(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.
I think la Triada del Terror will be the new trios champs tonight. But it will not be a clean win,Los Hijos del Averno will most likely win by a faul in the third fall.
I took the Averno and Co., but I the match seems basically like a tossup.
CMLL has to be hoping to draw at least the crowd they got last Tuesday which I thought was pretty horrible given the ticket prices.
Well at least if I go down and lose my third title match prediction in three days I won’t be alone in embarassment.:)
I still think Heavy Metal got phased out of the group and relegated to mainly Sunday Coliseo shows b/c he’s jumping to AAA next month.
I know I shouldn’t be bitching about this since the CMLL bias is so prevalent on all the Mexican forums but it absolutely boggles my mind (and annoys the shit out of me) that Cesar can write about how great it is that Toscano finally found his niche as a stripper for the ladies.
So Elegido is just a piece of crap who can only dance but Toscano deserves our respect b/c he found a way to get over by stripping in his matches now? There’s absolutely no difference except for the fact Elegido is a better wrestler than Toscano currently.
Also, Toscano is NOT over. Go watch the match from last Friday. You can hear a pin drop until he strips down to his tiny tights and the women scream like crazy. That’s not called being over… that’s called having a SPOT that is over. Should Scotty 2 Hotty have been main eventing WWF PPV’s b/c ‘The Worm’ got a huge reaction on every show?
It’s amazing to me that CMLL is currently copying the formula of the ACM Martes shows to try and draw a barely average crowd. Really shows how far things have fallen and if CMLL thinks Toscano, Maximo, Garza and Shocker are going to be the future and bring back the big crowds… oh boy… it’s gonna be a long couple of years till the next Mistico shows up.
I honestly think what CMLL needs is a new top rudo. Someone who actually gets the concept of being a rudo (i.e. not Ultimo Guerrero) and is fresh to the fans (i.e. not Averno). Obviously I think that person is El Zorro.
@Rob: El Zorro jumping to CMLL would be AWESOME ! But if he did go to CMLL, it would kill my interest in AAA (which BTW is on life support.)
@Calabcd44: Really I pulled the plug about 8 months ago!
@Czr87: I watch AAA for Fuerza Area, Gato Eveready & Zorro that’s it.
@Calabcd44: I hear you dude. I have the pleasure to see Gato Eveready twice and he kicks ass! Aerostar once and Zorro no showed three times! Dr. Wagner Jr. is also fun to see!
@Rob: Zorro jumping to CMLL = Zorro doing stripper gimmick.
0 for 3!!!
Someone check if there’s a title match in Acapulco tomorrow so I can make it 0 for 4!
Zorro would never get pushed as top rudo in CMLL. I”m willing to put money on that.
And as far as I know, CMLL doesn’t have a god awful rudo ref like ACM does in almost every match.
@Rob: I agree. Zorro would be good for CMLL.
Shocker is still a big enough name, and I think they’re pushing him b/c he’ll lose his hair this year.
@Rob: I take it the champs retained tonight ?
@Calabcd44: Yep.
Cubs can pretty much just update a day in advance from now on by just taking my predictions and reversing them to get the actual result ahead of time.
Heavy in AAA would not be big news, Zorro in CMLL would be strange but I wonder how he’ll be treated. btw, I was contending for years over at luchaworld that Liz Jr. was a different guy than Hijo de Liz. I think I was right.
Zorro would be a top RUDO if he went to CMLL! Zorro is just one of the best right now in LUCHA LIBRE!
The Lizmark Jr. on that show looks like a really young guy.
@Kyle: yea, and the recap makes it sound as though it’s his debut.
@Czr87: AAA would claim to own the name Zorro. He’d be La Zeta or something like that in CMLL.
@LLL: Can you really own the name Zorro at this point? I’d think it’d be either be public domain or effectively so.
@thecubsfan: AAA would try something. I think you’re right though.
Zorro character is registered and owned by someone… Toscano was made to use that name because when the Warner deal came in, they didn’t want to have someone stealing a registered character (Tarzan), since Warner actually owns “Flash”, it was OK for that one, they even let him use the costume…
I doubt WB is still involved, but who knows… then there’s Hijo del Fantasma…
Then again, the crazy Zorro is not jumping over the lazy dogs.
Well the name doesnt make the Luchador. People will recognize his face & thats all that matters really. If he is Zorro or not!
@xuisaw: What about the name Porky? Not only did Brazo de Plata use it before working for AAA, but they claim he signed the rights over to Pena.