Mexico previews, Konnan b Fantasma, Poder Mexico abroad

CMLL (FRI) 06/12 Arena Mexico
1) Mascarita Dorada, Pequeño Olímpico, Shockercito vs Pequeño Damian 666, Pequeño Warrior, Pierrothito
2) Maximo, Sagrado, Valiente vs Misterioso II, Shigeo Okumura, Virus
3) Mistico vs Ultimo Guerrero, Hector Garza, Volador Jr., La Mascara, Negro Casas, Mephisto, Ephesto [CMLL UNIVERSAL, torneo]
4) Blue Panther, La Sombra, Toscano vs Atlantis, Black Warrior, Mr. Niebla
5) Shocker vs Dos Caras Jr.

Previews: ESTO, Ovaciones. The show starts at 6:30 to air Atlantis’ movie.

Talked about the Universal tournament in the last post down. I wonder if they’ll break it up around the other matches: do the first round matches before the Mr. Niebla trios, semifinals after, and maybe finals as the actual main event (especially if Dos is supposed to go over.)

Minis opener should be good. CMLL still lists the main event without any stipulation, though it might still end up being super libre. With UG and Shocker feuding on Tuesday, the long term plan here might be for the heavyweight title to go UG -> Shocker -> Dos. Even it’s not, the feud’s clearly not going to end tonight.

This is not that exciting of a lineup, but because of the ticket prices (some news stories say kids are getting free, but CMLL still has it as 1 peso tickets), it ought to be a sell out. Maybe they’ll make some of the money back on concessions with people coming in early for the movie, and maybe they’ll wear people out before TripleMania.

Fantasma and Juvi chimed in on Konnan being free to appear at TripleMania. Fantasma comes off as backtracking, saying he never had a problem with Konnan & Jack, and were just following what authorities were telling them to do (which ones?) Fantasma says Silver King is still banned from wearing his mask. We’ll see. (The Gladiatores has a seemingly unrelated podcast with Fantasma about his career.)

Juvi still says he’s going to sue and try to get Konnan deported, and that’s probably the last we’ll hear about that. Meanwhile, Juvi is talking about restarting his promotion again.

Basler Zeitung writes about Stuka, Fantasma, Dragon and Sangre at the Hot Air Festival, complete with video. I like how they mention the match started with “an apparently typical Mexican half hour delay.” They’ve gone to indy shows, I see.

Hablando de Catch talks to Damian 666, Halloween, and Mr. Aguila about AAA’s Chihuahueños del Mal. More interesting to me is Halloween saying he and Damian did not speak for a year and a half after he left CMLL.

AAA looks back at Cibernetico losing his mask, Kenzo losing his hair, a Pentagon losing his mask, Tirantes losing his hair and Electro & Lady Apache losing their hair at past TripleManias. No one’s losing their hair or mask this year (except for Silver King, I guess.) In advance of the big AAA video game reveal, there’s information some bits of info in an article, though not much new since the Dos de Tres article. Designed on Unreal Engine 3, 360/PS3 versions this year, Wii/DS/PSP next, focused on AAA style. I’m going to have to buy this just because I will not believe it exists unless I have it my hand.

AAA will be doing live updates of TripleMania on their website starting at 8:30 on Saturday.

LuchandoLibre has the opener and the Fabi/Billy segunda.

Cesar wonders if Mistico vs Felino will still main event an anniversary show, but perhaps Mexico City’s instead of GDL.

WagnerMania has a bio of Rolando Vera.

Segunda Caida checks out IWRG on 05/28/09.

LuchaWorld has Robert on CMLL C3 03/01/08 and CMLL TV 03/22/08, as well as KrisZ’s news update.

picking Block B of the Universal tournament

Last week’s winner was an unlikely one. Unlikely enough to knock out a lot of the possibilities for this week.

Highly unlikely, given Texano Jr. is the other finalist

* Mephisto – got his big win for the year anyway
* Ephesto – got his big win for the year anyway
* Negro Casas – not in Texano’s group, but match wouldn’t work at this point.

Very slightly more likely

* Ultimo Guerrero – possible because the Avernos/Guerreros
* La Mascara – only works if they decided to make the finals of the Universal tournament should be a tercera.

Alternates to the obvious
* Hector Garza – though, if the tournament to crown the best champion ends with Texano Jr. vs Hector Garza, the terrorists have won. Hector feels like one of the guys who just exists in the upper midcard, but doesn’t really mean anything. Texano beating Hector would not mean a lot of Texano (unless they went on to do a hair/hair match), and Hector beating Texano would not mean a lot.
* Volador Jr. – this, on the other hand, would be quite different to have Volador/Texano on top – new stars, maybe even a new feud.

Impossibly obvious

* Mistico – duh

It’s Kid’s Day, so Mistico will be as over as he is on any day of the year. On the other hand, it’s clear that Mistico was not picked to win this tournament when it was announced (because he wasn’t in the tournament at that point) and most promotions probably would not consider putting him over here. Winning the overall tournament doesn’t help him Mistico, and Texano beating him would be too big of a step up for Texano for the fans to accept (though there would be those happy for Mistico to lose at any time.) If Volador or Garza or anyone else, you probably end up with a new rivalry you can follow up with. Mistico’s already feuding with half a dozen guys to no end.

Still, those things are true in the Leyenda de Plata tournament every year, and Mistico’s won three straight times. It’s tough to bet against the man. I’m picking Volador, because a tournament where Negro Casas cheats to beat Mistico and Volador beats Negro in the final would continue one feud and nicely springboard Volador in to next week’s final. (Plus, he’s the number #2 tecnico.) I just don’t feel sure about it.

[poll id=”30″]