Tag: 2006

The Big Story: AAA should’ve been screwed.

The big idea, Kawaghi vs Cibernetico, was doomed. By now, the media has decided the initial fight was a work. (Whether it was or wasn’t was beside the point.) The fans might, and still may, go with it, but the bigger problem was Cibernetico’s blown out knee. He appeared before the crowd on crutches at TripleMania, on crutches and obviously needed to stay out of the ring.

If they couldn’t set up Kawaghi/Cibernetico, the default is always to go back to Cibernetico/La Parka but again, no Cibernetico. Konnan would be around during the summer, and compete in matches despite being in obvious bad physical condition, but it was unreasonable to plan a main event in-ring feud around him with his own health problems. Muerte Cibernetico versus La Parka Jr. had run it’s course – the same course of every foreign masked rudo since the beginning of lucha libre – and there weren’t any other good alternatives. The fans were still reacting to the product, and the Sect rudo group seemed to be still strong, but they didn’t have an obvious next step.

Back tracking thru the stories told later, Antonio Pena was certainly in bad health by this time. He book and plan AAA till his dying day (and laid out the lineups for shows much later), but the odds seemed against Pena finding a way out of the booking knot.

And once again, Antonio Pena and AAA figured out a solution.

After a foreign rudo loses his mask, he’ll often wrestle just a few more times – enough for the fans to see him without the mask and for the tecnicos to get their last measure of revenge – and then disappear to some other territory. That wasn’t going to be the plan with Muerte Cibernetica all along. AAA brought him in because Konnan and others liked his work elsewhere, and when he lived up that level in AAA, they assured him he’d have a continuing role with the promotion after his mask loss. Muerte’s role was still to be an associate of Cibernetico, but with no Cibernetico, something else had to be done with him…

On 07/30, Cibernetico tried to help the rudos win the main event, but accidently threw powder in Konnan’s face. After the match, Konnan, Muerte Cibernetico, and Cibernetico had a conversation in the ring. Muerte decided, with Cibernetico hurt and responible for all their failures, Cibernetico shouldn’t be leader anymore – Muerte should. Konnan and Muerte destroyed the already crippled Cibernetico, setting up the big match for his return. Meanwhile, the one present member of the Sect that showed loyalty to Cibernetico, Chessman, was prevented by the other members from interfering. That set up an in-between program, focused on Chessman’s slow turn on the Sect and joining Cibernetico on his return. Just like they, AAA had set up six months of main event angles.

Cibernetico had almost always been an rudo in AAA. The only times he wasn’t, was when he was a rudo in LLL, the nWo-like splinter faction he lead against AAA, trying to take over the company (and even succeeding for a while.) As a main event rudo, he’d fought all the top tecnicos and managed wins. As leader of the Sect, he’d gotten a (appropriately) cult following as a cool bad guy, and the fans had started cheering for him already. The turn gave him great motivation, a vendetta against all those who had turned their backs on him, and a really easy storyline for people to get behind upon his return. By the end of the year, Cibernetico was a huge tecnico star – competing with Mistico for sheer fan noise reaction, and outdistancing old rival La Parka Jr. by such a extent, he may end up rudo a result.

I think this was chaos induced genius. Maybe I’m seeing this all wrong, and this was the plan from the start, but if it was, they could’ve have booked it better than Cibernetico’s own legit knee injury. The time away from the ring allowed the anticipation for his return to build and added to the importance of the feud.

This could not have worked out better for AAA. If they manage to keep Cibernetico at this level of popularity or near it the rest of the year, he’s surely the 2007 Mexico Wrestler of the Year.

12 Man In A Cage: With no Park/Wagner feud, no seeming confidence in Rey/Ultimo, and no Lizmarks/Averno/Mephisto mask match, CMLL was kinda without a plan for a planned big July show. Warrior/Mistico was clearly the Anniversary main event, and there’s no way they could replace that either. In recent years, they’d run a summer major show with a cage main event

2004/06/18: Negro Casas L Vampiro, Pierroth, Tarzan Boy, Perro Aguayo Jr., Shocker [cage, hair] *
2005/06/17: Máscara Mágica L Damián 666, Mistico, Héctor Garza, Heavy Metal, Negro Casas, Halloween, Universo 2000, el Hijo del Perro Aguayo [cage, hair]

Logically, and there were leaks to back this up, the plan probably was to do the Guerreros/Perros stuff this month, with a hair match – this is the one Rey balked at losing, which changed everything. The default plan was to do a cage match, they just didn’t have a feud to put into it.

CMLL announced the 12 way cage match on July 2nd, with Sangre Azteca, Nitro, Mascara Purpura, Pantera, Volador Jr., Averno, Mephisto, La Mascara, Sagrado, Felino, Misterioso II and Neutron, to take place on July 14th. All wrestlers included were masked, so much of the promotion surrounded someone’s identity being revealed.

This had been built to with various combinations of these tecnicos and rudos wrestling in the undercard previous weeks:

06/23 Arena Mexico
2) Hombre Sin Nombre, Nitro, Sangre Azteca b Mascara Purpura, Pantera, Sagrado *
3) Felino, La Mascara, Volador Jr. b Averno, Mephisto, Misterioso II *

06/30 Arena Mexico
2) Hombre Sin Nombre, Loco Max, Sangre Azteca DQ Neutron, Pantera, Sagrado *
3) Mascara Purpura b Stuka Jr. [lightning] *
4) Averno, Mephisto, Misterioso II b Felino, La Mascara, Volador Jr. *

Looking back, you can see the 06/23 show was the one where they had decided on the direction; the week prior, Averno & Mephsito were still feuding with the Lizmarks, and that’s suddenly dropped on this show. Those involved had been ripping masks and such, to the point where it seemed like some sort of stakes match should be coming out of it, but the announced match was still a surprise.

The real attraction of this match was it’s balance. Typically, when a promotion does a multiman match with someone losing his hair or mask, there’s one or two wrestlers who are at a much lower level than the others, and stick out as the only true candidates to lose. The build will be push the idea of a masked legend risking his mask, and in the end, it’ll be the guy who just put on his mask two weeks ago (and will get a new one in two months later.) This match was different, because there were no ringers, no newcomers who’d just shown up to lose. This match had twelve midcarders, of various lengths under the mask but at least a couple years, and no giveaway of the finish. A guy like Felino still was more important than a guy like Nitro, but the overall difference was a lot less.

CMLL pushed the match based on that aspect, using uncertiantly and misdirection and putting in peril those who otherwise seemed a little safer. The week before the cage match, 07/07, they ran a cibernetico featuring all 12 in the match. Volador won, and he received a plaque – which was pretty unlucky for him. When Ultimo Guerrero appeared to congratulate Volador on his win and strangely insist all the rudos shake his hand as well, Mephisto got a hold of the plaque, and cracked it over Volador’s head. Volador was stretchered out, but recovered enough vow immediate revenge on Mephisto, and now you started to wonder if he was going to quickly attain it.

Ovaciones and other publications got quotes from the participants during the week leadup. I had some fun discussing everyone’s chances. For something that was obviously just thrown together, it was a pretty fun build.

The match itself was well laid out, as CMLL cage matches go. The stipulations and setup turn the match into a slow beatdown one way or another until people start leaving, so the aesthetics are always going to be lacking. They made up with by having two lowest wrestlers, Nitro and Neutron, be the first to escape the cage, so the fans could realize immediately that they were getting something that had lived up to the hype. Misterioso, Felino, Pantera, and Mephisto were the final four left in. Pantera was the first of those to attempt to escape, but returned to save his old enemy/sometimes partner Felino from being beat. Felino and Mephisto escaped before Pantera could try to leave again, and Misterioso eventually beat him with a La Rosa off the top rope. Pantera was revealed to be Francisco Javier Fosas, 40 or 42 years old.

In 2005, Pantera, driving with his kids in the car, had gotten into an accident driving home, and one of his sons had died in the accident. It’s believed that legal issues surrounding the accident caused Pantera him to be in the need of some money, and losing the mask helped out.

Misterioso and Pantera would somewhat continue their feud in CMLL, but mostly take it over to IWRG, which was Pantera’s home base at the time. This was Misterioso’s second big win of the summer, and it gave him some recognition.

Rey vs Ultimo for the LH Title: Also on 07/14 show, Rey Bucanero beat Ultimo Guerrero to end his 4 year CMLL Light Heavyweight reign. The match was good, but not great, and so a little disappointing. It was an after thought on the cage match show, and that’s the way they built it.

Mr. Niebla Rey vs Atlantis for the LH Title It was an odd weekend for Rey. After winning the CMLL title on Friday, he ended up challenging for the NWA Light Heavyweight Championship on Sunday.

The scheduled challenger had been Mr. Niebla, who was listed as missing due to a shoulder tear that’d keep him out two months. In reality, Niebla was MIA for two weeks, worked some indy shows, took more time off, and came back to only work indy shows. CMLL was very high on Mr. Niebla earlier in this decade, but his quality of wrestling had noticeably dipped in recent years, and he’d had long abcsenes from the ring due to injuries. Whatever caused him to miss this show was the last straw for CMLL, because he was never brought back to Coliseo or Mexico.

Rey facing Atlantis and getting a chance to unify the belts (only the NWA was on the line) should’ve been a big deal, but the last minute nature of the match diminished any build for that sort of thing. As it turns out, it only lasted for about 6 minutes when it aired on television. Ultimo Guerrero got a measure of revenge, helping Atlantis beat Rey and retain his title.

A new Gronda: AAA debuted a new Gronda – actually, in the space of one paragraph, they declared him a new one and the only authenic one, so it’s the La Parka deal – to replace the original, who’s now an independent. As expected, it was Ghefar/Lucifer/Magnate/the other big muscled guy AAA has around and uses sporatically.

The new Gronda was quickly shown to be far more vulnerable than the previous version, getting laid out by Abismo Negro in an injury angle and selling it for a few weeks of tapings. The original Gronda has a reputation for an unwillingness (and inability) to sell for his opponents, and it was as if AAA was making a statement that things would be different for the new Gronda. The new Gronda is somewhat of a better wrestler and there haven’t been complaints about his attitude, but he’s not as popular as the previous one. He only appears spordically.

The original Gronda, now Groon XXX, has appeared very occasionally for CMLL and more often for indy shows. Still, he doesn’t have much of a work schedule, due to his high per show fee.

A new middleweight Champion: Ocatagon, who’d held the Mexican National Middleweight Championship belt three times in the 90s, won it from Zumbido on July 15. There was a one taping build to the match, with Octagon beating Zumbido in a trios match before beating him for the title.

The tournament to set up Zumbido as champion seemed successful, but nothing was done with the title between the time Zumbido won it January and lost in July. (Octagon’s done no more after winning it himself.) Zumbido would be rumored to be jumping from AAA to CMLL or rehab for the rest of the year, but was still in AAA at year end.

Other AAA: there were 5 tapings this month
07/07: Chessman and the Black Family, still getting along, confirmed their hold on the Atomicos titles by turning back the Air Force
07/15: discussed it to death already
07/23: Tiffany, Estrellita (revealed to be Cibernetico’s actual girlfriend, since they’re both tecnicos now), and Shocker all kinda feuded in the opener. El Dandy was originally listed as appearing in the fourth match, but was replaced by Alliens – who led an alien invasion! Two more normal sized outer space creates and a mini assaulted Alebrije and Cuije.
07/28: not much
07/30: the turn

Other CMLL:
– Hector Garza suffered a scary neck injury after being clotheslined in the back of the head on 07/21. Everyone was worried that day, but Garza only was out for a short time.
– after a couple weeks of hype, Eclipse debuted. Though promoted as someone with 10 years of experience, it was actually rookie Rey Tigre under a new identity, as a giant man endorsed by Ultimo Guerrero and Atlantis and wearing a combination of their masks. Whatever idea for pushing him there was disappeared early, as Eclipse was clearly not ready for the position they wanted him at, and was taken off shows for a time. He’s back wrestling now, but as just another guy. Eclipse is a rare Mexican heavyweight, so he’s got many more chances in his future.

It’s the half way point of the year in review, so it’s a good time for a break, and a chance to throw some random statistics at you. This is probably going to be the least newsworthy actual post, but it’s stuff I wanted to write about, so that’s what I’m doing.

Elsewhere on this site, I’ve been keeping track of all the shows and match results I could track down in 2006 and plugging them into a database. You see it turned into things like the wrestler cards or event lists. There’s a lot of events included which never actually made the news updates; if I cover every indy event, it detracts from pointing out the ones that actual matter. I’m sure I only get between 20% to 60% of the actual shows going on in Mexico at any time (and probably closer to the low side), but piled together, they do bring up some interesting patterns.

The upside of all this otherwise semi-pointless busy work is, at the end of the year, I can stack all the events up and check out some totals.

As of now, I’ve got at least a partial lineup for 2201 different lucha events – most in Mexico and a handful of US events. In those 2201 matches, I counted 9833 matches. That’s 4.4 per show; dragged down by shows where only partial lineups were announced (and results never mentioned) and dragged up by shows that featured tournaments.

Counting the participants in those matches is a little bit funky in my database. 422 of the guys I’ve identified and set up profile pages wrestled in 2006, and I’ve got 5803 ‘other’ wrestlers who participated in at least one match, but haven’t wrestled enough (or in a big enough place) to be counted. Some of that 5802 count is misspellings of other wrestlers or double counting of wrestlers who’ve switched gimmicks, so I wouldn’t claim 6225 wrestlers, but then I’m sure there’s a ton of guys who escaped notice all together.

I counted 858 different arenas as well, but there’s a high amount of duplication and misspelling there, so I wouldn’t take that number seriously.

I broke this down by promotion, and put in a table to save on the paragraphs. Anything featuring AAA or CMLL stars was recorded as such unless it was clearly supposed to be it’s own promotion (think IWRG) This reaches beyond the TV tapings and includes all the spot shows. (I don’t think I ever included the teleton, in case you’re wondering which area it goes in.)

   shows  matches  IDed wrestlers  Other wrestlers   Arenas
CMLL     664    3136         287           1389            164
AAA      389    1654         208           1289            278

You’ll notice that, even including every indy show where there was a name main event and a bunch of indy guys on the undercard, less than half of the total recorded lucha cards in Mexico were indy shows. The stars of lucha libre are the wrestlers people see on TV and in huge events, but the importance of the local indy guys should be noticed – those are the people fans outside of Mexico City are seeing on a more regular basis.

While I’m on frivolous database stats, here’s some current ones from the luchawiki.
Pages: 9633
Files: 3691
Users: 520

Edits: 21,841
Page Views: 3,412,317

big news: TripleMania (06/18): The lineup was announced at the beginning of the month, but it was long before known that the main event would be Muerte Cibernetica/La Parka Jr. TNA involvement was also off, because they had their own major show on that day. Muerte vowed to break Parka’s bones, which would be something since he’s a skeleton and all. Box Y Lucha did the most AAA coverage it did all year in the lead up to the show, and there were a lot of bigger than usual shows that weekend from CMLL and IWRG that weekend. Coincidence? Not? Still not completely sure.

Results saw Parka indeed win, and Muerte Cibernetico reveal himself to be Ricky Banderas (which isn’t his actual name.) I finally saw this match, and I think I counted 14 different guys interfering in some way, including Cibernetico (on crutches) and surprise jump Brazo de Plata. There had been talk of a big jump from CMLL in the days leading up to the event, but no one really understood what the rumor meant by big, I guess. Plata’s jump involved a falling out with CMLL (they weren’t going to do anything with him at his age and shape) and El Brazo convincing him to change sides.

For a taping, Muerte switched his name to Asesor Cibernetico, but it got dropped. In the undercard, Charly Manson beat Zorro for his hair, but also forced him to wear an evil demonic mask, which he still wears today. The Fuerza Aera/Black Family atomicos title match had no finish, with the commission throwing the match because of all the hardcore stunts. (Initially, it seemed as though the commission perhaps had stripped the titles as well, mirroring what happened with the middleweight title previous, but we just got a normal rematch a few weeks later.)

Brazo de Plata jumped from CMLL at the show, starting a partnership with La Parka Jr. and wrestling in his corner. Nieto del Santo made a cameo as well.

In one of those other shows the same day, Okumura lost his hair to Rey Bucanero in an 8 man cage match, and La Mascara wins the Reyes de Air cibernetico (which wasn’t that great.)

CMLL’s Gran Alternativa:

Teams were announced in late May for the annual young star/experienced star tournament. Some of the particpants talked their chances up in Box Y Lucha, and Ovaciones picked Texano, Maximo, and Misterioso II (which is only 38% of the field.) Everyone noted that the “new stars” being presented this year were repeats and guys actually older than the vets they were teaming with (particularly Nitro and HsN.)

The tournament itself actually took place on 06/03. I pretty much nailed the preview; the results saw the plot points of Rey Being Turned On Yet Again, and Perros refusing to fight each other. In the finals, Misterioso II & Perro Aguayo Jr. beat Ultimo Guerrero & Nitro to win the title.

Beating the odds, this was actually the start of a significant push for Misterioso II, as we’ll see in later months. He was an associate member of the Perros thru the summer, and got slightly higher position on cards. They’ve since dropped the Perros relationship (although it’s still there neough that they could bring it back if the mood strikes them and/or they need someone to lose), and he’s since fallen to about the same position. The GA didn’t break Misterioso II out of the pack – the AAA equivalent did a better job of that – but it did give him something to separate himself from the other at his level.

Guadalajara Walk Of Fame: This match had been announced back in April, but was finished up the first week of June. You can see a good picture of it on this post. Lots of people showed up for the dedication. The first class was Salvador Luttertoh, Diablo Velasco, Santo, Rito Romero, Mil Mascaras and Rayo de Jalisco, and the second class was announced as El Solitario, Angel Blanco, Alfonso Dantes, Perro Aguayo, Gori Guerrero, Black Shadow and Cavernario Galindo, but I haven’t heard more about it. It’s a Guadalajara Lucha Libre hall of fame, so that’s why some regional names might go in before the likes of Blue Demon.

Hiroka wins the CMLL Women’s Title: This surprised me. It was one of those things where I didn’t like the idea when it started but was unhappy when it was over.

Hiroka was a below average ruda worker; not horrible by women’s standards, but she wasn’t one of the best for sure, and she was most notable for having like a billion indy trios matches opposite of Sahori. In April, Hiroka got a title shot versus Marcela in Arena Coliseo. Remarkably, it was a pretty good match, Hiroka’s best match in Mexico for sure. I chalked it up to Marcela being better than I had figured and when they announced a rematch for 06/09 in Arena Mexico, it seemed like they were just going to repeat the match for a larger audience.

Hiroka won, becoming the 10th champion. It was another good match. Hiroka’s reigned seemed filled with tecnicas beating her, and demanding a title match, but she clearly improved as a wrestler and raised her status as champion (with the help of a couple really big wins later) to the point where she actually seemed like a champion by the end. Maybe I should have a little more faith in CMLL, huh?

teased double mask match: Averno & Mephisto feuded with the Lizmark on some Arena Mexico shows with some mask ripping. The magazines – I believe Luchas 2000 in particular – pushed the idea of a mask match, and it seemed like they were headed that direction. I was quite worried that the more tenured/famous Lizmarks would take the masks, though Lizmark Sr.’s rumored retirement gave a little bit of hope. And then it was dropped.

Later on, it was leaked that that the plans was actually to have Averno & Mephisto take both Lizmark’s mask as a major attraction of the bigger summer show, but it didn’t come together for whatever reason.

Maximo beats Loco Max for his hair: a basic Arena Coliseo midcard feud, one of quite a few while thinking about it. This was set up the end of May, and it was no surprise Loco ended up bald. That’s going to happen every 9 months he wrestles, it seems.

spanish fly is deadly: Joe Lider got hurt on apron Spanish Fly to the floor gone bad, and Averno and Volador tumbled hard to the floor off a blown one in Arena Mexico, putting them out of action for a bit.

shoe still hasn’t dropped: There was a lot of talk this month about Univision, which also owns Galavision (and a couple other channels) which was put on the market. It was initially expected that Televisa Mexico would pick up the company, and that would have [whatever] effect on lucha libre broadcasts. Near the sale, some of Televisa’s investors dropped out, and Texas Pacific Group/Haim Sabin swooped into get in the high bid and control of the network. This angered Televisa, who a partial stake in the company already and was expecting on getting it rest. The stockholders aren’t thrilled with the deal either, so nothing has come out of this, not even Televisa Mexico on internet, as promised.

At some point, it would seem there should be fallout, but if because of stockholder issues or inertia, there’s been absolutely no affect on lucha libre broadcasts on Galavision as of yet. Eventually, the people deciding what airs when will be different, but they don’t appear to be right now.

the big story: This was a bad month for CMLL and storylines they wanted to get across. It’d take over the summer for everything to be felt, but it started here, so I’ll group it together.

Dr. Wagner vs LA Park: As noted in previous months, this one got started after LA Park beat Black Tiger for his mask, and Black Tiger was shockingly revealed to be Dr. Wagner’s brother. Dr. Wagner wanted revenge, and battled LA Park outside of Arena Mexico. The fans turning on LA Park in Arena Mexico worked to the benefit of the feud; after not getting along as tecnicos, Park turned rudo and they feuded some more. It even continued during the Mexico vs the World Gran Prix on 05/12, where Park caused Dr. Wagner’s elimination from the match (betraying his own country!)

On May 19th, La Park and Dr. Wagner participated in a mostly unnoteworthy main event. LA Park and Dr. Wagner were scheduled to come back in the main event next week in a circulated lineup…

…and then, out of nowhere, CMLL announced LA Park was suspended for 15 days. LA Park had used a chair to beatdown Dr. Wagner during the match, which is atypical for CMLL, but no one had made much of a deal of it at the time. The Arena Mexico card was reshuffled, and the referees for the match were also suspended for letting LA Park use the chair.

LA Park returned after his suspension for a trios match, lost to Dr. Wagner in a singles match the next week, and appeared only twice more till November. Park feuded with Wagner (and also worked tecnico in some locales), but never had the big title match, much less the mask match they were teasing (though probably never planning on delivering.) A feud that had been built for months never peaked, but fizzled out.

What happened here? After the fact gossip said LA Park was scheduled to lose the program to Wagner, probably losing a title match to finish it off. LA Park either wasn’t happy with this or wasn’t happy with how much he was receiving for this. Whatever the reason, he and CMLL had a hard falling out, leading to Park’s official suspension and unofficial banishment.

In 2005, it was Dr. Wagner Jr. vs Atlantis which was teased and never fulfilled. In 2006, it was Dr. Wagner Jr. vs LA Park. Wagner was a loser in all of this, missing on a big show main event he never really got back. CMLL was off one main event.

Rey Bucanero vs Ultimo Guerrero: The breakup of the Best Tag Team In Mexico, four years and running, should’ve been plenty enough to keep CMLL going in place of Wagner/Park. Instead, it was a failure. Of any of the stuff I’ve recounted so far, this is the hardest one for me to go back and look thru. I really wanted this to be awesome, and it’s not fun to relive the disappointment.

In storyline, the Bucanero turn had been foreshadowed back to last fall, when Atlantis joined the Guerreros and immediately usurped Rey as Ultimo Guerrero’s best friend. Rey held a grudge towards Atlantis, and eventually led to them fighting in matches. In real life, it appears Bucanero had been promised a bigger role and probably a turn to accomplish it, to stay with CMLL. Everything was building fine, thru Atlantis and Rey losing a match to Ultimo Dragon and Great Muta because of their infighting.

And then it all fell apart:

Motive: The logical progression, to me, would’ve been building to the moment where Ultimo is forced to choose between his two partners, and chooses Atlantis over Rey. I wouldn’t be saying “the logical progression” if that’s what actually happened. The focus of the turn got switched, from a feud with Atlantis, to a more general and more without a point “I just don’t like being a rudo and other rudos being rudos anymore” bit. Rey just woke up one morning, and decided to stop being a bad guy, we were told.

Orgin: Rey could’ve started his turn with Atlantis, the man he despised on for months. Rey could’ve started his turn with Ultimo Guerrero, angry at his long time partner. Rey could’ve started his turn with Tarzan Boy or Olimpico, allies who could’ve sided with him against Atlantis but choose not to get invovled. Rey could’ve even started his turn on various members of the Guerrero Pandilla b-squad, taking out Ultimo’s students in preparation of fighting the top man himself.

Instead, Rey’s turn started with Averno and Mephisto, two guys he didn’t have any particular association. They’re rudos, he was a rudo, he stopped being a rudo, they got mad – not because they really cared if Rey was a rudo or a teammate, but because he was willfully throwing the match.

Usually, the idea for a guy turning rudo to tecnico is that he’s been wronged, and he’s standing up to the people who cheated him. No one cheated Rey here, and he was wronging people by costing them matches. As various fans noted, and the Guerreros actually picked up on, Rey was not a man looking for revenge for some slight, he was a traitor to all of his fans, selling them out to the tecnicos.

Visbility: That turn on Averno & Mephsito? Happened on an Arena Coliseo show. It aired on Guerreros del Ring, I actually loved the interaction between Rey & Heavy Metal in that match, but it was match in Arena Coliseo (the b-arena) that aired on Guerreros del Ring (the b-show). That’s a great presentation for a midcard storyline. It’s perfect for Stuka Jr. vs Flecha, an opening card bit. It’s not good for Rey turning tecnico, a supposed major deal. Major deals air happen in the big arena on the big TV show.

They did follow up on the turn on the big Galavision show the next week, pretty much repeating the same match from Coliseo. This was good.

That Sunday, they broke up the Guerreros – one of the biggest and long running groups of the decade – on another Arena Coliseo show, in a match that never aired. CMLL would find time to air the Stuka/Flecha match, a mask match between opening match workers who were normally lucky to get on TV once a year. CMLL would fine time to air the complete India Sioux/Medusa feud, a rivalry between two women who neither highly pushed nor really in-ring ready for the exposure they were getting. CMLL could not find time, on it’s Galavision show, on it’s Canal52 show, on it’s website, or anywhere else, to show the breakup they were going to base a couple months of main event angles on.

When they buried the match, that was the sign that this going to be a disappointment. I don’t care if the match was bad or if the crowd didn’t buy into or what, you’ve absolutely got to air the match where the team breaks up if you want people to actually care about the team breaking up. They buried it.

followup: Recall February, when Black Warrior turned on Mistico and was instantly moved to the rudo side. Somehow, the power CMLL had to change all those lineups disappeared when Rey turned tecnico. For one week, this was semi believable, and it got a chance to get over the turn to those who hadn’t seen it (which would be everyone). But one week turned into two, two weeks turned into three, and things were slow to change. Rey Bucanero appeared to spend a month, in arenas small and large, being turned on and beat up by his teammates time and time again, occasionally screwing his own team and helping the tecnicos win.

At this point, the new tecnico star was a traitor who turned in unimportant matches and then got destroyed for a month. At least he was still Rey Bucanero!

attitude: Or not. Rey had been doing the ladies man bit as a rudo, but he turned it up a few dozen notches. He was aiming to appeal to women fans, which appeared to work, but any male fan who was him at that time was a little put off. This may have worked fine in AAA, with a different mix of fans, but it seemed to backfire with the CMLL audience.

Look, a great wrestler can overcome all kinds of handicaps – you can put them in all sorts of stupid positions or give them unfair situations, and they’ll eventually shine thru, because that’s what makes them great. Rey could’ve overcome this to be a bigger star, Rey and Ultimo could’ve seized upon the CMLL Light Heavyweight Title match they had (which Rey won, ending Ultimo’s long reign) and if they were better, could’ve turned into one which would’ve made Bucanero by itself. It certainly was still possible at that point.

And while I’m at it, let’s also be clear and acknowledge that, even at his best, no one believed Rey Bucanero would be a promotion carrying babyface. He’s a good worker, who can have great matches with good and great people, and he’s got charisma, but not enough to make him. His upside is probably a second tier guy, not one who can carry everything all year, but who can step up at times to that level. He’s not going to be Mistico, but no one can be – that’s why he’s Mistico.

Still, the bottom line is they took a great storyline people easily would’ve bought into, and ran it into the ground before it even had the chance to succeed or fail on it’s own. When I’m feeling extra conspiratorial, I wonder if this may have been a case of being careful what you wish for – Bucanero wanted his turn, so they gave him his turn, but didn’t promise to make it good. I think it’s more likely this was simply ill thought out and badly presented. Whatever it was, it was a clear miss. Rey was less over than he started, and they had to restart pushing him in the fall, and it still hasn’t seemed to paid off for CMLL at all.

Great Muta cameo: He came in for a weekend of Dragon shows, he acted like a horror movie villain, and then he left. Those who knew Muta’s history were awed by seeing him live and in Mexico and those who were expecting 1991 Great Muta and got 2006 Great Muta were disappointed and wondering what the hype was all about. By the way, this is how I feel every time a Canek or a Mil Mascaras or a Hulk Hogan comes to a Chicago show.

AAA notes: Cibernetico was officially suspended around the 12th, and talked about the injustice to Galavision ten days later and we got confirmation at the end of the month that it was cover for a knee injury.

Also, Zorro won the Mexican Heavyweight Championship in a bloody cage match from Charly Manson, and La Parka Jr. and Muerte Cibernetico continued towards their mask match.

New Santo Statue: The statue was put up in Tepito district of Mexico City, with a lot of older wrestlers showing up for the dedication. (The best picture is linked to in this post)

Others: Once the Wagner/Park feud fell thru, CMLL started ratcheting back up the Warrior/Mistico feud, with Black Warrior getting an actual big win over Mistico by taking the NWA Middleweight title. Speaking of NWA Titles, Dragon revived the NWA Welterweight Championship, with prospect Hajime Ohara beating La Mascara in a decision match. Ohara would wrestle in in CMLL while holding the belt, but it was functionally a Toryumon Mexico championship…Sangre Azteca participated in NJPW’s Super J tournament, and lost a lot…El Dandy asked for a chance to return to Arena Mexico, and was seemingly ignored…“Are you dying in anticipation of how they spell Jindrak?” How little did I know…

the big story: On a non-wrestling TV show appearance, Ciberentico gets into a brawl with ex-boxer turned politician Jorge Kawaghi. All involved act as if the fight is a unscripted incident, which garners a lot of press in Mexico.

On one hand, I totally missed the boat when it happened and didn’t think it was a big deal at the time. On the other hand, I was sure it was a work to begin with – as were many wrestling fans when they saw the video – and eventually the mainstream press caught on. Cibernetico, Antonio Pena and AAA were steadfast in maintaining that this was all real, and keeping up other angles related to Cibernetico, like his feud with Pena. Kawaghi kept up his end by threatening to sue Cibernetico.

Obviously, the idea was to do a Kawaghi/Cibernetico match at some point – it might’ve finally confirmed to all that the fight was never real to begin with, but by then there would’ve been plenty of interest in the story no matter how it was conceived. It was always supposed to put off for a few months, figuring that if it went to the ring right away, it’d look too fake.

As of 01/2007, the match hasn’t happened, and hasn’t even been hinted at in a great long time. Circumstances have conspired against it. Cibernetico suffered a knee injury in the following couple of months, which they managed to weave into the story (Kawaghi’s political clout forced Pena to suspend Cibernetico for the six months he’d need to recover), and Antonio Pena’s illness and death surely affected keeping Kawaghi involved. The shelf life of the angle hasn’t completely expired, but with Ciberneitco’s new tecnico role, it doesn’t seem to work unless Kawaghi is willing to act as the rudo. Looking back, Muerte turning on Cibernetico was the sign that they’d given up on this direction.

Even if the angle never comes off, there was some nice ancillary affects from it. I don’t live in Mexico and I don’t watch a lot of other spanish language TV, so I’m picking this up second and third hand and may be over or under playing it, but it sure seemed like Cibernetico got a lot more mainstream attention int he second half of the year, even much past the initial Kawaghi fight. While out with his knee injury, he was a guest on daytime talk shows, and often they’d do a ‘real unscripted fight’ as with the original Kawaghi bit. Sometimes Cibernetico would be involved, and latter in the year his girlfriend Esterllita would get into fight with Tiffany on these shows. Individually, these were far lesser deals, but it got Cibernetico in front of a lot of female viewers while he was reshaping his gimmick. When he returned to the ring at the end of the year, Cibernetico suddenly had a ton of screaming female fans (and male fans too). A lot of it was being the returning rudo who’s now a tecnico and going to save us all, but the talk show appearances and his new popularity couldn’t have been a coincidence.

I don’t know that Pena figured the mainstream pub of the Kawaghi fight would turn out this way, but establishing Cibernetico as a big tecnico star probably will gross AAA more in the long term than just the one match with Kawaghi would’ve.

Gran Apache beat Billy Boy for his hair: Gran Apache had opposed his daughter Fabi’s relationship with Billy Boy, and was angry when he found out Fabi was pregnant – till he realized/decided it wasn’t Billy’s son. This didn’t sit well with Billy Boy, and he feuded with his father-in-(common?)law leading up to a hair match on 04/30. Due to sparse coverage of AAA, both on their own website and elsewhere, it wasn’t really easy to get a good feel for how over this feud was before this match unless you were watching the TV show (which was still months behind in the US.)

The hair match between Billy Boy and Gran Apache has since been acclaimed as one of the best matches of the year. Bloodied and battered, Billy Boy can not overcome old man Gran Apache, and the match ends with the emotional scene of Fabi bringing her newborn son into the ring to watch as his red faced father gets his hair shaved off. This was AAA doing what it does at it’s best; going in, the thought was Billy Boy needed a win to establish himself as a singles star, but everything coming together as it did a better job of making him as an individual (and he can always get the win later.)

AAA would downplay the feud during the summer (starting a triangle with Gran Apache claiming Brandon was the real father but never really going anywhere with it), but ramp it back up during the fall. Gran Apache would kidnap his grandson, starting another round of matches.

The Mexican Powers debut: On the same show, Juventued Guerrera returned to AAA, starting a new group that was obviously intended to be a mimic of his previous WWE stable. They originally called it the MexiPowers (to be like the MexiCools), but split into two names. Replacing Psicosis was the AAA Psicosis (who left the just reformed Vipers to join this group), and replacing Super Crazy was his cousin, Crazy Boy – who was a CMLL undercarder up until that moment, and had just missed an Arena Mexico show days before, due to injury. Juvi didn’t just borrow from his own WWE group; he also took Rey Misterio’s area code gimmick and got his whole team jerseys with their own area codes.

The Mexican Powers, particularly the non-Juvi members, were way into hardcore/extreme/garbage wrestling styles; that’s how Crazy Boy had made his name, such as it was, on independent shows and AAA gave them free reign. Crazy Boy’s frequent indy partner/rival Joe Lider was later brought into the group to do more of the same style. Some of the younger AAA wrestlers went along with it, some of the older ones didn’t seem too impressed.

The Mexican Powers actually had more legs than the group they were mimicking, and got over well as an undercard tecnico group. Their matches provoked definite opinions – you either liked that style or you hated them (like me), and the wrestlers weren’t that great at doing their stunts; over the course of the year, there were a lot of botches AAA never bothered to edit out.

Other AAA Notes Lots of continuing angles…
– Muerte Cibernetica, Cibernetico’s hired mercenary, started his feud with La Parka Jr.
– Zorro defended the Mexican Heavyweight Champion quite a bit as part of a three way feud with brothers Electro Shock and Zorro. As the feud progressed, Electro was slowly becoming rudo-ish, like his brother.
– Cassandro and Pimpinela Escarlata continued their feud, which never got around to a payoff
– Vampiro, Konnan, Cibernetico and Shocker had a four way chain match, which sounds like it should been a big deal, but wasn’t.
РLaredo Kid, N̩mesis AAA, Super Fly and Rey Cometa, dubbed the New Air Force, made their way up the cards and a feud with the Sect.

Besides the AAA stuff, there were three different important CMLL shows on the month.

Dark Angel beats Amapola for her mask on 04/14: When CMLL restarted the women’s division, Amapola and Dark Angel were initially the rudas, but they stole the match, Dark Angel got over as a tecnica, and everything got redone for that and seemingly a dozen other reasons. The two spent the first part of the year feuding, with Dark Angel yanking Amapola’s mask multiple times, but I don’t it occurred to me how big a deal CMLL was going to make it until it was announced as a semi-main of an Arena Mexico show.

It was proclaimed to be the highest women’s match and first mask match in Arena Mexico history. There was a discussion of women’s lucha libre history in that week’s Box Y Lucha; I was unaware until then that women had been banned for wrestling from around ’58 to ’88 due to local morals legislation (that same that kept lucha off TV.) Dark Angel seemed primed for the top spot in the division, so there as no doubt Amapola was losing her mask in the preview, and she did, but got herself in trouble for storming off after taking her mask, not allowing any of the magazine photographers to get a good shot off her. (I think they’re going to have to position themselves on the ramp to get people as they walk to the back, one of these days.) Amapola apologized for her actions in the press in the days after, but seemed to drop in rank on the ruda side as punishment.

Surprisingly, this win actually didn’t springboard Dark Angel. The match was fine, but outside of winning the CMLL bodybuilding title on her own, she wasn’t given major matches or feuds the rest of the year. She’s still seems to be the fan’s choice, but maybe not the promotions pick for the center.

Mistico & Negro Casas end Averno & Mephisto’s reign, win the tag team titles: Negro finally found the right partner. Title change went down the same day as the mask match. Averno & Mephisto had a great reign as tag champions, especially on the sliding scale for championships in Mexico, defending the titles often, in high visibility, and against top competition. The titles were raised to their highest level since Ultimo & Bucanero were trading them with Negro & Santo. Despite not having the titles, Averno & Mephisto are still casually referred to as the best team in the country and it’s assumed they’ll get the belts back at some point.

As of this writing, Mistico & Negro Casas have been near non-entities as champions. Outside of one defense versus the former champions (to promote Mistico in a music video), CMLL hasn’t done much with the duo as a team and Mistico’s individual issues would’ve made it tough for them to do a lot with this title even if they wanted to. Negro, as a guy who’d been chasing the titles, and Mistico, a frequent opponent of Averno & Mephisto, made sense as a team to finally stop the ex-champs, but didn’t make sense as a team that’d keep the belts valuable.

Guerreros defeat Perros on 04/28: This was the traditional end of April big card by CMLL. The top two matches were another outgrowth of the feud between the two rudo stables.

In the semimain, Ultimo Guerrero defeated Hector Garza to retain the CMLL Light Heavyweight championship.
In the main event, Tarzan Boy & Rey Bucanero beat Mr. Aguila & Damian 666 for their hair.

Neither match ended up meaning all that much by the end of the year; Ultimo and Hector’s match wasn’t as good as it might have sounded, and the double hair match was one you had to strain to remember a few months later. It really had no impact.

What we didn’t know at the time was how this card was probably a compromised rethought out lineup. Apparently, the original plan – maybe for this show, maybe for a show later in the summer – was to culminate the Perros/Guerreros feud with a cage of death match, everyone on both sides involved, and Rey Bucanero taking the loss and losing his hair. Bucanero, having started the Guerreros with Ultimo as his equal partner and since been passed in importance by every new member, balked at taking the loss, and considered a jump to AAA. CMLL changed it’s booking to keep Rey around, turning him tecnico later in the year – which flopped bad. He probably would’ve been better going.

Tecnicos lose on Kids Day!: CMLL ran a special Arena Mexico show on a Sunday, drawing lots of younger fans (at reduced prices) for a Kids Day show. Since the beginning of time, or at least since CMLL started running these years ago, the good guys would win on shows for kids, sending all the children home happy.

In 2006, La Park was a grinch. As noted in previous months recaps, LA Park had some issues with fellow tecnico Dr. Wagner and was upset with the crowd going against him. Despite Wagner not being involved in the main event (it was the Perros versus Negro Casas, Heavy Metal, LA Park and Mistico), LA Park got booed once again. Park became angry and bitter, taking it out on Mistico. He attacked his teammates, and then laid down to allow the Perros to beat him. Park teased joining the Perros at the time, but ended up being an independent rudo (and sometimes a tecnico in other parts of the country.)

historical note: at one point, it was hinted Black Warrior vs Mistico for the masks would happen on 04/30, to give Mistico the big win in front of all the kids, but they wisely waited for a day where they could for full price (and even more than that) tickets.

Stuka Jr. beats Flecha for his mask: This was an opening match feud that slipped under my radar till they were at the mask challenges. Stuka won on a pretty fun Guerreros del Ring show, and then Flecha disappeared off everyone’s radar, wrestling only rarely and not in the main arenas. In hindsight, this was Flecha putting over a youngster one last time on the way out, typical of his career.

Other: US indy wrestler Sabu did a weekend in Mexico, including a bloody brawl in a Luchas 2000 promoted card at Arena Coliseo. Sabu tore a nail off in one of his matches, which actually sidelined him for a bit