April 1957 magazine recaps (Box y Lucha 265-267)

I finished this post in April and then never posted it for really good reasons I can no longer remember

As mentioned previously, I don’t currently have any magazines covering mid-January until mid-April. Box y Lucha hasn’t put them up for sale, and they haven’t turned up elsewhere.

What we do have is a few notes from the 1956 year end review in Clinch:

• Sugi Sito returned to EMLL on 01/25. He had jumped to EMLL to Televicentro during the war, and then was left in the wild when that promotion fell apart
  • Sito was a big star in the early 50s. He’s not at the level of El Santo, but it sure seems like EMLL brought him back to help fill that gap.
• There doesn’t appear to be much news in February, in Clinch’s view.
• The first Tuesday Nuevo Valores shows takes place on March 17, 1957. That appears to be the start of Tuesday shows as a full time idea and CMLL going to a three shows per week schedule. The magazines don’t mention the Tuesday shows much; they’re always going to be old news by the time the magazines hit the stands the following Sunday/Monday. Box y Lucha does eventually get those Tuesday lineups included, though it takes a while.
  • There’s a definite ladder system to these bookings. The big stars work Fridays, some of them work Sundays, and fewer of them on Tuesdays. The Tuesday undercards are full with newer wrestlers.
• Enrique Llanes left his media gig and returned to lucha libre on March 29th at Arena Coliseo. Clinch says this drew 10,000, which is an obvious fictional number because Arena Coliseo doesn’t hold that much. Maybe treating it as sell out is reasonable enough. Llanes also might be back to help fill Santo’s spot.
• The first Arena Mexico ‘season’ begins April 5, 1957. I don’t have that lineup.

Box y Lucha 265A (April 19, 1957)

EMLL (FRI) 04/12/1957 Arena México [Box y Lucha 265A, Clinch 242]
1) Rudy García b Taro Hito
actually happened after the main event. Rated 7.
2) Dientes Hernández DRAW Red Man
rated 6
3) Adolfo Bonales DRAW Orquídea
Rated 6 ½
4) Black Killer b Jalisco González
rated 6 ¾
5) Ivan el Terrible b Tarzán López
rated 6 ½
6) Sugi Sito b Enrique Llanes
best match, Box y Lucha says Sito should get a title match with Vera. Rated 7 ½. This was a rivalry from the Televicentro promotion
7) Enfermero, Espectro, Karloff Lagarde b Black Shadow, Dorrel Dixon, Rolando Vera
Enfermero submitted Shadow as Rolando Vera submitted Espectro at the same time, but Shadow was the captain. Rated 7 ½.

Shadow disappears from lineup for the next few months. 7.5 are high ratings on this magazine’s smashed together scale.

Nothing much from Sunday. Or from this magazine entirely. Carlos Moreno has been suspended for two months. It’s unclear why.

Box y Lucha 266A (April 26, 1957)

The Friday show this week was moved to Saturday; maybe a Good Friday holiday situation?

EMLL (SAT) 04/20/1957 Arena Coliseo [Box y Lucha 265A, Box y Lucha 266A]
1) El Coyote b José Munoz
2) Humberto Garza b Tony Fusary
rated 6 ¾
3) Murciélago Velazquez b Jalisco González
Rated 6 ¼
4) El Verdugo b Orquídea
Orquidea replaced Enrique Villa. Rated 6 ¼
5) Carnicero Butcher b Pepe Mendieta
Pepe Mendieta replaced Bobby Bonales. Rated 6 ¼
6) El Enfermero CO Black Killer
they clonked heads in the third fall in the ring, neither could stand up. Enfermero had his shoulders flat on the mat, Killer fell on his side. Rated 7 ½
7) El Espectro & Karloff Lagarde b Black Shadow & Blue Demon
Espectro & Lagarde took ⅓, a great win for team. Rated 7 ¼

In match 6, both wrestlers were knocked out on the mat while the referee counted to ten. It used to be a staple of 80s/90s matches I watched, and I’m not sure if that’s even a spot that people would recognize today. The “everyone down” spot still happens, it’s just an applause break and no one counts. I can’t recall a normal match ending with one of those countouts though. Box Y Lucha says the fans didn’t understand the finish either, thinking that someone actually had to be covered for the match to end.

Bobby Bonales missed that match with an illness, but it also said to be suspended, strangely. Carlos Moreno’s suspension has bene lifted by the commission, but another incident – even a minor one – will cause him to be suspended for a year. Box y Lucha notes there’s no real definition of a minor incident, and Moreno may be forced to wrestle as a tecnico rather than risk a suspension over normal rudo behavior.

Sunday’s show had El Gladiador defeating Enrique Llanes by a debatable foul.

The magazine has a profile on Rolando Vera, who mentioned his usual training session on Tuesday due to a dentist appointment. His regular Tuesday routine is training with Professor Romero on jiu-jitsu, judo and “lucha oriental.”

Gorilita Flores is out a month with a lesion at his waist, suffered in a match in Torreon.

Box y Lucha 267A (May 3, 1957)

EMLL (FRI) 04/26/1957 Arena México [Box y Lucha 266A, Box Y Lucha 869, Clinch 242, Matt Farmer, Roy Lucier]
***Arena Mexico 1st Anniversary***
1) Orquídea vs Frankenstein
Rated 6 ¾
2) Pepe Mendieta vs El Plebeyo
Plebeyo debuted. Rated 6
3) Jalisco González vs Rubén Juárez
Rated 6 ¾
4) Chico Casasola vs Gorilla Flores
Rated 6 ¼
5) Black Killer b Enfermero
Rematch of a draw the previous week. Killer won an upset; he immediately pushed his luck by asking for a mask vs mask match. Rated 6 ¾
6) Blue Demon © b Espectro [NWA WELTER]
Rated 7
7) Rolando Vera © b Sugi Sito [NWA MIDDLE]
Rated 8 ½, said to be a match of the year to this point and the highest number they’ve given out since doing these ratings (mid 1956)

Arena Mexico is officially one year old with this event. They celebrated with matches that had no real build-up but still turned out pretty good. The recap focused on the top three matches; they gave ratings but no results for the others. Vera’s been talked up a lot as a wrestler in these magazines, and this is Sito’s biggest match in the period since returning to EMLL.

Killer and Enfermero are indeed building to a mask match in a few weeks.

Sunday’s show included a strong Verdugo/Canelo Seugua match and more praise for Llanes in the main event.

In weekly suspension news; Joaquin Murrieta is suspended for no-shows. He’d been in EMLL since 1939. I don’t have him wrestling in Arena Coliseo  since the end of 1956. His career looks to be pretty much over at this point.

Referee Rudy Blancarate has an angry response to recent criticism of him by Box y Lucha. He notes that his pay is frozen at 50 pesos and has been that number for the last 10 years.

That’s it for April.

[Previous would be March 1957 but I have no issues, Next is May 1957, Full index]