Category: news

CMLL

CMLL (FRI) 11/15/2024 Arena México [CMLL, Estadio Deportes, Kaiser Sports, The Gladiatores (text), The Gladiatores (video), thecubsfan]
1) Galaxy, Shockercito, Último Dragóncito DQ Angelito, Kaligua, Pequeño Magía     
7:56. Kaligua unmasked Galaxy for the DQ as the usual minis challenged followed
2) KeMonito DCOR KeMalito     
7:09. In-ring debut of the new KeMonito after running in last week. Both fought outside the ring follow a KeMonito dive.
3) Persephone, Reyna Isis, Zeuxis b La Catalina, Lluvia, Tessa Blanchard    
10:16. Straight falls, Persephone cheating Tessa in the second fall to set up a singles match next week.
4) Flip Gordon b Villano III Jr. [NWA MIDDLE, final]     
16:38. Tournament final for vacant title. Second were Neon and Hijo del Villano III Jr. Former champion Mistico (vacated – moving up weight classes) presented the belt to Gordon, who is the 9th/94th champion.
5) Atlantis, Atlantis Jr., Blue Panther b Bárbaro Cavernario, Niebla Roja, Último Guerrero     
14:38
6) Místico, Neón, Templario b Averno, Difunto, Zandokan Jr.     
16:39.

CMLL got the answer to one big question and had a whole new one by the end of the night.

What to do with Villano III Jr.? The CMLL highlight package gives a slice of the reaction, which came through even stronger watching live. Villano III Jr. was over as if he was one of CMLL’s top stars. The crowd did not react like a random title match, they treated the near falls like a mask was on the line and chanted “Villano” throughout. Arena Mexico gave him a top guy reaction, when he’s not been pushed that level so far. This is not the first time this has happened. It wasn’t as strong in the tag title match with Magnus & Rugido or the Rey del Inframundo, but that reaction was present. It was very present when the Villanos won the Arena Coliseo Tag Team championships. Part of it was probably the Mexico/US bit; part of it is the kind of fan who dislike the Atlantis family rally behind the Villanos. A lot of it is because Villano III Jr. is really good, wrestles a little bit more of a reckless style than the CMLL standard, and always shows his emotions. CMLL has something with Villano III Jr., but the question is if those Villano III Jr. reactions are of support from a fanbase that CMLL is already bringing in or if big Villano matches are pulling new people.

There’s only one real way to find out, and it’s putting him in more meaningful spots. Villano’s reactions for his -rare – Saturday night main event were back to normal levels for a regular trios match. Villano attacked Star Jr. before the match and fouled him to end it, and those two will be wrestling in a 1v1 on the 11/23 Arena Coliseo card. That match is a good test to see how sustained the Villano III reaction is, if people show up for a big match of his, and if CMLL’s decided he’s something more than a foil to give Star Jr. a win.

Flip Gordon’s post-match promo included him saying he wants to defend it against anyone in the world, which came off as a hint of a defense against someone outside the promotion. Could be a 12/13 thing, could be something else. A NJPW US show would fit, though there doesn’t seem to be room on the upcoming one. Flip has delivered whenever CMLL’s given him a big singles match during his year in CMLL. (Among the US people who’ve ended up in CMLL for Reasons, Flip’s output has easily exceeded Tessa’s.) It hasn’t changed his perception among non-CMLL internet fans, but an active Gordon title reign will likely produce a lot of good matches and is probably a good thing for CMLL watches. In the ring, Flip smirked at the negative reaction to him – nothing much else he could do.

CMLL did get an answer on the new KeMonito: it’s going to be fine. The social media reaction to this roll out has been largely negative towards CMLL, and the social media reaction didn’t carry over to reality. Everyone just enjoyed the match. It was built to get KeMonito (II) over, he hit everything he needed to hit, and KeMalito had his best match performance against him. There may have been people booing him, but they were barely audible against the loud cheering and chanting. The Arena Mexico fans accepted him as KeMonito. This is a clear victory. The non-finish makes sense; these two are destined to keep fighting forever. Maybe we’ll get a rematch on Kid’s Day.

(There are still some annoying aspects about the KeMonito presentation – not only does CMLL flash up their legal statement about owning the character before his match, but the announcers also repeat it as the match goes on. CMLL owns most of the characters and names seen in CMLL. There’s no legal disclaim read and said whenever Mistico has a match. The emphasis on pointing out this particular one suggests an out-of-control lawyer insisting on it.)

El Pais has a big profile of QueMoniito. It appears to have been done before the new guy showed up; there’s no reference to that situation. They did ask him about how he’d feel about a new person showing up in the costume. QueMoniito said it would be logical for CMLL to do so, he would support the person behind it, but caution him that the fans will expect a lot of them. He figured he’d feel like he would wish it was him, but knows he’d have to retire and give up the role anyway. That retirement is what he’s hoping to get out of the lawsuit from CMLL: enough money that he doesn’t have to find ways to sell merchandise or get sponsored, that he can instead set up a sustaining business, relax, and retire.

In that article, QueMoniito says he split from Tinieblas because he was bored and needed a change. SuperLuchas’ Ernesto Ocampo explained the real story in a video Friday talking about QueMonitto. The Tinieblas/Alushe relationship fell apart at a show in Tijuana.  It was a well-attended show. Alushe was making some money from wrestling, some but not a lot, and finally got up the nerve to go to the promoter to ask him why they weren’t paying him more if they were drawing so many people. The promoter told Alushe he thought it was a fair amount, but also told Alushe that amount. See, that promoter and the others had been giving the money to Tinibelas to pay for both him and Alushe, and it was only in that conversation when Alushe found out the true price promoters believed they were paying him. Tinieblas had secretly been pocketing 2/3rd to 3/4ths of Alushe’s payday for himself; he’d likely been doing it for years. Alushe/QueMoniito thought highly of Tinieblas, he was the guy who got him into the weird world of wrestling, and he was crushed to find out Tinibelas had been taking advantage of him all along. That led to the split.

Ocampo also mentions KeMonito’s name was never meant to be KeMonito. That was slang Dr. Alfonso Morales came up with that caught on. Ocampo said, before that happened, he went to CMLL to ask what to call him in the magazine, and they said his name was “Gori” as in gorilla. (And maybe Gori Guerrero.) That may explain the more gorilla look in the new outfit.

(CMLL’s dropped the kiss cam for the last month or so. This whole situation explained why. The old Kiss Cam graphic had the old KeMonito on it; it was the only trace of him in CMLL left for the last year and a half. They brought the graphic back on Friday with the new KeMonito. Why they couldn’t use a non-KeMonito kiss cam graphic is left to the gods to determine.)

The rest of that Friday show: the main event was good in typical ways. The minis match didn’t get the time they needed to be great, but they did a lot with what they had up to the mask-pulling finish. Still no progression there. The women’s match didn’t do much for me outside setting up next week’s match, and the semi-main was just alright. Strong turnout for the show.

CMLL (SAT) 11/16/2024 Arena Coliseo [CMLL, thecubsfan]
1) Astro Boy Jr. & Dragón de Fuego b Enfermero Jr. & Grako
13:15.
2) Disturbio, Hunter, Nitro b Eléctrico, Legendario, Robin
3) India Sioux & Princesa Sugehit b Amapola & Metálica
13:44
4) Akuma, Gemelo Diablo I, Gemelo Diablo II b Explosivo, Fugaz, Star Black
13:36
5) Neón b Magnus [lightning]
9:07
6) Bárbaro Cavernario, Terrible, Villano III Jr. b Blue Panther, Star Jr., Volador Jr.
16:05. Villano III snuck in a foul on Star Jr. to set up a singles match next week.

Not a lot here of note beyond Star Jr./Villano. The main event was the best match and there’s not a lot of the rest worth watching. KeMonito started working as a mascot with this show. Notable, he did a dive at the end and Volador was careful not to do one. Volador is protecting his body and choosing his spots more carefully the last few months; there’s probably some knee injury he’s working through.

The Lucka Libre (CMLL) show in Tijuana on Saturday seems like it drew about a half full building. One of the matches on the show was Mistico versus Ultimo Guerrero versus Soberano Jr., notable becuase CMLL hasn’t allowed UG and Soberano to be in the ring in the same time on their shows in years. I believe they were allowed to wrestle here. Ultimo Guerrero won, though it appears he pinned Mistico.

CMLL (SUN) 11/17/2024 Arena México [CMLL]
1) Inquisidor & Sangre Imperial b Astral & Diamond
2) Crixus, Kráneo, Sagrado b Dulce Gardenia, Espíritu Negro, Rey Cometa
3) Princesa Sugehit b Dark Silueta [lightning]
4) Brillante Jr., Fuego, Volcano b Felino, Felino Jr., Rey Bucanero
5) Magia Blanca, Magnus, Rugido b Flip Gordon, Hijo de Octagón, Titán
Straight falls, Blanca pinned Titan after a mask pull.
6) Octagón, Templario, Volador Jr. b Averno, Euforia, Mephisto

Looks like Titan/Magia Blanca on this show, the one that doesn’t stream and the top matches don’t always make TV, in on 11/24 or 12/01.

CMLL has the holiday Puebla show today at 5 pm. They did stream this as a surprise last year. They have made no statement about streaming it this time, but that’s normal when they’re afraid of hurting the ticket sales. I have a basic script that checks the CMLL lineup pages for changes and tells me when they happened. I can tell you that someone logged into the CMLL site, took out Lluvia & Sanely, put in India Sioux & Olympia, and made these changes around 4 AM in the morning. I guess we all have trouble sleeping sometimes.

CMLL (TUE) 11/19/2024 Arena México
1) Astral & Robin vs Astro Boy Jr. & Dragón de Fuego
2) India Sioux, Skadi, Tabata vs Amapola, Metálica, Olympia
3) Capitán Suicida vs Hijo de Stuka Jr. [lightning]
4) Arkalis, Stigma, Xelhua vs Guerrero Maya Jr., Hijo del Villano III, Vegas
5) Flip Gordon, Star Jr., Titán vs Magia Blanca, Magnus, Rugido
6) Atlantis Jr., Dragón Rojo Jr., Máscara Dorada vs Niebla Roja, Último Guerrero, Valiente

Suicida/Kid Stuka is one for the people who watch a lot of CMLL. It should be great. Match 4 is setting up Maya versus someone for 11/26 – maybe Xelhua, could always be Stigma.

CMLL’s Guadalajara broadcast mentioned the holiday schedule. Tuesdays fall on December 24th and December 31st this year and CMLL prefers not to run those days. The shows Guadalajara will instead move to Fridays on those week on December 27th and January 3rd. (No idea what does to the upload schedule.) I expect the Arena Mexico shows will move to Christmas and New Year’s, like usual.

On Saturday, AEW announced CMLL wrestlers would be returning to the promotion in the upcoming weeks. I had the sound down on Collision, misunderstood the graphic, tried to figure out on Twitter, got it wrong a second time, and then just shut up until they explained it. It was not my greatest hour. Here’s the correct info from AEW:

• Hechicero, Mascara Dorada and Atlantis Jr. will be on the 11/20 Dynamite/Rampage taping in Reading. (There is no Collision this week.)
• Mistico & Mascara Dorada will be on the 11/27 Chicago, which is believed to be a Dynamite/Rampage/Collision five hour marathon taping.

AEW hasn’t announced any specific matches for these wrestlers yet. Atlantis Jr.’s “personal issues” for missing the Leyenda de Azul might be a cover story for a yet to be announced AEW match on Full Gear or their pre-show; we’ll find out Wednesday.

About a month ago, two Twitter users conspired to create fake a graphic of Mascara Dorada facing Konosuke Takeshita on Dynamite. They just really wanted to see that match. Many people, including some who really should’ve known better, believed that was a real AEW announcement. Sometime later, AEW’s Tony Khan told Dave Meltzer after that he’d be interested in booking that match. This might be that point; that faked match may happen in the next two weeks.

AEW announced Mascara Dorada as Mascara Dorada 2.0, to the confusion of anyone who follows CMLL, but maybe it helps people who don’t understand that he’s still not Metalik. Dorada’s the real news here; he was part of the group of wrestlers whose US work visas got canceled back on 02/28. Most of the group spent the last eight months trying to re-establish their rights to work in the US. Blue Panther was also in that group, and MLW announced him for their 01/11 Dallas show Monday morning. I wasn’t sure if he’d bother, but it might have been worth the effort. If Panther and Dorada are cleared to work, I’d presume the other bigger names from that group – Soberano, Templario and Volador – all have their work visas or will have them shortly. Volador had been used on AEW TV prior. Soberano seemed to be getting some NJPW US work prior, though that was mostly in the since-dropped Rocky Romero/Soberano partnership.

CMLL wrestlers returning to AEW TV will mean the return of people complaining about CMLL people on AEW TV. They should be ignored. Not yelled at, not convinced, just ignored. Many of them have been complaining about CMLL people being on TV too often even when they haven’t been on TV. Some of them just want something to yell about. Some of them have misguided thoughts; AEW is not deciding between Mascara Dorada and Ricky Starks to put on TV. Some are plainly just racists who are using “CMLL” as a stand-in for “Mexican” or some less friendly verbiage. All of them are not worth your time. You can only convince people to be less dumb on social media if they want to learn; these people do not want to learn. People are allowed not to like CMLL (or AAA or any other type of wrestling), they’re allowed to like wrestling in what strange way they want. ,You also benefit little from engaging with them.

There are worthwhile discussions to be had about AEW’s usage of Mexican wrestlers in a post-Lucha Brothers world – I had some thoughts on Saturday. I also had a concern back in September that’s played out (so far) precisely as feared. I don’t think I got any useful feedback about it on Twitter, not that I expected it. Some messages are better sent via Twitter than blog, is all there is to it. Not so much discussions. There’s stuff to dig into like Dralistico seconding LFI on Rampage and vanishing by Collision if you want to have discussions. Twitter and maybe all of social media just isn’t the place to have it; it’s a lot of time wasted talking to people who aren’t listening to anything besides people who tell them what they already believe. I know people have hope Bluesky will be something different; I’m not exactly confident.

Lucha Libre Acapulco had previously said Atlantis Jr. and Hechicero would be appearing on their show on 11/20. They’re off that show now. CMLL is sending Templario and Atlantis as replacements. The social media fans seems happy with Templario and not as happy with Atlantis given his limitations at this point in his career.

AAA

This is a confusing section; there are four TV tapings to discuss in various stages because AAA is a strange creature. I usually do results first and TV second, but I try to put them in the order they were taped to see if it’s easier to follow.

Unimas started the 11/03 Showcenter taping this week. This is the oldest taping, but Unimas is the first to air it. (Space skips around if they have a live show to air.) I may write more about the matches when they start airing on Space next week, but there wasn’t much to any of the three. The one notable angle was Chik Tormenta and Flammer having a pull-apart backstage, which may have been intended to set up something in Saltillo.

AAA aired part 2 of Guerra de Titanes on Space Saturday. (If you’re running a database, my results should be complete and accurate now.)

• Mascarita Sagrada & Pimpinela Escarlata teamed with locals Payaso Balin and Sakura to defeat Mini Abismo Negro, Zafiro, Eddy Maceyra, and Monaguillo. Bringing in Sagrada to work a prelim match was weird. (The Micro Gemelo Diablos have not been seen since showing up at TripleMania Mexico City; maybe there was something with them planned for this show at one point.) This match was obviously heavily edited. There’s a point where luchadoras Sakura and Zafiro step into the ring, AAA cuts to a generic crowd shot and cuts back to show them both replaced in the ring. They use a replay to cover up another edit; Sakura and Zafiro just materialize in the ring, and Sakura gives Zafiro a German suplex for the win. AAA does not edit shows, especially live ones, unless something seriously goes wrong. Those women must’ve not had a good night.
• Pierroth Jr. versus Kempo Jr. versus Aereo happened. They explained it was a three-way title match; the winner got the loser’s title, but the third person kept them. Pierroth Jr. beat Kempo Jr., so he kept the KAOZ Heavyweight Championship and won the Norteste Light Heavyweight Championship. Aereo remained the Juarez Metropolitan Champion. The match was every three-way ever, with Kempo playing the tecnico against two rudos. There is something there with Kempo as the local spectacular high flyer (Aereo used to be that guy), but it was also just a random match with two guys who won’t be seen in AAA again for six months. AAA seemed to have rules against allowing non-AAA belts to appear on their TV in the past, and both these guys and those in the opener had them here. They mocked the KAOZ promoter pretty hard on TV, but they’re booking his guy Pierroth in a way that keeps him happy.
  • Aereo has a fake KeMonito named KeMadito. This is one of those moments that reminds you that almost no one who talks about wrestling is watching AAA because it would’ve been a big topic on the weekend of the other KeMonito debuting had anyone cared.
• Crazy Steve & Havok defeated Brazo de Oro Jr. & Reina Dorada to retain the AAA Mixed Tag Team championship. This was not advertised as a title match going in. Brazo de Oro Jr. replaced the injured Fiscal, but they also did an arm injury angle to sideline Brazo de Oro for the first half of the match. If you want Reina Dorada wrestling on her own and selling, maybe this is for you. Steve & Havok pinned both opponents.
• Cibernetico, Mecha Wolf, and Vampiro beat Absimo Negro, Psicosis and Taurus in a lucha de obscures match. As the announcers drilled into our heads, this idea of turning the lights off and having the wrestlers work in glow-in-the-dark outfits was an Antonio Pena concept. Not all of Antonio Pena’s concepts were good. Absimo Negro’s gear looked good; Psicosis and Cibernetico both tried. Mecha Wolf and Taurus both had some glow-in-the-dark tape on to help. Vampiro just showed up in his normal gear and didn’t want any part of this. The finish was Vampiro pinning Abismo with a small package while hooking the ropes for whatever reason. Vampiro gave a goodbye speech ending with him being too emotional to go on, then put his leather jacket in a casket to signal his retirement.

The Vampiro retirement didn’t come across as a big deal as previous times, because it was the fifth or sixth time he’s retired on TV in the last year. There was no feeling this was any different than the other ones. They tried to invoke a sense of finality with the casket, but it didn’t come across strongly. It was in some ways a lesser version than some of those other farewells: the roster dind’t come out to celebrate him, just Mecha Wolf hanging around for the match.

Vampiro’s last match should’ve been the Arena Ciudad de Mexico match, which seemed the original plan. That match had a sense of finality. Vampiro’s wrestled twice on TV since this show and Heroes Inmortales, in matches didn’t mean much and weren’t any good. Both of those shows draw well every year and did not need to have a Vampiro retirement boost. Doing a glow-in-the-dark match as Vampiro’s AAA retirement match almost felt like a prank on him, one he decided to blow off by not participating. That Mexico City match was weird and not great, but also very from the mind of Vampiro. Almost everything else he’s done, including this one, felt like stuff forced upon him and he didn’t have much investment in – he cared about the post-match promo and would’ve been just as fine doing that without wrestling.

(AAA also didn’t know what they wanted this to be; this match was advertised on the poster as his last match in Juarez, then on social media as his last match in AAA period, then on TV as his last TV match. Someone may have belatedly realized he’s still booked on non-TV matches. Vampiro is 100% going to wrestle outside of Mexico and everyone inside of wrestling believes Vampiro will eventually wrestle in Mexico again someday.)

The show ended with a quick teaser of Cibernetico as the next mega championship challenger, which would become official in Saltillo. Cibernetico’s addition to the Vampiro match was unpromoted – I’m unsure if AAA wants to make surprises a bigger deal again or if they just didn’t get around to advertising him.

AAA taped TV Sunday night in Saltillo

AAA TV (SUN) 11/17/2024 Lienzo Charro Prof. Enrique Gonzalez, Saltillo, Coahuila [AAA, Lo Mejor de Lucha]
1) King Rap, Pingüino Jr., The Rocker b Buirrito, Fly Boy, Rey Dorado
2) Inferno, Krator Jr., Latino b Bebote Valdes, Mini Hator, Símbolo
3) Mr. Iguana & Niño Hamburguesa b Andrómeda & Belcegor
Tokyo Bad Boys may have gotten involved.
4) Flammer & La Hiedra DCOR Chik Tormenta & Dalys and Julissa & Valentynna Reis
All six people fought outside for the countout.
5) Dinámico, Drago, Laredo Kid b Kento, Nobu San, Takuma
Mr. Iguana helped cost the Tokyo Bad Boys the match
6) Hijo Del Vikingo & Octagón Jr. DQ Alberto el Patrón & El Mesías
Alberto and Mesias were DQ for excessive violence. Latin Lover introduced Cibernetico, said he’d challenge for the mega title on 12/07 and that Hijo del Tirantes would not be allowed to referee that match
7) Dave The Clown, Murder Clown, Panic Clown b Abismo Negro Jr., El Fiscal, Psicosis [AAA TRIOS, cage]
Earlier, Psicosis put Fiscal back on the team in place of Taurus to force team harmony. It failed, Abismo betrayed Psicosis in a cage match for a second time. Psycho Circus won the trios titles and are 18th champions. Vipers fall on their 3rd defense

Takuma and friends seem to have stolen Yeska from Mr. Iguana somewhere during this show. That seems like a setup for a match back in GLEAT, where Mr. Iguana has already been announced. Psicosis seems quite dumb for allowing the man who cost him his mask back on his team and then have him also cost him his trios titles, but maybe it plays differently on TV. (Edit: It probably does play differently, but still weird – the Vipers all betrayed Fiscal and lost the trios titles in the process.)  Likewise, match 6 reads like shoveling some dirt on Vikingo and Octagon, but maybe it’ll look different when we see it. We probably won’t see it until at least 12/07 on Space and 12/14 on Unimas. That finish and Cibernetico being the next challenger makes it feel like AAA is definitely moving on from Vikingo’s challenge for now. They’ve still got a lot of TV to fill between now and the next show that matters, TripleMania Monterrey, so maybe they’ll eventually wander back to it. The women’s count out seems like a tease to a bigger match, but it also may have been AAA just not having a finish to that one.

AAA did live some results on Instagram, and little for Twitter. That makes it a touch more difficult for me, but is seems like the right move for their audience. I can’t be certain if this current wave of people abandoning Twitter will continue – I don’t think it’s totally for real until more official brands move off Twitter – but it’s best to get stronger elsewhere right now.

This show looked maybe 70% full, maybe a little more. It was not the sellout of March but that still seems a positive number.

Monday, AAA announced that 12/07 taping, where the Cibernetico/Alberto match was made official:

AAA TV (SAT) 12/07/2024 Gimnasio Olímpico Juan de la Barrera, Ciudad de México, Distrito Federal
1) Adelicious, Mini Vikingo, Pimpinela Escarlata vs Andrómeda, Mini Psycho Clown, Sussy Love
2) Emperador Azteca, Niño Hamburguesa, Tigre Universitario Jr. vs Kento, Nobu San, Takuma
3) Reina Dorada vs Flammer, Julissa, Valentynna Reis
4) El Fiscal & Octagón Jr. vs El Mesías & Pierroth Jr.
5) Laredo Kid vs Matt Riddle [AAA CRUISER]
3rd defense
6) Cibernético vs El Patrón Alberto © [AAA MEGA]
3rd defense

AAA is billing this as the end of the Origens tour. They’re also billing the show the next day as the end of the Origenes tour.

Ciber’s been pretty popular on these Mexico City tapings, so that title match should get a good reaction. Cibernetico stands about the same chance of winning as having a five-star match. The gimmick is Tirantes won’t cheat to help the rudos, but someone else will, and then we’ll find out what the next chapter in this story will be. (There was no mention of the “Dorian/JBL takeover” story on any of the TVs, though Unimas did show some of the Dorian/JBL promo that had aired elsewhere.)

It would be kind of nonsense for Matt Riddle to win the AAA Cruiserweight belt, defend it against Fiscal once, and then lose it to Laredo Kid, but AAA is capable of nonsense. I’m rooting for it. AAA has booked Riddle fairly often but it’s hard to see a way where it’s made a difference; this show will probably do well based on how much people care about that main event. AAA puts Laredo with Riddle to get star ratings, but few people who care about star ratings are bothered by AAA, especially not on their very delayed TV tapings. (This may not air until mid-January.) I appreciate another great Laredo Kid match, even one I have no reason to suspect he’ll win, but I’m unsure what the point of this is all. They’re trying to sell something to people who don’t seem interested.

Some of the other stuff feels like it’s being sold to people besides the conventional audience here. Sure a lot of KAOZ people here for no obvious reason. Mini Psycho Clown is making his first TV appearance in a year for some reason. Actual Psycho Clown again nowhere to be seen.

Coloso Colosetti

Coloso Colosetti (Elio Carlo Colosseti Drazich, 76) passed away Saturday. The cause of death has not been announced, but he’d been in poor health for years.

Colosetti started wrestling in his home country of Argentina and showed up in EMLL in 1969 as the threatening import of the year. He seemed positioned as a foil for top tecnico Ray Mendoza, doing the usual title switch to set up a hair match. Coloso stayed. He was taller than most wrestlers, closer to being a heavyweight, and a good-looking guy – he got over well and fit in well in EMLL. He had five hair matches at Arena Mexico in the 1970s, including the 1975 Aniversario main event. He won 2, lost 3. He went to the UWA, winning and losing hair matches and feuding with Canek. (If EMLL had a heavyweight title open to non-Mexicans, he’d likely have won in more than once.) He’s talked up as a good wrestler, and the magazines loved interviewing him and the attractive women he always seemed to be dating. He appeared in Santo movies, was the unofficial third counter-culture Los Hippes team member, and toured the US and Japan in the late 1970s. Colosetti always comes across as the coolest guy in the room in those magazines. He faded into the background in 90s, and seemed to have hit hard times in the last few years. He seemed to live an extraordinary life in his best moments.

It bummed me out a bit that his passing got far less attention. Colosetti is the cover of this week’s Box y Lucha and hopefully they’ll have something good inside. The general sports media didn’t cover it as much as Scorpio Jr.’s passing, which seems like a product of Coloso living two decades longer. His run is now far in the past, and without the TV footage to look back on it. I wish more of those older magazines were around and accessible so people could see him as a bigger star. There’s a few matches from later in his career that are on YouTube; I watched this one from 1983, where he’s one of the rudos trying to get the visiting Kevin Von Erich over to the Arena Mexico crowd. If you knew nothing but that one of the wrestlers in that match was a WON Hall of Famer, it might take you five or six guesses to identify the correct one. (Pirata Morgan would be the first guess – or maybe it’d go “either Pirata is a hall of fame wrestler or he was completely broken out of wrestling three years later wrestling that way” and somehow neither are true.)

Other News

Ayako Hamada posted a video saying her father Gran Hamada is in very bad health and asking for prayers. She still seemed hopeful.

La Jornada has a profile on Fray Tormenta. He’s living off merchandise sales and donations from people he’s helped raise.

Sanson won the 2024 Mas Luchas Supremo over Bestia 666. That show did not draw well, and the women’s tournament didn’t either, and I wonder if they’ll keep running those tournaments. We don’t know if they’re seeing a surge in subscribers for those shows, and that’d be the biggest factor.

The Lucha Bowl, a flag football tournament, occurs in Mexico City from December 6th to the 8th. They’ll lucha libre alongside the flag football, and they’re working with IWRG. There’s some family history in that connection: the promoter is the daughter of former Arena Naucalpan Rams. Rams was a football-themed rudo, so now she’s putting on a lucha libre-themed football event. I think it’s a safe bet that Rams loved football beyond his wrestling gimmick if his daughter ended up playing flag football.

CMLL

CMLL (FRI) 11/15/2024 Arena México
1) Angelito, Kaligua, Pequeño Magía vs Galaxy, Shockercito, Último Dragóncito
2) KeMonito vs KeMalito
3) La Catalina, Lluvia, Tessa Blanchard vs Persephone, Reyna Isis, Zeuxis
4) Flip Gordon vs Villano III Jr. [NWA MIDDLE, final]
vacant title
5) Atlantis, Atlantis Jr., Blue Panther vs Bárbaro Cavernario, Niebla Roja, Último Guerrero
6) Místico, Neón, Templario vs Averno, Difunto, Zandokan Jr.

Next week is Leyenda de Azul, so probably not much in the way of angles on this show – maybe Averno cheats Mistico to build to next week. Perhaps a title match from the women, but I wouldn’t expect anything big to be set up from the top matches. That top match is another case of CMLL putting new people in main events with Difunto, Zandokan and (to a lesser extent) Neon. The rudos in the semi-main would’ve easily been in the last match in past years, and CMLL’s instead going through the tougher process of convincing fans these guys are top guys.

CMLL’s booked Flip Gordon as a semi-main/main event guy and Villano III Jr. as a fourth match/semi-main event guy, which really points to Flip Gordon winning. This will also be interesting for the crowd reactions; the Arena Mexico fans love those Villanos. Flip’s talked about being a family man, a new dad, someone who really is trying to make Mexico his new home and he’s still surely going to get booed.

There have only been two (NWA) Historic Middleweight champions from the United States, just about the same as people who’ve held that title from Spain. One American champ was Chris Jericho, who most thinks of as Canadian but was born in the US and has now lived most of his adult life there. The other is Joe Palardy (Jovite Palardis), who won for a couple of months in 1977 and I know just about nothing about. I was looking around for a bio this morning and instead stumbled upon a news report of him injured when a car drove into the Beef ‘O’ Bradys he was eating at in 2019.

CMLL Informa ended with the reveal of matches for December 13th

• Claudio Castagnoli vs Hechicero
• PAC vs Volador Jr.
• La Catalina & Tessa Blanchard vs Red Velvet & Toni Storm

Castagnoli versus Hechicero is the Gran Prix winner versus the Aniversario winner. PAC and Volador had issues during the brief Death Triangle run. The women’s match follows up Storm’s previous appearances. The expectations are going to be high for those top two matches and this show should have a lot of outside interest for them. The press articles all talk about this being a CMLL vs AEW show. CMLL doesn’t state that, but perhaps we shouldn’t expect NJPW or other people on this one. CMLL didn’t say much about the rest of the card; no idea if it’s meant to be six CMLL/AEW matches or just those three.

The other big segment was KeMonito and KeMalito hyping their match on Tuesday. KeMalito seemed about 100% more comfortable. The guy who’s been doing the character for a week felt nervous. CMLL keeps flashing that legal notice stating they came up with KeMonito every time he appears, but they clearly have decided they don’t own the famous costume that QueMoniito is wearing. The new guy has worn two different costumes so far. Informa had an original look in a promo photo behind the man wearing a new look – the mouth sticks out a lot more, and the chest plate is bigger. I think the idea is to try to have him look more like the current QueMoniito outfit, but the mouth just looks off. He looks more like a gorilla now. As for the match itself, it’ll be a pleasant surprise if it’s any good, but the reaction – by tickets sold and noise made – will be the intriguing story tonight. Maybe fans will be accepting of a new KeMonito because of their love of the character, but my bet is KeMalito will be cheered even stronger than usual. The Ticketmaster map looked like a good amount of tickets had been sold already, but they’re in no danger of selling out the place and the Gradas section has not been opened.

The Informa interview seemed to edge away from pushing KeMonito as the previous guy returning; there was a mention of this guy training in CMLL for a year before this debut match. The newspaper previews seem to still pushing it as return. Those are sometimes heavily working off what CMLL’s given them as copy. KeMonito did note this isn’t a one off and he’ll be joining the micros division going forward.

QueMoniito posted a video on Thursday talking about his time in the circus (while also promoting a candy.) He still hasn’t said anything about the new KeMonito. It’s gone long enough with nothing being said that we can begin to assume there must be a settlement or a legal ruling to end the dispute. It does not appear to affect his ability to do business as QueMoniito. The debut of the new KeMonito also seems to have spurred more interest in the recent documentary on Netflix; I’ve seen a few media outlets write about it again.

CMLL (MON) 11/18/2024 Arena Puebla
1) Black Tiger & Millenium vs Hijo del Perverso & Rencor
2) Capitán Suicida & Hijo del Pantera vs Perverso & Prayer
3) Tessa Blanchard vs Lluvia, La Catalina, Skadi, Kira, Reyna Isis, Zeuxis, Sanely, Persephone, Hera [Copa Mujeres Revolucionnarias]
4) Místico, Stigma, Templario vs Gran Guerrero, Stuka Jr., Último Guerrero
5) Averno, Euforia, Mephisto © vs Magnus, Rugido, Volador Jr. [CMLL TRIOS]
first defense

The Depredadores are in a tecnico role in the main event. I’d rather see match 2 than another women’s cibernetico. I’m sure TV will show the women’s cibernetico, and there’s no mention of streaming this special holiday show. (They did end up streaming it last year.)

CMLL (TUE) 11/19/2024 Arena Coliseo Guadalajara
1) Astro Oriental, Logan, Último Ángel vs Infierno, Mortis, Ponzoña Jr.
2) Gallo Jr., Obek, Rafaga Jr. vs Rav, Shezmu, Temerario
3) Calavera Jr. I & Calavera Jr. II vs Draego & Persa
4) Atlantis & Blue Panther vs Rey Bucanero & Satánico
5) Kira & La Catalina vs Dark Silueta & Persephone
6) Dulce Gardenia, Esfinge, Star Black vs Barboza, Difunto, Zandokan Jr.

Good for CMLL going through the effort of plugging Explosivo in Fuerza Tapatia to fill out the trio, and they end up teaming with Dulce Gardenia a couple of weeks later.

Arena Coliseo Guadalajara showed off some maintenance and remodeling on Facebook.

Capitan Suicida told the media he really liked his tour of Japan, would love to team with Titan some day, and is aiming for Magia Blanca’s welterweight championship.

A CMLL show in San Luis Potosi this past Wedensday., delayed for a couple of weeks, seemed to draw pooly.

Magia Blanca is listed for a Chinampaluchas show this weekend. He says the listing is a fraud, and he will not be there. Atlantis, Rey Bucanero and Rugido are also listed; Blanca says he has no idea if they’re appearing.

Mascara Dorada, Atlantis, Olympia, and KeMalito will appear an autograph signing for the Teleton charity on 11/23.

MLW announced Kojima against Ultimo Guerrero for the MLW Heavyweight Championship on 12/05. That’s part of their TV taping, so it’ll probably air two weeks later. MLW already announced Kojima will defend that title against Matt Riddle; I don’t think many assumed Ultimo Guerrero was becoming MLW champion anyway.

Noriteru Fukushima, the excitable Japanese ambassador to Mexico seen on CMLL shows the last couple of years, has finished his time in Mexico and is headed back home.

In a local (to me) story, the Chicago Bulls, Blackhawks, and White Sox decided to launch a TV network this fall. It’s been a failure on all counts. They’re belatedly offering a digital offering. Their strange scheme offers 20 USD for one team or 30 for everything on the channel. I saw those numbers, stunned that anyone would pay that much for one channel. A beat later, I recalled I pay 35 USD a month for CMLL. I’ve gotten used to it, maybe you’ve gotten used to it, but it is worth stepping back every so often and reflecting on that being an absolutely insane price point. CMLL’s probably making more money on digital than any previous year, and probably by leaps and bounds. I still think they’re costing themselves money by making the paywall so high that people aren’t even going to bother to sample. That 12/13 show will be widely watched, but mostly on pirated Facebook feeds among people who might’ve paid a less ridiculous price.

(Oh, by the way, if you’re on the $9 lowest tier, the reason you haven’t been getting any Friday shows lately is the last two have been Fan Leyenda only. Those don’t go to the lowest tier. CMLL also doesn’t explain this and really hasn’t put on that guide for how the tier system works for a while now. Good customer service would be sending out a reminder every time that tier doesn’t get a show, and it might convince a couple to the higher tier.)

AAA

AAA TV this weekend

• Space has part 2 of Guerra de Titanes
• Unimas maybe has part 1 of the Halloween Showcenter event.
  • This will air an hour early.
• YouTube has part 1 of Guerra de Titanes

AAA is in Saltillo on Sunday

AAA TV (SUN) 11/17/2024 Lienzo Charro Prof. Enrique Gonzalez, Saltillo, Coahuila
1) ?, ??, ??? vs ????, ?????, ??????
2) Mr. Iguana & Niño Hamburguesa vs Andrómeda & Belcegor
3) Flammer & La Hiedra vs Chik Tormenta & Dalys and Julissa & Valentynna Reis
4) Dinámico, Drago, Laredo Kid vs Kento, Nobu San, Takuma
5) Dave The Clown, Murder Clown, Panic Clown vs Abismo Negro Jr., Psicosis, Taurus [AAA TRIOS]
6) Hijo Del Vikingo & Octagón Jr. vs Alberto el Patrón & El Mesías

No idea what’ll happen with that main event. Vikingo posted IG Story video of him doing his rehab work Friday morning. I’m guessing that means he’s not cleared but who knows. Psycho Circus should be winning the trios titles from the feuding Vipers, but they’ve dragged that out for months and might keep dragging it out. Match 4 is a rematch from Juarez and seemed to be the match there. Match 3 is Toxias and Julissa/Valentynna (new worse spelling) being storyline unprofessional with each other and maybe in real life too. Match should be fun, match 1 is probably locals and will air on TV. My guess is this airs the first entire weekend of December.

The WON says Konnan has been hospitalized for the last 26 days with diverticulitis and related issues. He’s still in the hospital, though he hopes to be released this weekend. He was missing from Guerra de Titanes – he’d normally do an interference spot in that main event or a promo – but no one had publically disclosed why.

Mr. Iguana said he’s going to Japan for two weeks and teased he’s on more shows than just that 12/30 date. It’ll be his first time there.

Vampiro, who is theoretically done in AAA, is wrestling for RGR on 11/24 in what is also billed as a retirement match. They don’t say for where, so maybe he’s just having his last ever Huntington Park match. Vampiro made no mention of his AAA retirement on social media.

Back in September, Keyra and Myzteziz Jr. had a very public custody battle. The two were once a couple, had a son, and have since split. Keyra had brought her son to the hospital, where he was admitted for what she said was a blood transfusion. At some point, the child was released from the hospital but released into Myzteziz’s custody instead. He and his family took custody of the child without telling Keyra and without telling her where he was. Keyra pleaded for help, but the story quickly faded away. Myzteziz disappeared from wrestling for about a month, then returned two weeks ago. Thursday, Myzteziz posted on Instagram, claiming he’s won the legal battle against “the boy’s mother” – he’s been granted custody and an order of protection. He accused Keyra of lying in a way that has now gotten herself in trouble. (Myzteziz does not show the legal notice.) People who know this situation a lot better than have cautioned not to pick a side and I don’t think that changes much with the news. It’s still very messy.

Myzteziz’s AAA career is the least important part of this – they’ve barely used him on TV this year, even before this came up – but this legal situation being resolved for the time being may mean AAA will bring him back to tapings.

Other News

Arena Jalisco usually streams the top few matches from their shows. Mas Lucha has picked up the feed in the past. This past week, they didn’t stream live, and they strangely cut out the main event. Facebook comments provided some hints why that may be the case. Guadalajara lucha libre video channel lucha libre select 11 posted their video of the main event, and it’s not hard to see why. Veneno appears to be in no condition to wrestle, or stand. Some of the others are questionable, but Veneno definitely won the race. (The Beast Mortos is in the match and seems to be a professional in a world of unprofessional. Such can be Mexican indie wresting.)

I’m pretty close to clearing out my backlog of videos to add to the luchadb and happened to skim through the Todo x el Todo Mexico City show Mas Lucha posted a month or so ago. The show is not good, you should not spend time watching it. What stuck out to me is there was a lot more money spent on production, both from a live event perspective (huge TripleMania-like screens) and also in capturing the shows. I wonder if there was some thought these would be TV (or PPV) broadcasts, and that fell through. It would help explain why they ran the big arenas, those that would look better on TV but they had little chance of filling. The whole business part of that promotion is odd.

CMLL

CMLL (MON) 11/11/2024 Arena Puebla [CMLL, Mano a Mano, Porra Fresa]
1) Grako & Rencor b Dragón de Fuego & Meyer
2) Full Metal & Pequeño Polvora b Galaxy & Shockercito
3) Pegasso, Rey Samuray, Valiente Jr. b Disturbio, El Elemental, Pólvora 
El Elemental left injured in the second fall with an abdomen injury
4) Guerrero Maya Jr., Multy, Okumura b Rayo Metálico, Volcano, Xelhua
Maya beat Xelhua
5) Flip Gordon, Templario, Titán b Hijo del Villano III, Villano III Jr., Zandokan Jr. 
Flip pinned Villano III Jr. before their title match on Sunday
6) Magnus, Rugido, Volador Jr. b Averno, Euforia, Mephisto 
straight falls, setting up a trios title match next week

So no Volador/Averno match here, and a trios title match instead. That’s a decent change of pace.

CMLL (TUE) 11/12/2024 Arena México [CMLL, Kaiser Sports, thecubsfan]
1) Galaxy, Shockercito, Último Dragóncito DQ Full Metal, Pequeño Polvora, Rostro De Acero   
9:50. Roster de Acero unmasked Galaxy. Challenges followed
2) El Audaz & Valiente Jr. b Alom & Infarto
2) Alom & Infarto b El Audaz & Valiente Jr.    
13:12
3) Capitán Suicida, Futuro, Max Star b Cancerbero, Luciferno, Virus  
16:56.
4) Arkalis, Stigma, Xelhua b Guerrero Maya Jr., Hijo del Villano III, Vegas   
4) Guerrero Maya Jr., Hijo del Villano III, Vegas b Arkalis, Stigma, Xelhua    
12:21. Straight falls, the last when Xelhua had Maya submitting but the ref missed that and missed Maya fouling Xelhua. Stigma demanded a rematch. Vegas replaced Elemental (injury the night prior) a few hours prior to the show
5) Esfinge, Máscara Dorada, Star Jr. b Gran Guerrero, Stuka Jr., Valiente   
12:06
6) Volador Jr. b Averno   
14:08

Matches 3/5/6 were all Good. Xelhua should never beat Maya with that submission until it’s a big show. Hijo del Villano III did a crazy thing.

CMLL (TUE) 11/12/2024 Arena Coliseo Guadalajara [CMLL, Fuego en el RIng]
1) Eclipse Jr., Rav, Shezmu b Black Boy, Thunder Boy, Yaky Boy
2) Adira & Nexy b Hatana & Valkiria
3) Adrenalina, Fantástico, Yutani b Ángel Rebelde, Cris Skin, Halcón Negro Jr.
4) Gallo, Ráfaga, Rafaga Jr. b Blue Panther Jr., Dark Panther, Hijo de Blue Panther
5) La Catalina & Lluvia b Sanely & Zeuxis
6) Furia Roja, Gallero, Último Guerrero b Star Black, Templario, Titán

There is no obvious direction from these results, but that match 4 is a surprising upset.

CMLL (FRI) 11/15/2024 Arena México
1) Angelito, Kaligua, Pequeño Magía vs Galaxy, Shockercito, Último Dragóncito
2) KeMonito vs KeMalito
3) La Catalina, Lluvia, Tessa Blanchard vs Persephone, Reyna Isis, Zeuxis
4) Flip Gordon vs Villano III Jr. [NWA MIDDLE, final]
vacant title
5) Atlantis, Atlantis Jr., Blue Panther vs Bárbaro Cavernario, Niebla Roja, Último Guerrero
6) Místico, Neón, Templario vs Averno, Difunto, Zandokan Jr.

It’s a bit wild for KeMonito/KeMalito to be the big angle at the end of the show and then for it to end up second on the card – but, yea, it probably should be second on the card given the expected quality of the match. I think Flip’s winning the title but not sure. Most of the heavyweights will be busy with the Leyenda de Azul, so there may not be anything else set up for next week.

CMLL (SAT) 11/16/2024 Arena México
1) Astro Boy Jr. & Dragón de Fuego vs Enfermero Jr. & Grako
2) Eléctrico, Legendario, Robin vs Disturbio, Hunter, Nitro
3) India Sioux & Princesa Sugehit vs Amapola & Metálica
4) Explosivo, Fugaz, Star Black vs Akuma, Gemelo Diablo I, Gemelo Diablo II
5) Neón vs Magnus [lightning]
6) Blue Panther, Star Jr., Volador Jr. vs Bárbaro Cavernario, Terrible, Villano III Jr.

Neon/Magnus is a first-time match. Villano III Jr.’s presence in the main event may suggest something about Friday’s result, or it just may be a random CMLL booking. I’m not sure Akuma’s moved up by teaming with the Gemelos instead of Dark Magic and Espanto Jr. – that’s a sideways move.

CMLL (SUN) 11/17/2024 Arena México
1) Astral & Diamond vs Inquisidor & Sangre Imperial
2) Dulce Gardenia, Espíritu Negro, Rey Cometa vs Crixus, Kráneo, Sagrado
3) Princesa Sugehit vs Dark Silueta [lightning]
4) Brillante Jr., Fuego, Volcano vs Felino, Felino Jr., Rey Bucanero
5) Flip Gordon, Hijo de Octagón, Titán vs Magia Blanca, Magnus, Rugido
6) Octagón, Templario, Volador Jr. vs Averno, Euforia, Mephisto

Nothing going on here. I appreciate CMLL using the Octagon dates on the non-streaming shows as often as they do.

NJPW announced Hechicero versus Lio Rush for their 12/15 show. That’s a unique match, though I think Hechicero has more practice against people like Lio Rush (fast) than Lio Rush has with people like Hechicero (submission wizards.) It also seems like one where the outcome depends on whether either of those two is working the 01/05 Tokyo Dome show; both seem like possible inclusions but far from definite ones. I thought this would be another Mistico NJPW appearance, but that doesn’t appear to be the case. CMLL doesn’t seem to have mentioned this match yet.

Mistico will be on the 12/05 MLW show in New York City, defending the MLW World Middleweight Championship against Trevor Lee. It seems like MLW’s given away who’s winning by shooting an angle for Mistico/Cavernario in January, but I guess Carolina Caveman versus Guadalajara Caveman might be a thing. Atlantis has been added to the 01/11 show.

CMLL posted a statement Tuesday telling people not to believe official CMLL statements unless they’ve posted them on social media. Apparently, someone else posted a mock-up of a statement announcing CMLL was bringing back Rush and Los Ingobernables. This may be a little bit about how clear CMLL wants it that they’re not bringing back Rush any time soon. They’re not going to let that story go unaddressed. Because of the way social media works, that false Rush press still is going around. I think it’s more visible today than it was before CMLL denounced it. There’s no chance CMLL will bring Rush back any time soon; they’re still very unhappy with him.

This is one of those Wednesdays where I’d wait to do this post until after Informa if it was still airing at 4 pm. It’s too late in the evening now, but I suspect it’ll have a decent amount of news. They’ll promote the KeMonito match in some way, maybe with a KeMonito interview. CMLL will likely reveal more information on the 12/13 show sometime this week; it’s just a question of whether they’ll save everything for Friday or do it now. The usual CMLL media day is happening this afternoon, no one seems to be writing much about it, and that could mean they’re under embargo about a topic until CMLL gets to officially announce it later today. Or it could be no one feels like posting right now. Who knows.

The rest of Informa will probably be more standard fare: Flip & Villano talking about their title match, some combination of Los Infernales and Los Depredadores talking about the trios match in Puebla, and so on.

Raider says he was surprised to find out he was going to FantasticaMania; it’s something he wanted to do, but he didn’t think he’d be on the list this year. He’s doubling his wrestling and weight training and will also ask his current trainer, Ultimo Guerrero, for advice. Neon says he’s also excited for FantasticaMania, though he admits he doesn’t know much about Japanese wrestling.

AAA

On the Business of the Business podcast, Kevin Kleinrock unexpectedly gave an update on El Hijo del Vikingo’s return date. He mentioned that Vikingo would be out “about a month,” with a return date of “maybe late in the year.” Kleinrock’s role in this is helping AAA with Vikingo’s US bookings. This wasn’t the topic of the podcast, it was a comment in a discussion about other things – there’s a discussion about plans for MaskedRepublic to run more shows in the US in 2025 and how AAA doing the same would affect them that’s interesting – but Vikingo being out for a month longer is mostly what I’m concerned. I asked Kleinrock about it to make sure I understood. He clarified that he didn’t mean to say anything different than Vikingo had announced prior, that Vikingo’s return date is still not locked down as he rehabs, and for that and other reasons, there’s a pause on Vikingo US reasons.

It’s possible AAA will also take it safe, but it’s even more likely they won’t say anything about it until they feel they absolutely must. Vikingo was always questionable for the Saltillo taping on Sunday, and we can downgrade him to doubtful. AAA may have shifted plans to go with Cibernetico as the next Alberto’s opponent because Ciber is healthy (by Ciber standards), Vikingo is still a question mark, and they’ll be doing that match soon. Maybe on 12/07.

Notably, AAA still hasn’t posted that 12/08 Monterrey lineup. They may be waiting until after this week’s show to announce both it and the Mexico City one – but they’re so rarely posting results and info from tapings that I’m not sure why they’d wait. Even if they are running an angle in Saltillo, they’d have to change around how they’re doing things for most of their fans to know it happened before it airs on TV. That Saltillo taping will not air until the weekend of that next set of TV tapings.

Mas Lucha posted the usual bunch of post-AAA TV taping interviews: Tokyo Bad Boys, Mesias, Pagano, Alberto, and Cibernetico. They’re usual stuff, though Cibernetico vowing to out cheat Alberto when they wrestle is at least amusing.

GLEAT announced Mr. Iguana and Psycho Clown for their 12/30 show. Maybe they’re finally doing the Iguana vs. Takuma or Kento match.

AAA on Unimas airs at 1 p.m. this Saturday. They got the word out on Monday, which is a vast improvement.

Latin Lover and Gronda are angry at each other over some comment on Latin Lover’s podcast. I don’t know what Latin originally said, but it led to Gronda calling Latin Lover a prostitute and Latin Lover saying more things about Gronda on a Facebook Live video. As someone else pointed out, there’s far more interest on social media among Mexican fans about the controversies that come out of Latin Lover’s podcast and public comments than anything that actually happens on AAA TV. Maybe there’s some value in that, maybe it would just go over the head of others. Unimas caught up to the Copa Antonio Pena this past week, which was focused on the Latin Lover/Chik Tormenta issue. It made some sense to seize on at time but, many weeks later and being broadcast in a different country, I wonder how many Unimas viewers could make any sense of that entire hour of TV. These things flame up quickly and disappear just as quickly, and it’s tough getting that on TV while still relevant at the pace of Mexican wrestling moves.

Other Notes

The funeral for Puebla’s Roy Calavera was held as a wrestling show. They brought his casket to a building with a ring, put his masks in every corner, and wrestlers came in the ring to talk about how much he meant to him. They brought in a band to play his favorite songs, and mourners wore black t-shirts with “Roy Calavera” on them when he was buried on Tuesday. (A traditional mass was held as well.) He leaves a 13 year old behind. The theory is Calavera was killed for refusing to pay to a protection racket, but police noted they haven’t proven that’s the actual reason yet.

The wrestler known as Brillante RB (who has appeared on the AAA Showcenter events) seems to have changed his name to “Briyante RB” over the last few months. I presumed it was a weird typo the first half dozen times I saw it, and it still looks that way. Not sure if another Brillante had an issue with it, but I can’t think of a reason to make that switch otherwise.

Mascara 2000 says he plans on never retiring as long as he can get work. That’s the most honest thing an aged luchador has ever said.

Criterio Hidalgo interviews Sangre Azteca, who I forget is actually from that state.

CMLL

CMLL (FRI) 11/08/2024 Arena México [CMLL, El Heraldo, El Imparcial, El Universal, ESTO, Estrellas del Ring, Fuego en el Ring, Kaiser Sports, La Verdad Noticias, QuieroTV, thecubsfan]
1) Galaxy, Shockercito, Último Dragóncito b Pequeño Olímpico, Pequeño Violencia, Pierrothito    
6:57. (Clean finish!) Challenges followed. Scorpio Jr. was honored after the match.
2) Dulce Gardenia, Espíritu Negro, Rey Cometa b Dark Magic, Espanto Jr., Raider    
13:49.
3) Esfinge © b Rugido [MEX LH]    
12:16. 7th defense. CMLL honored paralympic athletes after the match.
4) Flip Gordon & Villano III Jr. b Neón, Guerrero Maya Jr., Dragón Rojo Jr., Difunto [NWA MIDDLE, #1 Contenders]    
23:24. Order of elimination: Guerrero Maya (via Dragon Rojo), Dragon Rojo (Flip Gordon), Difunto (by Neon after Difunto got his leg caught in the ropes on a ramp running spot) and Neon (via Villano III), leaving Flip Gordon and Villano III Jr. to advance to next week. UFC fighter Jiri Procházka walked Flip Gordon to the ring.
5) Atlantis Jr., Máscara Dorada, Místico b Ángel de Oro, Hechicero, Soberano Jr.   
16:21. Tecnicos nearly won in straight falls, but KeMalito dropkicked Mistico after he locked Hechicero in La Mistica. A moment later, KeMonito (clearly a new one) ran out to attack KeMalito and helped the tecnicos even the sides. (Whistle never actually blew to start the third fall, because the ring announcers was busy doing a big introduction for KeMonito.) Tecnicos won the third fall. KeMonito challenged KeMalito to a singles match next week, which KeMalito accepted. The announcers and Mistico talked about this being KeMonito’s return home.

The KeMonito bit was a big, big story. It must seem crazy to people who don’t follow Mexican wrestling that a mascot showing up would be important, but it’s by far the biggest lucha libre story of the weekend – all of those media articles are about KeMonito showing up and barely mention the rest of the show. It’s almost a Mexican cultural story; KeMonito is a weird iconic Mexican character totally associated with CMLL and lucha libre. It’s that tight and important connection this whole mess of lawsuits and fake original KeMonitos is happening.

A history of QueMoniito:

• Tinieblas introduced a Star Wars Ewok-looking creature as his mascot, Alushe, around 1988. The two characters are together for about 14 years. Alushe accompanies Tinieblas to matches in Mexico City. Elsewhere, he occasionally gets physically involved in the matches, but that stuff never makes TV.
• Tinieblas and Alushe part ways in 2002.
• The now ex-Alushe goes to the CMLL office to see if they have any work for him. They offer him some work in a small blue monkey outfit.
  • QueMoniito later claimed CMLL sketched the outfit, he created it, and Alfonso Morales came up with the name. CMLL holds a trademark on the outfit.
• KeMonito accompanies wrestlers to the ring and stands on the apron watching, but doesn’t do much the first two weeks. No one, the wrestlers included, have any idea what to make of him.
• Someone in CMLL decided it’s OK for the rudos to start bullying/attacking KeMonito during matches. It’s the same basic stuff he had been doing away from Mexico City, but it hadn’t aired on TV and these fans hadn’t seen it, so the fans are surprised and amused by the gimmick.
• Shocker adopts KeMonito as his mascot, and a lot of memorable KeMonito angles happen over the next few years – the Ultimo Guerrero dropkick that sent KeMonito flipping out of the ring, the evil monkey who attacked KeMonito the following week, and the Vampiro martinete on KeMonito. These end up as viral clips in the 00s wrestling internet and beyond.
• KeMonito continues to become a mascot through the 00s and 10s, though he’s clearly slowing down and taking far lesser violence as time goes on. Shocker leaves and KeMonito ends up with Maximo for a while, then Mistico, then just becomes a friend to all the top tecnico as company mascot.
• During the 2020 COVID lockdowns, KeMonito went viral in Mexico again – being inserted into famous photos or pictured doing heroic things. He appreciates the support (and all the fake birthdays that seem to get invented.) There’s little to no wrestling income for KeMonito at this point – he’s still sidelined when CMLL starts running empty arena shows – but the viral publicity leads him to start selling merchandise and souvenirs on his own (outside of CMLL’s sphere), and that’s where he starts making his real money.
• Advertisers also decide they want to jump on the KeMonito viral trend; he’s used some in ad campaigns, including one for the Karate Kid TV show and another for Bimbo bread. The Bimbo people send the payment for KeMonito to the CMLL office, which keeps some or all of that money. This turns into a dispute between KeMonito and CMLL about who owns the character and what the split should be for use of the character  – both in these commercials and the merchandise KeMonito has been selling.
• KeMonito has also publicly discussed retiring for years as his health worsens. In a radio interview in January 2023, he said he plans to retire that year and wants it to be part of that year’s Aniversario show. CMLL initially publicly supported the decision but then went very quiet on it and give the impression he’s going to keep wrestling.
• KeMonito stops appearing on CMLL shows by July 2023. He works outside shows, and neither side acknowledges there’s an issue for months. KeMonito starts using “QueMoniito” as his name in social media, and the CMLL logo starts to vanish from the merchandise he’s selling.
• There’s no KeMonoito retirement ceremony on the Aniversario show. Instead, at a post-show part, a new character debuts – the mascot that would eventually be known as KeMalito.
• QueMoniito deduces this must mean a new KeMonito is coming – and goes to the press with his complaints. He says he’d wanted to retire for years, but Salvador Lutteroth and Gala Lutteroth both convinced him to keep on going. He mentions his pay being cut off during the pandemic, and claimed he was being brought back at a reduced price and with harder restrictions about outside work. KeMonito also said CMLL was upset with him for publicly talking about retirement; they had no problem with the idea, but they wanted him to do it only quietly so they could put someone new in the suit without the fans realizing it. QueMoniito says CMLL first demanded he sign a new contract, which he refused unless he was paid what he felt he was owed from those advertising deals. They refused, and so he decided to sue CMLL over the money and the character.
• CMLL responds with a press release, claiming they still want to make a fair contract with QueMoniito and that they’ve shown him proof that they own the gimmick.
• CMLL sidelines KeMalito for a few weeks, waiting for the QueMonito story to cool off, before having him interfere in a match to help the rudos as an introduction. They do bits in matches, on CMLL Informa, and in stand alone Christmas skits to get over KeMalito as a troublemaker and with the idea there needs to be a counterbalance.
• Los Micro Gemelos Diablos are tabbed to be the new KeMonito – the idea is they’ll take turns – but never actually debut. CMLL may still be negotiating or battling with QueMoniito at this point, but the bigger issue is KeMalito is really good at his gimmick and gets over strong with CMLL fans. The gimmick designed to get the new KeMonito over has actually become the over character first.
• CMLL starts to put KeMalito in normal micro matches, and it’s not a great idea. KeMalito is good at running in, hitting someone, and running away. He is not good at taking bumps safely or remembering a sequence. This is super frustrating for the Micro Gemelos Diablos, who were the stars of the division and are now charged with putting over someone who’s not as good at them and has also seemingly cost them their big money mascot deal.
• The Micro Diablos act unprofessional in matches – “Shawn Michaels in late 90s” displays of character-breaking frustration – and are suspended at least once. There’s also no start date in sight for them becoming KeMonito. They eventually quit, show up as a surprise on TripleMania Mexico City to attack Mascarita Sagrada, and then are never seen or mentioned again.
• That seems to end the KeMonito II concept – except CMLL is undaunted, scouts the indies, and quietly recruits micro Chaneque for the role.
• A short documentary about QueMonitto, which had been shown at film festivals for the last few years, debuts on Netflix in Mexico. It was filmed before his fall out with CMLL, though the circumstances of his life and his treatment are evident in the film. This re-ignites discussion about the character and the current legal situation. (Ultimo Guerrero and KeMalito also do a spot the following Friday to play off the famous GIF.)
• Record puts out a story claiming QueMoniito will have to give up the gimmick and will retire in mid-October as a consequence of a settlement with CMLL. QueMoniito and his lawyer respond on Instagram, saying nothing has been settled and the court case is ongoing. Nothing happens in mid October, QueMoniito keeps on making appearance, and Record doesn’t address the discrepancy.
• The November 8th Arena Mexico match seems like a return to the original plan, a year removed: KeMalito’s interference has seemingly cost the tecnicos the match, only for “the returning” KeMonito to fight him off and help the tecnicos win. This KeMonito is Chaneque, but the announcers, the wrestlers and the promotions refer to him as the original KeMonito returning to the promotion. Pretending it’s the same guy is what CMLL had wanted a year ago and why they were upset with him talking about retirement.
  • Of note, this KeMonito II outfit looks slightly different than QueMonito’s —the face on the mask is slightly different, and the fur color is a different shade. It appears CMLL is using something closer to the original 2002 costume, which QueMoniito had modified over the years.
  • It’s clear to most, but not all, fans that there’s a different human being under the mask. Some, but not all the media mentions it’s a new character. It’s a much younger and mobile person doing the gimmick now.
  • CMLL flashed a legal statement on air as the angle was happening, and reposted it on social media attached to video of the angle. The statement reads: “Las marcas y la reserva de derechos del personaje KE MONITO®️ son propiedad de Promociones México, Coliseo y Revolución, S.C. y son signos creados y utilizados desde el año 2002.” Translated, CMLL says they’ve always owned Ke Monito and they’re the ones who created it back in 2002.
    • This did nothing but make people who were already unhappy with CMLL even more unhappy
• As KeMonito II was “returning” to CMLL, QueMoniito was signing autographs prior to a The Crash show thousands of miles away in Tijuana. Even if someone only saw photos of KeMonito in CMLL, it’s fairly obvious it can’t be the same person at both shows.

The normal next step is for QueMoniito to use social media to declare that he wasn’t in the ring in Arena Mexico and mention he’s still in a legal dispute. QueMoniito (or whoever runs his social media) has not said anything about all of this. His accounts have posted photos from The Crash show and the convention he worked at this weekend, but there is nothing about what happened in CMLL. Lawyers aren’t working many weekends, it took them about four days to respond to the Record story, maybe they’ll have something to say later this week. If he doesn’t eventually say something, it’s a signal something was worked out legally. What’s happened now doesn’t seem to match Record’s version of the story – QueMoniito is still out there taking bookings, giving no indication he’s hanging up the gimmick – and it’s hard to be sure what the legal situation is.

Even more of a mystery is why CMLL is so dead set on pushing the idea that this is the same KeMonito. The tourist fans and the casual are going to believe whatever CMLL tells them and will go along with CMLL if they’re billing him as the original KeMonito. Those same fans absolutely wouldn’t care if CMLL instead announced this guy was a new KeMonito, or if they just didn’t make any big deal about it either way and let them believe whatever. The other side is there are always going be fans annoyed when CMLL (or AAA or any lucha libre promotion) introduces a new version of an old popular act – Dralistico certainly felt that resentment upon taking the Mistico gimmick. That resentment will be worse if the promotion attempts to tell the hardcore fans a lie they’re not willing to believe. All those hardcore fans immediately figured out this was a new guy and that CMLL was lying to them. Those fans are going to be heard, they’re going to be a thorn in CMLL’s side and I’m not sure what the benefit is in having a percentage of CMLL fans booing this new character. There’s no apparent reason why CMLL can have many successor/second versions of wrestling characters, but the KeMonito character has to be the same person. CMLL set foot for a battle they can not win and to no apparent benefit.

The best case scenario is some spin on Wednesday where Julio Cesar Rivera explains they meant the ‘character’ of KeMonito was returning, but of course, it’s a new person under the mask; it’ll still be a lie, but maybe people will be more willing to buy that one.

KeMalito did post show interviews to build up the match next week; he says this is now the new era of KeMalito and not KeMonito. That focus is another part of it. CMLL, the serious stable promotion, is building the biggest show of the week around an Antonio Pena invention. Mascots and mascots fighting were a Pena idea considered too silly and disrespectful to lucha libre by those running and supporting CMLL. It is now a central part of CMLL’s appeal. CMLL’s never going to become completely the AAA of the late 90s, but a heavily promoted KeMonito vs KeMalito match is a sign of how much they’ve moved in that direction and found success in doing so. 

There was a show too! The main event wasn’t high intensity, which was weird at the moment but made complete sense after the angle – anything was completely lost in the excitement and interest around the KeMonito character. The cibernetico got a decent amount of time, but struggled in the last moments. Difunto’s hit rate on his ramp dropkick is not great and Villano III Jr. managed to flip onto his head and neck a moment later. Jiri Procházka appears to be hanging around Mexico on his social media, so I presume Flip or someone else happened to meet him at a gym and just invited him to the show. Esfinge/Rugido was solidly good, hitting about the ceiling of where I’d expect them, but neither are exciting wrestlers to me. Rey Cometa was as good as Espanto Jr. was bad in match 2. The minis didn’t get much time in the opener.

CMLL honoring Scorpio Jr. but not putting out a generic graphic on social media is weird, but that’s one of those things that reflect more on CMLL than Scorpio Jr. The presentation came off as if CMLL knew they got unhappy people about not honoring Villano V in this way so they were going to do it for Scorpio, but still more perfunctory than something with heart in it. They seemed to give far more time to the Paralympic athletes. I’d gladly trade all in-ring acknowledgement of a wrestler’s death for better care for aged wrestlers (and aged people in general) if that deal was on the table; that deal is not on the table.

Attendance seemed good for a show with nothing special. Next week’s turnout for the mascot match will be closely observed.

CMLL (SAT) 11/09/2024 Arena Coliseo [CMLL]
1) Full Metal, Pequeño Polvora, Rostro De Acero DQ Pequeño Olímpico, Pequeño Violencia, Pierrothito 
2) Astral & Eléctrico b Calavera Jr. I & Calavera Jr. II 
Calavera II was hurt on a missed dive
3) Futuro & Max Star b Stigma & Xelhua 
4) Reyna Isis & Zeuxis b La Catalina & Tessa Blanchard India Sioux 
5) Explosivo, Fugaz, Star Black b Barboza, Difunto, Zandokan Jr. 
Explosivo is a new member of Fuerza Tapatia.
6) Máscara Dorada, Neón, Volador Jr. b Ángel de Oro, Euforia, Niebla Roja 
Angel de Oro suffered an arm injury (or the existing one got worse again.)

I haven’t watched this one yet – plan is later today – but haven’t heard positive things and I’ll probably not have anything to say on Wednesday. Match 1 is building towards the yet-to-be-announced cage match.

CMLL (SUN) 11/10/2024 Arena México [CMLL]
1) Leono & Retro b Apocalipsis & Cholo
2) Calavera Jr. I & Calavera Jr. II b Dragón de Fuego & Legendario
3) Capitán Suicida, Hijo del Pantera, Volcano b El Elemental, Kráneo, Okumura
4) Persephone b Reyna Isis [lightning]
5) Hijo del Villano III, Magia Blanca, Valiente b Esfinge, Flip Gordon, Titán
6) Atlantis Jr., Star Jr., Templario b Gran Guerrero, Hechicero, Stuka Jr.

Nothing built up here.

Dragon de Fuego replaces Astro Boy tonight in Arena Puebla. Astro Boy is working a Karonte Promotions show in Mexico State.

TV from this weekend, all of which is on DailyMotion, some which show up on the channel page, and some don’t

• 10/27 Arena Mexico
  • minis cibernetico
  • Lluvia, Reyna Isis, Zeuxis vs Persephone, Samantha Black, Sumika Yanagawa
• 11/04 Arena Puebla
  • Flip Gordon, Rayo Metálico, Stigma vs Guerrero Maya Jr., Hijo de Stuka Jr., Okumura
  • Magnus, Rugido, Volador Jr. vs Averno, Euforia, Mephisto
  • Místico vs Ángel de Oro

CMLL (TUE) 11/12/2024 Arena México
1) Galaxy, Shockercito, Último Dragóncito vs Full Metal, Pequeño Polvora, Rostro De Acero
2) El Audaz & Valiente Jr. vs Alom & Infarto
3) Capitán Suicida, Futuro, Max Star vs Cancerbero, Luciferno, Virus
4) Arkalis, Stigma, Xelhua vs El Elemental, Guerrero Maya Jr., Hijo del Villano III
5) Esfinge, Máscara Dorada, Star Jr. vs Gran Guerrero, Stuka Jr., Valiente
6) Volador Jr. vs Averno

Volador/Averno on this show, and probably six days later in Puebla. Roster de Acero is suddenly on the “India Sioux in October” schedule.

Xelhua told El Sol de Puebla that he had two thoughts in choosing his name: something that expressed confidence and something that would be easy to change.

AAA

The matches that aired on the live portion of Guerra de Titanes:

AAA TV (SUN) 11/10/2024 Gimnasio Municipal Josué Neri Santos, Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua [AAA, thecubsfan]
***Guerra de Titanes, 2024***
5) Dinámico, Drago, Laredo Kid b Kento, Nobu San, Takuma
13:50
6) Octagón Jr. © b El Mesías [AAA LA]
21:20. Octagon had the match won, but Pierroth pulled out referee Sonrias and Mesias eventually clocked Octagon in the head with a chair. Octagon falls on his 8th defense. Mesias is 15th champion.
7) El Patrón Alberto © b Pagano [AAA MEGA]
21:20. Pagano replaced Vikingo on Tuesday prior (knee injury). 2nd defense. Tirantes was referee and messed with the counts. Dorian Roldan interfered and mostly was not stopped by Latin Lover. Roldan hit Pagano with a guitar to the head (twice), Alberto put on the armbar, and Tirantes counted it as a pinfall even though Pagano was in the ropes. Alberto & Roldan hurried to the back after the match.

Laredo Kid, Dinamico and Drago versus Nobu San, Takuma, and Kento was would’ve fit as 4th/5th match on Friday Arena Mexico – everyone did their big moves, it was a fun time, and there was nothing attached to it to make memorable. The difference with AAA is the rudos had to immediately foul and unmask the tecnico “to get their heat back.” This is so routine that no one actually gets lasting heat from it; people boo and stop thinking about five seconds later. This is the one match of the three that’s worth watching when it turns up on YouTube next Sunday.

Mesias moves very slowly and can’t do a lot, but he can punch and kick well, so that was a lot of the match with Octagon. There was also a terrible Canadian Destroyer exchange that didn’t get a reaction – most of the match didn’t get much of a reaction, even with the TV angles to build it up. It picked up after Octagon put Mesias through a table on the floor with the 450 splash. Pierroth appeared to pull and attack the referee on a three count, Laredo dove on him (mostly missed by the camera), and Mesias clocked Octagon in the head with a chair just in time for Tirantes Jr. to show up and count the pin. Octagon is the one regular roster member AAA’s built up this year – almost by accident as they needed a fill-in for Vikingo – and he’s supposedly getting a Mega title shot at some point, but this was one of those reminders that AAA doesn’t seem him as a rising star. He’s just another stepping-stone guy.

Alberto and Pagano was the match the fans were really interested in seeing, and most of the match was about antagonizing the fans into reacting: Alberto running from Pagano, Dorian Roldan interfering, Hijo del Tirantes slow counting and then fast counting. Pagano tried to show off with Vikingo-like springboard moves but also looked very banged up. They did one big near fall where Latin Lover took out the rudos and Pagano got Alberto with the Air Raid Crash on the ubiquitous cookie sheet. Hijo del Tirantes was out of it, then counted two slowly and waiting for Alberto to kick out instead of hitting three. (You have to suspend your disbelief at Hijo de Tirantes counting semi-normally the rest of the match.) They also did a bit where Alberto appeared to be submitting to Pagano’s hold but Tirantes didn’t see it – not that he would’ve called it if he did. The finishing sequence was not long after. No idea why Dorian Roldan used a guitar beyond it being part of an angle 30 years ago in another promotion that AAA can’t stop referencing. No idea why the finish on armbar was a pinfall. AAA’s live shows tend to meander around and go very long; this one got out right at the top of the hour so I wonder if Space put them under some time limitation they haven’t before. It’s not like there was something really important on the other side, just another one of the 50 old movies the channel airs repeatedly. The match was not good in terms of being a fun thing to watch but it was also not meant to be.

Alberto’s backstage promo signaled Ciberentico as the next challenger, which will be equally terrible. That also suggests AAA won’t be making up the Vikingo title match any time soon. It’s possible Vikingo is out for longer than expected and Ciber is a replacement. My hunch is Cibernetico/Alberto was always the plan for the next title match and making up for the the Vikingo/Alberto match is not important enough to get them to change their plan. For the style of match AAA wants to do – heavy heat and interference – Ciber’s fine and probably the guy I would rather see in the spot. AAA really can plug in any tecnico into the challenge spot, because there’s no expectations of a good match and the current challenger to Alberto is the least important person in the story. The stars are Alberto, Latin Lover and whichever heel is seconding Alberto for that match. They’re going to keep running this same play until they get to Alberto versus Latin Lover (and may still run in with him a time or two.) AEW is kind of doing a similar bit right now with Jon Moxley and Orange Cassidy, where it’s clear Cassidy is just a liked challenger to get for Moxley to put down in building towards someone like Kenny Omega or Will Ospreay or Swerve Strickland being the one to finally stop Moxley’s plan. Latin Lover is better known in Mexico than most of those guys are in the US, but Latin Lover is also a fifty something mostly retired wrestler who’s probably not going to wrestle all that much after this comes to an end. I’d feel a lot better about this AAA stuff if the end result was Alberto losing to someone who regularly wrestles in AAA and that they were going to build around going forward, but I don’t think that person is Vikingo and I don’t see anyone else who is being set up for that spot. I’d rather see Vikingo in matches that are going to use his talents, and getting in three spots with a guy who’s probably not going to a good mix with him seems like a waste. Having him get cheated by Alberto and then never getting revenge (because that’s not the plan) also seems like a poor idea.

Vampiro’s match did not air on the live portion of the show despite it being his Mexico retirement match. AAA waited until this show started to announce it would be Vampiro’s final match in Mexico. (They were still promoting it as his final Ciudad Juarez match that afternoon .) I’ve been writing here that this Juarez date must be the final date if he’s retiring – he’s already had his final matches in all the other places AAA planning to run – but I thought there must be some surprise coming if AAA wasn’t promoting it. I was wrong; AAA just dropped the ball while promoting Vampiro’s last match as an attraction. The match is airing next week, AAA could spend the rest of the week pushing the idea that this will be the last time to see Vampiro wrestle on AAA TV. I don’t expect they will.

I’m sure few in AAA believe this is Vampiro’s final match in Mexico, but that didn’t stop them from promoting the rest of the retirement tour. This was just getting thrown an easy pitch and opting not to swing.

AAA was back to not posting results of their shows on social media. I didn’t easily find the taped results and it didn’t seem like a good investment to track them down. Brazo de Oro Jr. did replace El Fiscal in the mixed tag match; that’s one where it feels like AAA didn’t announce the change because they’re too disorganized to know what change they were making.

AAA announcers did mention the upcoming schedule during a break in matches. Jesus Zuniga mentioned they had two shows left, in Saltillo and Mexico City. Jose Manuel Guillen gently corrected him, saying they had Saltillo, Mexico City, and Monterrey left. Neither mentioned the dates of the shows, though they did encourage people to check the website. There was no onscreen graphics for these dates, but there weren’t onscreen graphics for much of anything. Maybe a budget cutback.

Lo Mejor de Lucha had the poster for the Monterrey show right after the Juarez show ended, so it and the Mexico City lineup should be released by AAA at any moment:

AAA TV (SUN) 12/08/2024 Gimnasio Nuevo León Unido, Monterrey, Nuevo Leon
1) Drago vs Bengala, Belcegor, Taurus [Torneo Rey del Kaoz]
2) Dinámico vs Tigre Universitario
3) Estrellato, Oro Negro, Tosscano vs Dark Zorro, Redimido, Tigre Universitario Jr.
4) La Hiedra & Mr. Iguana vs Crazzy Steve & Havok © [AAA MIXED TAG]
first defense
5) Flammer & Sussy Love vs Julissa & Valentynna Reis
6) Emperador Azteca, Hijo Del Vikingo, Oni El Bendito vs Kento, Nobu San, Takuma
7) ?, Cibernético, Octagón Jr. vs El Mesías, El Patrón Alberto, Pierroth

This is indeed a TV taping. AAA has run fewer taping this year and never tapes shows back to back days, and apparently is to close out this year. Again, I have no idea what’s going on. There isn’t an obvious name for that main event spot. Semimain should be pretty good. Sussy Love seems booked so someone will take a pin in the women’s tag match. Hiedra/Iguana would’ve been a bigger deal as mixed tag champions a year or more ago; they haven’t done much with that pairing in 2024. The rest is a lot of KAOZ filler, and KAOZ is probably paying for this taping again.

This is old news but new to me: Botchmania pointed out that TNA promoted El Hijo del Vikingo as the new X-Divison champion during the last TNA PPV in an advertisement for an upcoming match. I guess it’s possible the graphic people aren’t told who’s winning, have both sets of graphics ready for whatever result, and used the wrong one by chance. The easier explanation is Vikingo was actually winning that title at some point, TNA changed their minds to have Moose win the title later for reasons only known to TNA, and someone forgot to let the graphics person know.

The Crash

The Crash (FRI) 11/08/2024 Auditorio de Tijuana, Tijuana, Baja California [TJ Sports, Zona Ruda]
1) Galeno del Mal & Hijo del Dr. Wagner Jr. © b DMT Azul & Raj Dhesi [The Crash TAG]
2) Gallo Xtreme © b Rey Astral [The Crash JUNIOR]
3) Tonalli b Destiny ©, Dinámico, El Enviado, Chris Carter [The Crash CRUISER, TLC]
Carter fell off a ladder onto the barricade hard, but was said to be OK. Tonalli won the title.
4) Anubis b Negro Casas, Cinico, Valentino, Emperador Azteca (Indie), Keyra, Niño Hamburguesa, Mamba, Electroshock, Que Moniito, Peluche [Copa The Crash]
Royal rumble rules. Peluche is a referee. Negro Casas was a surprise, and lost to Anubis in the end. Bleu Demon Jr. presented Anubis with the trophy. He noted he had his first match in this building and will have his last there as well.
5) Súper Crazy L Heavy Metal, Charly Manson, Juventud Guerrera [hair, cage]
Mr. Aguila no-showed, replaced by Charly Manson. Guerrera and Metal escaped, then Manson, leaving Super Crazy to get his hair cut. The Crash had trouble setting up the cage, causing a long delay, and the fans quickly turned on this match. They then also had trouble taking down the cage and a section of it fell into the crowd onto fans. Four fans were said to be hurt.
6) Dr. Wagner Jr., Extreme Tiger, Rey Horus b D Luxe, Pierroth, Rey Escorpión (Indie)
Fresero Jr,. Demonio Infernal and Nuevo Laredo promoter Roxana Cantu sat in the front row for this match, with Fresero & Demonio antagonizing Pierroth (Pierroth beat Fresero for the KAOZ title last week in Nuevo Laredo.) The distraction led to Wagner’s side winning. Pierroth and company brawled with Pierroth, then Wagner’s side was critical of Cantu for hanging out with those guys and also brawled with Fresero & Demonio.
7) Mecha Wolf b Bestia 666 [hair]
Familia de Tijuana members Rey Misterio Sr., Damian 666, Halloween, Rey Misterio Herdero, and Lady Victoria appeared to support the match. Mecha Wolf beat Bestia with a 450 splash. Bestia reluctantly got his hair cut. Halloween declared tonight was the end of Familia de Tijuana and encouraged Mecha, Bestia and Misterio Herdero to start a new group (which they kind of already have with La Rebelion.)

I’ve been really critical towards the Mecha Wolf/Bestia 666 feud all year: AAA gave it time early in the year, it’s been the focus of these The Crash shows, and it really hasn’t drawn. On the promotion’s anniversary, with more expensive than usual prices, it was an absolute success: sold out building, and that was the match they wanted to see. (There were just two matches properly advertised, just the main event and the cage one were announced, and the fans turned on the cage match.) That feud didn’t help the other shows, but it worked out exactly as they’d hoped. That match and the rest of the show may eventually turn up on The Crash’s YouTube page – they’re still missing matches from the last show.

The commission claimed The Crash was fined last month for a match that turned into a brawl outside the building between Pierroth, Rey Escorpion, Fresero and Demonio Infernal. The idea in the match 6 was The Crash was refusing to use Demonio or Fresero because of it, and so they bought ticket to create a disturbance. The Tijuana commission hasn’t participated in angles in many years but it appears they’re back to doing so.

There’s no update on the people who were hurt about the cage falling on them. Other fans saw those people leave for medical treatment during the following match, so my guess is it was painful but not serious. I’ve never heard of an incident like that before but there seemed to be some issue with the cage assembly given how long it took to set it up.

Mr. Aguila is a prolific Facebook poster and seemingly not doing it completely sober. There’s a running bit where a wrestler or promoter will hype an upcoming match, and Aguila will turn up in the comment to post “Y yo nada?” (“and nothing for me?”) That gag has been going on for years. This week, Aguila wrote messages critical of Latin Lover’s latest podcast, saying it was nothing but gossip and Latin should’ve asked Tiffany how many guys she and Estrellita slept with. That’s typical of a Mr. Aguila Facebook post. He got a reaction, so he went further and said he’d start a podcast in a week that would reveal the dark side of Latin Lover. Aguila put himself in a spotlight, then he no showed, hasn’t said a word about it, and is getting relentlessly mocked.

Blue Demon Jr. recently talked about retiring “soon”, but this show was the first time he’s talking about specifically doing in Tijuana. I wouldn’t put much stock into it, but running retirement shows in arenas this size make a lot more sense than what Santo was doing. Carter’s fall looked very bad but he said he was OK over Instagram. Penta talked to the crowd before the show, put over how much Tijuana meant to his career, and suggested he might not be wrestling there any time soon as he goes off to new things. (He’s signing with WWE as soon as both he and Fenix are able to, obviously.)

MLW

I went to MLW. It was too long. I’m not sure I’ll go back in May. I got in line to get in the venue at 6:45, it took me to 7:20 to get in the building at to my seat, and the main event didn’t finish until 11:20. They were still doing post match stuff with Mistico when I (and most people) were quickly leaving the building. I’ve definitely gone to AEW/ROH tapings that are just as long, but it didn’t feel like I had to endure as much stuff I wasn’t that interested in. This show just had a lot of people I had to sit through.

It also, bizarrely, had a TV Taping (“MLW Slaughterhouse”) prior to the show that gave away three of the results on the live portion of the show. Maybe keep scrolling to Other News if you don’t want to get MLW spoilers, but I need to go over this:

• they made it clear Mistico was retaining his title in live main event because they taped an interview with Barbaro Cavernario declaring himself the next challenger
• Same thing with the women’s (featherweight) title – the live show had Janai Kai defending against Lluvia & Persephone, but we already knew she won because the taped portion ran to set up Delmi Exo as the next challenger
• the live show had an impromptu Kojima/Riddle versus Kwon/Suzuki MLW tag team title match, where it was fairly obvious the titles weren’t going to change hands because Kwon (and maybe Suzuki) still had them on the taped portion.

All that stuff is easy to clean up if it is important: both of the title match angles could’ve been done backstage, and the tag champs could’ve just left their belts in the back. MLW seemed to want the crowd reactions to the angles, which worked with Exo – she waved around a Mexican flag to make sure people cared – and not at all with Barbaro Cavernario (who’s promo was hard to understand and done in English.) It was just lazy.

The crowd seemed like 85% fans showing up for a lucha libre show and about 15% MLW fans. Combined, they sold out the card but were basically watching different shows. Only ex-WWE star Matt Riddle got both fanbases to react when he appeared, though not to his promo. An announcement that the big title match MLW had been building to for months, Kojima versus Riddle, was finally happening got zero response from the crowd. A commercial for Eric Bischoff acting as the producer for the next MLW show got less than that. No one cares about the Salina de la Renta/Cesar Duran stuff. The other stuff I understand why MLW believes there’s an audience for it, but the Duran/Salina/LU-ish stuff seems like it’s for an audience for the one – either the person booking it or the person paying the person who books it.

The lucha libre fans reacted to few MLW matches. Tape traders of the 00s would’ve been depressed over how little reaction the idea of a Paul London/KENTA match got, and then more understanding when neither man working hard. There is a formula to getting over with these crowd. Lucha libre fans know to yell at the manager as he’s talking, they get excited for some dives (Kevin Knight was a hero) and they’re happy with a bit of silliness. Yelling a few curse words in Spanish will get a reaction, and so all the heels tried that, but it’s one that only lasts for a short time before they want to see something else.

I wouldn’t recommend much from the taped portion of the show, which will probably air in a couple of weeks under the name MLW Slaughter house. Maybe the Kevin Knight/Donovan Dijak match, but I’ve found Dijak offputting in this post-WWE run. Of the “live” portion, I would recommend CMLL matches and no more. They’re not re-inventing the wheel in Hechicero/Ultimo Guerrero vs. Kevin Knight/Esfinge and Cavernario/Felino/Magnus vs. Atlantis/Atlantis Jr/Star Jr.; it’s just the good solid medium-effort performances lucha libre fans expect from visiting Mexico star in that building. I feared Kai/Lluvia/Persephone would be a disastrous mix of styles, but it was fine, so that was nice. Titan/Mistico/Averno had all the things I don’t like about threeways, there was a lot of strikes not close to hitting and it seemed like they were mailing it for the first third. The effort picked up, and they went longer than I expected. (Maybe too long, given the length of the show – I saw a decent amount of people packing it up and heading home before the match even started.)

MLW’s other issue from the night is the stream just didn’t stream. Voices of Wrestling talked to MLW people at the show and were told the stream was an issue on YouTube’s side. That’s plausible, it’s happened before with CMLL. The result still looked Major League wrestling look minor league. I’ve written before that CMLL needs to have a backup streaming plan if YouTube ever messes up on a big show, because they’re a small fry to YouTube and won’t get much timely help if something doesn’t work. I’m sure CMLL’s plan is the same as MLW’s here – they’ll just apologize, record the show, and upload it some other day. It’s not a great plan. That streaming issue was the one bit that made me happy I was there live; I didn’t need to see this show, but there was no way I was going to be able to squeeze it in on Sunday night.

MLW announced Mistico will appear on their Dallas show on 01/11. That’s where the title match with Cavernario is happening; he talked about it being in January in his promo. Mistico is listed in the generic roster graphic for the 12/08 taping in New York but I wondered if that’s an indication they’re skipping CMLL wrestlers for that show. I’d be totally OK with no CMLL wrestlers on the Eric Bischoff show, if only to avoid the inevitable “haha Eric Bischoff is trying to unmask the luchadors again, what a wacky dude” bit. MLW’s creativity is mostly limited to remembering things that happened in far more over promotions and making lame references to them, and it’s not really for me.

Other News

Puebla luchador Roy Calavera (Rogelio Valdes Briones, 40) was murdered Saturday night. He and a second person were shot at his michelada stand by two attackers; Calavera was shot five times. The attackers and motive are unknown. Newspaper reports identify him with Arena Coliseo San Ramon, but he’d stopped working there 18 months ago. He hadn’t wrestled as much in 2024. Any time a wrestler is murdered, no matter the significance, the same story about it appears in dozens of media outlets the next few days. Roy Calavera follows May’s death of Rey Komodo in that fashion.

Scorpio Jr. is on the cover of Box y Lucha 3629.

AVE announced their February 2025 anniversary show will have a four way mask cage match with Trauma I, Trauma II, Hijo de LA Park and Imposible. That obviously means Imposible is losing his mask if the match actually happens like that.

A bio of Cien Caras mentions he fell in love with wrestling when he happened upon a show while living in the US for a year at the age of 19. He returned to Mexico a year later, but his parents wouldn’t let him train wrestling for two more years. It seems odd that his parents were OK with letting him live in another country, but wrestling was too much. He also ended up training with Diablo Velazco in Guadalajara almost by accident; he was training in Leon when his trainer just kept training, and he ended up in the CMLL system instead.

Sean Ross Sapp and Andrew Zarian report ROH’s Final Battle will take place at Hammerstein Ballroom. AEW/ROH still haven’t made an announcement about that show. After writing about Ring of Honor here, someone not with AEW/ROH did mention Final Battle does have a date and was happening. This was so important to me that I’ve already forgotten the date, but the crux of the conversation was Final Battle wouldn’t conflict with the 12/13 CMLL international show. I expect we’ll see someone from CMLL on Final Battle but I have no idea whom, or if those Reyna Isis wins are going anywhere.

(Actually, I think we can work this out without me remembering anything. ROH PPVs are usually Fridays, and Final Battle are December shows, so that means the 6th, 13th, 20th, and 27th. AEW’s schedule lists shows through December 12th; they’d probably have announced it already if it was the 6th to do some sort of ticket package deal. AEW will not run a ROH PPV the day before the 12/28 AEW PPV, so cross off the 27th. If I’ve been told correct that CMLL has the 13th to themselves, that means Final Battle is likely December 20th. Make your plans accordingly.)

On Bluesky/Twitter

I’ve been on bluesky (@luchablog) since shortly after it launched. I experimented with some stuff early on bluesky, but there just weren’t enough people there for me to find interesting stuff about lucha libre. My usage over the last few months has generally just been

• post the text and link to this blog post manually on Twitter
• post the same text and link to this blog post manually on Bluesky
• click the notifications button to see if there’s anything interesting
• there’s usually not, so I close up Bluesky for another couple of days.

Friday, I clicked on that notification button and saw rows and rows of new followers – like the number of people following me went up in 20% in days. It looks to be up 50% up today – like I’ve gone from about 1000 followers to about 2000 in a week. It took me a moment, maybe a moment too long, to realize what was going on: lots of people decided the results of the US election was a good time close their Twitter account and find somewhere else for short message blogs. (Twitter followers are down about 200 people.) Some people will not be get what they want out of Bluesky or whatever else they switch and end up back on Twitter, but I’m sure a chunk are just done.

I’ve been thinking maybe I should take some of the stuff I’m doing on Twitter and start doing it on Bluesky – but maybe that should be energy should be on Instagram instead because that’s where the Spanish-speaking Mexican wrestling fans actually are. Or maybe I’m just stuck on Twitter because all the news and all the weird stuff is still inevitably going to be on it until there’s a much bigger fall off? Or maybe I should give up on all of this social because the Twitter engagements don’t drive the readers to this blog or the database and those are things I really care about? Or maybe I can never get up that Twitter account because I’ve worked/lucked into some important people in this wrestling business taking what I say seriously – not that they’re always happy about the Twitter posts (they’re rarely happy about the posts) but it’s a tool I’ll probably never have on another system? I’m sure there are a lot of great Discords I could join, but I feel like communicating with a small self-selected audience runs counter to my efforts to make lucha libre more accessible to more people. Typically I have a plan of action here, this is how I will try to handle things. Maybe it doesn’t always get executed as well it should, but I know the direction. I’m not sure of the direction right now, which probably means I’ll keep doing what I’m doing while being increasingly unhappy about it. The part of this can use is maybe some of the stuff I pu ton Twitter will be on other places, or maybe it won’t exist at all.

CMLL

CMLL (FRI) 11/08/2024 Arena México
1) Galaxy, Shockercito, Último Dragóncito vs Pequeño Olímpico, Pequeño Violencia, Pierrothito
2) Dulce Gardenia, Espíritu Negro, Rey Cometa vs Dark Magic, Espanto Jr., Raider
3) Esfinge © vs Rugido [MEX LH]
7th defense
4) Flip Gordon vs Villano III Jr., Neón, Guerrero Maya Jr., Dragón Rojo Jr., Difunto [NWA MIDDLE, #1 Contenders]
last 2 advance to final
5) Atlantis Jr., Máscara Dorada, Místico vs Ángel de Oro, Hechicero, Soberano Jr.

An important reminder: if you’re someone who switched clocks this week and only tune in on Friday shows, this is an hour earlier than you’re used to watching.

The main event looks inconsequential but should be pretty fun. The semi-main is just strange; CMLL only does six way matches for the Kid’s Day title. Who knows how this one will work. I don’t have great instinct on who’s going to come out of this, so I’m just going to guess Flip and Guerrero Maya. Esfinge/Rugido is interesting for two guys who usually are counting on the other person in the match to make it work; we’ll see what they can figure out on their own. Match 2 is one seen prior (though more often with Akuma), match 1 is a rematch from last week and probably another disputed finished.

11/09 MLW Lucha Apocalypto

• Kevin Knight, Esfinge vs Ultimo Guerrero, Hechicero
• Alex Kane vs BRG in a chain match (not a bull terrier match)
• Lluvia vs Janai Kai vs Persephone for the MLW Featherweight Championship
• Bad Dude Tito vs Matthew Justice in a falls count anywhere for the Openweight Championship match
• Star Jr., Atlantis Jr., Atlantis vs Barbaro Cavernario, Magnus, Felino
• Titan vs Mistico vs Averno for the MLW Middleweight Championship

You, a smart person, can watch this for free on YouTube starting at 9 pm. Me, a dummy, will probably be watching it live and sitting through two hours of MLW tapings before this starts. It’s probably nonsense that I will sit through a two-hour ROH taping with few complaints, but the idea of sitting through a two-hour MLW taping is annoying. I have a stronger affinity for ROH and many of their wrestlers than I do for MLW and that’s a big part of it, but also ROH feels like a (lowercase) version of AEW. The MLW & CMLL continue feel like two different universes living alongside each other strictly for business purposes. (You can say a lot about ROH, but you definitely can’t say it currently exists just for business purposes.) I’ve heard NJPW fans have similar criticism of NJPW US shows, but I feel like the US-based talent are trying their best to wrestle a NJPW style or fit along to it. If there’s any attempt to fit here, it’s the CMLL wrestlers who are trying to fit along MLW.

The strongest part of this CMLL/MLW relationship is that it seems pretty reliable; there’s been no public drama since MLW worked with AAA. Again, MLW has already announced that they’ll be back in Cicero in May for the next one of these, because they continue to sell very well. I may not like this mix but it certainly is working for enough people. (And enough people don’t really follow CMLL to care about MLW’s presentation.) I can’t say I understand the business plan here – cheap tickets and YouTube revenue don’t seem to cover all these flights – but it’s not my bank account.

Fightful posted their interview with Atlantis Jr. promoting this show. It’s fine, though I cringed when Sean Ross Sapp asked Atlantis Jr. if he or his father would ever consider being a rudo. They, of course, both have been rudos – Sapp compliments Atlantis Jr. for his mask match with Stuka without realizing Atlantis Jr. was actually a rudo in that match. It was fine otherwise and Sapp is ahead of the Mexican press in realizing what show they were trying to hype here.

CMLL (MON) 11/11/2024 Arena Puebla
1) Astro Boy Jr. & Meyer vs Grako & Rencor
2) Galaxy & Shockercito vs Full Metal & Pequeño Polvora
3) Pegasso, Rey Samuray, Valiente Jr. vs Disturbio, El Elemental, Pólvora
4) Rayo Metálico, Volcano, Xelhua vs Guerrero Maya Jr., Multy, Okumura
5) Flip Gordon, Templario, Titán vs Hijo del Villano III, Villano III Jr., Zandokan Jr.
6) Magnus, Rugido, Volador Jr. vs Averno, Euforia, Mephisto

Volador/Averno continues to be matched up, but there is no singles match yet.

Guerrero Maya Jr. has made noise about leading a new Puebla group to take out Fuerza Poblana. It’s likely just talk, but Multy is a Puebla guy CMLL has used in Mexico City at times.

CMLL (TUE) 11/12/2024 Arena Coliseo Guadalajara
1) Eclipse Jr., Lince Del Baijo, Shezmu vs Black Boy, Thunder Boy, Yaky Boy
2) Adira & Nexy vs Hatana & Valkiria
3) Adrenalina, Fantástico, Yutani vs Ángel Rebelde, Cris Skin, Halcón Negro Jr.
4) Blue Panther Jr., Dark Panther, Hijo de Blue Panther vs Gallo, Ráfaga, Rafaga Jr.
5) La Catalina & Lluvia vs Sanely & Zeuxis
6) Star Black, Templario, Titán vs Furia Roja, Gallero, Último Guerrero

Yutani may be a tecnico now that he’s no longer teaming with El Elemental.

MLW announced they’ll continue the semi-annual CMLL shows in Cicero with Azteca Lucha on 05/10. Tickets will go on sale on 11/13.

CMLL said its 12/13 show will be an international event. A trailer aired at the end of Wednesday’s CMLL Informa. Based on Toni Storm’s comment about returning to CMLL sometime in 2024, this show appears to include AEW wrestlers. NJPW personnel re-tweeted the announcement, so wrestlers from that promotion presumably are also appearing. Some of NJPW wrestlers will already be on the continent for the 12/15 NJPW Strong Style Evolved show. CMLL pointed people to the ticket-purchasing site without explaining more. Ticket prices are slightly elevated for that show. I don’t know anything about this show beyond this paragraph.

I don’t believe this announcement has anything to do with ROH’s missing Final Battle show. There’d be no point in building up matches on ROH TV to plop them down in front of a CMLL crowd utterly unfamiliar with them.

This CMLL Informa was one of the more newsworthy shows, beyond the teaser:

• Capitan Suicida was on the show, and he was presented as talking about his Super Junior Tag League tour. The real goal was for Capitan Suicida to talk about his Max Moon outfit and explain he got the idea from seeing that acrobatic wrestler who portrayed him, Paul Diamond.
  • If you didn’t know this story, it was still a strange digression, enough to alert you that something had happened. If you did know the story, they want it clear that Sucidia was not doing Konnan tribute without every mentioning Konnan’s name
  • I 100% believe Capitan Suicida had no idea who Paul Diamond was and equally had no idea Konnan wore the outfit. Many luchadors just see cool clips on Instagram or Tiktok and don’t go deeper than that.
• 11/18 is the Revolucion Day holiday in Puebla, so the show will start at 5 and include the Copa Mujeres Revolucionarias tournament, as in 2023. Reyna Isis won that tournament, which was an eight-women cibernetico split between Puebla and CDMX women. This year’s tournament will be all CDMX: La Catalina, Skadi, Tessa Blanchard, Kira, Lluvia, Zeuxis, Reyna Isis,  Persephone, Hera and Sanely.
  • The CMLL Puebla luchadoras did not appear much during Women’s Month. They wrestled the opener on the 10/07 show – Astoreth & Centinela beat Enigmatica & Lady Amazona, and not all during the rest of women’s month. That match was booked prior to the disastrous Arena Coliseo indie luchadora match, and I wonder if the Puebla luchadoras also got sidelined as the indie women did.
• The bodybuilding contest was officially announced for 11/27. JCR hinted there’s new rules or groups or something with it, and that they’d explain more later.
• Fuerza Tapatia (Esfinge, Star Black, Fugaz) officially added Explosivo to the group. They pushed the idea it would be a foursome.
  • It seems more CMLL is elevated Esfinge from the group, and Star Black and Fugaz aren’t joining him right now. More or less what happened with Akuma and Ola Negra a few months ago, but they’re being nicer about it. Explosivo gets a good spot as a regular, much like Barboza seems to be paired with Zandokan. Both are recent Guadalajara to Mexico City full time moves.
• The NWA Middleweight Championship will be a two week affair with the six people wrestling tonight. The final two will wrestle for the title next Friday. Mistico will present the winner with the title belt.
• The first two Fridays of the month will have the middleweight tournament. The last two Fridays of the month will have the Leyenda de Azul, featuring the light heavyweights and heavyweights. This year’s participants are Blue Panther, Gran Guerrero, Star Black , Averno, Angel de Oro, Soberano Jr., Euforia, Hechicero, Mistico and the winner of Esfinge vs Rugido Friday. The idea is that every light heavyweight and heavyweight champion is automatically included, so the winner of the title match gets a spot.
  • CMLL announced that Mistico would be in this tournament back in September, right after the Aniversario show. At that point, JCR explained it as Mistico getting a sort of exemption into the tournament despite not being a light heavyweight so he could try to win both Leyenda de Plata and the Leyenda de Azul. CMLL, especially the CMLL of the last few years, is concerned about their internal logic making sense. I wonder if one of the motivations in Mistico giving up the middleweight championship is because he was going to be in the light heavyweight tournament (and eventually going to be light heavyweight champion.) I can’t believe that would be the only reason, but I can see it factor into their thinking.
  • Atlantis Jr. is the (NWA) Historic Light Heavyweight Champion. He’s not in the Leyenda de Azul. Again, CMLL is big in trying to make everything fit their rule set, so Julio Cesar Rivera explained Atlantis Jr. would be missing the tournament do to personal reasons. I immediately assumed “personal reasons” meant “World Tag League”, but that currently doesn’t appear to be the case. No CMLL teams were announced for NJPW’s World Tag League. There is a spot left open, Alex Zayne’s partner has not been announced, but a Mexican teaming with a man whose lifestyle is “I really love Taco Bell” seems like it would cause some sort of international incident. I’ve got no idea what Atlantis Jr. is up to.

NJPW US’s Fighting Spirit Unleashed show takes place tonight. There is no CMLL presence on the card, the first time there’s been no CMLL wrestler on a normal NJPW US show since 2022. It might be a scheduling quirk with MLW the next day. That streak is also a little bit exaggerated. Some of the CMLL presence on those cards was just “Stephanie Vaquer defends her title.” Vaquer was a unicorn; NJPW has used Mistico a bunch, but it’s more been just the 2-4 luchador who happened to be picked and are in a match off to the side of the main NJPW stories. Stephanie is the only male or female CMLL luchador who transitioned into becoming a full time NJPW US roster member until leaving for WWE. None of the other CMLL luchadors have really been put in the same role as challenging a famous US star like the Vaquer/Mone spot, but I’m sure NJPW has reasons for picking people as they do. And I’m sure CMLL wrestlers will be back on the next NJPW show in California.

The 11/21 CMLL show in Veracruz is canceled.

This week’s viral video is a female fan asking Diamond to sign her chest. Diamond wisely declined, but he did sign her forehead with lipstick instead.

In another interview with Fightful, Rocky Romero said he apologized to Mercedes Mone this past week about not helping her with the CMLL show – he actually fell asleep during the conversation.

I really enjoyed Soberano Jr.’s post-match promo from Guadalajara.

AAA

No Space show on Saturday. Guerra de Titanes is Sunday, AAA’s last live show of the year.

AAA TV (SUN) 11/10/2024 Gimnasio Municipal Josué Neri Santos, Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua
***Guerra de Titanes, 2024***
1) Máscarita Sagrada, Payaso Balin, Pimpinela Escarlata, Sakura vs ?, Eddy Maceyra, Mini Abismo Negro, Zafiro
2) Kempo vs Pierroth Jr., Aéreo
3) El Fiscal & Reina Dorada vs Crazzy Steve & Havok
El Fiscal likely to be replaced due to injury.
4) ?, Mecha Wolf, Vampiro Canadiense vs Abismo Negro, Psicosis, Taurus
5) Dinámico, Drago, Laredo Kid vs Kento, Nobu San, Takuma
6) Octagón Jr. © vs El Mesías [AAA LA]
7) Pagano vs El Patrón Alberto © [AAA MEGA]
Pagano replaced Vikingo on Tuesday prior (knee injury)

Space will pick up this show around 7:30 pm CDMX Time. It show starts at 5 pm local; Juarez is Mountain Time, so that means they’ll have about 90 minutes of matches prior to the live portion. The top 3 always air, and I think match 4 is likely based on those times.

Guerra de Titanes is meant to be AAA’s last major show of the year and AAA has plots – JBL/Dorian’s takeover bid, Latin Lover’s contract ending – that seemed headed to a year-end conclusion. This year, AAA has at least two more tapings to go so it’s possible that stuff gets saved for later.

Pagano getting the title shot was a story in the hometown paper, got played up by the city itself on their page. That match will not be good by “quality of wrestling moves,” but it’ll be heated. Pagano winning would be a great story for that day, but I’m not sure it would mean much beyond that. AAA posted a video of Alberto calling someone to thank someone for injuring Vikingo and laughing about the idea he’d face a clown now. I don’t think that’s meant to be a mystery person angle, they just needed a way to get to the promo – it’s the old WWE cliched bit of talking to someone on the phone to explain the story.

Fiscal posted a photo of him in the hospital after surgery a month ago. Reina Dorada told Mas Lucha more recently that Fiscal wouldn’t be on this show, but she didn’t appear to know who she’d be teaming with instead. That weird Dorada promo on AAA TV this week teased a singles match with Havok, so maybe one idea is to move Crazzy Steve up into Pagano’s spot instead of sending an extra person. AAA seems less likely to send a replacement to show, though they could always move Pierroth or Aereo up to team with Reina Dorada.

Octagon should probably beat Mesias if AAA remembers he’s owed a title shot, but who knows. Mesias has looked better in this run, but it’s unrealistic to expect him to put in Mil Muertes/Fenix-level performances in 2024. Nobu San pointed out on Twitter that this city is where he started his AAA stint and it’ll also be where he’s finishing it up – he’s headed back to GLEAT, at least for now. That seems to suggest La Fraternidad will win. Notorious hothead Psicosis II is still teaming with the guy who cost him his mask; maybe he’s turned over a new leaf.

AAA on Unimas will have part 3 of Heroes Inmortales, which appears to be just the Copa Antonio Pena. AAA will have the Guerra de Titanes preview show on YouTube.

Psycho Clown was listed on the 11/17 GALLIMania show. He is no longer listed on the GALLIMania show.

Scorpio Jr. (1966-2024)

Scorpio Jr. (Rafael Nunez) passed away Thursday. He was 58. Record reports Scorpio Jr. passed away after an ulcer burst.

Scorpio Jr.’s started his career at the age of 18. His father was a regular in UWA and his son started there in the late 80s, continuing through the effective in off the promotion in the mid 90s. His biggest win during that time would’ve been a mask victory over Black Scorpio (a touring Too Cold Scorpio.) Scorpio Jr. had a brief stint in 1995 AAA alongside other UWA refugees but landed in CMLL for the long term. (Scorpio’s father, who was a Mexico City lucha libre commissioner by this point, may have had a role in that move.) Scorpio Jr. was an upper-level rudo for that CMLL run, running from 1995 until 2004. He was a jacked-up muscle guy in a promotion where there weren’t many of that type. His biggest role was as a character in the Negro Casas/El Hijo del Santo drama in the late 90s. The Arena Mexico crowd started cheering rudo Casas over tecnico Santo, including on the 63rd Aniversario show. El Hijo del Santo left Arena Mexico for a few months, Casas turned tecnico in the interim, and Santo shockingly decided to become a rudo for the first time in his career to continue to fight him. Santo teamed up with Scorpio Jr. and Bestia Salvaje for that run. When it was time for Hijo del Santo to turn back tecnico, Scorpio Jr. first beat Santo in the first-ever Leyenda de Plata tournament a year and a half later, a match he talked about with CMLL back in 2020. Salvaje & Scorpio also attacked Santo in a trios tournament, and fate happened to have Negro Casas as one of those saving him. That led to a tag team program between Santo/Casas and Salvaje/Scorpio and a hair/mask match at the first ever Homenaje a Dos Leyends in 1999. Santo & Casas won, of course.

(Around this time, Scorpio Jr. also had a run on WWF’s Super Astro’s programming, which used a lot of CMLL talent booked through Victor Quiñones. Scorpio wrestled as the unmasked El Bandido on five matches, most taped before he lost his mask in Mexico.)

Santo also beat Scorpio Jr. in a 1999 Leyenda de Plata rematch, closing the book on that story (and ending Scorpio’s run on top.) Scorpio Jr. had already moved onto a new angle. He and Bestia Salvaje teamed with rising star and recent rudo convert Shocker to form Los Guapos, a tongue-in-cheek idea of these not-conventionally-handsome men playing off like the world’s most beautiful men. (Scorpio’s Sr. had been billed as ‘the ugliest man in the world,’ so Scorpio Jr. was a natural.) The gimmick wasn’t successful from a box office standpoint, but it became the iconic version of those wrestlers. Shocker and Scorpio Jr. are still playing that same Guapos character to this day, and AAA currently has a group based on this two-decade-old angle. (The Guapos did better business on Tijuana shows.) In the early 2000s, Shocker was an incredibly charismatic wrestler, too big for this semi-comedy group. CMLL eventually added Emilio Charles Jr. to the unit with the idea of him pushing Shocker out. This was CMLL’s peak period of doing outside-the-ring vignettes, so there were bits about Shocker and Emilio feuding over a woman and Shocker messing with their hair dye that are well remembered. Shocker would win Emilio’s hair to end that program and Scorpio Jr.’s hair in the last days of his time in CMLL. Before that – and after Shocker had messed up the Guapo’s good looks – Scorpio Jr., Emilio Charles Jr., and Bestia Salvaje found religion and became Los Talibanes following the 9/11 attacks. It was meant as a parody and not to be taken seriously, though it may have played differently outside of Mexico. (Scorpio also briefly played a masked Sadam gimmick in Pierroth’s gang, but it didn’t go anywhere.) Scoprio Jr.’s last Arena Mexico booking came on February 13, 2004, though he hung around most of the year working smaller shows before leaving the promotion.

Scorpio Jr. got one more run in the big time, thanks to Shocker. He had jumped to AAA in 2005, who thought they were getting the star of just a couple of years prior and instead got someone dealing with significant substance abuse issues. (Shocker has since said he doesn’t remember a thing of his 14 months in AAA.) After running with Shocker as a tecnico didn’t work out, AAA pulled from the past to redo Los Guapos. Emilio Charles Jr. and Bestia Salvaje were still in CMLL, but Scorpio Jr. was available. So were ex-CMLL wrestlers (and participants in later Shocker Guapos concepts) Alan Stone and Zumbido, as well as the new addition of micro manager Guapito. Shocker bailed back to CMLL in 2006, but AAA kept the idea going without him. Scorpio Jr. got a feud and hair loss to Super Porky (a rare achievement to lose a hair match with Brazo de Plata), and Decnnis eventually also got added to the group. Scorpio Jr., a poor in-ring wrestler during this AAA run, was quietly phased out of the group. He continued to work about 30-50 matches, a lot for Tiniblas’s micro-promotion FULL. Scorpio Jr. also introduced a Mini Scorpio, a Scorpio 2G and a Scorpio 3G at different times; SuperLuchas bio says at least one of those was his real son.

Scorpio Jr. wrestled twice on AAA TV this year, wrestling the June Mexico City show and again in August on Verano de Escandalo, back again with Alan Stone and Zumbido. He looked old and far past his prime, but he also had looked far past his prime in the 2006-2008 Guapo U run they were referencing. AAA apparently thought there was more they could do with the Guapos, but again, not with Scorpio Jr. That second appearance included an injury angle to replace Scorpio Jr. with Bello Stone (Chris Stone Jr.), and Scorpio hadn’t been mentioned since. I don’t have a record of him appearing on other cards past that night. Scorpio Jr. and his wife spent his last years running a food stand in Mexico City, which he appeared to enjoy. The great El Arte de Gotch YouTube channel caught up with Scorpio Jr. back in September. The title has Scorpio talking about retiring in a year. Visually, he looks much thinner and older in the face than he had even a month prior in AAA, as if there was some illness he was battling.

AAA mentioned Scorpio Jr.’s passing. IWRG had a moment of appluse on Thursday’s show. CMLL has not said anything, as of this writing.

Other News

Ayako Hamada wrestled on a show this past Sunday, then took the microphone to say that her father, Gran Hamada, was seriously ill again. Gran Hamada was in serious condition earlier this year and recovered then, and Ayako said this latest is Gran Hamada is in a day-by-day situation.

Thursday, El Hijo del Santo’s Instagram stories mentioned the remaining 2024 shows on the Todo x el Todo are canceled. Instagram Stories are pretty unhelpful places to put this info, but it’s also on the ticket websites. The Merida show, scheduled for 12/08, has been canceled altogether. This Sunday’s show in Veracruz is now scheduled for March 2nd – but Todo x el Todo had previously said they were running in Xalapa that day. No shows are scheduled until March 2nd, and I presume we won’t hear much more about all of this until the anniversary of El Santo’s passing on February 5th.

(Credit to LA Park for breaking this story.)

The Crash has its 13th Anniversary show tonight in Tijuana. It’s a strange card: Bestia and Mecha Wolf have a long-built hair match, but then the rest of the show is out of nowhere four-way hair match with Heavy Metal, Super Crazy and Mr. Aguila and Juventud Guerrera, and then a bunch of title matches with no one announced. The Crash has a list of talent for the show, and it’s possible to work out who’s probably in the title matches, but it also doesn’t seem to matter much. Matt Riddle was supposed to be in one of them, probably challenging for the heavyweight title, but The Crash announced he’s off the show (due to “reasons outside of the control of the promotion”), and Raj Dhesi is in. Dhesi has not worked for AAA since winning the tag team titles in August. Notably, Riddle is still advertised to work the MLW taping the next day. Ticket prices are much more expensive than usual for this show; the promotion is going to be feeling great if it draws.

Jack Cartwheel was a regular in AAA in 2022 and 2023, then disappeared from the promotion in 2024. Most of the regular foreigners have disappeared from AAA this year, either due to AAA focusing on the Orignes wrestlers or AAA cutting back on expensive. Cartwheel has still worked the EMW shows in Tijuana. Friday, WWE revealed Cartwheel was part their WWE ID program – a new concept where WWE is reportedly paying indie wrestlers a monthly stipend in exchange for WWE refusal on a contract. (The details on WWE ID seems heavily speculated on and lightly reported, so I could have this wrong.) Cartwheel’s worked Ring of Honor a bunch – if AEW wanted to sign him now, WWE would have the right to offer him a deal (probably with terms already set) and

I’m certain many Mexican wrestlers would jump at the same offer, and it’s more a question of WWE having any interest in wrestlers who only wrestle in Mexico. WWE typically has not been interested in Mexican wrestlers until they wrestle in Japan or Mexico. Someone like Galeno del Mal, who works in NOAH but doesn’t seem to have a contract there or with anyone in Mexico, would seem to be a logical person for WWE to approach for this WWE ID program.

(I’m far astray off topic but – if AEW wants/needs any information on this WWE ID program, they probably should offer Cartwheel a contract to find it out. They’re already using Cartwheel enough where he might already be a roster guy if Ring of Honor was running a bigger schedule, they’re not heartbroken if WWE scoops him up, and they better know the gameplan if/when this become a bigger deal. This is totally just pushing a button to see what it does, but it’s a good test candidate to push the button. Wrestling companies generally have far more information on what other wrestling companies are doing with contracts than we do, so it also may be totally unnecessary to push that button and get that information.)

Diosa Quetzal announced Wednesday she’s pregnant in a series of photos with partner Angel Mortal Jr. (ex-Parka Negra). I don’t have a result for her since June. It says something about what AAA must be paying people on Angel Mortal’s level that he seemingly found out he was going to be a father and decided the responsible thing to do was to quit AAA. What stuck out to me, though, was Quetzal’s previous posts – “really enjoyed being at this concert!”, “just got done at the gym” that are now exposed as photos from some distant time in the past that she was pretending were recent. Social media is a scam. (Meanwhile, Bengalee’s social media accounts vaguely refer to some issue recently, but otherwise, they are just resuming posting like usual, whoever’s behind them. )

Tao Lucha libre said they were still running Arena Queretaro on 11/15. However, they also suspiciously pushed their press conference from Wednesday to next Monday – perhaps something still needs to be figured out.

The Sun has a “reporter learns how to wrestler” piece with Hijo del Santo and Santo Jr. This piece puts Santo Jr’s age as 27 and implies he’s going to keep wrestling after his father retires, but also the idea entire idea of the article is he doesn’t know anything about any of this so I wouldn’t take that too seriously.

A culture writer for El Sol del Mexico raves about Quien Mato A Shocker, saying it belongs alongside Raging Bull and The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky) version. The documentary is still making its way around film festivals.

Dragon Bane challenges Daga for the GHC Junior Heavyweight championship on 11/17.

A profile of Mexico City teen indie luchador Steven Manson.