Kid’s Day/Weekend preview

This should be a pretty busy week for lucha libre. As it was six months ago, a lot of different events are colliding on the same weekend (sometimes on accident, sometimes not so much.) This weekend will have the most people attending lucha libre shows of the year so far, by a wide margin, even though most people won’t be making much money on it. One or two TV regulars in recent years will be losing their masks, one or two others will be losing their hair, and we might find out if the Perros are going to lose their shirt running their own promotion.

April 30th is the annual Dia del Ninos celebration in Mexico. Kids go to school a half a day, then get the rest of the day off parties, games and candies. Since April 30th is on a Friday this year, it’s really a three day weekend celebration, with events going on thru Sunday. Lucha libre promotions take advantage of this by letting children in for very low prices. CMLL will be letting kids thru the doors in Mexico City and Guadalajara for as low as 1 pound per ticket ($0.08 USD). CMLL and other groups don’t make anything on the shows, but they usually stack the cards with kid friendly tecnicos and happy finishes, to encourage the children and their parents to come back again for another fun time when the price isn’t quite as low.

As part of that strategy, it’s no coincidence Mistico and Mascara Dorada (who they want to be the Guadalajara Mistico) are headlining the biggest shows this weekends. The big shows for Perros del Mal and AAA are not slashing their prices for their main shows this weekend, but will also get attendance boosts as parents brings kids to the shows as a present. In addition, all around the country, there will be dozens and maybe hundreds of other Children’s day shows this weekend by smaller local promotions. Some will be put together by the promotions themselves, but others will be paid for by community organizations, municipal sports authorities, schools, local governments, businesses, and (infamously in recent years) the occasional non-legal business owner.

Even if there wasn’t so many extra people watching lucha libre this week, it’d still be an interesting one for the events scheduled to take place.

AAA

04/30 TV taping in Queretaro

Of the three major groups, this is the one with the least notable event in terms of ongoing storylines. It seems like the sort of AAA TV taping where they’re just killing time until ramping up for their next big show. Still, there’s not many TV tapings, even less since they’re stretching them.

The main event here will be the first in match meeting of LA Park and La Parka Jr. (under those names) in a trios match that may set the stipulation for their TripleMania match. The main event lists a surprise luchador, which may be the in-ring return of Vampiro.

Also, Dr. Wagner Jr.’s new WagnerManiacos meet Electroshock’s not-WagnerManaicos in a precursor to their TripleMania title match, the Psycho Clowns put their winning streak on the line against a Legion team (again) and Christopher Daniels makes his debut in the group. It’s a six match card, and AAA will likely air over two weekends, so all the matches should have as much time as they want.

CMLL

04/30 Arena Mexico

As loaded card as CMLL does, outside of it’s main 4 shows of the year. (Actually, it’ll probably will be more meaningful than at least one of them.) CMLL plays the notion of Children’s Day the most of these three groups, with the main event ending with either a tecnico win or a major angle in recent years. CMLL’s rearranged card from Friday looks to continue this. It’d be hard to top the team of Fantasma, Mascara, Mistico and Strong Man for happy CMLL tecnicos sure to win.

The undercard is a bit more interesting. Bracito de Oro & Pequeno Warrior’s four month feud comes to a finish in one last single’s mask. Bracito de Oro was a fringe member of the roster before this started, a guy always suspected of losing those multi-man cage matches because he’d have trouble actually escaping the cage. Pequeno Warrior is very obviously someone who’s lost their mask not less than five years ago, and an unmasking would reveal how CMLL (and the commission) has blatantly being ignoring those regulations. Pequeno Warrior cannot lose, and Bracito de Oro should not win.

The Gran Alternativa finish is the one match that could go either way. Delta is a more entertaining novato than Polvora, but there’s already a lot of midcard tecnicos like Delta but not many rudos like Polvora. Hector Garza’s has a story in progress, while Volador has been stalled.

05/02 Arena Mexico

This is a “Kid’s Day”/”Fan Appreciation”/”Running Against The Perros Because We Still Don’t Like Them” show. Which makes it all the more awkward that the semifinal trios match features Alebrije, Cuije Histeria, and Psicosis, who will be working Perros shows earlier this week.

PdM have been long talked about their luchadors being true independents, all the luchadors allowed to work wherever and for whomever they want (unlike CMLL & AAA.) The Perros can not knock the Vipers for working this show, and I’m not sure anyone who was going to the Perros show would choose not to because these guys were working in CMLL anyway, but the Perros still can not be happy about being held at their word like this.

The main event features the first Volador vs Mistico singles match since Dos Leyendas. Mistico’s moved back to the tencico side in the month in between, which has left the whole issue at a crossroads. If Volador and Mistico still hate each other, one of them needs to be the rudo, and it’s clearly not going to be Mistico. Either this match needs to be the start of Volador turning to the rudo side, or the end of their issue. There’s no telling which it’ll be.

Perros del Mal

Los Perros are on a week long run of shows, starting tonight:

04/27 – Hidalgo (Arena Aficion)
04/28 – San Luis Potosi (Auditorio Miguel Barragan)
04/29 – OFF (travel day?)
04/30 – OFF (show in Mexicali canceled due to earthquake)
05/01 – Tijuana (bull ring)
05/02 – Mexico City (Sala de Armas)

The Perros have aired footage from spot shows in recent weeks, so any of these could eventually turn up on their TV show. The most important shows are the last two, the Saturday show in TJ and the Sunday show in DF.

05/01 Plaza de Toros La Monumental Tijuana

The main event is a standard Perros del Mal main event of Perro with the three biggest guys they could find for that day (Santo/Park vs Demon/Perro), and would only really be notable if LA Park didn’t show up for it. It’s the two matches below that matter.

X-Fly vs Charly Manson meet in a hair match. Even more so than Bracito de Oro & Pequeno Warrior, it’s a match they’ve been doing constantly for the last few months, and everyone’s more than ready for them to move on to something new. (Upcoming cards suggest they won’t be moving on to something new.) This finishes in this feud have tried to convince people that perennial loser X-Fly is not only on the same level as Charly Manson, but actually might win the big match when it counts. X-Fly’s a rudo, so he’s mostly accomplished this with the assistance of the rest of the Perros, and this should be the occasional where Charly overcomes it all to get the win. (Plus, Charly would seem dreadfully dumb if he walked out on a bigger promotion on the chance he might have to lose his hair to a bigger name, only to end up losing it here.)

In the other apuesta match, Oriental, Damian, Histeria, Hijo de Lizmark, Alebrije, Halloween, Groon and Mr. Aguila put their hair and mask on the line in a cage match. When this match was announced, Histeria or Alebrije losing a mask they were going to have to fight to keep anyway made some sense. Now that they’re both in CMLL, that would make no sense at all. It seems now like Halloween & Damian make get a haircut in their hometown.

05/02 Sala de Armas Magdalena Mixhuca, DF

This show doesn’t have the same sort of conclusion matches. It really shouldn’t, since it’s going to be the start of a PPV series.

Maybe that’s the real conclusion here. The Perros del Mal have been on the fringes of existence since starting as a promotion a year and half ago. They don’t appear to have a regular schedule or reoccurring bookings like the major promotions. They run a few shows, disappear for a while, then run a few more shows. It’s probably enough to help the guys who are working for them, but all those guys are still working plenty of other shows to make ends meet. The top guys probably get paid as much or more than top guys in CMLL & AAA, but they’re working fair less. It’s going to be hard to keep guys around for a long time like that. (That’s surely why the Vipers/Alebrije will be in Arena Mexico this night.)

The Perros need more shows, and a good week of attendance can only help that. They’ve drawn well, sometimes surprisingly well, in Mexico City, but the other places the Perros are heading this week are uncertainties. Income from US PPV would give the Perros something neither of the two bigger companies have accomplished, but actual meaningful income is questionable at best. (ROH & DGUSA’s disappointing PPV results indicate not much should be expected from PPVs, but maybe the Mexican audience will behave differently.) Even if people buy the show that’ll be taped on this night, it’ll be a long time before that money comes in.

Perros del Mal will not be suddenly be a profitable prospering promotion by the end of this week. There’s too much ground to still make up. However, they can find some hope that they’re headed in a positive direction. Nice turnouts on these shows would be a message that it’d be worth hanging around thru the growing pains because the eventually pay of will be worth it. Disappointing crowd might tell the undercard guys that it’d be a good time to cash out and call Psicosis & Histeria to see if they can get in on that invasion deal.

I’m thinking about doing a live chat on Friday night for the AAA taping/CMLL show, but I’m not yet sure if I’ll be available. Is there interest?