Mistico to NJPW, trios title match tonight, new Lizmark Jr.?

(Strong Style Spirit) NJPW announced Mistico will be back for their August 13th and 15th shows. He’s surely not going alone…

Fuego en el Ring has a long, interesting interview with Negro Casas about his career. Negro off hand mentions that he’ll be returning to Japan “next month” to reach 20 years of wrestling in Japan and 30 years overall, so he’s probably working with Mistico on those shows. (Poor Misterioso!) I forgot to mention how Negro was randomly wearing a CTU shirt last week on Ras de Lona. Negro explains his current Peste Negra roll by saying his brother told him you either renew or you die. Negro wasn’t thrilled with the afro wig or the dancing early on, but they wanted to make the concept work and now he’s enjoying it. They hope to add on new members, but Negro gets to show his different personalities. It sounds like Heavy Metal never got over the silliness and isn’t considered part of Peste Negra now.

Previews of tonight’s Arena Mexico show: ESTO, ovaciones, luchandolibre. Let’s look at this feud:

06/23: Averno, Ephesto, Mephisto b Hijo del Fantasma, La Mascara, La Sombra
06/30: Hector Garza, Hijo del Fantasma, La Mascara DQ Averno, Terrible, Texano Jr.
07/07: Hector Garza, Hijo del Fantasma, La Mascara DQ Averno, Terrible, Texano Jr.

I *guess* I see why Averno, Ephesto and Mephisto are the ones getting the show, since that’s the only trio that actually beat even part of the champions. Two straight weeks of losses to build it up, and not even with the right team (because Texano & Terrible are in GDL instead, to perhaps set up a title match there) is not the most thrilling build. This is kind of an interesting attendance night, to see if people seeing the setup on the cheap show will come back a week later to see the title match on a regular priced show, but it’s not the most intriguing setup. And still, I think it’s a 50/50 match.

[poll id=”33″]

FWIW, it sounds like Mephisto retained his title Monday night in Puebla.

AAA’s listing for the 07/17 TV taping has the Cruiserweight tag teams more as you’d expect – Alex/Rocky, Jack/Tiger, Teddy/Sugi – than the original lineup had. It’s strange, because they clearly didn’t have it that way on the original poster, but then that seems to happen a bit with AAA. The lineup they posted last night for Arena Cuatro Caminos (which took place last night) is kinda the same, because it doesn’t have the Teddy “Hard”/Jack Evans singles match advertised on the poster, those two are part of a trios main event instead. Plus, you’ll get things like the press release photos for Sunday’s tapings (see luchandolibre) clearly including angles which go unmentioned in the recap – what angle did they run with the Tirantes and Roldan to explain Hijo de Tirantes return?

With CMLL, it feels I can understand 95% of what’s going on without even watching it. There are surprises in performance levels, and there’s subtleties that slip by unless I watch the TV show, but I feel like I know what’s going on pretty well at all times. I think I pay attention to AAA just as much at this point but, just about every week, there’s something that makes more sense when I finally see it because a couple missing pieces have been added, or it seemed the emphasis was on one bit and it actually was on another, or something other bit of information confusion. Certainly some of it’s because AAA is trying more storylines and more complex ones, but they seem to have much more trouble explaining what’s going on, and it’s more important for you to care about that in AAA.

This recap (Guepardo_Jarocho @ el Martinete) of the Lizmark Sr. retirement show @ Arena Veracruz says the Lizmark Jr. who partnered with him was a NEW Lizmark Jr., not the CMLL guy. Confusing. We’ll see if he turns up again, but I’m switching everything over to Hijo del Lizmark to be a little bit clearer.

Cesar guesses at Infierno en el Ring participants, wondering more about who gets the big win, notes that Toscano has gone full circle and is now over with the same personality the crowd turned on early in his career, and sees 2009 as a bad year for the image of wrestling.

Box Y Lucha has #2929 Wagner celebrating 24 years as a wrestler. We’re coming up on WON Hall of Fame season, and I’ve been thinking the last few days how Wagner has improved his case a little this year, but is set up for a big next 12 months. Maybe he’ll get in around his 25th. Anyway, ByL is down on WWE, talking about Dos having difficulty in the new group and complaining about Misterio ripping off Mistico.

LuchaWorld has Rob on AULL 04/09/08 and CMLL GDL 04/15, 04/27, 05/04/08, plus KrisZ’s new update.