Tag: yir

the Big Story: Both promotions held major shows to close the end of the year.

AAA’s Guerra de Titanes show certainly trumped CMLL’s year end card for meaningful storyline conclusion. The company spent the last quarter of the year building up Muerte/Cibernetico and (lesser) Alan/Intocable/Scorpio/Porky feuds. AAA sort of paid off the undercard one – Porky lost his hair, but Alan vs Intocable didn’t get resolved – and saw Cibernetico get his revenge on Muerte by putting him in a casket, hammering it closed, carrying it to the ocean, setting in on fire, and dumping it in the water. (Muerte’s gone – for a few months.)

This was also Konnan’s last appearance before hip surgery, which was complicated by kidney’s issues. Konnan hip would be replaced in 2007, but he still needs a new kidney as I write this.

AAA ran one more TV taping in 2006, which didn’t air until 2007. On it, La Parka Jr. continued having problems with the newly tecnico Hellbrothers, since Cibernetico was his old rudo rival.

CMLL’s year end show was a PPV, just like the anniversary show. CMLL originally announced it for a 12/01 date, but when the annual Arena Mexico vacation was called off, the match was pushed back with the excuse of a Marco Corelone injury. Which was odd, because he was still wrestling his full schedule, but they pushed the idea he wasn’t 100% for a hair match.

The main event of the show, and the only major focus of the show, was a Kenzo Suzuki (w/Mima Shimoda) & Marco Corelone vs Universo 2000 & Shocker hair match of the heavyweights. The build up was based on Universo and Marco not getting along, which happened to be a real problem. The two guys from vastly different wrestling cultures apparently didn’t respect each other much, and got in cheap stiff shots for a couple weeks until they were isolated from each other. On the other hand, my favorite build up was Kenzo calling Universo the worst wrestler in the world, fantastic on many levels.

Mistico was announced in part of an undercard match, and another Guerreros/Perros CMLL Trios match was added just before the show.

The results from this show were pretty much we had figured, with the foreigners losing their hair and the Guerreros holding on the trios titles.

The big news from the undercard was a pending Averno/Volador Middleweight match, which was good and never aired. Of course. They have taken that match on the road, so maybe it’ll turn up someplace else eventually.

Lots of other singles feuds going around…

Rayo and Konnan Big: I think I’ve covering Monterrey that much; I think I could sum up it in bullet points
1) Konan Big inexplicitly gets in a feud with a star of a TV show on the same network Arena Monterrey shows air
2) Konan Big beats TV star in a match – sometimes for their hair
3) People care, but really only about the TV star, and eventually they run out of ones of those

In December, the twist was to do a program with Rayo de Jalisco Jr., who seemingly left CMLL earlier this year when no one was paying attention (and no one cared). Rayo put up his mask for Konan Big’s FULL Heavyweight Title, and unsurprisingly did not lose his mask. Konan Big got a return title match for putting up his hair, and I never saw a result, so I assumed Konan Big won the title back – but apparently I’m hearing now that didn’t happen? That’s a surprise.

Mistico vs Hijo del Diablo: After years of teasing mask matches, mostly with Hijo del Santo, Hijo del Diablo finally agreed to put it on the line versus Mistico, on December 1st in Tijuana. Mistico won in a match which was supposedly anywhere from below average to terrible, with people assuming Diablo of trying to expose Mistico. (Full results from that show.) That story got lost in the shuffle when Diablo claimed to Ovaciones that he was stiffed for pay. Diablo’s story was questionable, and he quickly changed his tune, perhaps having gotten extra pay out of it. Diablo, unmasked, has gotten a regular gig with IWRG and has debuted his son in that promotion.

Hiroka vs Lady Apache: Lady Apache was going to get her win back, and I probably shouldn’t have assumed total altruism. At first, it seemed like it would happen with Lady Apache defending her Mexican Women’s Title against Hiroka, despite Hiroka not actually being Mexican. Someone must’ve noticed this, because the match was changed to Apache vs La Nazi (who was working as an Argentinean, but apparently that’s okay?) This still didn’t solve the problem of Lady Apache’s win, and it wasn’t a big surprise when she got it by winning the CMLL title to become a two belt champion.

La Mascara vs Sangre Azteca: La Mascara had been a pretty protected midcarder in CMLL in 2006 – as Brazos tend to be – so when Sangre Azteca got a title shot, it seemed like Sangre would get a high profile match but was unlikely to win. Uh uh – new champ. Sangre was pretty ecstatic for his win.

CMLL vs AAA, finally: completely unannounced by either promotion going in, CMLL wrestlers faced AAA wrestlers on the Teleton itself. It was an hour focused on lucha, first with intra-promotion trios matches by each group and then a tease of a battle between the winning squads if only the people at home would donate enough money by the end of the hour.

As if there was any doubt that people would pay to see AAA vs CMLL, the Teleton easily hit their price, and the two trios squared off. Of course, charity or no charity, neither side was going to lose here, and the match ended with a double pin draw finish. CMLL’s front office would later complain about having to go along with this. If AAA acknowledged this match, I missed it.

Other: Nicho started telling his side of the Tijuana robbery , claiming the story was a fabirication and an extortion attempt…CMLL debuted Mictlan, a tecnico midcarder, and debate raged about who he might otherwise be; some people settled on a story that he was Vaquero and/or a stripper from Guadalajara, but that doesn’t seem to fit. The one thing we know for sure is he gets hurt a lot (or doesn’t bother letting the injuries heal). Mictlan’s had multiple scary neck injuries. His debut seemed to be a month behind schedule, so this may have been going on for some time and is still ongoing…Negro Casas, Perro Aguayo Jr., Hector Garza were suspended for a year in Tijuana for >crowd mooning related antics. Seriously.…the finish to an Arena Coliseo main event went awry, when the referees lost track of who was the legal main and called the end to an match that should’ve been still going. The wrestlers fixed it, but the match was never shown.

the big story: the best known man to wear the Huracan Ramirez mask, Daniel Garcia, passed away on 11/01. He was 54.

There were a lot of obits covering Garcia’s life, and explaining the legal issues which led to him having to cede his gimmick. As one of the most famous men in the history of lucha libre, Huracan was on the cover of all the legal magazines., and Box Y Lucha pretty much dedicated the whole magazine to him.

Garcia’s son in law, Axxel, was very distraught about Huracan’s passing, as they were close. Huracan’s wife took solace in Huracan having being honored multiple times while he was alive. Unless I’m blanking on one, there hasn’t been an official tribute show for Huracan, but there was a remarkable old school AULL match decided to his memory.

Plenty of indy wrestlers kept using the Huracan Ramirez gimmick, with an uptick of business.

Averno has busy week: When Alex Koslov won a cibernetico to gain a Middleweight Title shot, it set up a pretty busy weekend for Averno with two title matches (though CMLL had a bit or a problem recalling Averno was Middleweight champion.)

The Friday Arena Mexico Tag Team title match was actually just CMLL getting a good Mistico win to promote the debut of the music video he was appearing in, so Averno had really no shot of winning two titles. However, he did keep the middleweight one with a good defense vs Koslov.

CMLL vs Indies: CMLL ran it’s teleton show on 11/20. The concept didn’t sound great, the lineup wasn’t great, and the show was run worse than usual for some reason. But, they drew good (holiday, people who aren’t usually in front of a big crowd) so it was nice for the charity.

AAA also used one of it’s normal TV taping into a teleton special, plugging the charity and asking for donations thru the show.

Safari -> Hombre Sin Nombre -> Efesto: After a year of being the man with no name, CMLL announced he was becoming Efesto (sometimes Ephesto) and starting a partnership with Averno & Mephisto. I still haven’t actually seen him in action, but I assume he’s the same Safari as always.

Other CMLL:
LA Park and Dr. Wagner were suspended in Leon for unauthorized crowd brawling in; LA Park blamed it on drunk fans…Shocker had kinda started and stalled turning tecnico during his return, and Shocker tries to explain it…CMLL ran a wrestlers only bodybuilding contest to encourage fitness among it’s wrestlers; my workplace just does weight loss contests…Negro Casas and Texano Jr. go to NJPW and win every match except the one that matters (best case scenario)..

Cibernetico starts the Hellbrothers: Things started picking up in AAA as they approached the year end show. Cibernetico returned, inviting Chessman to join his new Hellbrothers group. Charly Manson also joined – he was wearing the gear before the group even started. The group officially debuted the same taping Chessman and the Dark Family finally dropped the Atomicos titles to Mexicools. The Sect team had managed to keep the belts over Juvi’s team multiple times despite nearly self destructing as a team, but this time it all fell apart. Surprisingly, Cibernetico was scheduled to return on the TV taping before the Guerra de Titantes.

Other AAA: Gran Apache kidnapped his grandson, continuing the Apaches/Billy Boy feud from earlier this year, with Billy Boy and Fabi Apache starting to turn against each other when they couldn’t get their son back…the teased Intocable/Alan Stone and Scorpio Jr./Brazo de Plata hair matches were converted into one big four way hair match, and the only other noteworthy match announced for Guerra de Titanes was a mystery trio versus the top tecnicos, though it didn’t turn out to be much.

Other: AULL dropped from TV net AULL got dropped from a cable network – was this just a temporary thing? People are still seeing them at least on the other station they’re on…Fantasma de la Quebrada no-shows a mask match in Acapulco he was supposed to lose to Pirata Morgan, claiming money issues….Nicho was back working indies…TNA announced a spot show in Monterrey; the lineup didn’t include any AAA wrestlers, and they’d go back and forth about that…Parade!

the big story: Antonio Pena, the founder and driving creative force behind AAA, passed away on October 5th. He was 57.

It was revealed, after his death, Pena had been sick for a long time before his death and had a long hospital stay. The illness was kept from all but a close few, with Pena continuing to book and run AAA by phone without his wrestlers knowing what was going on. They had an idea he was sick, but not the extent of it till he died.

Pena was remembered and honored by those who worked for him, those who feuded with him like LA Park and even the Archibishop of Mexico City. Pena was not honored by CMLL, who worked for before starting AAA, as they made no mention of his death that night on the Arena Mexico show. CMLL’s TV show did mention it, but that was the choice of the network, not the promotion. (He was dead to the promotion long ago.)

AAA’s TV air liked normal that Sunday, but the following week was a three hour tribute to Antonio Pena’s life, and the rest of 2006 of AAA shows were in dedication to him.

There were lots of obits. The magazines had theirs, Konnan talked about the future of the promotion on Wrestling Observer Live, and Jose wrote the definite remembrance of Pena’s crazy mad genius.

There was a lot of question about what would happen with AAA without Pena. It seemed possible that the whole thing might fall apart, but by three weeks out, it seemed like they were staying pretty stable. Pena’s family took over operations, and kept the promtoion together. There were no major jumps or losses; the only notable change was Arena Coliseo Monterrey split, but that seemed to be more local promoter politics using Pena’s death as an excuse. Part of the reason everything stayed together is probably because there didn’t appear to be chaos; no one made that first move to jump off a sinking ship, so it never was a sinking ship. Another factor was CMLL’s official unwillingness to acknowledge Pena’s death, which angered the AAA workers and focused them to get revenge on CMLL for the slight.

Despite having six TV tapings this month, including a stretch of five TV tapings in ten days just after Pena’s death, there wasn’t a lot of huge AAA news this month. Things were ticking along slowly to build for Guerrera del Titanes show, with no big blowoffs before hand.

Chessman was now openly feuding with the Sect, leading to a match against Muerte. Chessman had Charly Manson as backup, but superior numbers helped Muerte take the win. Cibernetico returned on the 10/22 taping, vowing to return to the ring before the end of the year.

The other big angle was Intocable taking a piledriver from Alan Stone in a six man cage match, heating up that rivalry again. Intocable was off of TV for a month of shows due to the resulting neck injury (though he appeared fine on non-AAA TV shows), and Brazo de Plata Jr. took his place in a number of matches.

CMLL vs AAA: As if the handling of Pena’s death didn’t fully articulate CMLL’s upper management feelings on AAA, the rumored and then yanked interpromotional show said it. Super Luchas broke the story of a Televisa backed dual promotional show, as part of Televisa’s annual Teleton events. As part of the build, Televisa brought in former CMLL announcer and long time AAA announcer Arturo Rivera back to Arena Mexico for a set of shows. (Later, Dr. Morales appeared on AAA TV to return the favor.) CMLL was not down with this idea, wanting nothing to do with AAA, and called the show off. In it’s place, CMLL announced a CMLL vs Indy show for charity on 11/20. This wouldn’t be the last of the teleton, though.

CMLL to December: AAA wasn’t the only one focused on setting up it’s biggest show of the year. Many of October’s Arena Mexico action focused on heavyweights, and adjusting them around to a foreigners/hometown battle. Specifically, Universo had to be a good guy to feud with Kenzo and Corelone, with Univero teaming with Shocker & Rey Bucanero and the foreigners teaming with whoever.

This might have not been the whole plan throughout; in the middle of the month, both I and Ovaciones thought we were getting some sort of Dos Caras vs Marco Corelone feud, as they had started building that up since day Marco debuted. Instead, they ran an angle with Universo 2000, the tecnico, giving Kenzo, the rudo, an illegal Black Hammer to send him to the hospital. That is the way of Universo.

Mistico vs Warrior, stuck on repeat: Before they started prepping for later, CMLL decided to yank as much money as possible out of the Black Warrior/Mistico feud, running trios matches with the two constantly. The whole match didn’t matter, because everyone quickly figured out it was leading to the same finishing sequence: Mistico would attempt La Mistica on Warrior, and either the move would work, or Warrior would escape to immediately cause a foul. It was the kind of match you might do all across the country one or twice for fans who hadn’t seen it, but it instead was run in the same locations on a weekly basis. They kept running this in spot shows and Coliseo and Mexico until attendance dropped off (coincidentally, that was the week Mistico finally learned a counter to one of Warrior’s DQ tactics.) It might have been too late; the repetitive finishes had been a complaint about Mistico matches previous to this, and this set of matches magnified that problem, causing people to turn against him.

The matches just ended one week, with both guys off Arena Mexico shows. Black Warrior was explained to be suspended for his role in stealing Mistico’s Leyenda de Plata trophy, a minor angle from the previous month which hadn’t been mentioned much since it happened.

Lady Apache vs Hiroka: It was a surprise to see Hiroka successfully defend the CMLL Women’s Championship over Hiroka at the end of September; the more tenured and connected Lady Apache was the easy favorite, for reasons even extending beyond vague notions of internal politics. When they continued feuding, and agreed to a hair match, I was sure Lady Apache was getting her win back. Turns out, no, Lady Apache was shaved bald. While Lady Apache would win the title at the end of the year, Hiroka’s two big wins over her are still pretty cool. I still don’t see the logic of Lady Apache getting the title back, but the road there did accomplish something.

Other CMLL
– the annual Leyenda de Azul tournament took place. We probably spent too much talking about it, since it still featured 0 worthwhile matches. Rey Bucanero beat Atlantis in the main event, to end that feud for the moment in the most pointless manner possible.
– Maximo won his fifth hair of the year, beating Emilio Charles Jr.. While they were all midcard feuds, Maximo had a pretty good year.
– In an exclusive interview, Oro II talks about getting a new gimmick as a rudo. Oro II’s vanished, but no one’s yet turned up as rudo matching his description.
– Mistico is very delayed getting to an Arena Coliseo show and the promotion anticipates problems if he doesn’t show, so they stall by taking a undercard trios match very long, having the valets dance, and running a Hooligan/Mascara Purpura match until they get the all clear. None of this, except for clips of the dancing, makes air.

Other: William Boo, famous referee Argentina’s “Titanes en el ring”, died on 10/20. Boo become a national symbol for corrupt and incompetent refereeing. Nicho was reported to have been on armed robbery/reckless driving rampage; he later claims this was all a fabrication as part of an extortion job, but loses his WWE job in the process (though he probably was on his way out already)…Mistico vs Hijo del Diablo for a mask match, was announced to take place in December…Mr. Niebla worked an AAA spot show, though he was still months away from joining the promotion.

the big news: Mistico beat Black Warrior for his mask.

This feud started back in February when Warrior turned on Mistico during a tag team title match. The two had feuded thru the year, and the breaking point was their matches in the Leyenda de Plata. When Black Warrior won his block, you knew Mistico was winning the other one so they could have one more big singles match. (They’d previous had a NWA Middleweight title match, with Warrior beating Mistico for the title.)

On 09/08, Mistico beat Black Warrior, and they agreed to a mask match for 09/29.. As the tournament was in progress, CMLL also decided they might as well have Atlantis defend his title. Despite Warrior’s interference, Mistico won that as well, and is the reigning Leyenda de Plata champion.

In the main event on 09/29, Mistico defeated Black Warrior to win his first mask. The match was good, worthy enough of the build, though not great. Black Warrior was revealed as Jesus Toral Lopes, but not revealed for much, as he covered up his face and left before camera people could get much of a shot of him.

Black Warrior worked hard to create a new look for himself after losing his mask – he’d already had his hair died and painted in a Dennis Rodman story – and gained new fans in the months after his mask loss. His personal re-invention helped, but the 09/29 has seemed to be the peak of the general public support of Mistico. After this match, the amount of fans tired of Mistico and his matches repetitive nature increased, and Black Warrior benefited from being the guys who was trying to put a stop to it. Warrior seemed to have an increased confidence as well, drawing from getting his chance to be a main eventer and succeeding at it. As much was designed to benefit Mistico, it’s worked out well for Black Warrior so far.

Shocker returns, joins Perros, unjoins Perros: Shocker leaving AAA had been rumored thru the summer, so I dismissed it as the same rumor popping up again when it came up before the 09/02 show. I was wrong, Shocker was a new member of the Perros on that show.

On purpose or not, with Shocker joining the group immediately after jumping from AAA, the Perros del Mal were about as close to an invasion force as you could get without using the name. Perro Aguayo Jr., Hector Garza, Mr. Aguila and Shocker had all recently been AAA members before forming/joining the group, and the other two members Halloween and Damian were outsiders from Tijuana. The Perros feuded with the Guerreros all year, and in a battle between two rudo factions, the Guerreros were portrayed as the the hometown defenders, despite the Perros being the more popular team. I’m not sure they were supposed to be an AAA faction come to Arena Mexico (though Chessman may disagree), but they were definitely supposed to be outsiders.

Upon returning to CMLL, Shocker went on a media blitz, pretty much apologizing for his lackluster AAA stint and promising to be back to his old self in AAA. While he was soon back to his old status – refusing to be part of a group where he wouldn’t be leading it, Shocker turned on the Perros to cost them the trios titles on 09/29 – he hasn’t gotten back to the quality of matches from his peak in CMLL. Despite becoming a tecnico (and reuniting with Que Monito), groups of CMLL fans still hold a grudge against him and he gets more boos than you’d expect for a top tecnico.

CMLL on PPV: This 09/29 show was also CMLL’s first PPV since 2002, when the main events were all based on the Boricuas/Gran Markus feud. Mistico/Black Warrior was a bit better. It seemed like it could be a one time event then, but CMLL also ran the year end show on PPV, so they may be restarting them for the major shows. Much like boxing PPVs, matches from the show aired one year later on the normal CMLL TV show (and that week of tapings never aired.)

The lineup for the show was announced two weeks before it, but there was a lot of non match notes. CMLL never mentioned it was going to be a PPV on it’s website, till hours before the show; we found out thru a Sky PPV press release. Tickets for the show were the most expensive ever, as CMLL tried to mine the most money out of the Mistico/Warrior feud. It did appeared the show didn’t sell out as a result. The magazine press was very upset about their access being restricted and not being able to take ringside (or anywhere close to ringside) pictures during the PPV.

I had live coverage of the show (1st/2nd, 3rd, 4th, CMLL Trios, mask), and the results were about what I picked. There’s a day after recap too.

Verana de Escandalo: AAA’s big show of the summer took place on 09/17, and really didn’t have much of note. (partial results, full results).

The opener had as much impact as the rest of the card, with Laredo Kid winning the Dream Tournament earning himself a higher place on the card. Unlike CMLL’s Gran Alternativa, this actually stuck, and Laredo Kid was in the semimains the rest of the year. The downside is Laredo Kid’s job in the semimains was to be repeated killed by Abismo Negro and the Vipers. At least that was building to Laredo Kid’s brief moments of non-death.

Other news on the show saw Charly Manson join the Vipers as a new member (replacing Electroshock, not a long term member), Scorpio Jr. take over the Guapos and Hator join the group (replacing Shocker) and Groon II be the non-surprise surprise addition to the main event. There was plenty of TNA involvement on the show, with a group of random people (AJ Styles/Homicide/Low-Ki/Samoa Joe) winning a four team tournament. Jeff Jarrett wrestled in the main event trios, with a tease of a Jarrett/La Parka Jr. NWA World Heavyweight Title match.

Pena not sick: This month also included an infamous AAA press conference. The lawyer for AAA explained Pena was absent not because of a much rumored illness, but because he was busy organizing North and Central American tours. No one bought it.

Other AAA: Brazo de Plata Jr., Chris Stone (as a new Guapo member, and the sons of Pirata Morgan. Besides VdE, AAA just ran one more TV taping, building up the Scorpio/Porky feud, which wouldn’t peak till the end of the year.

WWE invades Arena Coliseo!: Well, no. But with WWE in Mexico City, and having a free day before their shows started, Edge & Lita took in an Arena Coliseo show, trying to hide their identity under lucha masks. It didn’t quite work.

Averno wins the Middleweight Title: Negro Casas held the championship since 2004, and it seemed to be a bit of a vanity title, with only four known defenses prior to the title loss. Averno had gotten a shot in August in Puebla, and earned another shot in September, winning the title on 09/18. This was a pretty big moment for Averno, allowing him to progress from a good rudo who put over young tecnicos, to one who got to beat those tecnicos some of the time, since he was now champ.

An oddity about this title change is Toxico, a wrestler in Guadalajara, had earlier also earned a shot for the title against Negro Casas. Negro was briefly injured soon after, and the title match never took place, and seems to have completely been forgotten.

WON HOF: Eddie Guerrero (and no other lucha-primary wrestler) was voted in the Wrestling Observer Hall of Fame. It was expected he’d make it, and the debate was more about why he was making it – his life or his death. In other evaluations of wrestlers, with slightly less credibility, lucha wrestlers were on the PWI list though not the order we’d expect.

Other CMLL:
– Volador suffered a neck injury due to a dive gone wrong. It looked bad at the time, and he sat out a couple of weeks, and Volador unhappily sat out the PPV.
– I didn’t know this before, but there was an article detailed Arena Coliseo being built with Lottery winning
– Ovaciones wrote a whole article about Ultimo Guerrero and Atlantis celebrating Atlantis’ birthday by eating cake.

the Big Story: Nacho Libre premiered in Mexico. It’d debuted in the United States in June, and this should’ve been mentioned there, but I sort of forget. And I’m not sure it’s a major story for any other reason than it’s supposed to be.

For those of you reading this in 2010 who aren’t familiar, Nacho Libre starred comedian Jack Black and featured the writer/director of recent the indy cult favorite Napoleon Dynamite. It was loosely based on the life story of Fray Tormenta, but really just lifting the concept idea of a religious figure who led a double life as a luchador and making up everything else from there. (It was still close enough that Fray Tormenta got interviewed dozens of times before the movie even aired.) The movie was promoted as a Nickeloden film, aimed at a young teens.

Nacho Libre received below average reviews, with critics complaining about the one joke nature of the film, and the movie trying too hard to be campy for it to work. The movie did find some fans, who were into the underdog story of the lead character. The movie cost $35 mil to make, and grossed nearly $100 mil in box offices alone, so it was certainly a financial success.

The lucha libre scenes weren’t authentic lucha libre, just what they could do to fit the movie in the time wanted to spend in the ring. The movie did feature appearances by lucha libre wrestlers, most notably Silver King as the lead rudo, Ramses.

One of the big questions surrounding the movie, at least for people already interested in lucha libre, was what effect the movie would have on those who didn’t know Mexican wrestling. There hasn’t been a big surge of interest as a result of the movie, but I think there was an increase of visibility from the movie. Nickeloden obviously liked the numbers they saw, as they’re working on a lucha libre cartoon, and airing a Kaiju Big Batte inspired wrestling show. It’s going to take some time to see if this has any long term traction, or if it’s just a minor fad.

In Mexico, the movie hit #1 in the box office during it’s run. (It peaked at #2 in the US.) Silver King continued his role as Ramses outside the movie (wearing the gold Ramses mask, but still being listed as Silver King since everyone knew it was him in the movie), and an indy wrestler or two took up the Nacho Libre gimmick themselves. The big promotions didn’t seem to take advantage of any crossover with the movie themselves.

I still haven’t seen Nacho Libre. I’d heard so much about it for the months up till it aired, and was just happy that part was over when the movie finally aired. The reviews didn’t help.

Masks banned: The big screen wasn’t the only place lucha was making news in August. For at least the last year, some Mexican soccer players had celebrated scoring goals by putting on lucha masks. After a similar bit was done in the World Cup, the federations decided they had enough, and banned wearing masks, declaring the illegal foreign objects. Gabriel Pereyra, a more well known soccer player with the Cruz Azul team, who would do this bit and was invited by CMLL to Arena Mexico for some photo ops with Mistico, seemed to be the focus of this regulation

Roberto Rangel passes away: the long time referee passed away on 08/22, due to diabetes. He’d been out of the ring since the start of the year due to his declining health. Rangel had been a long time part of CMLL, back to the time of the original Santo. He’d also wrote and run wrestling magazines.

RXLL: With Vampiro out of AAA, he and partners announced the formation of an indy group based in Guadalajara, called RXLL. The plan for it seemed closer to a US indy group – flying in big names, making the money back on DVD sales – though there were plans for local and eventually international TV. There was lots of hype for the first show on September 2nd.

Things started unraveling pretty quickly. The way I’ll always remember this promotion is the ‘faulty’ early lineup that was passed around. A poster on the Box y Lucha forum posted a lineup, I and others discussed it, and then there were that somewhat upset e-mail to me about posting bad information from a person involved in the promotion. I hate having incorrect information and sharing like it’s true – that’s why I try to question some things and indicate the unsureness of others – so I was more than happy to post a correction. Except, wait, no, the ‘erroneous’ lineup was the one listed on posters advertising the show. That experience sums up RXLL’s difficulties – the different parts of the group weren’t on the same page, and communication problems seemed frequent.

Looking back at it now, I think I spent way too much time on something before it actually delivered anything. I think the end total was 1 or 2 DVDs (nothing worth seeing), 2 or 3 tapings, and everything falling apart within about a month. One of the business partners walked of with sponsor money, Vampiro moved onto other projects, and some others tried to relaunch the promotion under a different name (LLX), but those shows are being promoted just as inconsistently as before.

Too bad we never got that Blue Panther/Ron Killings match.

Latin Lover makes CMLL cameo: This was a surprise. On the 08/19 show, Latin watched the show from the front row. When the Perros del Mal appeared for the main event, he was invited in the ring by friends Perro Aguayo Jr. and Hector Garza, and put on the Perros del Mal shirt while a million flashbulbs went off. Latin and the Perros were on every single magazine cover that weekend, gaining a ton of press.

CMLL said they were going to try to sign Latin Lover, but that never panned out. Latin has left AAA, and after back and forth in the press about who owns the name, appears completely at odds with his old promotion. That may have been the plan all along – it was just a bit of publicity for both sides.

Other CMLL

In his biggest CMLL match of the year, El Hijo del Santo beat Perro Aguayo Jr. on 08/25, with the help of foul.

Dr. Wagner Jr and LA Park finished their Arena Mexico feud in the much smaller Arena Lopez Mateos for AULL on 08/09. Wagner won while some referee shenanigans took place.

India Sioux beats Medusa for her mask: I was worried about this match. Not because I thought India was going to lose. It was pretty clear Medusa was being used to give the new young tecnica her first big win. India and Medusa just didn’t click together in the lead up feud, having exchanges that made you not want to see the match they were working hard to build. Happily, the mask match on 08/13 turned out good, which was impressive by previous standards.

Maximo beat Mr. Mexico for his hair on 08/07. This was Maximo’s fourth hair match win of the year, and he wasn’t done yet.

Universo actually defended the CMLL Heavyweight Title, beating Dos Caras Jr. in Guadalajara, his third title defense of the year. That’s huge for him. It’s huge for him that he knew where the belt was three times in a year.

Metro->Fabian, Neutron->Fabian: Fabian el Gitano, who’d spent the year as Metro (a sponsored gimmick) was replaced under the hood by Neutron. Despite the two men being different body types, different styles and wearing different outfits, CMLL didn’t actually acknowledge the change. Fabian kept working with CMLL as a regular, so the change is believed to be the sponsor’s decision.

Straight out of Russia: Alex Koslov debuted in Mexico as some random guy from the NJPW-LA Dojo. He became the first Russian to ever wrestler in Arena Mexico (we think) on 08/19, and a favorite rudo by the end of the year.

CMLL and Warners Brothers made a deal for t-shirt sales. It seems to be only on-site sales, as they still don’t have much merchandise on the CMLL site.

Other AAA

Thru the month, AAA pushed the Mexican Powers/Sect feud over the Atomicos titles, while Chessman continued to break away from the group. AAA started the Dream Tournament, but that and the Leyenda de Plata finished up in September, so we’ll save the talk for then. Super Porky and Scorpio Jr., and Alan Stone and Intocable, feuded elsewhere on the shows.

In the pages of Box Y Lucha, Chessman accused CMLL of stealing all their ideas from AAA, specifically citing the similarity between the Perros del Mal and the cool rudo groups of AAA.

Scoria breaks his leg – or not: There was this story about AAA’s Dark Family being involved in a cage of death match on an indy show, and it coming down to Scoria and the indy wrestler who was due to lose. As the story goes, Scoria tried to climb out, but fell, ‘breaking his leg’. Instead of the indy guy leaving the cage, they just stopped the match and awarded the win to Scoria, as that was the planned finish.

The problem with this story is Scoria wrestled a few days later at a AAA TV taping, showing no signs of a leg injury. I don’t know what actually happened here.

La Fiera, who had made a cameo at TripleMania, hurt himself badly on a dive on 08/07 in Nuevo Laredo. La Fiera didn’t wrestle much of the year, and had been deal with personal issues.

Other

El Dandy was telling people he was going to retire. No one actually retires, but Dandy’s kept a lower profile after not getting the right feedback from his request to join CMLL.

In IWRG, Panterita lost his mask, his hair and even his name (changing to Free Lance) in a short time, which seems to happen once a year with someone in IWRG (and usually has to do with money.) Amazingly, he kept his title belt in all of this, and is still IWRG Welterweight Champion.

Rey Misterio Jr. instigates a riot: Not on purpose. He was in Mexico to sign autographs to hype up a WWE RAW tour, which he wasn’t actually scheduled to participate on. That seemed dumb, even before 5000 people got in line for an autograph, and lots of those were left empty handed when Rey’s time was done. Some of the disappointed people worked thru their depression by tearing up the mall.

…I think this was my funniest month.

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.