CMLL

CMLL (FRI) 10/04/2024 Arena México
1) Angelito, Kaligua, Pequeño Magía vs Mercurio, Pequeño Olímpico, Pequeño Violencia
2) Magia Blanca vs Virus [lightning]
3) Kira, Lluvia, Tessa Blanchard vs Hera, Persephone, Sanely
4) Bárbaro Cavernario, Hechicero, Templario vs Magnus, Rugido, Volador Jr. [Relevos Increíbles]
5) Princesa Sugehit vs La Catalina, Zeuxis, Amapola, Náutica, India Sioux, Maligna, Olympia, Dark Silueta, Metálica [CMLL Universal de Amazonas, semifinal]

There’s a bit of patience to like about CMLL this month, even if you don’t care much about women’s wrestling. Other North American promotions seem to exist in just two modes: “We’ve got to micromanage every quarter-hour to win this week manically, and I guess we’ll figure out next week next week” and “We’re contractually required to put this TV show, but we’ve long stopped caring about it.” CMLL is running this month of women’s wrestling without the typical frantic concern of what one (or four or sixteen) less than normal gates will do their bottom line, and they’re also doing them with the hope that it’ll be an investment to pay off in the long term. A wrestling promotion can make stars only by putting people who are not yet stars in star positions and helping them succeed. That always means a step back, hoping you’ll take a step forward later. This month’s main events are carefully planned elimination matches and big singles matches; there will be a big winner to close every show. CMLL hopes those memories stick with the fans the next time they see those women.

Focusing on women may not succeed for CMLL. This is the third year of this strategy (not the first) and there are small signs of progress CMLL can point to. The biggest success of CMLL’s increased focus on the women’s division is Stephanie Vaquer, a person who no longer exists in CMLL because she was too good at her job. CMLL’s women’s division is gradually getting better. They’ve been able to lower the age, increase the level of performance, and widen the talent pool by tapping into wrestlers from elsewhere in Mexico. Some women seem like they could develop into stars, but they’re not quite there yet, nor has there been a noticeable fan base that comes in to support the women. The women’s wrestling concept is at best on par with the Leyenda de Plata/Leyenda de Azul tournaments, annual bits that CMLL diehard fans understand are important because of their history, but no one’s thinking all that much about when it’s not coming up. The long-term goal here makes it more challenging to measure success, but that perception is the best measuring stick: this women’s wrestling concept will be a success when CMLL has people excited for this month, and some women’s stars people want to see the rest of the year.

The Universal block looks like Sugehit, Catalina, Zeuxis, and Dark Silueta as the final four. Dark Silueta got hurt this month last year when it seemed CMLL was about to do more with her. My guess is they try to fix that this year.

The semi-main is a rare Hechicero match where he’s not facing someone he’s directly feeding with. Kira and Persephone will probably do some fun stuff. Magia Blanca and Virus could be weird. Tecnicos will try for a lot in the opener. The other three Friday shows in Women’s Month will have bigger matches but this should be easy enough to watch.

CMLL Informa revealed the mystery women’s matches for Saturday and Sunday

• Saturday: Bengalee & Centinela vs Candela & Mulisha
• Sunday: Tabata, Dulce Tormenta, Jazmin Allure vs Amapola, Metalica, Candela

Vaguely familiar people are mixed in with the new names and the regulars. Candela has appeared several times, and she could be a plus. Centinela is the army soldier turned luchadora who once popped up on AAA TV and has seemingly been part of the CMLL system lately; she’s originally from Chiapas but seems to have resettled in the Mexico City area. She wrestled in Guadalajara on Tuesday.

Bengalee was probably most visible as an IWRG wrestler, though she hasn’t been there since June’s La Jaula de las Locas. She participated in last year’s CMLL bodybuilding contest, which probably opened the door for her to wrestle here. She also seems pretty good at networking. She seems anecdotally good at networking, making connections, and building a powerful social media following. She has also been pretty consistently poor at actually wrestling in matches. She comes off as less than wholly trained, prone to mistakes, and frequently annoys her opponents. I don’t even remember the context of Keyra losing it on her, and I’m not sure it’s particularly relevant; similar issues have happened with others wrestling Bengalee. Maybe she’ll make some great strides in the CMLL system, but she doesn’t seem to be at that level of someone who should be getting a shot.

Dulce Tormenta is a El Paso based luchador who wrestles US indie and a bit in northern Mexico. She seems to be a somewhat in-demand indie luchadora despite being an ex-AAA/CMLL one and not getting a lot of TV coverage somewhere. I saw her at the GCW show in Los Angeles a few years back; she seemed good. Jazmin Allure is originally from Flordia and has worked many ndies (and WOW, apparently.) She’s worked Texas shows with lucha libre names, so that’s probably the connection. I’m sure I’ve seen her wrestle at some point, but I have no impression of her.

The Mulisha name vexed me. It’s rare for someone Mexico-based to come into CMLL without me being at least familiar with the name, so I thought maybe it was another American. I wasn’t sure of the correct spelling, and I couldn’t find any social media with spelling variations. I found a single appearance on a Starman Gym show in April. It turns out Reporte Luchistico had a video interview with Mulisha from the Mexico City wrestling tryouts earlier this year. I vaguely remember one woman passed the test to get licensed this year, and Mulisha was that woman. She lists one of her trainers as Arkangel de la Muerte, which sends up a flag – Arkangel died in 2018. Her story is she started training 15 years ago, then “retired” 11 years ago. (She says it’s a long story; she also has photos of a son that looks about 10.) She started back training again in December 2023. Mulisha been training with Hijo del Gladiador since returning to wrestling. Her social media is all under her real name, Jessica Sanchez; she appears to be a personal trainer who takes a lot of gym selfies.

Toni Storm sent in a very Toni Storm promo to Informa. It got the reaction it was looking for.

CMLL (TUE) 10/08/2024 Arena Coliseo Guadalajara
1) Astro Oriental & Último Ángel vs Thunder Boy & Yaky Boy
2) Alondra, Diosa Roja, Emperatriz vs Miss Panther, Mujer Demonio, Queen Panther
3) Adira, Náutica, Nexy, Valkiria vs Bengalee, Dulce Tormenta, Jazmin Allure Zorah, Mulisha
4) Kira & Skadi vs Hera & Olympia
5) Adrenalina, Explosivo, Fantástico vs Magnus, Rugido, Vegas
6) Brillante Jr., Máscara Dorada, Neón vs Hijo del Villano III, Soberano Jr., Villano III Jr.

Allure was on the original poster, and Zorah replaced her a few hours later. Zorah may be a local.  Match 4 has been pretty good when they’ve got it going, and match 5 looks promising. That’s a group of Monterrey women showing up in match 2. CMLL is going so wide and far that I wonder if there’s something like a torneo escuelas for unsigned women coming.

Brillante Jr. has appeared in Arena Mexico once since August 11th.

CMLL (MON) 10/07/2024 Arena Puebla
1) Astoreth & Centinela vs Enigmática & Lady Amazona
2) Pelon Encapuchado vs Pólvora [lightning]
3) La Catalina, Lluvia, Tessa Blanchard vs Hera, Olympia, Persephone
4) Futuro, Hombre Bala Jr., Max Star vs Pegasso, Rey Samuray, Stigma
5) Esfinge © vs Valiente [MEX LH]
6th defense (rematch from 08/02)
6) Atlantis Jr., Máscara Dorada, Neón vs Gran Guerrero, Stuka Jr., Último Guerrero

That main event could be great. Either Fuego or the person booking can’t figure out from show to show if he’s meant to be doing that gimmick or Pelon Encapuchado. Arena Puebla will be running the same two women’s matches like the other venues.

Record reports people close to QueMoniito say his lawsuit with CMLL will wrap between October 10th and 15th. There are very few details about the situation outside of he’ll no longer be “KeMonito”, and that phrasing is important there. He’s been using the slightly different name QueMonitto name since leaving CMLL, and it’s not mentioned if he’ll continue to be able to appear and sell items under that name. He’s still selling them Que Monnito shirts on his Facebook. He’s announced for appearances later in October.  The ‘better’ result still isn’t great, but there’s a world of difference between “he can’t be that exact blue monkey” and “he can’t be any blue monkey”; the article hints at the second result but doesn’t just say it, which is suspicious. Also suspicious is Record saying this is going to happen between a few certain days and knowing the outcome. They wouldn’t know the outcome if this was still waiting for a legal decision, and they would have a specific cut off date if a decision had already been made. My underinformed guess is that CMLL and QueMoniito have reached a settlement and are waiting on lawyers’ sign-offs to go through, but I shouldn’t be that confident about understanding the Mexican legal system. The only things I’m sure of is a) there’s more that article isn’t telling us and b) the wrestler is getting the bad end of the stick as usual.

This fiasco only happened because CMLL wanted to replace one KeMonito with a new KeMonito. The last year has strongly proven that was the wrong idea for business reasons. KeMalito is over, and far more over if he had to battle against the idea of being KeMonito II. CMLL’s monetized KeMalito just as well, and they would’ve gone the other gimmick. It wouldn’t have worked out like this if CMLL had gotten their way.

A sequence of events

• 07/26: Atlantis Jr. wins the Survival of Fitest match on the ROH Death Before Dishonor, narrowingly beating Brian Cage to close it
• 08/22: Bishop Kaun, Brian Cage and Toa Liona defeat Atlantis Jr., Serpentico, and Fuego del Sol on ROH TV
• (nothing happens for a long time, Atlantis Jr. stops appearing on ROH TV for a month)
• 10/12: Atlantis Jr. will defend the ROH TV championship against Brian Cage on the pre-show of WrestleDream

You have to have a comprehensive knowledge of recent Ring of Honor TV (not the most exciting subject) or some time to dive into match databases to figure out this idea, and even then, it may not come off as impressive to someone who just wants to see people on Ring of Honor face other people on Ring of Honor in big matches. You could also be in the head of the person putting this together. Everyone else appeared surprised by this announcement. The match will be good. I was hoping that Ring of Honor would have a stronger purpose put on it once the AEW TV deal was announced, but the AEW TV deal said nothing about Ring of Honor and it exists in the same limbo as it has for a while.

The CMLL talent list for the 11/09 MLW show is up to:

• Mistico
• Lluvia
• Titan
• Atlantis
• Barbaro Cavernario
• Hechicero
• Okumura
• Magnus
• Ultimo Guerrero
• Atlantis Jr.
• Esfinge (new)
• Felino (new)

Arena Rey Bucanero, a space in Neza the luchador used to train wrestlers and run wrestling shows, is closing down in its current location. Bucanero was renting and the owners wanted to turn the space into a bar. He’d run the place since 2017, though not as much lately – only two shows since April. The plan is to find a new place, but Bucanero doesn’t have one at the moment.

AEW Head of Wardrobe Chris Estell was on the promotion’s podcast this week. He is the man responsible for that Ultimo Guerrero match on AEW. The version of the story told here is AEW promoted Ultimo Guerrero as masked, so AEW (and very specifically Tony Khan) believed they had to deliver a masked Ultimo Guerrero. UG did not bring a mask, AEW desperately searched the area for anyone with an Ultimo Guerrero mask, and Tony Khan (via Jimmy Jacobs) asked Estell to make a mask within two hours. Estell figured he’d need two days to something like if he had all the right materials, which he didn’t have. Estell also didn’t want to disappoint the boss (Khan, but also UG) so he did his best. The hosts give him credit for what he was able to put together; it sounds like Estell’s biggest regret is he didn’t have time to get laces on to tie the mask together and thanked the production people for trying to hide the issues with the masks. Estell is very appreciative of Ultimo Guerrero’s Facebook post praising his effort and that Guerrero wore the mask as an entrance mask for a couple of matches.

Nitro noted he’s reached 40 years in wrestling. He posted photos of himself as Dragon Rojo and Dragon Dorado in the 80s; the luchawiki also mentions him as wrestling as el Cimarron.

Reyna Isis was this week’s guest on the CMLL podcast. I didn’t listen to it yet.

Skadi & Kira want to be known as “SKari, La Cazadora del Aire.” I’m willing to go as far as SKari.

Angelito visited his hometown.

AAA

There is no AAA TV show on Space this Saturday. Instead, they’re airing Heroes Inmortales on Sunday. That show starts at 4 p.m. local time, and TV coverage picks up at 6.

AAA TV (SUN) 10/06/2024 Auditorio Benito Juárez, Zapopan, Jalisco
1) Crazzy Steve & Havok vs Abismo Negro & Flammer © [AAA MIXED TAG]
4th defense
2) Dinámico, Myzteziz Jr., Niño Hamburguesa vs Kento, Nobu San, Takuma
3) ? vs ??, ???, ????, ?????, ??????, ???????, ???????? [Copa Antonio Pena]
4) El Fiscal vs Matt Riddle © [AAA CRUISER]
first defense
5) Mecha Wolf, Negro Casas, Vampiro Canadiense vs El Mesías, Forastero, Sansón
6) Laredo Kid vs El Patrón Alberto © [AAA MEGA]
first defense. Latin Lover and Konnan will be seconds

Both matches seem set to end via interference. Abismo Negro Jr. will probably shoot fire in El Fiscal’s eyes – that’s a bit they did in Monterrey. Laredo/Alberto will probably have a Mesias and other parts of the Eye faction involved. Both will go through the pretense of being a ‘good match’ until the finish, though I’m not sure how close they can get to achieving that. This’ll probably be another show where all the tecnicos get laid out, and maybe Latin Lover will be standing at the end.

There’s an AAA fanbase sentiment that Vampiro’s match at Arena Ciudad de Mexico was his retirement match, leaving them confused as to why he’s still wrestling. AAA promoted this farewell tour as lawyers, leaving them legal room to say it was only his farewell in Arena Ciudad de Mexico. (And, now that I think this out, it occurs to me that AAA’s announced him as retired as in Gimnasio Juan de la Barrera and in Arena Ciudad de Mexico but not in Mexico City itself; I’ve been assuming AAA was running their next final two tapings of the year in Gimnasio Juan de la Barrera but I suppose they could go back to the Pepsi Center and then Vampiro can retire again.) I think Vampiro will still get a great reaction in a place where he’s lived for many years. He also just might lose again.

The first three matches of this show will air on 10/12.

Tickets for this show are free in GA, and up to 400 pesos at ringside. (4oo pesos would get you in row 13 tonight in Arena Mexico; even the tickets they’re charging for are rather cheap.) Ther are no tickets left online, which I can’t figure out is an error or because they’ve already been sold out.

Based on upcoming advertising, Crazzy Steve and Havok appear likely to win the mixed tag titles. The local Juarez promoter released a poster for Guerra de Titanes, and both foreign wrestlers are pictured. So is Mil Muertes, a character on a show named Lucha Underground, which went off the air six years ago. Maybe the more significant news is that the show is now November 10th; it was listed as November 17th previously. That one-week move will likely lead to more out-of-order airings; each part of the October Mexico City taping will sandwich Guerra de Titanes.

AAA on Unimas will have part 2 of the most recent Showcenter, and AAA on YouTube will have the totally irrelevant Road to Heroes Inmortales show.

AAA wrestlers are also in GLEAT this weekend. These shows typically stream live for free on GLEAT’s YouTube page and stay there after the show.

10/06 (early Sunday morning North America time) – YouTube Link.

• Hayato Tamura vs Parker Boudreaux for the G-REX Championship
• CIMA & Ricochet vs Soma Watanabe & Hijo del Vikingo
• Lindaman, Octagon Jr., Faby Apache vs MICHIKO, Chris Ridgeway, Sam Adonis
• Issei Onizukia, Junjae, JD Lee, Jessy Queen vs KAZMA SAKAMOTO, Quite Storm, Mirko Mori, Nico Inverardi

10/09 (early Wednesday morning North America time)

• Soma Watanabe vs Hijo del Vikingo
• Kaito Ishida vs Parker Boudreaux
• MICHIKO vs Faby Apache
• Takehiro Yamamura, Junjae, JD Lee, Octagon Jr., Jessy Queen vs Hayato Tamura, KAZMA SAKAMOTO, Quiet Storm, Takaki Iwaski, Sam Adonis

Sorry if I’ve blown those names; I don’t know where to find an English listing of these lineups nowadays. It occurs to me that Parker Boudreaux will have wrestled in GLEAT exactly as many times as he’s wrestled in AAA by the end of this week. (He did have a non-wrestling appearance with AAA, too.)

AAA’s group photo shows Roberto Figueroa and Quetzalli Bulnes are along for the trip; they appear to be doing social media work. Mas Lucha had interviews with the wrestlers before they left. Jessy Queen was surprised to be picked to go on this trip and assumed AAA management was joking. Faby Apache, it’s been six years since she’s been in Japan, and she’s looking forward to seeing the fans again. Hijo del Vikingo noted he went to Japan with GCW and Gringo Loco, and is happy to now also represent AAA this time. Octagon Jr. talks about how this year has been great for him; it’s brought him good things and taken away bad ones. He doesn’t give details on that second portion.

The November Spain tour is on. There’s no new news here; I was just still uncertain they’d happen and checked in to see that they’re still on the schedule. All three shows have a lot of unsold tickets; the last show in Barcelona seems to be selling the best of the three. I’ve probably said this too many times, but the one big thing I’ve learned from WrestleTix becoming prominent is tickets don’t move much unless there’s interesting news (usually match announcements) or the show gets close. The MLW bit of announcing a different CMLL wrestler every day can be a bit much, but it is also probably effective in reminding people that the show exists in a way that repeating the same tour dates every few days is not going to do. AAA seemed to adopt this idea with the Guerra de Titanes lineup but had to wait until so close to the show; people aren’t waiting until a couple of days before to decide based on a match. (This is also an AEW problem.) AAA could use actual announcements for those Spain shows if they’re happening, even just to assure people they’re happening, though that would require AAA to have a firm idea of what they’re doing on those shows.

Mas Lucha also posted interviews following the AAA taping on Sunday. Alonso Botello claimed KAOZ is running in December, with a date to be announced soon. Julissa’s chest has unusual red chop marks for an AAA match; those are chops to send a message. Julissa & Valentina talked about wanting a rematch, and Hiedra & Flammer portrayed them as newbies who weren’t worth their time. El Hijo del Vikingo said he was depressed the first few months he was out; it was a long time and a struggle to return, and Alberto tried to take that way from him by attacking him from behind before the match. He no longer has any respect for Alberto. Meanwhile, Alberto said Vikingo has to go to the back of his line and remains focused on Latin Lover. Mesias said Octagon Jr. is on his blacklist, and he still wants revenge on Cibernetico.

AAA put up Flammer vs Jessica Troy from OPW (Australia, 09/22) on YouTube. I thought it was good. Flammer got an opportunity to have a regular match – not a cookie sheet match, not a Hijo del Tirantes match. There’s stuff I saw from here that I haven’t seen from her much, if at all, in AAA, though I think she could use a bit more offense. Still, Flammer came off as a good wrestler in a way she doesn’t often get the chance in AAA. It appeared OPW gave AAA a no-commentary crowd sound-only version, figuring AAA would add their commentary track. Instead, it was just posted with no commentary.

Todo x el Todo

They’ve got two shows this weekend. Santo Jr. appears to be wrestling regularly as part of the tour. The lineups have shuffled around for that and other reasons; some people seem dropped for now. They’re also adding “the last time in [this city]” text to each poster, perhaps thinking that wasn’t clear prior. And I guess they couldn’t have used that text for the Mexico City show.

TXT (FRI) 10/04/2024 Arena Arteaga, Querétaro, Querétaro
1) Lady Apache & Vanilla Vargas vs Hija de Fuerza Guerrera & Ludark Shaitan
Vanilla Vargas replaced Therius, Ludark replaced Keyra on Wednesday
2) Hijo del Solar & Ultramán Jr. vs Canek Jr. & Heddi Karaoui
Super Nova & Alebrije moved up, Verdugo dropped, Heddi Karaoui added on Wednesday
3) Ciclón Ramírez Jr., Cinta de Oro, Hijo del Alebrije vs Bobby Lee Jr., Súper Nova, Texano Jr.
Hijo del Alebrije and Super Nova on Wednesday
4) El Hijo Del Santo, LA Park, Santo Jr. vs Dr. Wagner Jr., Fuerza Guerrera, Hijo del Fishman
Santo Jr. and Hijo de Fishman added on Wednesday

It’s hard not to read into Keyra leaving these shows and showing up on that AAA-promoted Tijuana show recently. Santo was talking with Leon papers to hype this show earlier this week.

TXT (SUN) 10/06/2024 Palenque de León, León, Guanajuato
1) Lady Apache & Vanilla Vargas vs Hija de Fuerza Guerrera & Ludark Shaitan
Vanilla Vargas and Ludark replaced Therius & Keyra on Wednesday.
2) Bobby Lee Ng & Hijo del Solar vs Brazo Celestial & Brazo Cibernetico Jr.
Ultraman Jr. and Herodes Jr. dropped on Wednesday.
3) Ciclón Ramírez Jr., Hijo de Máscara Sagrada, Huracán Ramírez vs Hijo del Fishman, Súpernova, Texano Jr.
Huracan Ramirez replaced Misterioso Jr. on Wednesday.
4) Cinta de Oro vs Bobby Lee Jr.
5) El Hijo Del Santo, LA Park, Santo Jr. vs Dr. Wagner Jr., Fuerza Guerrera, Heddi Karaoui
Santo Jr. and Heddi Karaoui replaced Cinta de Oro & Bobby Lee Jr. (into a singles match)

This is Bobby Lee Jr.’s hometown show, and he and Cinta de Oro are doing a title match later so that singles match is probably about getting him to win.

Mas Lucha has promoted these shows pretty steadily, so they may also be recording these. They’re not saying that up front though.

IWRG

IWRG (THU) 10/03/2024 Arena Naucalpan [IWRG, thecubsfan]
1) Águila Oriental & Sky Man b Arceus & Fauno 
2) Shamila & Tornado b Águila Roja & Kali 
After the win, Tornado asked Shamila to be his girlfriend but was turned down. Backstage, she explained that she wanted to keep her personal life separate from her wrestling career.
3) Vudu Max b Vangellys 
Lucha Random
4) Aquiles & Spider Fly DQ Hell Boy & Noisy Boy  
suspended Rock Power ran in to attack Spider Fly for the DQ.
5) Hijo de Canis Lupus b Hijo del Fishman © [IWRG JUNIORS]  
Fishman falls on 7th defense

They also aired a video where Noisy Boy is looking at security tape, I guess to find the identity of the mystery second Noisy Boy.

IWRG (SUN) 10/06/2024 Arena Naucalpan
1) Águila Oriental & Drakula Ng vs Fauon & Sulivan
2) Felino Boy & Vudu Max vs Príncipe Centauro & Rey Aztaroth
3) Caballero de Plata & Ronado vs Puma de Oro & Rey Halcón
4) Diva Salvaje & Keyra vs Estrella Divina & Shamila
5) Hell Boy, Hijo de Canis Lupus, Noisy Boy vs Águila Roja, Hijo del Pirata Morgan, Spider Fly
6) Gran Pandemónium, Hijo de Pandemónium, Pandemónium, Pandemónium Jr. vs Pig Decapitador, Pig Destroyer, Pig Pool

This main event is different from the other matches between these two teams – it is not 3v3, it is 4v4.

A new Lucha Libre Boom show was announced for a couple of weeks.

IWRG (THU) 10/17/2024 Arena Naucalpan
1) Ángel Kid vs Titanium, Fobi
2) Argus, Máscara De Hierro, Súper Boy vs Águila Dorada, Argus Fly, Giaus
3) Águila Roja vs Skayler, Príncipe Centauro, Diablo Fly, El Cometa, Lunatik Fly, Sol, Águila Oriental
4) Gallego, Rocky Santana, Romano García vs Black Terry, Carta Brava Jr., Fandango
5) Hell Boy & Tonalli vs Aquiles & Puma and Lunatik Extreme & Toto
6) Hijo de LA Park, LA Park, LA Park Jr. vs Dr. Wagner Jr., Hijo De Silver King, Simon Blanco

Other Notes

Voices of Wrestling has a great article making the case for Huracan Ramirez in the WON HOF.

Starting today until the end of the year, WWE RAW and SmackDown will air on YouTube in Latin America – except for Mexico. WWE programming is gradually moving to Netflix internationally, but Netflix won’t start WWE until 2025, the old deals ended with September, and WWE is putting it on YouTube instead of making a short term deal for three months. It’s a limited scope of people who will have access to this stream, but I’m very curious about what kind of viewership it gets – it’ll certainly say a lot about how big WWE is or can be in that market.

CMLL

CMLL (MON) 09/30/2024 Arena Puebla [CMLL, Grada, La Prensa, Mano a Mano]
1) Dreyko, El Malayo, Siky Ozama b Amnesia, Black Tiger, El Asturiano
2) Capitán Suicida, El Audaz, Fuego b Arkalis, Meyer, Rey Samuray 
3) Xelhua b Felino Jr. 
Felino Jr. went for a mask pull in fall three, but Xelhua evaded and submitted him to “La Cruz de Los Remedios”
4) Hijo del Villano III, Villano III Jr., Zandokan Jr. b Akuma, Gemelo Diablo I, Gemelo Diablo II
5) Euforia, Soberano Jr., Valiente b Esfinge, Flip Gordon, Hechicero [Relevos Increíbles]
Straight falls, setting up Valiente challenging Esfinge for the MEX LH
6) Ángel de Oro & Niebla Roja © b Templario & Volador Jr. [CMLL TAG] 
16th defense (Chavez counting it as 17)

The tag title match sounds like it went well. CMLL seems to be slightly turning up the burner on Xelhua.

CMLL (TUE) 10/01/2024 Arena México [CMLL, Kaiser Sports, thecubsfan]
1) Leono b Inquisidor 
10:57.
2) Capitán Suicida, Dragón de Fuego, Valiente Jr. b Enfermero Jr., Grako, Nitro 
12:37. Dragon de Fuego appears to be back on the tecnico side.
3) India Sioux & Tabata b Dark Silueta & Valkiria 
12:56. La Vaquerita made her debut as referee.
4) Barboza, Difunto, Zandokan Jr. b Explosivo, Fugaz, Star Black 
11:55. Zandokan’s team is going by Barco Pirata (pirate ship)
5) Persephone, Reyna Isis, Zeuxis b Princesa Sugehit, Skadi, Tessa Blanchard 
12:03.
6) Máscara Dorada, Místico, Neón b Gran Guerrero, Stuka Jr., Último Guerrero 
12:41.

This had more energy than usual Tuesday show, especially with Mascara Dorada deciding to break out a few new tricks in the third fall of the main event. That match was good, the fourth match was good, the tecnicos tried a lot in the second match and everything else was OK.

La Vaquerita made her debut as a referee in match 3. Her counts are strange. She pounds the mat, then raises her arm straight up to indicate the count, then lowers her hand to make the next count. It was off-putting, and the fans were already on her by the third fall. She toned it down a bit in her second match. In a media interview on Wednesday, Vaquerita said a knee injury led her to becoming a referee.

CMLL made several other changes to celebrate women’s wrestling matches. The ring ropes are pink, and the building has more pink/purple lighting. Most wrestlers wore a ribbon for breast cancer awareness. The men wrote them on armbands, while the women tended to wear them as leg bands. There were two women’s matches on this show, which will be true for every Mexico City show in October, and possibly for the other venues as well.

CMLL (TUE) 10/01/2024 Arena Coliseo Guadalajara [Arena Coliseo Guadalajara, Fuego en el Ring]
1) Lince De Baijo & Prince Drago b Obek & Ray
2) Lady Diamond, Sakura, Universys, Zafiro b Candela, Centinela, Hatanna, Magia Azul
GDL/CDMX vs Juarez. Lady Diamond replaced Venus.
3) Draego & Persa b Leo & Omar Brunetti
4) Lady Shadow, Llamarada, Miss Guerrera b Diablita Roja (Puebla), Lady Amazona, Lady Metal
Puebla versus Comarca Lagunera
5) Dark Magic, Espanto Jr., Raider b Bestia Negra, Guerrero de la Muerte, Ráfaga
6) Atlantis Jr., Dulce Gardenia, Flip Gordon b Averno, Bárbaro Cavernario, Euforia

No stream, and no live results on Twitter. The Arena Coliseo Guadalajara Facebook did post clips and results.

CMLL (SAT) 10/05/2024 Arena Coliseo
1) Aéreo vs Pequeño Polvora
2) ?, ??, ??? vs ????, ?????, ??????
women’s match featuring independent wrestlers
3) Dulce Gardenia, Espíritu Negro, Volcano vs El Coyote, Kráneo, Okumura
4) Guerrero Maya Jr., Stigma, Xelhua vs Felino, Felino Jr., Rey Bucanero
5) Kira, La Catalina, Skadi vs Hera, Olympia, Reyna Isis
6) Atlantis Jr., Flip Gordon, Titán vs Averno, Euforia, Mephisto

Aereo & Pequeno Polvora get their match, while Guerrero Maya and Xelhua have one more week to work out their issues. (Poor Stigma.)

Match 2 is curious. No names are listed, instead “Segunda Luchas en Relevos con Telanto Femenil Independiente.” It’s the same situation on Sunday. To CMLL, anyone who is not an official part of their women’s roster (the Amazonas division) is an independent. Miss Guerrera, Lady Shadow and Lady Metal worked in CMLL last year. Maybe they’ll be back; everyone who worked match 4 on that Guadalajara show may figure into those spots. The 2023 versions of those matches had a lot of La Guerrera and Tiffany when they were on the edge of the CMLL roster, so perhaps of Candela and Magia Azul will be seen more often. The weird part is that CMLL is just not listing who will be in those matches; I can’t think of another recent time where an entire match was left off. My hunch is CMLL will introduce the people in these matches and the posters will then be updated; a Dr. Landru comment suggests viewers may not be thrilled with one of those names.

CMLL (SUN) 10/06/2024 Arena México
1) Fantasy vs Full Metal [lightning]
2) ?, ??, ??? vs ????, ?????, ??????
women’s match featuring independent wrestlers
3) Blue Panther Jr., Dark Panther, Pelon Encapuchado vs Cancerbero, Luciferno, Virus
4) India Sioux & La Catalina vs Persephone & Sanely
5) Dragón Rojo Jr., Esfinge, Neón vs Bárbaro Cavernario, Gran Guerrero, Terrible [Relevos Increíbles]
6) Máscara Dorada, Titán, Volador Jr. vs Ángel de Oro, Soberano Jr., Valiente

The Barbaros break up still sort of continues.

CMLL Informa today has

• Mistico (NJPW)
• Sanely, Los Infernales, Rayo Metalico (Night of Champions title changes)
• Alex Windsor (Grand Prix)
• La Catalina (Toni Storm)
• Zeuxis, La Catalina, Amapola, Dark Silueta, Metalica, Olympia, Princesa Sugehit, India Sioux, La Maligna (Universal)

While I’m thinking about it; Toni Storm’s promo earlier this week in Stardom was hilarious. She’s going to be in Mexico next week, they’re probably going to have her do a media session on Friday like they do for all the foreign wrestlers. I am sure it will be completely unhinged; that’s the point. I’m unsure if the style of some her material will work for CMLL, where the guy running the place just talked about how much he wants to draw more children to their shows. A slight tone shift may be a good idea to win friends there.

Las Planchitas reports unrest among the CMLL production staff, citing a single source who says they all feel they’re being underpaid and getting last-minute notice about being needed for work. He cites a camera person getting paid 2000 pesos ($1oo USD) per show. He also claims CMLL’s booking department is still not high on Hehicero; Salvador Lutteroth overruled them and picked Hechicero as the Aniversario winner. (La Planchitas also said Karis la Momia was retired; he’s listed for a show later this month, for what it’s worth.)

The Chivas men’s team apparently takes team photos at different locations every season, and this year, they took them at Arena Coliseo Guadalajara with CMLL luchadors. It’s mostly the local luchadors, though noted super-fans Atlantis and Atlantis Jr. also participated.

MLW announced Ultimo Guerrero and Atlantis Jr. for their 11/09 show.

El Informador interviews Satanico and Arelquin about lucha libre.

Sexy Star (II) is leaving AAA

Sexy Star (II) is indeed leaving AAA, as has been rumored for the last few weeks. I had wrongly assumed her working shows this past weekend meant she was sticking around, but she’s actually professionally working out previously agreed-upon dates. That’s uncommon in Mexico. She announced her departure via  Facebook on Tuesday night. Her last show will be the 10/21 show in Leon. It’s possible she is booked or was booked for this weekend’s Verano de Escandalo; AAA has Copa Antonio Pena with no names announced.  Sexy Star previously worked in the Baja California area as Hija de Gatubela (following her mother), and she’ll wrestle as just “Gatubela” name. Gatubela means Catwoman, though it’s in more a general ‘woman who happens to be a cat’ sense and not as a DC comics character. Lucha Libre Norte announced Gatubela for their 11/10 show early in the evening, which may have led to the announcement a few hours later. Normal practice is not to announce the departure until completing all the dates she’s going to do. Sexy Star/Gatuebla also announced she was giving up her EMW Women’s championship, which is a bit confusing – that promotion isn’t working with AAA (at the moment), so there’s no obvious need to give up that title unless there’s more to this story.

Gatubela posted a “I’m moving on” Instagram post on September 13th, though she left it vague what she was moving on from at that point. She chimed in on the Latin Lover/AAA women’s fitness controversy on September 4th, noting she’s already in excellent shape while (jokingly) vowing to stay in shape to not upset him. I don’t believe she quit over Latin Lover’s comments, though it might have been just one issue in a pile of reasons to leave. She’s only appeared on three tapings this year; she was on the canceled Torreon show. Sexy Star had that odd appearance in IWRG in June; a singles match with Keyra came off as she was trying to prove what she could do if she got a chance to have an actual match. It was unclear if she was trying to prove it to AAA or herself. 

Gatubela’s farewell message talked about being unhappy and wanting to keep growing. She wrestled 51 matches on AAA TV since debuting as a surprise in May 2021, including some as Marvel Lucha Libre character Picadura Letal. (Her best match may have been under that character.) She won the 2023 Reina del Ring tournament, which wasn’t mentioned much past that show. She had six matches for the AAA mixed tag team titles with random partners. AAA occasionally teased directions with her – 2023 Guerra de Titanes began a Lady Shani/Sexy Star versus Dalys/Chik Tormenta feud that never got followed up on to pick one.  Sexy Star II seemed to exist because AAA wanted to keep the character on screen, but they never showed much interest in getting the character over. It may not have been an issue particular to her – AAA rarely has had plans for their women and even more sees them through – but she was not going to get over without a push. AAA did a half-effort job of getting the second Sexy Star over to their audience, and I was still explaining that it was a new person two years after she had taken the mask. If Gatubela wanted to progress as a luchadora, she either needed AAA’s booking philosophy to change or to wrestle someplace besides AAA. That second choice is a lot easier to accomplish.

Gatubela’s shown in-ring ability in AAA (and a clear love of Kenny Omega matches.) Her problem is that she’s good but not to a must-see level, and she has no strong identity because of the confusion over the Sexy Star character. She didn’t show the personality or the charisma to get over the Sexy Star character, but maybe that’ll be less of an issue under her mask. It would be less of an issue in other promotions; her style might fit better in CMLL. There have been rumors of Gatubela training with CMLL luchadoras, though wrestlers training with people outside of their promotion happens occasionally, and it just rarely is notable. (This is the same as Forastero hanging around Arena Mexico prior; it is a normal thing that only gets mentioned when related news or people try to stir something up.) CMLL took in Kira and Persephone right after they left AAA, and they seemed pretty happy with that decision. Gatubela said she still plans to work out her scheduled dates, which may mean nothing’s happening there for a while. Gatubela might also be looking at what’s happened with Aramis and Komander and hope she follows them. I think it’d be a long shot for her to get a WWE or AEW deal; she may need to improve to fit in those places, but besides, those groups tend to go for people who have built more prominent names, and she’s back to starting from scratch. They’re not entirely out of the question at some point. Gatubela was working US shows (mostly Texas) in addition to AAA work, so she may just end up being like Keyra and figure she’s better off controlling her schedule than working through AAA. Gatubela doesn’t even hint at money being an issue, but AAA running fewer shows means there’s less work.

I think there’s little chance the original Sexy Star will be brought back to reprise the character. Sexy Dulce, Baby Love, and Sagittarius had a match back on 09/22. Dulce and Baby Love both stopped working professionally with each other by the end of the match; it didn’t turn it until a total shoot, but they didn’t much to hide their issues. It struck me as funny, in a time is an infinite loop sense, that match in Monterrey lead into a moment to honor Martha Villalobos. The same Martha Villalobos was also honored directly after Sexy Dulce/Sexy Star I’s final match in AAA, she was in the ring right after the incident with Rosemary. Nothing’s changed, Sexy Dulce is the same person she’s always been and would quickly self-destruct in the same way if AAA thought of bringing her back. It is AAA, so I don’t rule it out.

I think if/when AAA introduces a new third Sexy Star, I’m not going to try to correct people on Twitter. Maybe AAA’s not going to learn a lesson here, but I can try to learn something about futility.

AAA

AAA’s mass to honor Antonio Pena took place Tuesday.

AAA finally released the full lineup for Heroes Inmortales on Wednesday afternoon. It was the same lineup that was announced a week ago.

Octagon Jr. was the first guest on Desayunado con Quetzalli.

IWRG

I didn’t go through the IWRG/Lucha Libre Boom stream until Tuesday, and I got a surprise. IWRG typically streamed the complete show of whoever is running Arena Naucalpan, be it themselves or another promoter. Sunday’s stream aired the first five matches, then cut to a replay of last year’s Castillo del Terror. It did not appear to be a technical issue. It is Mexican wrestling, so neither IWRG nor Lucha Libre Boom addressed the obvious issue, and that led to the fans guessing the most damaging answer – there were CMLL wrestlers in the top matches, and CMLL is no longer allowing their wrestlers to be streamed outside of their official channels. I have no idea if that’s the case, but I think it’s a reasonable assumption.

IWRG (THU) 10/03/2024 Arena Naucalpan
1) Águila Oriental & Sky Man vs Arceus & Fauno
2) Shamila & Tornado vs Águila Roja & Kali
3) ?, ??, ??? vs ????, ?????, ??????
Lucha Random
4) Hell Boy & Noisy Boy vs Aquiles & Spider Fly
5) Hijo del Fishman © vs Hijo de Canis Lupus [IWRG JUNIORS]
7th (?) defense

The main event is a rematch from January.

Big Lucha

Big Lucha (SAT) 11/02/2024 Bandidos Gym, Iztapalapa, Distrito Federal
1) Jack Evans vs Eli Isom
2) ? & Marishka vs Marianne & Sussy Love
Marishka will team with a Luchadora del Inframundo
3) Ricky Marvin vs Cometa Maya, ?, ??
El Campeonato Nacional Ligera 1971
4) Reiyel vs Black Skayde, Auzter, Helios, Uzumaki, Rey Orochi, Cósmico, Salvatore [Torneo Alas de Mitclantecuhtli]
5) ?, ??, ??? vs ????, ?????, ??????
Leyenda de Mictlan 3 v 3

Again, the gimmick here appears to be Big Lucha wrestlers doing gimmicks of deceased (or older) wrestlers. It is meant in tribute. I am sure someone will be offended. Wrestlers pictured include Black Shadow, Villano V, one of the Cavernicolas, Picudo, Love Machine, Brazo de Oro, Anibal, Kato Kung Lee, and a luchadora I can not quite identify. I can not imagine the Villano family being happy with someone wearing a Villano V mask, unless it’s one of them. I can not imagine the Brazos being happy with someone else wearing a Brazo de Oro mask, unless it’s them or they’re getting paid for it. I’m unsure if that’s a specific list of those who will “appear”. Estrella Blanca defeated Rodolfo Ruiz for the lightweight title in 1971 and I don’t see any of them pictured.

Other News

The viral video of the week is Metallica playing Los Luchadors at a concert in Mexico City. Or maybe it’s Konnan Big giving train boarding instructions.

Penta opened a new training facility on Monday, “Arena del Valle” in Ecatepec. This replaces his previous facility and looks to be bigger and more able to run shows in addition to training. He talked about it with Jose Manuel Guillen; a lot of the discussion is about starting up Penta trying to build income outside the ring to keep him going after wrestling is over and about the importance of having good wrestling trainers. Guillen gets about 25 minutes into the conversation before he starts asking questions about Penta’s US contract situation, and Penta gives no different answers than he gave with Lucha Libre Online previously; he’s presently under AEW contract, and the future is to be determined. He knows Tony Khan is looking out for his best interest, just like the Lucha Brothers are looking against their own, and he’s ready to wrestle in AEW if/when he’s asked. Penta’s focus was trying to position stories about him telling various AEW wrestlers that they were going to WWE months ago as incorrect gossip, false stories that got told one and then repeated everywhere. The video abruptly cuts off due to an apparent streaming issue before he finishes his point, but you can get the idea. I’m having trouble believing him on that one, but it’s what he’s got to say publicly, regardless. There’s stuff early in the discussion that kind of feels like talking about his future plans if you read into it.

The press conference for the new building mentioned the plan is for monthly shows at Arena del Vallie, with the first on 10/27 headlined by the Negociantes and the Parks. The arena portion seats 800 people, which is a good size building for an indie arena. The trainers at the gym will include Skayde, Guerrero Nocturno, Ikaro, and Arez. Monsther CLown and Panic Clown will also work at the gym, and Kahn del Mal also appeared at the press conference. Penta first posted photos of the new building on May 19th, which has been in the works for quite a while. Skayde’s Big Lucha departure seems to be related to him getting a better offer to work for Penta.

In another interview from the La Mole comicon, Blue Demon Jr. said he’ll (eventually) have a retirement tour and introduce a Blue Demon III. The new Blue Demon was listed as a “continuer” of the name, which certainly hints he’s not actually related. Demon Jr. was mostly pushing a new comic book and said he plans to be back in the ring in November.

RIOT’s next show is a Halloween-themed show on 10/31.

The world is healing if we’re back to getting a steady run of articles about Bolivia’s las cholitas luchadoras. La Jornada (Mexico) visits a group in El Alto, who say there is 20 luchadoras running shows on Thursday and Sundays. They also train three days a week. They’re paid up about 400 bolivianos ($58 USD) per match. Los Cholitas have wrestled around South America (Colombia, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, and Ecuador), and they’re having a conversation with a promoter in Mexico about coming during the conversation.

Mexico City indie luchador Indio Cholula tells a story about how he never actually wanted to be a wrestler when he started training, then ended up in for 50 years.

CMLL

CMLL (FRI) 09/27/2024 Arena México [CMLL, Grada, Grafico, Kaiser Sports, Telediario, The Gladiatores, thecubsfan, thegladiatores.com, Vavel]
1) Averno, Euforia, Mephisto b Máscara Dorada, Neón, Star Jr. © [CMLL TRIOS]   
14:16. Champions fall on 1st defense. Los Infernales become 37th champions and won the title shot over Los Guerreros Laguneros and Atlantis, Blue Panther and Octagon.
2) Último Dragóncito © b Pierrothito [CMLL MINI]   
10:44. 2nd defense. Pierrothito won shot over Angelito & Mercurio.
3) Magnus & Rugido © b Hijo del Villano III & Villano III Jr. [MEX TAG]    
11:02. 6th defense. Villanos won shot over Dark Panther/Hijo de Blue Panther and Difunto/Zandokan.
4) Sanely b Reyna Isis © [MEX WOMEN]    
12:48. 6th defense. Sanely won the vote over Hera & Princesa Sugehit. Seconds were Niebla Roja (Isis) and Mano Negra (Sanely.)
5) Templario © b Volador Jr. [CMLL MIDDLE]    
13:11. 2nd defense. Volador Jr. won the vote ahead of Dragon Rojo & Flip Gordon. Seconds were KeMalito and Magnus.
6) Atlantis Jr. © b Soberano Jr. [NWA LH]    
12:20. 2nd defense. Soberano Jr. won over Akuma & Barbaro Cavernario. Seconds were Atlantis and Euforia.
7) Rayo Metálico b Futuro © [MEX LIGHT]    
11:24. Futuro falls on 2nd defense. Rayo Metalico won the shot over Calavera Jr. I and Electrico. Seconds were Volador (Futuro) and Averno (Rayo Metalico.)

This was an overall successful and enjoyable show. There were some genuine surprises and most everything was entertaining. Nothing rose to the best match of the year level, but everything besides the minis match was at least pretty good. The minis match was two guys who’ve wrestled for 30 years deciding to wing it, and it not going well. It stood out harshly again the other matches. Matches 4 and 7 went the other way; those four wrestlers had seemingly worked very hard at working out their match from the moment they knew it was going to happen and the work showed. Reyna Isis has come through this way a few times now: she’s a mostly forgettable trios wrestler who can deliver a great match if it’s a big occasion and there’s some time to prepare for it.

Rayo Metalico and Futuro had the highest difficulty. The people who vote in CMLL’s fans – the people who vote in most any online poll – are always going to be small percentage of the overall fanbase. Most of the people in Arena Mexico had no idea why these guys were main eventing or even who they were. The match got whistles from the start, which seemed absurd – if you didn’t want to see the match, why wouldn’t you just treat it like the show was over and leave – but they were able to pull the fans in a few times. Rayo Metalico is about the level of a generic high flyer, there is still nothing he does that defines him as Rayo Metalico as opposed to dozens of other guys, but he had a really good night and a mostly clean one. I thought Futuro looked superb, just spectacular in his big moves and felt like the guy making the match work. It was his spots that got the most positive reaction in the match. (Volador and Averno being seconds seemed like a strong hint they may have had a role in putting this together; both Futuro & Metalico train in Volador’s classes.) Metalico winning was a genuine shock; there’s little chances he would’ve held a belt as historically important as the national lightweight championship at this point in his career without winning that fan vote. It’s also a belt that CMLL (and EMLL) historically hasn’t had much use for, so giving it to Metalico makes sense. It’s no real loss if CMLL forgets about it, and it solves the problem of CMLL having few lightweights rudos who would credibly beat Futuro for the title. Futuro should be moving up to bigger things in the welterweight division.

The other two title changes felt important. I’ve got theories about the trios title match (check the Sunday results.) Mano Negra doesn’t appear in Arena Mexico often, so him showing up to second his daughter Sanely was a signal she was winning the belt. I’m still not sold on Sanely as a pushed ruda but her variation of the dragon sleeper looked good as a new finish. That trios match was great, as was Atlantis/Soberano. And the women’s match so overachieved that it made my recommended list. Templario/Volador dragged early, picked up a lot midway through, but they’ve got better in them. Depredaores/Villanos was good but easily could’ve used more time. With seven matches all for titles, it seemed like CMLL just told everyone they had 12 minutes to work with – it was right for some and not exactly right for others.

Rayo Metalico said everything you’d expect about his win—it was the most significant moment of his career. He’d like to defend the lightweight title everywhere, and he will do his best to do so. Euforia emphasized that this wasn’t his win after his mask loss but a Los Inferanels win. The team was good enough to win the trios titles at any time; they finally got the chance. Sanely was as happy as I ever remember seeing her, static. She lived up to her promise of winning this title and taking it home as a prize to her father, who she said was even more excited than her about the win.

Toni Storm will be La Catalina’s opponent on 10/11. CMLL aired a clip of Storm from AEW, though no promo. Catalina and Storm’s stints in NXT overlapped in 2019/2020. They never wrestled but it’s at least possible they’ve gotten in the ring together before this match. (They’re also two people who were very unhappy at the end of their time in WWE, so there might also be a bond there.) Both are using a butt smash as a trademark move. I think Catalina is fine if she loses to Toni Storm; it’s just the overall balance of wins and losses between AEW and CMLL that’ll be a bit concerning. Still, CMLL’s likely to get another win on 10/25.

CMLL seems to favor AEW wrestlers with big personalities who can get over immediately with a casual audience. MJF fits that, PAC does, and Storm does as well. (Fletcher really did not, but CMLL got a title win, so that’s good enough.) I think CMLL will give Toni Storm the full black-and-white Timeless presentation if they can pull it off because that’s why they want her there. I wonder if Timeless Toni Storm ever did a movie with Pedro Infante.

CMLL (SAT) 09/28/2024 Arena Coliseo [CMLL]
1) Acero & Aéreo b Full Metal & Pequeño Polvora 
11:00. Pequeno Polvora snuck in a foul on Aereo. Aereo demanded a singles match next week.
2) Astral, Eléctrico, Emperador Jr. b Dr. Karonte I, Dr. Karonte II, Enfermero Jr. 
16:06.
3) Reyna Isis b India Sioux [lightning] 
8:19.
4) Barboza, Crixus, Rey Bucanero b Guerrero Maya Jr., Pegasso, Xelhua 
15:44. Straight falls for the rudos, after Xelhua and Guerrero Maya had issues. Maya appeared to be the more rudo of the two.
5) Explosivo, Fugaz, Star Black b Akuma, Dragón Rojo Jr., Valiente 
13:09
6) Esfinge, Místico, Star Jr. b Gran Guerrero, Último Guerrero, Zandokan Jr. 
15:23. Zandokan replaced Stuka Jr. on Tuesday. Mistico hit his close of third fall dive, rolled off screen, and seemingly just left through the front door to make this his next stop as the match finished. His team did win.

Those are some deep-cut angles. Guerrero Maya versus Xelhua is a match I’ve wanted to see since Xelhua became a thing but didn’t see how they were actually going to see it. Maya’s reaction was a lot like Valiente’s before he turned. His post-match promo came off as he still thought of himself as a tecnico, even while saying some rudo things towards Xelhua. Aereo and Pequeno Polvora are good but almost never ever pushed. CMLL does have that “World Short People Day” torneo coming up, and it’s almost about time for them to start building the New Year’s Day match. I don’t know that Aereo/Polvora is certain to be it but that’s about the range of stars usually included.

This show itself is an easy skip. Nothing moved past OK for me.

Mistico’s exit was the most mysterious but he probably didn’t have the toughest travel day. Barboza worked match 4 here, then must’ve gotten on a bus for six hours to get back to Guadalajara to main event the Sunday afternoon charity show there, and then probably got right back on a bus to get to Mexico City to train and wrestle on Tuesday. A rough schedule. The Guadalajara charity show was said to have drawn 2,000 people and raised 20,000 pesos for the children’s medical fun.

CMLL (SUN) 09/29/2024 Arena México [CMLL]
1) Diamond & Leono b Inquisidor & Sangre Imperial
2) El Audaz, Hijo del Pantera, Retro b El Coyote, Okumura, Pólvora
3) Cancerbero, Luciferno, Virus b Hombre Bala Jr., Max Star, Volcano
4) Kira, Skadi, Tessa Blanchard b Dark Silueta, Hera, Sanely
5) Dragón Rojo Jr. b Terrible
6) Atlantis Jr., Máscara Dorada, Titán b Ángel de Oro, Euforia, Niebla Roja

The Dragon Rojo stuff continues to play out like a Los Barbaros breakup angle happened, but we’ve never seen one on screen. Dragon Rojo talked post-match about not caring if he was a tecnico or rudo and taking out Terrible before going after Barbaro Cavernario. It sure seems like the programming department had split them up; they lost the belts, teamed once more, and then haven’t teamed on CMLL-booked shows since then. It comes off as CMLL decided they were breaking up Los Barbaros immediately, the tecnico team happened to be available to be champions, and the plan was always that they’d get them back on a rudo team at the first opportunity. (Los Infernales just happened to win the fan vote, it was a lucky coincidence Euforia got a big win after his bigger loss.) It’s totally unclear why CMLL decided it had to break up the trio and why they didn’t do an actual break up angle if they’re now wrestling each other.

Sunday, in a backstage promo at NJPW’s Destruction in Kobe’s show, Hiromu Takahashi demanded/begged for a match with Mistico to take place on NJPW’s 10/14 King of Pro Wrestling show in Ryōgoku Kokugika (Sumo Hall). Takahashi’s claim is that he always loses to La Mistica and he needs to beat Mistico. CMLL put out an emoji tweet Sunday night teasing the match, and then NJPW confirmed it was happening early Monday morning. This is the 20th Anniversary Mistico appearance in NJPW mentioned two weeks back on CMLL Informa. NJPW seems to be trying to load up that King of Pro Wrestling show even beyond a special Mistico guest appearance, especially to get international attention. Mistico/Takahashi is the opener, a rare position for both men. Takahashi would likely win a NJPW match over a CMLL wrestler in a vacuum, but NJPW does have that multi-promotion Wrestle Dynasty show on 01/05/2025 and Mistico figures to be a prominent part of that show.

Mistico will be on NJPW’s tour prior to King of Pro Wrestling. He’ll work four shows starting on 10/08. He’s working the same basic match on all the shows: Mistico & Ryusuke Taguchi versus Hiromu Takahashi & either BUSHI or Yota Tsuji. None of those shows are listed as airing on NJPW World.

The next big NJPW/CMLL announcement would be the teams for the Super Junior Tag League, which runs from 10/24 to 11/02. Titan will work those shows and it’s unclear if a full CMLL duo will be in the tournament. NJPW may not announce the teams until that 10/14 show.

I posted CMLL on Televisa Puebla Monday morning on DailyMotion, but they’re all stuck in the processing purgatory. I’ll re-encode and re-post them later, but none of the matches were all that interesting. No AMX uploads this week or next; CMLL streamed those matches live.

CMLL (TUE) 10/01/2024 Arena México
1) Leono vs Inquisidor
2) Capitán Suicida, Dragón de Fuego, Valiente Jr. vs Enfermero Jr., Grako, Nitro
3) India Sioux & Tabata vs Dark Silueta & Valkiria
4) Explosivo, Fugaz, Star Black vs Barboza, Difunto, Zandokan Jr.
5) Princesa Sugehit, Skadi, Tessa Blanchard vs Persephone, Reyna Isis, Zeuxis
6) Máscara Dorada, Místico, Neón vs Gran Guerrero, Stuka Jr., Último Guerrero

The calendar turns to October, and CMLL’s card changes from (sometimes) 16.66% women’s matches to 33.33% women’s matches. The Guerreros were runners-up in the Noches de Champions fan poll and face the kind of ex-trios champions a few days later. Explosivo and Barboza seem to be sticking around for the moment.

CMLL (TUE) 10/01/2024 Arena Coliseo Guadalajara
1) Lince De Baijo & Prince Drago vs Obek & Ray
2) Candela, Centinela, Hatanna, Magia Azul vs Sakura, Universys, Venus (Chihuahua), Zafiro
GDL/CDMX vs Juarez
3) Draego & Persa vs Leo & Omar Brunetti
4) Diablita Roja (Puebla), Lady Amazona, Lady Metal vs Lady Shadow, Llamarada, Miss Guerrera
Puebla versus Comarca Lagunera
5) Dark Magic, Espanto Jr., Raider vs Bestia Negra, Guerrero de la Muerte, Ráfaga
6) Atlantis Jr., Dulce Gardenia, Flip Gordon vs Averno, Bárbaro Cavernario, Euforia

The CMLL/Alto Voltaje Arena Monterrey show on Sunday drew the expected weak crowd; seemed less than 1,500 based on photos (with a lot of variance on that number.) Hechicero surprisingly beat Mistico in the main event. They teased as mask match for the 92th Aniversario; that will not happen. Alto Voltaje had flyers for an 11/02 date with Octagon, Flip Gordon, Barbaro Cavernario, La Catalina, Templario, and Tabata, They’re running Gimnasio Municipal Jose Navarro in the Monterrey suburbs for that one, a much smaller building.

CMLL (TUE) 10/01/2024 Arena Coliseo Guadalajara
1) Lince De Baijo & Prince Drago vs Obek & Ray
2) Candela, Centinela, Hatanna, Magia Azul vs Sakura, Universys, Venus (Chihuahua), Zafiro
GDL/CDMX vs Juarez
3) Draego & Persa vs Leo & Omar Brunetti
4) Diablita Roja (Puebla), Lady Amazona, Lady Metal vs Lady Shadow, Llamarada, Miss Guerrera
Puebla versus Comarca Lagunera
5) Dark Magic, Espanto Jr., Raider vs Bestia Negra, Guerrero de la Muerte, Ráfaga
6) Atlantis Jr., Dulce Gardenia, Flip Gordon vs Averno, Bárbaro Cavernario, Euforia

Guadalajara is running an all-women’s show sometime this month. It’s probably the Tuesday before the Grand Prix, as always, 10/22. Makes sense to bring in some new names to help fill out that show. Universys (sometimes Universis) was in Arena Coliseo Guadalajara last October. The rest of the Ciudad Juarez crew is making their debut. Zafiro was being pushed as a CDMX indie star for a moment – it seemed like it was for her look; promoters insisted she could wrestle too, and then you’d see her matches, and it was definitely for her look. She didn’t stick, retired for a bit, and came back. Sakura and Venus worked the dark match on the AAA TV taping; I guess they won’t be doing that in November. You might remember Venus losing her mask to Lady Shani on an AAA TV taping. Mas Lucha gave Sakura a lot of hype the year she was in Tornea Suprema and then I thought she was just OK. Maybe we’ll see more here. Or you will, I won’t get around to watching Guadalajara.

CMLL (FRI) 10/04/2024 Arena México
1) Angelito, Kaligua, Pequeño Magía vs Mercurio, Pequeño Olímpico, Pequeño Violencia
2) Magia Blanca vs Virus [lightning]
3) Kira, Lluvia, Tessa Blanchard vs Hera, Persephone, Sanely
4) Bárbaro Cavernario, Hechicero, Templario vs Magnus, Rugido, Volador Jr. [Relevos Increíbles]
5) Princesa Sugehit vs La Catalina, Zeuxis, Amapola, Náutica, India Sioux, Maligna, Olympia, Dark Silueta, Metálica [CMLL Universal de Amazonas, semifinal]

La Catalina and Zeuxis were the final two last year and will probably be the final two in this block. Sugehit is the only other person who has an on-paper chance of advancing. (Only in looking at this lineup did it click that India Sioux got La Vaquerita’s spot; CMLL spaced out the announcements to make that less obvious.

Next week’s Universal block has the six names in match three, plus Tabata, Valkiria, Reyna Isis and then I’m not sure. La Guerrera hasn’t worked in CMLL since the all women’s show in March, which suggests she’s out of CMLL. Marcela is still isn’t ready to return. Sexy Sol hasn’t worked in Arena Coliseo Guadalajara since April and showed up an indie Guadalajara show this weekend, so she might be out of CMLL. There’s a lot of Puebla, Guadalajara or Torreon women who could be back in for that spot. I believe Sexy Star II and AAA are on good terms and she is not jumping. I was thinking about asking the question to Twitter to see who I’m blanking on her but I figured I would get no good responses.

The semi-final and the lighting match should be good. The Mini Sky Team is together in the opener.

Atlantis Jr., Sanely, and Salvador Lutteroth were on N+’s Es La Hora de Opinar, hosted by Leo Zukerman. Atlantis Jr. and Sanely do many of these press because they appear engaging and professional and say nothing controversial. Lutteroth did say a few newsworthy things. They pushed CMLL as family-friendly entertainment put on by athletes who train very hard and something that represents Mexico to the world. Lutteroth said 18% of visitors to CMLL are foreigners. That’s lower than the number they usually give for tourists, but “tourists” could include additional domestic travelers. He also talked about wanting to appeal to children, citing success with their contest on Kid’s Day, where the kids dressed up as their favorite luchadors. He noted that the only thing he missed was that the fans didn’t have the creative (and profane) insults they had in the past because it’s such a polite place. (This may have stretched the truth a bit.) Lutteroth said their real competition is against all forms of entertainment, so the wrestlers must be more professional and train harder. Lutteroth also said strengthening its alliances with foreign partners was important for growing CMLL as a global brand. The most amazing part of the conversation was when Lutteroth revealed that La Cavernaria – the 80-year-old CMLL super fan – brings folders of information on foreign wrestlers and upcoming Mexican wrestlers to Arena Mexico. She’s apparently scouting people she thinks CMLL should bring in. I’m not sure even I’ll be doing that if I make it to 80.

GALLI’s 10/06 show with CMLL wrestlers has some significant changes. Templario, Mascara Dorada, Robin, and Neon are off the show. Blue Panther, Felino, Difunto, and Akuma have been added. This is still the effect of the work visa issues back in the spring; GALLI had been advertising those names on the shared hope that new work visas would arrive by now. No such luck.

MLW added Magnus to the announced talent list for their 11/09 show.

AEW put up a video with Chris Jericho talking about his return to CMLL.

AAA

AAA TV (SUN) 09/29/2024 Gimnasio Nuevo León Unido, Monterrey, Nuevo Leon [@Galactic094, AAA]
1) Hijo del Solar & Solar I b Tiger Universitario Jr. & Tigre Universitario
Tiger Universitario was honored after the match. Possibly a dark match.
2) Alan Stone, Bello Stone, Zumbido b Dulce Kanela, Jessy Queen, Pimpinela Escarlata
3) Dinámico b Charro Negro, Redimido, Tosscano, Drago
Drago was added to the match.
4) Flammer & La Hiedra b Dalys & Natalia Markova and Julissa & Valentina
Masha Slamovich was scheduled to team with Markova, Dalys teamed with her instead and Flammer was added to team with La Hiedra. Toxicas won when Hiedra put Valentina through a table. Hiedra & Julissa had issues with each other (and stopped selling) after the match.
5) Dave The Clown, Murder Clown, Panic Clown b Abismo Negro, El Fiscal, Psicosis
short match with Fiscal being put through a table. Psycho Circus want a trios title match.
6) Hijo Del Vikingo, Laredo Kid, Octagón Jr. b Belcegor, Emperador Azteca, Taurus
Alberto attacked Vikingo prior to the match, and Vikingo joined the match in progress. Laredo pinned Azteca. Mesias and Octagon Jr. brawled earlier in the night and after this match.
7) Alberto el Patrón, El Mesías, Pierroth Jr. b Cibernético, Dark Cuervo, Dark Ozz
Prior to match 4, Konnan, Dorian, KAOZ’s Alonso Botello, Valentina, Julissa, Alberto, Latin Lover and Cibernetico all did a in-ring bit. Alberto is apparently Mesias’s new disciple or maybe Mesias is in Alberto’s group. Alberto beat Ozz.

This taping is actually airing in Mexico after Heroes Inmortales, so the big angles they shot – Mesias/Octagon, the trios title match, maybe Alberto/Vikingo – may be for Guerra de Titanes in Juarez. Or they may never go anywhere at all, because it is AAA. Another way of putting it is Vikingo’s matches in GLEAT will take place well before this airs. This is his in-ring debut, if GLEAT airs on YouTube for free as usual, that’ll be the place most people will see him return. (I have no idea which order it’ll air in the US.)

The taping looked close to full in the carefully curated photo, which probably means it was a little less than that.

In the build-up to this show, Roberto Figueroa and Julissa seem to turn Latin Lover’s comments about AAA women into their own storyline. Figueroa talked about how Julissa was an unknown, a sort of “Mrs. X” for the AAA wrestlers. Julissa said that if she was Mrs. X, then La Hiedra was Mrs. XXXL. I don’t know if that had anything to do with the post-match, but Hiedra & Julissa were hitting each other and not really selling hitting each other in a pro-wrestling way. Julissa has had similar questionable moments with Tiffany in this post-WWE run, which came off as something to build towards matches, but no matches happened.

Masha Slamovich ended up working for Prestige Wrestling on Sunday instead, as a late addition. It’s possible that TNA’s changing schedules messed up plans to get her to Mexico, though it seems like getting to Monterrey shouldn’t have been a problem if she could get to Portland. I don’t know that anyone AAA fan missed her – AAA didn’t promote her outside of listing her name in the lineup – but it’s also strange AAA & KAOZ were bringing in someone who could so easily be missed. It’s also strange that Flammer wasn’t booked originally. AAA has talked a lot about how Las Toxicas are AAA’s most popular act with local promoters, they’re in a lot of demand, and then originally didn’t book two of them (Flammer and Maravilla) in their home town.

The “Lucha Libre AAA Border” Tijuana show on Friday looks like a success, much more than The Crash and EMW recently. I believe it’s the one AAA is behind, though you couldn’t necessarily tell from some of the results. They’re running again on 12/06. AAA being in charge would make some of the appearances notable; Keyra being here may mean she’s not working Todo x el Todo dates and could mean something about Myzteziz Jr.’s status with the promotion. (Myzteziz was scheduled to work Saturday in Puebla, and I haven’t found photos of his match.) Sexy Star worked in Tijuana and Puebla. I’m fairly certain her cryptic “I’m leaving you” Instagram post was actually about a personal relationship and not about AAA. If she just explained that she was now single, she would’ve gotten many more likes (and questionable DMs.)

Photos of an empty-looking building for the AAA show in Puebla are floating around. They are misleading. For whatever reason, people were mostly seated on the bleachers on one side of the ring, and almost no one was sat on the other side, so most of the photos show this vacant-looking building that’s unrepresentative of the turnout. (It’s about the same as some recent US TV tapings.) I looked around on Instagram stories, and I can see that the other side is pretty full. The promoter would probably like it better than 60% full, and it does seem like the Vampiro retirement has cooled down as a draw post-TripleMania Mexico City. Still, 60% is probably enough to get by; the local promotion immediately said they’d be running again in November.

AAA on Space was a filler episode, as expected. It was the sixth episode of AAA TV this year where they just didn’t have anything new to show and instead aired clips of old matches. That’s three TV tapings that AAA typically would’ve made money on, gotten work for their wrestlers, and built matches for the future that didn’t happen for reasons no one is explaining. This should be the final filler episode until the traditional holiday break.

There is no AAA on Space episode next Saturday. Space will air part of Heroes Inmortales live on Sunday, starting at 6 pm. AAA still hasn’t announced the full Heroes Inmortales card. It seemed like AAA would do it match by match, but then they just stopped. Maybe they thought it was too confusing with two tapings going on, but they hadn’t officially announced either title match as of Sunday night. The card probably makes little different to the attendance. They’re going to have a great-looking crowd because it’s a big building where most of the people are getting in free with admission to the fair, and the idea is to run important matches not just to draw but to make the winners look like big stars in front of that audience.

AAA will start Desayunado con Quetzalli (Bulnes) will begin a weekly internet interview show show on October 2nd at 10 AM. She did the same concept for WWE Espanol before she was let go a couple of years ago, and it’s a concept that seems to fit well with AAA. I presume it’s an Instagram show. The commercial for that show must’ve been produced by someone else, because it doesn’t look far more modern than AAA TV (or most wrestling) looks like.

Unimas aired part one of the Showcenter card. That show is two weeks behind Space now but will be one week behind soon; they’ve skipped all the filler episodes.

House of Glory announced Nic Nemeth versus Hijo del Vikingo on 10/18. It’ll air on Triller. I’ve been checking out a lot of AAA/CMLL people elsewhere late but I am good on Nic Nemeth matches for the moment.

Big Lucha

Big Lucha (SAT) 09/28/2024 Arena Big Lucha, Iztapalapa, Distrito Federal [Big Lucha, thecubsfan]
1) Visionario b Skayler, Tempo 
Scheduled as Auzter & Skyde vs Platino & Tempo. Skayde quit the promotion on Saturday morning (but probably had already decided he was quitting the promotion since he was in New York at the time.) Skyler & Visionario were introduced as a tag team, but this was a three way match.
2) Iku b Mexicano 
3) Cósmico & Helios b Mil Almas & Platino and Nordico & Reiyel and Bogdan Klimov & El Brujo and Diosa Nix & Marishka and La Bomba & Rey Orochi and Depayseman & Uzumaki and Forneo & Torito Negro [Copa Independecia] 
winner gets a tag title shot. Forneo & Toro returned to Big Lucha as the surprise final team, but were upset by Cosmico & Helios. They earned a tag team title shot later. Forneo said the Hell Flyers were still going after Delta Force.
4) Eli Isom, Kento, Takuma b Cometa Maya, Morfosis, Radioactivo 
Takuma demanded a shot at the BIG LUCHA MIXA champions Cometa Maya & Radiocativo following the win. Cosmico and Helios interrupted to say they had first rights. Radioactivo agreed, but ended up attacking Kento and Takuma. Mr. Big Lucha made it a three way match.
5) Flamita, Mr. Win, Ricky Marvin, Viajero b Big Tao Tao, Black Skayde, Elipse, Limbo 
show kicked with Big Tao Tao & Limbo explaining Tonalli and their scheduled mystery partner not being there; one was in the US and one was in South America, though they then changed it to South America and Africa. Flamita came out with partners to tell the truth: Tonalli was in Veracruz, Emperador Azteca was in Monterrey, and the surprise partner just didn’t want to team with them. Flamita said 4 v 2 is fair, Tao Tao is so big that he counts as 3. Elipse and Black Skayde joined everyone in the ring to criticize the Black Generation but offered to team with them in the main event since they also hated the tecnicos. Tao Tao and Limbo unhappily accepted. Flamita pinned Tao Tao with a 450; Tato Tao seemed shaken up after the match.

I skimmed through most of this show, but I’d say match 4 is worth making time to watch and match 5 is if you just want something to watch. I like seeing Forneo here if he’s going to be bouncing around places and I’m almost amused he never had to stop wearing the same red gear wherever he went.

Big Lucha said they’d be back in October, and announced a special Dia del Muertos show on 11/02 show. The video and the announcement seemed to hint at various wrestlers using old famous gimmicks from the past. I don’t know how it will go over to have someone as a Kato Kung Lee if it’s not specifically endorsed by Kato Kung Lee, to pick one person shown. They also announced a Big Lucha versus Super X show coming at some point; I’m not sure if that’s the October show or some other date.

Earlier Saturday, Skayde announced he’s decided to move on from Big Lucha. His farewell statement cites being unhappy with how he’s been supported (or not) recently. Skayde’s trained at many places and moves on fairly often, but it’s another signal that Big Lucha is a promotion in flux, at best. The Big Lucha announcers were complimentary towards Skayde during the broadcast, so there was no harsh breakup on their side.

Other News

Mas Lucha has their Mas Lucha Suprema on 10/19.

Mas Lucha (SAT) 10/19/2024 Arena Lopez Mateos
1) Sol vs Black Shadow II, Shere Khan, Maniak Cop, X-Devil, Solaris, Kundra, Alfa Jr., Dragón Suicida, Villareal [Torneo INJUVE]
2) Mary Caporal, Nix, Princesa Azul, Satania vs Bengalee, Julissa, Quimera, Zuzu Divine
3) Hijo del Pirata Morgan & Pirata Morgan vs Demonio Infernal & Fresero Jr.
4) Aeroqueen vs Faby Apache, Flammer, India Mazahua, Lola González, Renee Michelle, Sagitarius, Vanilla Vargas [Torneo Suprema, torneo]

That’s a normal group of people until you get to 65-year-old Lola Gonzalez and US wrestler Renee Michelle. There’s probably an Apache/Flammer final, which might be better than TripleMania or might have even more interference.

The Mole comic convention took place in Mexico City this weekend, with a lot of luchadoras having booths and doing interviews. At the show, Blue Demon Jr. told La Tijera Lucha libre that he was very hurt by El Hijo del Santo calling him a toxic person, saying that he helped El Hijo del Santo with many issues, supported him when Santo got vetoed from CMLL and AAA. Demon is angry about Santo’s comments and calls him toxic and narcissistic Demon mentions he had surgery for a sports hernia in July and is still a while away from returning.

A documentary called “Quien mato a Shocker?” (Who killed Shocker) will debut at film festival DocsMX in on October 12th and 13rd. I believe the last update was Shocker is in rehab and is not dead, though he may be more about the death of their professional career. Shocker was featured in both the Lucha Mexico documentary and the Los Luchadors reality series, both of which would’ve been taped when he was well trapped by his addictions. Lucha Mexico has him talking a little bit about it in one scene if, I recall right, but in a way where you wouldn’t know the serious of the issue unless you came into the movie with prior information. Shocker having addiction issues was well known for many years, but I don’t think anyone (film-makers and Shocker himself) were eager to put it on screen until life forced it to be that way. Shocker’s descent spilled that problem out in the world, and I suspect this documentary goes into more depth on that.

Sabu did make it to Mexico. To stand in the corner and not physically get involved, but that’s till more than I would’ve guessed.

Segunda Caida writes about recently posted early 90s apuesta matches.

El Grafico has an interview with Ojo de Tigre.

CMLL

The official card order is how I had it on Tuesday. If I was this accurate about polling in general, I could really make something of myself, maybe change my name to Nate.

CMLL (FRI) 09/27/2024 Arena México
1) Máscara Dorada, Neón, Star Jr. © vs Averno, Euforia, Mephisto [CMLL TRIOS]
1st defense. Los Infernales won the title shot over Los Guerreros Laguneros and Atlantis, Blue Panther and Octagon
2) Último Dragóncito © vs Pierrothito [CMLL MINI]
2nd defense. Pierrothito won shot over Angelito & Mercurio.
3) Magnus & Rugido vs Hijo del Villano III & Villano III Jr. [MEX TAG]
6th defense. Villanos won shot over Dark Panther/Hijo de Blue Panther and Zandokan/Difunto
4) Reyna Isis © vs Sanely [MEX WOMEN]
6th defense. Sanely won the vote over Hera & Princesa Sugehit.
5) Templario © vs Volador Jr. [CMLL MIDDLE]
2nd defense. Volador Jr. won the vote ahead of Dragon Rojo & Flip Gordon.
6) Atlantis Jr. © vs Soberano Jr. [NWA LH]
2nd defense. Soberano Jr. won over Akuma & Barbaro Cavernario
7) Futuro © vs Rayo Metálico [MEX LIGHT]
2nd defense. Rayo Metalico won the shot over Calavera Jr. I and Electrico

This is year 5 of this concept. In past years:

• 2023: 1 title change (1 vacant title)
• 2022: 1 title change
• 2021: 1 title change (2 vacant titles)
• 2020: 1 title change

Where’s the title change on this one? The minis title could change forever and it doesn’t seem to matter. There will be a lot of fan support for the tag titles. My guess is Soberano is the new Light Heavyweight champion. Atlantis Jr. is the Ring of Honor TV champion so he’s covered now. Soberano Jr. is the most important rudo in the promotion, he’ll have plenty of people to defend against if he wins, and that’s a place to switch things up. Both that match and Volador/Templario should be great, and so might be the opener if it isn’t worked like an opener. Futuro/Metalico will be fascinating.

Barbaro Cavernario being included as a candidate is weird because he’s probably in the UK as this show is happening. His weekend schedule is the British J Cup on Saturday and a second RevPro show on Sunday. Cavernario faces Lio Rush in the first round, which could finish either way. (Though I’m picturing Lio going for that backwards springboard stunner but instead falling into la cavernaria instead.) He wrestles Zozaya on Sunday.

Julio Cesar Rivera mentioned a new tradition for the Women’s Universal championship on Informa: last year’s winner will face an international opponent the following October. That means La Catalina, the 2023 winner, will face an opponent to be announced at a date to be announced. Catalina said she was excited (for whatever this is.)

There’s certainly a chance that the opponent to be announced is Mercedes Moné. I don’t know it as a fact and am not reporting that, but she seems interested in wrestling in Arena Mexico. I believe CMLL would’ve likely gotten a Mone/Vaquer match sometime in October, and I’m less certain if that’ll still happen with Vaquer moving on elsewhere. Can’t be sure of any of it. I do feel a bit more certain that, whoever and whatever the announcement is, there’s a pretty good chance of coming tonight if it’s a woman with AEW. There are four Fridays in October and it’s an easy logic puzzle.

• 10/04: ???
• 10/11: any star from AEW would have to make a very long trip to Tacoma to make their PPV
• 10/18: CMLL has the Universal tournament final booked as the likely main event
• 10/25: CMLL has the Grand Prix final booked as the main event

If it is 10/04, CMLL will probably put out a video tonight to explain it.

CMLL announced the complete teams for the 10/25 Grand Prix:

Team Mexico

• Lluvia
• Sanely
• Zeuxis
• Hera
• Reyna Isis
• Amapola
• Dark Silueta
• Princesa Sugehit
• Kira
• Skadi

Team World

• Tessa Blanchard
• La Catalina
• Unagi Sayaki
• Red Velvet
• Samantha Black
• Sumika Yanagawa
• Willow Nightingale
• Viva Van
• Alex Windsor
• Persephone

Many outside Team World members will be on shows before and after the 10/25 Grand Prix, but CMLL hasn’t said exactly who will be in and when.

I’m surprised Olympia isn’t on Team Mexico. She’s been the most improved women’s wrestler over the last year; I would’ve picked her over her sister Hera. (It’s a strange enough decision that I wonder if CMLL’s sending her somewhere or she has a bodybuilding commitment.) Samantha Black is the least-known woman included; she’s from the Costa Rica Embassy, but it makes some sense given how often CMLLs sent wrestlers to that promotion. Many people saw Alex Windsor’s name pop up and assumed it related to her partner, Will Ospreay, coming in. I suspect he’ll be by Arena Mexico eventually, regardless, but I believe Windsor is on the list because CMLL wanted a good wrestler with a UK (or England) flag, and she’s a good wrestler. I’ve been thinking about how Ultimo Guerrero is surely working that MLW show in Cicero because Lluvia is booked, so I’m not faulting people for thinking along those lines, but CMLL’s goal with this tournament is to get as many flags as possible represented and work with as many of their partners as they can. Viva Van being a Vietnamese rep and Red Velvet representing Colombia is the stuff that’s really important to CMLL. Velvet came across very well in her interview on Informa. CMLL also likes to have different people involved every year for the novelty of it, even if the previous people get over, but Velvet immediately clicked as someone who they’d be interested in bringing back if she does well.

Tessa Blanchard won last year’s Women’s Grand Prix over Stephanie Vaquer, the first time the match came down to two people on the same team. Claudio Castagnoli won it for Team World in the Men’s Grand Prix. I can’t see Mexico losing three straight of these or two in one calendar year. I also don’t see an obvious winner on the Mexico side. Zeuxis is probably ruled out as champion. Maybe Dark Silueta, maybe Lluvia, perhaps Kira or Skadi if they want to go crazy. I don’t feel strongly about any answer, but it has to be a Team Mexico celebrating with the trophy at the end.

CMLL also aired a new video trailer for Dia del Muertos. The dates aren’t new, but it’s been a month or so CMLL first mentioned them

• 10/28 Arena Puebla
• 10/29 Arena Coliseo Guadalajara
• 10/29 Arena Mexico
• 11/01 Arena Mexico
• 11/02 Arena Coliseo
• 11/03 Arena Mexico

Is it really Dia del Muertos if it lasts a whole Semana? Anyway, the actual news here is the trailer states all these shows will air for Fan Leyendas. The 10/28 Puebla and 11/03 Arena Mexico shows are the ones that normally don’t stream. Not sure if this means Guadalajara will return to airing live; I wouldn’t bet on it.

The final CMLL Informa announcement was first on the show: La Vaquerita is retiring. She will wrestle a final match on the 11/03 Dia del Muertos show – the card featuring wrestlers who’ve lost their mask swearing them again for one night – but she’s otherwise done. (Maybe she’ll put her boots in the chest.) The timing of this announcement is because she’s making the same switch Metalico (Tigre Infante) and Olimpico have made in the last few years and becoming a referee, and she’ll start that as part of CMLL’s women’s wrestling month in October. CMLL had Princesa Sugehit and Sanely work as one-night referees on International Women’s Day earlier this year but has not had a full-time female referee in Arena Mexico since Estela Molina from 1994-1996. Molina would only referee women’s matches in a period where CMLL would typically have TV time for only three matches a week; the women’s matches would never make that cut. CMLL has had semi-retired luchadora Super Estrella referee matches in Arena Coliseo Guadalajara in recent years, but also only women’s matches. MicroAngel worked as a referee too, but just for the Micro matches. I presume that’ll be the same situation with La Vaquerita; CMLL didn’t outright say it, but they may have thought it obvious.

La Vaquerita had been in CMLL since 2013, as a ruda for the first few months before switching to the tecnica side. She was around working smaller promotions for a while before that, and says she’s retiring due to accumulated injuries. La Vaquerita was never pushed much and never was in a title match. Her “biggest” days were losing her mask to Zeuxis in a multi-woman cage match and losing her hair to Reyna Isis. She was passable as a depth member of the roster at one point, and that was fine enough when CMLL’s goal with the women’s division was passable matches. That goal seems to have changed (slightly), Vaquerita was booked less often this year, and getting the referee job is a blessing if she wants to stay around CMLL. I will probably not remember many of Vaquerita’s matches. I will remember her wearing pride flag colors on her gear in the last couple of years. CMLL does not acknowledge any of their wrestlers being part of the LGBT+ community or celebrate that identity in the way that do others. CMLL knew what Vaquerita was doing with those colors and didn’t tell her to stop it, which is a point in their favor. It still took a lot of bravery on her part to wear those colors.

(CMLL Informa was back to pretending the show was live…and then someone hit the wrong button and reset the show to the beginning about 10 minutes in. It’s OK if it’s just a taped show, that’s fine. But I’m biased – captions work better if it’s a premiere and that helps me a bit.)

I told myself I didn’t have time to listen to Part 2 of Soberano Jr.’s podcast on Thursday. I had other things to do, so I’d wait until Friday or over the weekend to really dig into it. I hit play at 12:03 AM Friday, so I technically didn’t lie to myself. I lied to my soul but that happens a lot. I’m very tired today, like I stayed up too late and didn’t get enough sleep. Like part 1, there’s a lot in there and we’d be here all day if I tried to write about it all. Soberano Jr. answers all questions while taking long and detailed routes to those answers. Soberano Jr. treats all matches as if they’re a shoot but is incredibly forthcoming on everything else.

• Soberano Jr. says CMLL offered him a three-year deal last year. He says he wanted a five-year deal, CMLL said no, and he ended up signing the three year one. And then “certain issues have arisen.” Soberano Jr. admits that he’s very outgoing with his emotions – if he’s happy, people see him happy, if he’s angry, people see him angry – and that has gotten him into trouble. He still feels very happy to be in CMLL, to represent those letters. He notes that there are people who say he should go to WWE, but those guys are actors to him, and the only place to be a true luchador is CMLL.
  • I wonder if that three year contract is the answer to that “NJPW contract” Soberano says he signed, like there’s some connection there.
• Soberano Jr. hints around at that trouble a bit. There’s an admission that something happening (breaking the trophies) at Homenaje a Dos Leyendas was the end of Los Principes and also perhaps why Rocky Romero hasn’t been around as much. (Soberano seems to prefer to wrestle Templario than team with him though.) He also sideways addresses his issues with Ultimo Guerrero, calling him a rival but noting he still respects him as a wrestler and a hard hitter. That’s part of Soberano Jr. bringing up, entirely on own his own, his other big issue of the last few years: going on Twitter and ripping Ultimo Guerrero as having too much influence in the promotion.  Soberano Jr. acknowledged that got him in a lot of trouble with CMLL, and that it was an unprofessional act. All of this stuff requires listeners to know a bit what’s going on, Soberano doesn’t explain it full and they’re not topics Alexis Salazar is looking to bring up, but it’s remarkable to see addressed at all.
  • The Ultimo Guerrero/Soberano beef may go all the way back to Magia Blanca and Bandido coming in. Remember, Soberano truly respects the CMLL veterans who’ve been there forever and the youngsters he’s seen work for a spot in training classes for years. Soberano viewed Bandido & Magia Blanca as being given really good spots without having done that work, because they were training at Ultimo Guerrero’s (outside) school and they were his boys from Torreon. Soberano also felt like those guys were the golden boys and he’d be blamed if anything went wrong while working with them.
  • Those old Torreon issues never fade away. Soberano Jr. said that his first Gran Alternativa as a padrino was with Halcon Suriano Jr., the guy he got into a legit fight with they were both kids. They were professional with each other but Soberano still clearly didn’t like him much. It’s a 180 degree difference when he talks about teaming with Vaquero Jr. the following year, how much fun it was and how he really wanted to do well to help the young guy (who is actually older than him) succeed.
• Two more stories and then you’ll have to listen to it to find out how Soberano Jr. got good at merch and see if you can decipher which ex-CMLL act he took a shot at
  • Soberano Jr. broke up with his then-girlfriend on the day of Copa Dinastia 2022. (Soberano Jr. says he no longer thinks about meeting someone and falling in love, he’ll be happy if it happens, but he’s really in love with his mask and being Soberano Jr.) Soberano was living with that girlfriend; she was keeping the place, and he rolled up to Arena Mexico with every piece of clothing he owned in the back of his car. Euforia realized something was up, Soberano wouldn’t tell him (because he didn’t want to move back home), and then finally broke down and did so about five minutes before the match. Euforia gave him a pep speech, told him had to separate Soberano Jr. from the guy underneath the mask, and they went out there and won. Soberano Jr. slept that night in a hotel with nothing in his bed except the trophy he had just won.
  • Soberano Jr. dealt with sciatica nerve issues through 2023, though it went away near the end of the year. He wrestled on Christmas Day, went out to dinner with his mother and sister, went to bed, and woke up in extra pain. His left leg was dead, he felt like his back was messed up to where he was a hunchback, everything felt out of place. Soberano called the office, kept canceling bookings and kept trying to get treatment done, but nothing was working. CMLL insisted Soberano come in for the 01/12 show – they’d already postponed Soberano’s match with Templario once. Soberano gives in and does it, and everyone there can see he’s messed up. Alexis says they saw him and thought there was no way he was going to wrestle. Soberano felt terrible, was scared he wouldn’t even make it down the stairs, but started putting on his gear and his oil as the semi-main went on. Something – Alexis and Soberano think “the power of the mask,” and I think “adrenaline” – happened, and Soberano suddenly felt everything move back into place, and he felt back to normal, and everything was fine.
    • This is not a story that reflects CMLL positively. Soberano did note earlier positive changes in CMLL around the time of his 2022 knee injury, saying the “current administration” greatly improved the health care for the wrestlers. He think the “previous administration” cared too, but it’s much more professional now, talking about how he can rehab seven days a week if they want.

MLW adds Hechciero and NAME TO FILL IN ON FRIDAY (Okumura) to their 11/09 show. It remains funny that the person who writes these descriptions for their website doesn’t follow CMLL, as they put together the only introduction to Hechicero that is going to mention him beating Rey Bucanero in 2016 while not mentioning Hechicero’s highly acclaimed mask match a couple of weeks ago. Or it’s on me for not updating the luchawiki.

It’s buried late in this interview but Zeuxis still hates that La Catalina won the Universal tournament last year. She doesn’t think Catalina was worthy; she thinks CMLL should’ve picked her. La Catalina was told about the comments and called it envy and disrespect.

Titan says he felt his career was going nowhere and he was close to giving up, then he started to go to church, and he started to climb the ranks of CMLL. He remains a big fan of God.

AAA

AAA is pushing tonight’s spot show in Tijuana harder than most tapings, with social media video promos from many wrestlers. I still don’t understand what’s happened there to cause the latest split, but AAA clearly wants it to succeed where the other recent Tijuana shows have struggled to draw.

AAA also has a TV taping on Sunday.

AAA TV (SUN) 09/29/2024 Gimnasio Nuevo León Unido, Monterrey, Nuevo Leon
1) Tiger Universitario Jr. & Tigre Universitario vs Hijo del Solar & Solar I
2) Alan Stone, Bello Stone, Zumbido vs Dulce Kanela, Jessy Queen, Pimpinela Escarlata
3) Dinámico vs Charro Negro, Redimido, Tosscano
4) Dalys & La Hiedra vs Masha Slamovich & Natalia Markova and Julissa & Valentina
5) Dave The Clown, Murder Clown, Panic Clown vs Abismo Negro, El Fiscal, Psicosis
6) Hijo Del Vikingo, Laredo Kid, Octagón Jr. vs Belcegor, Emperador Azteca, Taurus
7) Cibernético, Dark Cuervo, Dark Ozz vs ?, El Mesías, Pierroth Jr.

Because AAA is a bonkers company, this probably will not air for three weeks until after the next taping. It’s a cross-promotion show with local promoter KAOZ, contributing to the strange lineup. This is the same night as a CMLL show in Arena Monterrey – one CMLL has been promoting slightly more often in recent days. CMLL and AAA could draw the same, and CMLL’s crowd would look much worse because they’re running the giant arena. I doubt CMLL will draw as much; AAA’s show matters in a way that CMLL one does not.

There’s no obvious follow-up to the big eye angle without Alberto around, but Latin Lover and Konnan are listed on the poster, so they’ll do something. The draw of the main event is to find out who Mesias has recruited as a new partner. The semi-main is about Vikingo returning and teaming up with his old partners. Abismo Negro Jr. broke up with his partners back in Mexico City but they’re still trios champions; AAA may just do the title change here as a surprise to get out of that issue. I do not expect a lot from the women’s three-way tag or most of the early matches on the card.

TNA had TV tapings scheduled for Friday and Saturday. Those are now Sunday and Monday due to severe weather. That’s an issue for Laredo Kid, since he’s previously mentioned he was supposed to work both those and this TV taping. I think we all understand that Laredo Kid will likely be used in an enhancement role on those TNA tapings, if he’s used at all. He’d be in one of the featured matches on the AAA taping; they also might run an angle to explain why he’s challenging for AAA’s top title on the next show. I’m not sure which taping he’ll be on.

I watched Jonathan Gresham versus Laredo Kid on Impact Thursday; I hit the cancel button on my TNA+ subscription, but there were still a few days left – like maybe a week or so. The match was good! It was really a showcase for Gresham’s mat skills and style of wrestling. Laredo Kid got a little shine and had the San Antonio crowd behind him, which made it fun enough. He never had a chance of winning and it was about seven minutes; that’s more or less what I was hoping to get out of Laredo Kid/KUSHIDA match from a few weeks back. I did eventually get what I wanted out of the subscription price. It will still be a very long time before I give TNA any more money but I no longer wish for their doom. Seriously, I wanted to note they did make it right for one angry blogger (though I doubt they were doing it for that angry blogger.)

IWRG

IWRG (THU) 09/26/2024 Arena Naucalpan [IWRG]
1) Celta, Indra, Samodeo b Astralis, Cosmic, Sinapsis
2) Ángel Kid, Samoa Kid, Titanium b Fobia, Pitbull, Shura King
3) Maggie Girl & Miss Fantasy b Dannesa & Shamila
Hijo del Diablo helped his partner Maggie Girl win. Shamila left injured.
4) Águila Oriental, Black Dragón Ng, Hijo De Black Dragón vs Ángel Negro, Rayo De Plata Jr., Rey Anubis
no finish listed.
5) Fauno, Histeryosis, Príncipe Centauro, Rey Aztaroth, Sky Man, Súper Boy, Tornado, Vudu Max b As Negro, Black Extreme, Bogar, Demencia Jr., Escudero Jr., Extreme Fly, Geruz, King Pegasso [Torneo Fill 116]
FILL versus San Luis Potosi. Mamba helped Team FILL win.

The IWRG results are down to mentioning one person who won in the match. They didn’t even do that with the fourth match. It’s not great. I could go through the video and do it myself, but I don’t got the time.

Spider Fly has been released from the hospital.

Sunday’s show is a Lucha Libre Boom card with the Blue Panthers and the Octagons main eventing.

Lucha Brothers

There were always two ways this could’ve gone once it became blindingly obvious the Lucha Brothers had agreed to WWE deals while under AEW contract.

1. Tony Khan could’ve let Fenix and Penta go when their contracts expired, a pro-labor move but establishing that WWE can actively pursue any AEW talent at any time without consequence
2. Tony Khan could’ve held Fenix and Penta under AEW contracts as long as possible to send a message about negotiating with another company while still under contract. This is a pro-AEW move but definitely not a pro-labor one.

AEW seems to have chosen option 2. The Wrestling Observer Newsletter today reports AEW will enforce a clause in Fenix’s contract that allows them to extend a contract for the amount of time missed due to injury. That’ll tack nearly a year on Fenix’s AEW contract; he’ll probably be with them until summer 2025. AEW has seemed upset with how this all went down, so taking the harsher choice seemed more likely. It still is a harsh choice. It doesn’t seem like AEW has any plans to actually use Fenix; they’ve taken the Lucha Brothers out of all the videos they use on TV, they seemed to have pulled them out of their official program at the last second. He’s just going to sit home at year.

Which likely means Penta is going to sit at home for a year. He’s still under a AEW contract, he will be out of it soon enough, and everyone expects him to sign with WWE as soon as it’s possible. Nothing stops WWE from putting Penta on TV – except that they thought they were getting a tag team, and he’s not a tag team. They also don’t have many ideas of what to do with Mexican wrestlers outside of sticking him in one of two groups where he’ll be less over by the time Fenix is ready to show up. Penta milling around on WWE Main Event is not a great idea. Penta will get himself over if given a chance. Even if not given it but the outcome here seems much more likely to be “Both Fenix and Penta collect checks at home for months” than “WWE lets go of ingrained stylistic biases and runs with Penta as a big time solo act in the way AEW never did,” as much as we’d all like it to be that second option.

I think it’s more than fair to have hard feelings about AEW messing with the Lucha Brothers like this, but also to have not exactly warm feelings about how the Lucha Brothers have handled the situation. Tony Khan had been public with his anger over WWE messing with contracted AEW talent and made it clear he would fight back somehow. The Lucha Brothers strolled right in the middle of the fight, maybe figuring it wouldn’t affect them and figuring wrong. The Lucha Brothers are under no obligation to AEW beyond whatever is stated in their contracts and do not owe AEW anything beyond that. Still, they also should’ve been aware of the vibe enough to be straightforward with AEW about what their plans were – all the reporting so far suggests AEW management was last to find out. I’m sure we’ll hear more about that, but it seems like the way this breakup was handled is the core issue. Daniel Garcia might also be headed WWE’s way, and AEW saw him out on TV because it appears he was a bit more forthcoming in his internal decision-making. Again, maybe there will be more reporting and we’ll learn more about the details here. I would also rather see wrestlers wrestle than sit on the sidelines. I don’t have an issue with anyone being upset with AEW about this. It just has to be noted the Lucha Brothers seem to have put themselves on the sidelines.

The same thing applies on Konnan on this. Konnan going on his podcast and implying he worked behind the scenes to convince the Lucha Brothers to jump to WWE as revenge for AEW wronging him seemed like a bad idea at the time and worse now. It was probably not a wise decision from someone who always likes to be a master planner, but I’m sure it felt great to do in the moment. Still, the Lucha Brothers are adults – Konnan can nudge them however he wants and say what he wants, but they’re making the decisions to go where they want and how they want, and the responsibility is on them if it did or did not work out well.  Konnan probably shouldn’t have started doing a touchdown dance before getting across the end line because it sure looks like they all got tackled at the one. They’ll get in anyway.

This is at least the third contract that has gone lousy for these two. They had issues with AAA and with Lucha Underground. Those situations were linked, but they’ve acquired much knowledge about contract clauses. If any two people should’ve been cautious in signing any agreements with wrestling promotions, it definitely should be the tag team that has had to change their names every few years. The Lucha Brothers pattern instead has been them making the move that feels right for them and then paying a price later on. It doesn’t look like the right choice today, but it’ll probably turn out fine. They had some hard times dealing with AAA and Lucha Underground and came out of it even stronger and richer. This situation is a setback, and they’ll probably be even better off when they both can sign that WWE deal. It always seems to work out because they’re good at what they do, and few can do it like they can. Maybe this will be the one bad time, but I doubt it.

The one upside here? The Lucha Brothers are in WWE until 2025 anyway, but at least the correct Lucha Brother is free. Fenix has lived in the US long enough now that it’s at least possible he got around to getting citizenship or something, allowing him not to need a foreign work visa. (Nothing is for sure with Fenix, though.) The act would have to wait until at least Penta got off his AEW work visa and onto a WWE one, and that will end up some of the time anyway. I’m unsure if Stephanie Vaquer has gotten hers yet. WWE showed her on NXT this past week to get some buzz, and they’ve done a great job of keeping her name alive while she’s been unable to wrestle in the US. Her caption listed her in Chile. I’m not following NXT gossip closely enough to know if she was truly in Chile or backstage at the WWE PC. It seemed like everyone assumed the later, though I wonder if NXT just wanted a big moment to end their run on USA. That work visa wait is unfairly long and a more significant issue than contract clauses.

Other News

Mas Lucha posted an interview with Aramis from a show in Denver back in August. The big thrust is that Aramis said he was pausing his Mexican appearances because he’s not sure he can fulfill those commitments with other things going on, and he wants to make shows he’s been booked for. This turned out to be correct as an issue; his next scheduled match in Mexico was for Coliseo Coacalco, and he missed that because Hologram was wrestling before a Jaguars game. Both Aramis and interviewer Jose Manuel Guillen talk around the fact that Aramis is Hologram but Aramis is very excited about how his career is going. He reveals that when he went to AAA’s office to give his notice early this year, someone there told him, “Don’t get your hopes up.” Aramis laughs about that and turns it into an inspirational message – people should get their hopes up and dream big, but they must also understand they need to work hard and sacrifice a lot to reach those dreams. He feels he’s sacrificed a lot. I see this as another thing AAA management was wrong about. (Before you go there, Konnan’s usually a remote worker and not AAA’s office – it was likely the other guy.)

El Jornada has an article about the tough conditions of luchadors, but it’s also rife with factual errors. The “Rey Destroller fell wrong and died” is an issue for me – I’ve seen the video, he did not fall on his head – but there’s other stuff that non-blog-people should’ve caught. Fresero Jr. is listed as a former CMLL wrestler, LA Park is claimed to be Queretaro, Dick Angelo 3G is listed as “Black Angelo 3G”, and “Stephanie Baker” is a former Chilean wrestler now with WWE. They quote Tony Salazar as saying a top wrestler can make 70 to 80,000 pesos per match, but I don’t know if that’s right with everything else being off.

The headline of a press release, “The Iconic Mexican Luchador Enters the World of iGaming through SCCG NextGen Initiative“, contains many words that I don’t understand. Still, I’ve discovered that the Santo mask will be plastered on online casinos and sports betting in exchange for a few dollars. I get the explanation of why Hijo del Santo doesn’t want to lower himself to appearing in CMLL (or AAA) again after the way they felt he treated him, but if you’re willing to sell the Santo image in this not-especially great way for a few extra bucks, I wish he would do a thing that would make his fans happy. It’s just not going to happen.

The WON also reports the Todo x el Todo show as “less than 5,000 paid”, with people getting in free after the show started. 4,000 people is a strong number for a non-CMLL/AAA show in the Mexico City area, but not one that warrants running Arena Ciudad de Mexico or coming back in April.

Septimo Dragon won a tournament.

A profile of Mexico State luchador Tom Mix Jr.

ABC 7 Chicago has a profile of Chicago luchadora Paloma Vargas. Paloma is very very loud.

There was a party for luchadors in Fresnilo, Zacatecas to celebrate Dia de Lucha Libre.

CMLL

CMLL (MON) 09/23/2024 Arena Puebla [CMLL, Depor Puebla, Mano A Mano, Porra Fresa]
1) Astro & Black Tiger b Prayer & Rencor
2) Arkalis & Meyer b El Perverso & Multy
Meyer replaced Rayo Metailco.
3) Rey Samuray & Xelhua DQ Felino & Felino Jr. 
Felino Jr unmasked Xelhua, who demanded a singles match
4) Hijo del Villano III, Villano III Jr., Zandokan Jr. b Akuma, Gemelo Diablo I, Gemelo Diablo II 
5) Averno, Euforia, Valiente b Atlantis Jr., Esfinge, Hechicero [Relevos Increíbles] 
Valiente pinned Hechicero after a mask pull.
6) Flip Gordon, Templario, Volador Jr. b Ángel de Oro, Niebla Roja, Soberano Jr.
Volador & Templario won in straight falls, setting up a tag title match

CMLL’s building matches more in the building frequently; it’s rare to have a show with nothing happening, and this had two matches set up.

CMLL (TUE) 09/24/2024 Arena México [CMLL, thecubsfan]
1) Shockercito b Galaxy [lightning]
7:45
2) Capitán Suicida, Dragón de Fuego, Valiente Jr. b Apocalipsis, Cholo, Disturbio
18:44
3) Dark Magic, Espanto Jr., Raider b Guerrero Maya Jr., Pegasso, Stigma
16:26.
4) Tessa Blanchard b Sanely
8:58. Sanely loses her first singles match since becoming a ruda.
5) Blue Panther, Flip Gordon, Neón b Stuka Jr., Terrible, Valiente
13:17
6) Esfinge, Templario, Titán b Difunto, Hechicero, Zandokan Jr.
14:51. Straight falls, Esfinge pulled Hechicero’s mask and rolled him up to win the second fall.

Nothing too interesting. The main event was the best if I had to pick. Sanely’s big debut as a ruda saw her lose but the fans cheer her over Tessa the entire match. They also worked lightning match time despite having three falls.

CMLL (TUE) 09/24/2024 Arena Coliseo Guadalajara [Fuego en el Ring, Mas Lucha, Mas Lucha Jr.]
1) Calavera Jr. I, Calavera Jr. II, Draego, Persa b Gallo Jr., Makara, Rafaga Jr., Shezmu
2) Adrenalina, Explosivo, Fantástico b Felino Jr., Hombre Bala Jr., Robin
3) Lluvia © b Valkiria [OCCIDENTE WOMEN]
first defense. Mexican Paralympic athletes Haideé Aceves (2 silvers in backstroke) & José Arnulfo Castorena (also a swimmer), were honored after the match.
4) Atlantis, Pantera, Panterita del Ring b Felino, Rey Bucanero, Satánico
5) Star Black © b Gallego [MEX HEAVY]
fifth defense. Star Black wants a mask/mask match.
6) Atlantis Jr., Máscara Dorada, Místico b Averno, Furia Roja, Soberano Jr.
Soberano may have picked up a leg injury; he left the match early.

Soberano keeps getting hurt, often looking seriously hurt, and then he’s just wrestling normally 24 hours later. We’ll probably find out if there’s anything to this one later tonight.

CMLL closed the Noche de Campeones voting Tuesday evening and surprise matches in between matches on the Arena Mexico stream. I checked out the totals Tuesday morning, and nothing changed as far as the winners. Below is the vote order (from lowest to highest), corresponding to the match order on Friday.

1. Los Infernales challenging Mascara Dorada, Neon, and Star Jr. [CMLL TRIOS]
2. Pierrothito challenging Ultimo Dragoncito [CMLL MINI]
3. Villanos challenging Magnus & Rugido [MEX TAG]
4. Sanely challenging Reyna Isis [MEX WOMEN]
5. Volador Jr. challenging Templario [CMLL MIDDLE]
6. Soberano Jr. challenging Atlantis Jr. [NWA LH]
7. Rayo Metalico challenging Futuro [MEX LIGHT]

That main event jumps out, though it fits patterns from recent years – the key to winning is race that features multiple wrestlers who wouldn’t get this sort of chance otherwise. Rayo Metalico and Calavera I Jr. voters are pushing a normally forgettable title race to the top, because their fans (and family) believe what a big deal a win is for them.

They’re correct to feel that way, not just for a title shot but what winning the main event spot has meant to other careers. CMLL got behind Rey Cometa & Espiritu Negro when they won the first one of these. CMLL started doing more with Jarochita/Lluvia (and the entire division) after they won in 2021. CMLL was probably going to get behind Rugido even before he won in 2022 and Mascara Dorada when he won in 2023, but that didn’t hurt their cause. Rayo Metalico is on the fringes of the CMLL roster as Torneo Escuela guy. He could’ve quickly faded away from the roster – like Vaquero Jr. or the Misteriosos last year – and he may have won a permanent role.

Don’t take that order as final, though. The first three matches were close enough to end up in any order, and the women’s match wasn’t much farther ahead. If Soberano Jr. fans got behind him, they could’ve pushed him to the main event, but it’s pretty unlikely, given the distance they would’ve had to cover unknowingly. These category vote totals are publicly available if you know where to look in the code, but almost no one will seek them out. Soberano fans would have no idea where they were in the rankings, and neither would Rayo Metalico ones.

Tonight’s CMLL Informa will have both the match order for the Noche de Campeones show this Friday and the lineups for the Women’s Grand Prix. (I think CMLL has switched to using “Grand” and I’m still using “Gran”, I’ll try to get that right.) The listed guests on the show are just the poll winners listed above. The foreign names for Grand Prix, especially the women’s one, tend to catch a lot of attention.

CMLL (SUN) 09/29/2024 Arena México
1) Diamond & Leono vs Inquisidor & Sangre Imperial
2) El Audaz, Hijo del Pantera, Retro vs El Coyote, Okumura, Pólvora
3) Hombre Bala Jr., Max Star, Volcano vs Cancerbero, Luciferno, Virus
4) Kira, Skadi, Tessa Blanchard vs Dark Silueta, Hera, Sanely
5) Terrible vs Dragón Rojo Jr.
6) Atlantis Jr., Máscara Dorada, Titán vs Ángel de Oro, Euforia, Niebla Roja

Dragon Rojo hasn’t been teaming much with Los Cavenarios and doesn’t wear the gear when not teaming with them. I thought last Sunday’s match was to set him being out of the group. A match with Terrible suggests that direction, but nothing actually happened in that match last Sunday.

CMLL (MON) 09/30/2024 Arena Puebla
1) Amnesia, Black Tiger, El Asturiano vs Dreyko, El Malayo, Siky Ozama
2) Arkalis, Meyer, Rey Samuray vs Capitán Suicida, El Audaz, Fuego
3) Xelhua vs Felino Jr.
4) Hijo del Villano III, Villano III Jr., Zandokan Jr. vs Akuma, Gemelo Diablo I, Gemelo Diablo II
5) Esfinge, Flip Gordon, Hechicero vs Euforia, Soberano Jr., Valiente [Relevos Increíbles]
6) Ángel de Oro & Niebla Roja © vs Templario & Volador Jr. [CMLL TAG]
16th defense (Chavez counting it as 17)

The tag title defense record is 18 (Ultimo Guerrero & Rey Bucanero) and the Chavez have talked about reaching it for months. I need to find this extra defense they’re counting but they’re definitely not losing these titles before getting to that 18th defense. Semi-main is Aniversario follow up. Akuma and Zandokan had a little bit of an issue on Monday. Xelhua/Felino Jr. is listed as a full match, not a lightning one. It falls outside the normal TV window, but they’re willing to show match 3 if something is going on. Felino Jr. just praised Xelhua to the media in Guadalajara a few weeks ago, so maybe this is a match he’ll be up for.

Box y Lucha #3622 has Euforia on top.

MLW announced Averno vs Mistico for the MLW Middleweight Championship for their 10/04 show in St. Petersburgh. The two previously wrestled in MLW back in February. MLW says it’ll be “taped only for Bein Sports”, which means it’ll probably air on a YouTube special around October 18th. They’re also up to Mistico, Titan, Lluvia, Atlantis, and Barbaro Cavernario announced for the 11/09 show.

Pep Caro talked with Robbie X about his trip to CMLL (among other topics.)

Only in seeing an Twitter ad for the 09/29 CMLL/Alto Voltage Arena Monterrey show did it click exactly how overloaded that city is with premium events:

• 09/29 CMLL @ Arena Monterrey
• 09/29 AAA TV taping @ Gimasnio Nuevo Leon Unido
• 10/13 Todo x el Todo @ Arena Monterrey

That ad got me to look at tickets for CMLL show. It still looks bad.

AAA

AAA’s posted the cover image for Heroes Inmortales but not the lineup. There’s probably a reason. It’s probably the same lineup. Maybe they’re setting something up on Sunday’s taping, and maybe AAA’s decided that advertising a lineup is meaningless. 

I did catch up with the last two weeks of AAA TV. You don’t really need to do that. The shows covered the 09/01 Showcenter card. These are still mostly non-regular AAA TV performers, though there’s also an increasing amount of non-Monterrey talent. El Original (Rey Leon), Brillante RB, Estrellato, and Epydemius Jr. were all guys coming in from outside the city, some from some far distance. If AAA isn’t paying to fly in more wrestlers from their regular roster for cost savings reasons, I wonder how much they’re paying to those types of guys (and how much of the payment is in the form of “you get to be featured on AAA TV!” exposure.) This was also a taping where neither of the announcers without either of AAA’s (previous) main announcers – Roberto Figueroa and Jesus Zuniga called the show instead – which contributed to a strange feel. Figueroa’s been featured in AAA’s social media often lately, and might be figuring into the Hugo replacement plans.

Kento, Takuma, and Nobu San are going by “Tokyo Bad Boys” now, though the announcers seemed to omit the “Tokyo” part. Their match with Emperador Azteca, Oni el Bendito, and Octagon Jr. (episode 2, will be on YouTube Sunday) was the best on the show, a level above in professionalism. It had a couple of issues and too many rudos, but it was a good TV match. Brillante RB, Reycko, and Black Raven (episode 1) had a very active triangle match, the best of the rest of the taping.

The angles on the Showcenter cards are always minimal. The only bit in front of the fans was the Tokyo Bad Boys attacking Mr. Iguana when he came out in front of the crowd early (Octagon Jr. made the save) and Mr. Iguana (unsuccessfully) trying to get revenge later. Some bits appeared to be taped later, around the press conference on the 09/29 show, and added later. Pierroth Jr. joined Mesias group, while Cibernetico pledged to help Latin Lover against Alberto/Konnan/Dorian. That last one was useful just to remind people that angle was happening; it’s now been six weeks since the big reveal with no follow-up. That’s how AAA TV works.

AAA posted a video promo with Alberto calling Latin Lover out. The footage is remarkably poor quality. I can’t believe they didn’t have him refilm it. However, it still achieved its purpose; when I checked Tuesday night, there were over 500 comments on the video on AAA’s Facebook post. There doesn’t appear to be another recent post with at least 100.

The bigger picture is that AAA is setting up a 2025 Alberto match with Latin Lover, even though he has said he won’t wrestle. It was the only obvious direction coming out of the TripleMania Mexico City angle, and promos like this just re-enforce that plan. AAA probably has the Alberto/Latin scheduled for TripleMania Monterrey and a rematch for TripleMania Mexico City, based on how they usually book things. (It is AAA, and their plans of course don’t always work out..) I think Latin Lover getting back in the ring is the biggest draw AAA could offer right now – he’s a big star out of wrestling, and they’ve spent the last six months making him the top face in the promotion – and Alberto makes much sense as anyone as an opponent. It means everything in AAA should serve to build that match, which translates to an Alberto reign of terror until Latin is finally forced to return to the ring. I can see the business purpose of that and what that means – every notable tecnico losing to Alberto – isn’t going to be something I’m excited to watch.

One aspect of the Keyra/Myzteziz story I ignored on Monday was Keyra putting out an ID photo of Myzteziz in hopes of people being able to find him and then also their child. This seemed normal, not a big deal; the tradition of keeping someone’s masked identity secret for lucha libre reasons seems utterly irrelevant in a situation like this. I did not consider that “ex-partner puts out unmasked photo of luchador” would become a viral story. The “scandal” of revealing a masked luchador’s face proved to be an easier way to get into a story about a custody dispute, and so the situation has gotten picked up in many news outlets. Keyra has gone quiet, and it appears her friends have also stopped pushing for a resolution online. Myzteziz has said nothing.

IWRG

IWRG posted video of Spider Fly being in a hospital – or the Arena Naucalpan medical office – as he recovers from the martinete that Rock Power gave him.

IWRG (THU) 09/26/2024 Arena Naucalpan
1) Astralis, Cosmic, Sinapsis vs Celta, Indra, Samodeo
2) Ángel Kid, Samoa Kid, Titanium vs Fobia, Pitbull, Shura King
3) Dannesa & Shamila vs Maggie Girl & Miss Fantasy
4) Águila Oriental, Black Dragón Ng, Hijo De Black Dragón vs Ángel Negro, Rayo De Plata Jr., Rey Anubis
5) Fauno, Histeryosis, Príncipe Centauro, Rey Aztaroth, Sky Man, Súper Boy, Tornado, Vudu Max vs As Negro, Black Extreme, Bogar, Demencia Jr., Escudero Jr., Extreme Fly, Geruz, King Pegasso [Torneo Fill 116]
FILL versus San Luis Potosi

There’s a lot of familiar San Luis Potosi wrestlers on this show. Well, familiar if you’ve been entering in a lot of SLP lineups in the last couple of weeks. Notably, the people who’ve actually been in IWRG from San Luis Potosi, like Aster Boy and Dibalo Jr., are not here. “Maggie Girl” is pronounced “Magic Girl”, wrestles as “Magic Girl” in San Luis Potosi but someone heard it and didn’t ask for it to be written down so she’s Maggie Girl here.

Other News

Bobo Produccions posted an interview with El Hijo del Santo talking positively about his debut show. His statements elsewhere suggest he’s definitely doing a show in Japan, it’s just the date that’s uncertain.

Dr. Lucha’s weekly column talk about his recent travels around Mexico; I don’t think I could keep up with this man.

QueMoniito made an appearance in San Luis Potosi over the weekend. He says he’s retiring soon and wants to make it through this year, but he’s not sure if his body will hold up. He mentioned he’d actually be willing to work with CMLL again, though he noted the window to do so is brief.

San Luis Potosi based Bendita Lucha Libre handed out 2024 awards for local luchadors.

• Best Tecnico: Bogar Jr.
• Best Rudo: Black Extreme
• Best Flyer: Illegal Jr.
• Best Luchadora: Miss Fantasy
• Best Trio: Colegio del Mal NG
• Best Team: Power Kid & Strong Panther
• Best rookie: Black Destroyer
• Best prospect: Bufalo negro
• Revelacion of the yar: Nino Sin Amor Jr.
• Best Referee: El Negro
• Best Rudo Referee: Sininesto
• Best Tecnico Referee: Helio
• Luchador most popular on social media: Estrellita de Plata

There were a lot of other honors, including for wrestlers with 40 or more years of experience: Galaxia 79, Rayo de Plata, Bogar, Zulu (/Kaliman) and Gavilan. In even more San Luis Potosi wrestling coverage, El Sol de San Luis visits (new-ish) Arena Marca.

DDT announced Demus is coming back to the promotion in late October, and it sounds like he’s sticking around for a while.