Mr. Niebla, minis, Perrros/AAA

CMLL had a couple of interesting stories yesterday

• Mr. Niebla tells ESTO that he’s not dead. I believe we can trust the source on this story. Yesterday, CMLL announced Niebla would return thist Friday, switching around that trios tournament for the third or fourth time. Rudo teams now are UG/Atlantis/Olimpico, Averno/Mephisto/Ephesto and the odd ball trio of Dragon Rojo/Volador/Niebla.

  The official story is Mr. Niebla had emergency knee surgery in the United States, and is just returning. Four weeks is about right for that sort of injury, and there’s probably a shred of truth to it. However, the way he disappeared (no showing a promoted singles match with Mistico, with little apparent warning) and the near complete lack of mention of Niebla the last four weeks obviously indicates there was more going on than knee injury. CMLL has a show dedicated to interviewing Dragon Rojo about being out for two weeks for a back injury; they would’ve found time for a mention of Niebla’s injury.

  Over the last few days, there had been rumors of Niebla jumping to AAA and showing up at Verano de Escandalo, and there might have been some truth to that. The underlining issue seems less about a contract thing and more about a fitness to perform issue. The last luchador to have a similar record of chronic disappearing acts was Abismo Negro, so let’s hope this is the time Niebla’s turned a corner.

  Cesar notes this probably pushes Mr. Niebla back to the front of the line for losing a mask.

• As announced in press release, the minis Bicentennial cibernetico taking place is actually part 1 of a three week tournament. The winner of this group of minis (Eléctrico, Saturno, Fantasy, Demus 3:16, Pequeño Olímpico, Pequeño Nitro, Pequeño Violencia, Cisne) will face the winner of a cibernetico next week (Bam Bam, Mini Warrior, Pierrothito, Ultimo Dragoncito and other people – maybe Dorada & Tzuki), and the winner will get to join the full sized division

  Virus got the join the full sized division the same way back in 1998 (though it was only one cibernetico then.) Almost every interview with a mini includes a mention of how what they’d really like to do is join the full sized division; I remember Fantasy saying specifically such in an interview with the old HalconNet website, and I don’t remember anything else Fantasy’s done in the last five years.

  Bam Bam and Demus are the obvious co-favorites and most likely final. Both are listed as 5′ 3″, actually well over the minis limit, and would fit in well as regular sized wrestlers. Bam Bam is the current minis champion, which is slightly a problem if he were to move to up the main division, but moving out of this division would explain why he lost his hair to Demus (he’s about to get an even bigger win.) Demus has already dropped the “mini” label due to circumstances.

  Other people who are possibilities: Mini Warrior has wrestled as a full sized wrestler in the past. Fantasy and Electrico are big enough, and they’re clearly high on Electrico. Saturno will probably eventually be a full sized wrestler, but he’s years away. Guys like Ultimo Dragoncito and Pierrothito seem unlikely, because they’re so perfect for the division and would have trouble finding the same niche in the main division.

The show this past Sunday at Arena Neza with a main event of Dr. X & Loco Max over Fabian el Gitano & Angel Azteca does not look much of a draw. Slightly up from when they had no CMLL guys, not near when they had all AAA guys.

Fuego en el Ring asks Satanico: who has the final word, the referee or the commission? Satanico (in short): “Yes.” Just that helpful.

In Apaculo, long time local wrestler Ludwig Star won the Guerrero light heavyweight championship from Pez Tigre.

Perros del Mal has video of Halloween painting up his son for his run in on the AAA show. His kid looks really young. I didn’t know they used marker. R de Rudo has an interview with Bestia 666.

WagnerMania notes a show on 52MX this past week called Enciclopedia del Deporte, which did a half hour on Lucha Libre. It is the type of (half hours) shows where they spent 6-7 minutes having people explain how Mexican wrestling is better than US wrestling (people who are either at a CMLL show at the time or work for CMLL), and 0 minutes mentioning the existence of AAA (or anything not CMLL.)

Upcoming AAA spot show lineups have Perro Jr. & Vampiro on opposite sides of a tag match and X-Fly getting AAA bookings again.

Cronicas Y Leyendas posts video of Irma Gonzalez vs Lola Gonzlaez, looking for more info on when it happened.

Rob previews the minis tournament plus the rest of CMLL’s lineups, and guarantees the champion coming out of Verano de Escandalo.

Luchas 2000 #533 has Volador Jr., the three way for Verano, Sombra/Lyger and the anniversary date on it’s cover.