Tag: bad ideas

a luchablog archive google drive is now a thing which exists

thecubsfan 3 Comments

this drive has been up for a week. I was waiting for a good time when nothing bad was going on to announce it. I’ve given up on that.

Where is it?

This link works. It’s in my Twitter bio too, for when this post vanishes off the front page.

What’s the idea?

If you wanted to see many of the biggest CMLL matches from the last decade, they’re in here. This intends to replace the stuff lost when the YouTube channel went down, though it won’t do it completely. I’ve put up all the ELITE and Todo x el Todo I have, plus the bigger IWRG matches.

Going forward, this is also a place where I can upload the CMLL Sunday shows and anything else which doesn’t make it on to official YouTube channels. This may not happen until there is actual lucha libre again.

Why these matches? Why not all the CMLL and IWRG matches?

Since May, I’ve been organizing my CMLL archive from a few different drives and determined it was close to 2 terabytes. Putting all of it up would take a lot of time, wouldn’t leave space for much else, and there’s no compelling reason to have a public archive of a lot of years old meaningless trios matches. I narrowed down it to the key matches:

  • any hair/mask match
  • any title match
  • any singles 3 falls match
  • occasional other matches of note

The CMLL collection swells a lot in the early part of 00s (when CMLL got more TV shows and people were kindly helping me record them) and then narrows later in the 00s (when the fewer TV shows that existed tended to show stuff that was already on YouTube.) The IWRG archive is mostly 13-18, when the promotion was airing at typically random times on AYM Sports.

This collection is only a first pass. I need to go through my lists of matches I liked and see which ones didn’t fit into that category. If there’s something missing you think I might have, let me know and I’ll put it on the list to add.

WHERE IS THE AAA?

It’s tricky. I’m confident CMLL isn’t going to care about this, they don’t really care about their old content. I’m less so AAA is – they’re running old content on Pluto and were doing it on Twitch. I’m not planning on putting on any paid content on here for any promotion and would prefer people to go to the official sources when possible since that’s how we get more content. (There’s some CMLL stuff that’s aired on TV and is still on YouTube that I’ve left included, but mostly because I just haven’t had a chance to weed through everything.)

The same situation with AAA exists with Lucha Underground. It is still available, at least in the US, and there’s a chance it could show up in other forms. I’m not going to put Lucha Underground up while it still exists in the world. The general principle is I don’t want to lose everything else over one promotion.

Some of this video is not good quality! Why can’t I have a better version? Can you put up a better version?

This is just the state of lucha libre TV. Some stuff aired on cable, on stations that didn’t always take care of their video. Other videos come from internet feeds, sometimes long forgotten and barely working feeds. Some stuff is so old that I recorded it on a VHS, then used a capture card to get into a computer, then compressed in a weird video format, then compressed it into a different format years later. That’s not a great process for video quality. Most stations which carried lucha libre were late into getting HD feeds (or still never have) and we weren’t spending money on a HD capture card for a free project anyway. I’ve put up the best versions I have, but little of this is 2020 video quality.

There are also weird things going on with the aspect ratios at times, a product of networks framing HD content on SD stations. I tried to fix those issues where I could. I made it worse in some cases, I’m sure.

(There are multiple versions of CMLL matches in some cases. The rule of thumb is the US TV version is HD but may have been edited more than the Mexico TV SD version.)

What’s the best use? Downloading or streaming?

My impression is you’d use up a little less bandwidth streaming them, but it’s not a big deal either way to me.

The drive may hit a bandwidth limit somedays, probably more often when it first goes up. Try to be a good neighbor and not grab everything right away, and just come back tomorrow if it’s not working today.

Do I have to download the videos to watch them? How do I stream?

I’m able to stream the videos by clicking on them, clicking on the three dots in the upper right-hand corner to “open in a new window”, and then clicking play in the YouTube controls you get there.

Is this going to be up forever?

Forever is a long time. It’ll probably be DMCA’d out of existence before I stop paying the bill, but I can’t predict when that’d be. (It seems like these are lasting 6-7 years so maybe 2026.) I would suggest saving anything you desperately want to keep forever on a hard drive somewhere; don’t bet on me doing it this bit a fourth time.

Why do this?

I wanted to replace the YouTube. Also, recent world events made me ponder the idea that I could be dead at any more and all of this would sit on a hard drive that no one would ever look at. That seemed like a waste.

You can use these videos however you’d like. I don’t own the promotions, I didn’t produce the shows, they’re not mine. I can’t and won’t stop you from putting them on a video site elsewhere. I’d prefer you don’t put a dumb watermark on them, and that you’d sell them for a fair price outside of Arena Mexico, but I can’t really do anything about it. You take all risk for using the videos, I can’t help you if a promotion or media partner gets upset about it.

the AAA New York & Los Angeles don’t look like they’re happening

thecubsfan 1 Comment

(alternate title: “One Lucha Libre AAA ticket, never used.”)

Let’s go over what we know:

  • AAA sold few tickets to the New York & Los Angeles shows, so few that they turned off the ability to see a seat map so no fan could see a visual representation of unsold tickets in one space. (Though the ticket selection screen still shows no many more tickets have moved.)
    • one source told me the MSG show had sold much less than 1,000 tickets as of mid-July.
  • No matches have been announced for either show.
  • AAA had been posting canned Tweets regularly (and probably automatically) to hype these shows. Those have vanished.
    • AAA hasn’t tweeted the word “MSG” since June 26th.
    • AAA hasn’t used the #LUCHALIBREAAAenNY tag since June 18th
    • AAA hasn’t used the #LUCHALIBREAAAenLA tag since June 29th
    • AAA has continued to push their Mexico shows as normal; they’re not giving on social media ticket sales, just these shows.
  • Neither the Spanish nor the English announce crew mentioned the AAA US shows on TripleMania commentary when it would normally be a focal point
  • Fite.TV were announced as carrying these shows on PPV. They currently list no show airing on September 15th.
  • An AAA show was announced for September 16th outside Mexico City, the day after the scheduled show in New York. It’s possible for everyone to make it back from New York to be on this show, but it would be challenging.
  • I’ve been waving “AAA’s shows look concerning” red flags. AAA’s usually helpful in telling me when I’m way off base. No one’s gotten back to me to say I’m wrong.

None of this is definite proof the shows are canceled. The tickets for New York and Los Angeles remain on-sale as of late Thursday and there were still ads playing for it in the Forum last night. The evidence showing they’re not running theses is getting overwhelming though. We’re waiting for someone on the AAA show to be announced as working somewhere else on September 15 or for AAA to say something. That may still take a while. The social media mentions being dropped in June suggest someone knew to stop pushing it a while ago and yet nothing’s been said. You shouldn’t wait for them to finally change say it to make other plans.

I got a pretty decent ticket: Sec 117, Row 14, Seat 11 in New York City. I don’t think I’m using it. I’m definitely sure I’m not buying a plane ticket and a hotel room for a show that doesn’t seem to exist. More importantly, I don’t want you – a person with an interest enough in lucha libre to be reading this – to have bought tickets to these shows to spend more money on them that you’ll have trouble getting back. I have no doubt the ticket money will be coming back. AAA’s been trustworthy on that in the past. I can’t vouch for airlines or hotel companies or whatever else. I’m sure you can find other things to do in New York if you’ve got no alternative, but I’d like you to have the option to do something else with your time and money.

(LA people: these shows are being fronted by the same investors. Tickets didn’t move much better for LA. If the NY show goes down, they’re not going to run a standalone show in Los Angeles a month later.)

There’s a lot more to say about why these shows didn’t work. I’d like to wait until they get officially canceled to talk about it, but I suspect all the responses to this will be people diagnosing the problem. I think the overarching problem is AAA beliving in taking giant swings and nothing else, and they’re not getting slow pitch machines in the US. There are smaller steps they need to take first – and everyone’s going to list them now – but they seem unwilling to take that approach. It’s a shame because TripleMania seemed to prove there would be a market for a well promoted and positioned AAA show in the US. These plans were not it, but that doesn’t mean AAA should give up. Just don’t start with the level 99 boss of MSG, start a little bit smaller and smarter.

the best AAA matches of 2018 (a dumb list)

thecubsfan 1 Comment

All my picks for the best matches of 2018 are on this page. Listing of the best matches from a single promotion is good material for a day where I may not be around. There’s still a CMLL show to watch (and maybe more if I figure out how to watch the old ones on NJPW World) and I’ve got a few more indie matches to write about. AAA is done for the year, so let’s do some half decent internet list.

This is only including stuff that streamed on an official AAA outlet.

excellent (among the best of the year, the must-see matches)

  • 04/20: Black Danger, Mirage, Último Maldito vs Arcángel Divino, Black Destiny, Genio del Aire – YouTube
  • 05/18: Látigo & Toxin vs Aramis & Astrolux – YouTube
  • 08/02: Flamita vs Bandido vs Fénix – YouTube
  • 08/25: Aerostar & Drago vs Golden Magic & Laredo Kid and Bandido & Flamita and Andrew Everett & DJZ in a ladder match – YouTube

The three-way is the best all-around match but suffers from a crowd they just couldn’t reach. The 04/20 match gets the opposite reaction. I might have liked the ladder match more than most everyone, including the people in it.

Most of the people in these matches were not full-time AAA wrestlers. It might say something about the full-time AAA wrestlers, or it might say something about AAA being surprisingly willing to let people come and go when they had time and interest.

It was notable when AAA did not have a single match in VOW’s length poll in 2016. They had entries in 2017. They’re going to have plenty in 2018, including a few that might not have even made the next part of the list

Great (among the best of the year, possibly with a flaw, worth watching if you want to watch more lucha)

  • 01-26: Lady Shani © vs Faby Apache in a AAA’s Reina de Reinas championship match – YouTube
  • 01-26: Psycho Clown vs Rey Escorpión in a bull terrier match – YouTube
  • 04-20: Aerostar & Drago vs Rey Escorpión & Texano Jr. © for the AAA World Tag Team Championship – YouTube
  • 05-18: Averno, Chessman, Súper Fly vs Carta Brava Jr., Mocho Cota Jr., Tito Santana – YouTube
  • 06-03: Arkángel Divino, Dinastía, Hijo Del Vikingo, Star Fire vs Arez, Belial, Lady Maravilla, Último Maldito – YouTube
  • 06-03: Averno, Chessman, Súper Fly vs Carta Brava Jr., Mocho Cota Jr., Tito Santana for the hair – YouTube
  • 07-13: Dragón Bane, Lady Maravilla, Starfire vs Arez, Chica Tormenta, Keyra – YouTube
  • 07-21: Dr. Wagner Jr., Hijo del Fantasma, Psycho Clown vs Electroshock, LA Park, Puma King – YouTube
  • 08-10: Hijo Del Vikingo, Iron Kid, Niño Hamburguesa vs Black Danger, La Parka Negra, Low Rider – YouTube
  • 08-25: Psycho Clown vs Hijo del Fantasma, LA Park, Pentagón Jr. for the mask and in a cage match – YouTube
  • 09-09: Fénix vs Laredo Kid vs Cage – aired on Twitch, hasn’t been put on AAA’s YouTube
  • 09-21: Faby Apache, La Hiedra, Lady Shani vs Keyra, Lady Maravilla, Starfire – YouTube
  • 10-31: Pentagón Jr. vs Puma King – Facebook
  • 11-07: Drago vs Laredo Kid – Facebook
  • 11-14: Golden Magic vs Fénix – Facebook
  • 11-28: Pentagón Jr. vs Golden Magic – Facebook
  • 12-02: Hijo Del Vikingo, Laredo Kid, Myzteziz Jr. vs Carta Brava Jr., Mocho Cota Jr., Tito Santana © for the AAA World Trios Championship – Twitch ($)
  • 12-08: Hijo Del Vikingo, Laredo Kid, Myzteziz Jr. vs Australian Suicide, Jack Evans, Taurus – Twitch ($)
  • 12-08: Averno, Chessman, Súper Fly vs Carta Brava Jr., Mocho Cota Jr., Tito Santana – Twitch ($)
  • 12-12: Drago vs Hijo Del Vikingo – Facebook
  • 12-19: Pentagón Jr. vs Australian Suicide – Facebook

Averno, Chessman, Super Fly vs Carta Brava, Mocho Cota and Tito Santana shows up 3 times. That’s pretty good.  Electroshock makes the list one more time than I thought. One more time than Pagano. You are still allowed to love the TripleMania garbage match without me.

It is a little weird there’s not a 1v1 match on either of these lists past January outside of the Lucha Capital stuff, but it is not so surprising when you watch AAA. It is also weird that the women’s division has generally been Good post-April but rarely great. Glad at lesat one trios match made the list.

There were a lot of shows between January and April. There were not a lot of good matches. I’m not sure if/when the December matches will go up on AAA’s YouTube; not everything from Twitch is making it up.

Feel free either to watch some of these or yell at me for not including something, whichever you prefer.

The 2017 Luchablog Abstract is now available

thecubsfan 3 Comments

I wrote a book. You can get it via payhip. It’s available for the low, low price of “whatever you want to pay, even if that’s nothing at all.”

The 2017 Luchablog Abstract is a 80+ page year in review. There’s an essay about the year itself, about CMLL, about AAA, and about everything else. In between, there’s brief thoughts about anyone who had at least a couple of matches in AAA and CMLL. There’s also a similar section covering the important The Crash people and a few bonus entries.

If you’ve enjoyed what I write here or elsewhere on lucha libre, I believe you’ll like this as well. If you’re someone who reads this site often, you’ll get all of my thoughts on people in once place. If you’re a new to lucha libre or unfamiliar with it, it will give you some background on what different luchadors have done and what their future looks like. If you have at all a passing interest in lucha libre, I think you’ll find it worth a look.

And, it’s a free look. The price is set to $0.00 as a default. You’re under no obligation to pay anything for it. I encourage you to purchase it once for free, decide what it’s worth to you, and then buy it a second time for that price if that works for you.

To keep your expectations in check: this is a bare bones project from a person who has never done this before. There’s no photos or art, the cover is just text. it’s just a lot of words, though the words were actually professionally edited. I hope the words are interesting enough to make up for nothing else really existing.

Here are some answers to questions you may have:

Q: Did you just steal the Voices of Wrestling concept for a wrestling ebook?
A: Yes. Yes I did. At least half of them are aware of it, and this book wouldn’t have existed without their assistance.

Q: Who contributed to this book?
A: Just me. I had editing help, but all the profiles and essays are mine. It was a lot of work.

Q: Will this be available outside of Payhip? How about Amazon?
A: Probably not.

Q: What timespan does this book cover?
A: January 1 to December 31, 2017. Anything from the last six weeks, a period commonly known as “2018”, is not covered.

Q: Why is this out now? Does it feel out of date?
A: I could not commit to doing this project until January. It took about as long as I thought it would, it just took a lot of time. There are things which have changed in both promotions and for some of the wrestlers in the last six weeks, but that’s ok. My goal was to create something specifically connected to a specific time. I believe it’s still useful to get a sense of this past year.

Q: I really like this website or the luchawiki or the lucharobot or something else you do, can I just use this as a way to funnel money to you to say thanks irrespective the actual book?
A: Look. I’m not going to turn down free money. However, if I wanted to charge for those things, I would be finding a way to charge for this things. This is something else. Pay whatever you want for the book.

Q: What are your plans for any money you make off this book?
A: thought hard and came up with this list:

  1. a pizza
  2. one month of server costs
  3. ????graphic design????
  4. probably another pizza

Q: Will there be a 2018 version?
A: We’ll see. We’ll see.

Hechicero stays champ, Pagano suffers rib injury

thecubsfan 12 Comments
photo by CMLL

CMLL (FRI) 12/29/2017 Arena Coliseo Guadalajara [Arena Coliseo Guadalajara]
1) Black Sugar & Tigre Blanco b Carlo Roggi & Mr. Apolo
2) Joker, Nautilius, Sádico b Rielero, Star Black, Vaquero Jr.
changed from an atomicos (no Esfinge & Rey Trueno), challenges followed for a mask and title match.
3) El Gallito & Microman b Mije & Perico Zakarías
money thrown in
4) El Alteño L Tritón, Explosivo, Neutrón, Omar Brunetti, Príncipe Kisho, Frezzer, Mr. Trueno, Maléfico, León Blanco [cage, hair, mask]
Order of escape: Explosivo, Malefico, Triton, Mr. Tureno, Omar Brunetti, Neutron, Leon Blanco, Principe Kisho, leaving Alteno & Frezzer. Alteno lost to Freezer.

I’m not sure I have that main event result right; the match result takes a right turn to mention “Alejandro Fernandez” as a pop culture reference and I don’t know which guy that is. I did look up Alteno’s facebook and it matches the guy shown getting his head shaved, and I should feel fortunate to get Guadalajara results. I probably will spend some time in the next week going thru all the shows where we got video of a Tuesday GDL match but never actually results.

CMLL (SAT) 12/30/2017 Arena Coliseo [CMLL]
1) Acero & Aéreo b Pequeño Universo 2000 & Pequeño Violencia
2) Astral, Príncipe Diamante, Starman DQ Grako, Hijo del Signo, Inquisidor
Signo’s first match unmasked. Tecnicos took 2/3, Signo fouling Starman.
3) Felino, Pólvora, Rey Bucanero b Guerrero Maya Jr., Rey Cometa, Tritón
Rudos took 2/3
4) Hechicero © b Blue Panther Jr. [NWA LH]
4th defense. Coyote & The Panther were seconds. Hechicero took falls 1/3 to retain.
5) Marco Corleone, Niebla Roja, Volador Jr. b Gran Guerrero, Kráneo, Pierroth
tecnicos took 1/3 to win the last CMLL match of 2017

Hechicero is still champ, so 2017 wasn’t completely terrible.

Today (Sunday) is a quite day. Many of the Sunday shows are moved to Monday this year for New Years, but not as many as last week. A lot of places seem to be taking a weekend off and aiming more for next weekend’s Dia de los Reyes celebrations.

Notable shows

It’s probably not happening Monday, but the Guerra de Titanes lineup should be out at any time next week, and we’re expecting to get the FantasticaMania lineups on Friday.

Microman translated Volador Jr.’s post show interview from Friday, where he seems grudgingly open to facing Caristico in an apuesta match for the Anniversary show but clearly still doesn’t like him any more (and CMLL probably can’t get a finish out of that.)

Atlantis was advertised for a show in Veracruz and did make the show, but did not wrestle. I have trouble making out what he’s saying, there’s a lot of noise in the clip, but it does sound like he’s planning to be back in 2018.

AuburnPub has a nice story of Marco Corleone, as local New York state guy who ended up living a crazy life.

Pagano suffered a fractured rib in Torreon last night. It was a spot gone very wrong with Murder Clown, which they’re now turning into a storyline on Twitter. A fractured rib usually takes about four weeks to heal, which means Pagano would be pushing it to be make it back for Guerra de Titanes. AAA hasn’t said anything specific up with Pagano – maybe something with Mr. Aguila – so it wouldn’t disrupt things if he had to sit it out, and they may announce him for a match in hopes he’ll be fine by the time the show rolls around.

MedioTiempo has an interview with Murder Clown, who explains his brother got him into trying wrestling as way to get in shape for a college basketball team tryout. He caught the bug and debuted in 2004. I don’t think we’ve ever figured out what his pre-Killer Clown gimmick was, which is odd because it’s not like many guys his size were wrestling in Mexico.

AAA’s TV show this week is pretty much “the best of 2017 that wasn’t TripleMania.” The women’s match which airs is Ayako/Shani, not Ayako/Taya. I thought they could be showing the World Cup one of these weeks, but they showed the two minute highlight package version from earlier this year, so perhaps not. Maybe it’ll be the earthquake benefit show instead.

Saturday night in AAW, Matt Riddle was announced as getting a title shot on their January 20th. (They announced it before the main event, causing me to be sure Jeff Cobb was going to take the title from Rey Fenix to do the Riddle/Cobb match again. It was very sneaky.) Matt Riddle, who has a rep for double booking himself, is currently scheduled to be on the The Crash show on Tijuana. I know AAW was aware of the The Crash booking before they made that announcement. I’m told the The Crash knows Riddle is booked in AAW. Riddle hasn’t talked about this, but my assumption is Riddle is working AAW (where he works frequently) and not Tijuana. I think we’ll just be lucky if The Crash actually announced a change ahead of time, because that’s not been their deal.

WXW announced Rey Fenix & Penta el Zero M were pulled from their March 9-11 shows because hey’re going to be working Lucha Underground instead. That’s unfortunate. Most shows for February and March don’t seem to be announced but there’s probably other sorts of reshuffling going on behind the scenes to accommodate LU’s schedule. On some level, Fenix & Penta probably wouldn’t be getting these sort of bookings without LU – they’d be deserving, but not enough people would be aware of them without an English language outlet to make it worth WXW’s time – but it’s hard to take LU’s side when they’re doing the minimal amount to promote these guys.

Probably worth of more note is Jeff Cobb is announced for the same tournament and hasn’t been pulled. Cobb (Matanza) has been one of the wrestlers most known to be unhappy with his current Lucha Underground situation. LU’s talked about letting unhappy people go as long as they come back to be written out. Maybe this is an indication that’s been agreed upon with Cobb, or maybe nothing’s been agreed upon at all.

LuchaWorld has the latest news update and this week’s Poster-Mania.

Black Terry Jr. has highlights from his trip to Japan.

The Gladiatores has an interview with Sombra Vengadora.

nothing more about lucha libre past this point, just general malarkey 

This wraps up the fourteen year of luchablog, with about ten years of daily updates. Thank you for reading.

If you follow on Twitter too, thanks for putting up with my increasingly cranky and antagonistic posts. I’m aware it’s happening, it’s not a great look, but I can’t seem to stop myself. And thanks to people like Rob and Freddy and Jose and plenty of others for tolerating me personally when I’m being useless and won’t just eat the free post show tacos, and for pushing me to do things I’d never do on my own. What you get here doesn’t really give you a true idea of what kind of nonsense person I am in reality. I’m probably a bit over dramatic (and it’s about to get a lot worse), but there’s are people who went out of their way to make my life easier, and I’m not good at letting them know how much I appreciate it. I really do appreciate it.

There are some things I have to struggle with on my own. With all respect to everyone else, I feel like luchablog is the best place site on Mexican wrestling that exists. I also feel like that means I’m a tiny spec, it’s not nearly enough, not good enough, that there should be some next level I should be getting that I have no idea how to even understand, let alone reach. I feel like I should be doing someTHING, be part of something more, but I don’t know if that more even exists, or if I really should be doing something less. And it’s entirely possible these are just issues with the rest of my life that are just bleeding into this.

Lucha libre is a niche of a niche of a niche, so there’s only so much people will ever care, and lucha libre (and wrestling itself) often seems to repel people against caring. Maybe this is as far as it can be taken, and maybe I should learn to be more content with what I’ve accomplished and what I’m doing. There’s just this nagging part of me I can’t quiet, that says doing this as it is forever is not enough, that I wouldn’t accept the lack of growth in others and I shouldn’t accept it from me. I don’t know. If I had answers, I’d write them. This year, I’m certain I don’t have the answers.

Here’s what I do know: I’ll be back tomorrow with a new update, and a recap if I have time for it. And the day after that, and for a long time to come. And I’m definitely not looking for people saying nice things about me in the comments or on Twitter. I appreciate any thoughts along those lines if when I refuse to acknowledge them, but I’m not looking for those with this. I think I need to work on trying some different things in 2018. If I do, and if they’re any good, save the praise for that.

There’s is one actual announcement. I’m bringing back the Tapatia awards. I’m not going to mention it on Twitter until it’s ready to go, but voting will be open in the next couple of days and be open long enough to let you (or me, mostly me) finish catching up on 2018. They’re going to be stripped down, with less categories and less depth, because I don’t want it to be intimidating. Awards get attention, more attention for lucha libre is good, so this is one of those things I feel like something has to do. And I think that’s the thing you can continue to expect in 2018: if there’s something worth doing about lucha libre that no one else is doing, you can count on me throwing myself at it.

2017 CMLL Homenaje a Dos Leyendas lineup (they’re really doing Diamante Azul vs Pierroth)

thecubsfan 1 Comment
Poder Mexica, Comandante Pierroth’s previous identity

CMLL (FRI) 03/17/2017 Arena México
Homenaje a Dos Leyendas, 2017 (Villano III & Salvador Lutteroth)
1) Estrellita, Marcela, Princesa Sugehit vs Amapola, Tiffany, Zeuxis
2) Dragón Lee, Stuka Jr., Titán vs Euforia, Gran Guerrero, Niebla Roja
3) Atlantis, Carístico, Marco Corleone vs Kráneo, La Máscara, Rush
4) Matt Taven vs Último Guerrero © [NWA MIDDLE]
tenth defense
5) Mistico, Valiente, Volador Jr. © vs Ephesto, Luciferno, Mephisto [CMLL TRIOS]
ninth defense
6) Pierroth vs Diamante Azul [mask]

This lineup was the big news from the CMLL press conference today. CMLL picked the Pierroth/Diamante Azul direction a while ago and stuck to it. There’s no drama in the main event – Pierroth is Arturo Muñoz Sánchez, 48 or 49 years old, who lost his mask in this same arena in 2002, and will almost certainly lose his mask again – and it’s probably going to be a poor match. They’re going to try to make it good, but neither man is that good. I think Diamante Azul might be able to have a good match with the right person, but Pierroth is definitely not that person. I don’t think Pierroth can have a good singles match with anyone.

Both men are bulked up bodybuilders who are more focused on their looks than their skills, and choosing to focus on these two over the dozens of more deserving people seems an insult to most everyone else who works in CMLL. I think there’s plenty of people who work in CMLL who know this is a dumb and bad idea, but the priorities of the people in charge appear to be elsewhere. This is one of those shows where a fan is reduced to hoping the show completely fails and everyone responsible is shuffled away from responsibility, but that’s an unlikely event. (Even when a show does fail, like TripleMania 2015, it doesn’t mean the right lessons are learned or that people stop denying the obvious.)

The rest of the show is the alright but CMLL big show stuff. A Sky Team (or equivalent) trios match on a big show is the usual thing, and this is somehow the first time they’re facing the Hijos del Infierno for the trios titles during this reign. The Hijos del Infierno may or may not be Mexico Trios champions at this moment. Volador wanted the title match to be a double title match. The rudos responded that they were so confident, they’d give up the national trios because they were sure they’d get the world ones. Volador re-explained his team wanted both titles, and it was unclear if Mephisto and friends actually gave up the trios titles or not. It’d be a really dumb way of taking the titles off the Hijos del Infierno. It’s also seems very unlikely Puma, Tiger and Negro Casas will ever get that trios title shot, as CMLL appears to have completely forgotten that angle and the only people who bring it up are those of us out here.

Matt Taven is back as part of the CMLL/ROH interchange. CMLL appears to have very limited knowledge of ROH – there’s work being done during WrestleMania weekend to fix that – and Taven did well enough in his appearance last year to come back. This is probably just a showcase match for UG, but there are worse ideas than ROH taking one of CMLL’s two dozen championships. The rest of the show are the usual filler opener trios matches on a big show, or the middle of a card on a regular show.

It’s a Friday show. There will be 52 of them this year. The trios title match will likely be great, and the Taven/UG match and the second match might be, but it doesn’t strongly positively distinguish itself from the 150 other free to internet shows CMLL will run this year. I wouldn’t want to pay $10 for it and there’s nothing that makes me excited to see it. It looks like it’ll cost a lot more: tickets go on sale Thursday, running 304 MXP up to 1849 MXP. (That’s $15 USD to $93 USD.) The low end is even with the bigger recent anniversary shows (Sombra/Atlantis, UG/Atlantis), and the high end is a little bit lower than last year’s Anniversary show (1989 MXP.) CMLL is going to make a lot of money if they can actually get people to come out for this, but those prices seem way too high.

There wasn’t a lot of other actual news on the press conference, just people talking about matches that had already been announced. Volador, Cavernario, Valiente and Ultimo Guerrero talked about Friday’s tournament final. Pierrothito talked about the minis tournament. Zeuxis talked about her title defense on Saturday. Some of those people will talk more in about an hour on Informa.