to find eight with the same level as the men. It might be interesting to see Hiedra & Shani in a non-cookie sheet environment.

Other

On Facebook, Shocker’s account shows him back home and says he’ll tell his version of what happened soon.

There’s not much news in the El Hijo del Santo Mas Lucha interview or the other ones Hijo del Santo did for his 40th Anniversary. There was no big message to get across, he just wanted to talk about the career and mostly the early stages of it. The notes I have are a relatively small portion of the running time. Santo would really like to wrestle Negro Casas or Blue Panther once again, and promoters in the US tried to make Casas/Santo happen. Casas backed out; everyone in the interview seemed to imply it was CMLL urging Casas not to do the match. He praised Dragon Gate and their wrestlers and seemed to enjoy his recent tour there. Santo put over Bandido as a great young wrestler (as he always does in these) and was aware enough of what’s gone on this week to reference Fenix and Penta as wrestlers doing well internationally, though he couldn’t remember their names. Santo said he wants to raise the level of younger wrestlers and wrestle them instead of the older guys. (Santo looking less old by facing younger guys is an unspoken factor.) Santo brought up Hijo del Fishman as a good opponent for that. Hijo del Santo said Santo Jr. would likely wrestle in Japan if he wrestles again, feeling it’s a better environment for younger wrestlers, but believed Santo Jr.’s future was more in film than in the ring. Santo repeatedly said it was more important to him that his children (both son and daughter) were happy than they would carry on the Santo name. Reaching 40 years of wrestling was a big goal but he doesn’t have a retirement date in mind.

Mas Lucha noticed Nacion Lucha Libre debuted a few day ago and posted their interviews from the show. Alberto is hyped, as he tends to be, pushing how great everything is. The way he keeps talking about their doors being open for CMLL and AAA makes me wonder if he thought he might be able to get some from their promotion to get in when he was pitching this season. The second episode airs Saturday night and I will again try to record it.

AEW has Rush vs 10 vs Orange Cassidy for the All-Atlantic championship tonight on a live show. Orange’s gimmick is that, on a scale of intensity from 0 to 10, he’s normally about a -3. Rush is normally about a 11. They might work great as foils.

Hidalgo indie promotion CWF announced they would be running their final show on 10/30. They closed down the building they were running, and they’re selling their ring, so that seems more final than most retirements. No reason is given, but owner Zoom Driver is shutting it down on the group’s 15th Anniversary.

In a friends-only posts on his Facebook, Lucha Memes promoter Daniel Ledesma has a series of (dramatic) posts teasing winding down the promotion. It ended up in another donadora post, theoretically raising money for Coliseo Coacalco’s rent. You can get a link to watch last week’s Universal II show (Gresham/Hechicero among other matches) for about 10 USD.

Impact Wrestling is running a tournament for the vacant X-Divison Championship with a final on their 11/18 YouTube PPV. Laredo Kid and Black Taurus meet in the first round, in a match airing on BTI next Thursday. That means it streams for free on YouTube too if you don’t have AXS. That match (and likely everything else besides the final) will be taped in Las Vegas on Friday and Saturday night. This sentence may rapidly look dumb but I think Taurus might actually go some distance in this tournament. The winner of Laredo Kid/Black Taurus will face the winner of PJ Black/Yuyu Uemura, which means Black wins or some people will be very upset. People will probably be upset if Black beats a NJPW young guy too.

Box y Lucha is selling digital copies of their 2016-2020 issues. I would pay for any 60s/70/80/90s issues I don’t have but this is good too.