Lucha Libre USA: Masked Warriors #7 (08/28/2010)

taped 08/07/10 in Las Vegas

Masked Warriors

I come not to bury the end of Lucha Libre USA: Masked Warriors (season 1), I come here to praise it. Comments for this post are only for your positive (season 1) memories of this promotion, negative comments will be deleted.

Things I enjoyed on this show (season 1):

  • People got paid! Never ever underrate this.
  • People got paydays who no one was expecting to ever be getting paydays. Who’d ever figure Neutron would have a major television role in 2010? He may have had his career peak about 3 years after most thought it was over. A bunch of minis got to have high profile matches and will now spend the next decade promoting themselves as having appeared on MTV. (As will minis who didn’t actually appear on MTV2.)
  • No one burned any bridges, so they’re just out of this schedule (while they’re on hiatus) and didn’t leave any other gigs behind. Charly Manson worked here, worked CMLL and worked indies all without a problem.
  • Every single scene involving Pequeno Halloween. He’s no slouch outside the ring, but every skit was *****. And Rebecca was good going with it.
  • The many, many silly skits. From Lujo’s telenovela life to Tinieblas TV.
  • Mascarita Dorada on my TV, spinning around.
  • Super Nova! Entering to Danger! High Voltage! Please take that back to wherever you land next.
  • Various US indy guys who will probably do well elsewhere. Saber Claw/Medianoche hopefully will get to springboard to a bigger stage. PR Powers/Aeroform are surely going to be the indy highfly team of choice in 2011, if not sooner.
  • Rocky Romero and Salsero both picked added yet another gimmick to their list.
  • TJP added one too as Sydistiko, but I hope he finds a way to keep using it, or using aspects of it. He’s always a guy who’s seemed technically good but missing something extra, and that might have been it.

What did I forget?

Dr. Cerebro wins, lucha in La Laguna, luchadors not paid in ACM

IWRG (SUN) 08/29 Arena Naucalpan [Estrellas del Ring, Black Terry Jr. (flickr), The Gladiatores]
1) Guerrero 2000 b Pikachu
2) Jack & Super Halcon Jr. b Comando Negro & Epidemia
3) Magia Negra & Mr. Power b El Simbolo & Miss Gaviota
4) Black Terry & Cerebro Negro b Avisman & El Hijo del Diablo and Oficial AK47 & Oficial Fierro and Chico Che & Suicida
5) Dr. Cerebro, Freelance, Hijo de Pirata Morgan, Oficial 911, Veneno b Chris Stone, Decnnis, El Brazo, Ozz, Último Gladiador [cibernetico]

Team IWRG won in what’s said to be the least of the recent IWRG/AAA cibernetico matches they’ve done lately. Before the match, Decnnis invited El Brazo to be in the Militia again. El Brazo, showing he’s learned absolutely nothing from being beat up in this very arena 10 days ago, said no again. This time, everyone on team AAA just got along anyway. Eliminations went Freelance, Decnnis (who complained about an IWRG unfair count), 911, Ozz, Brazo, Veneno, and Hijo de Pirata Morgan. With Chris Stone and Cerebro left, AAA tried to win the match by convincing Dr. Cerbero to join their side. This also worked as a distraction, but Dr. Cerbero caught Chris Stone in a submission (and held on to it, despite Decnnis running back in to attack.)

After the match, Team AAA invited Dr. Cerebro to leave IWRG and join them in AAA. Dr. Cerbero said no, but left the possibility open later. Uh oh.

Four way tag match came down to Terry & Cerbero defeating the Oficials, which starts that feud again. There are only three possible trios feuds in IWRG at any time – Oficials vs Terry/Cerberos, Oficials vs Gringos, and Gringos vs Terry/Cerberos – and we’re back to plan A. Chico Che was hurt during the match and replaced by Angel.

“El Simbolo” appears to be a guy with no shirt and wrestling in jeans and sneakers. I think we’ll see him again right after we see Mini Skandalo.

Pikachi = Guizmo with new pants. These are the updates this this website exists to provide.

On Sunday in Arena Solidaridad, Pantro lost his hair to Tigre Universitario, and Orquidea Negra lost his hair to Chica de Arabia.

In Arena Neza on Sunday, Psicosis beat Averno by a sneaky foul in the main event trios. The semimain built a Ramstein/Fantastik feud. The attendance was typically horrible for that building; the only group who’ve drawn there is AAA.  The Gladiatores has a video interview with the Invasors on that show.

El Siglo de Torreon has a detailed article about the lucha libre business in La Laguna. Attendance has fallen 50% over the last three years, with the bad economy and the lack of security. Jose Acero, promoter at Deportivo Lee Roy, actually lists his budget:

(in pesos)
550 to the Department of Events & Alcohol
50 to the Civil Protection department
200 to the Box Y Lucha commission
unlisted costs for flyers and other advertising
1000 for rent
3200 ($243US) for a the entire lineup of 22 wrestlers, if they’re all local (50 for those in the opener, 80 for the 2nd, 100, 150, and 200 for main eventers); the luchadors know the pay are low, but know it’s because the economy
between 15,000 and 35,000 for national wrestlers, plus travel expenses (so no national wrestlers)

Attendance is between 80 -100, with about 40 people getting in free by being invited by a luchador. Javier Dipp, promoter at Arena Olimpico Laguna, says that lucha promoters survive “by a miracle”, because they’re not drawing enough now. (Both Deportivo La Rosita Vicente Guerrero and Plaza de Toros Torreon no longer host shows; no miracle for them.) They’d like those governmental fees lowered. The commission would like to see the shows end earlier, so people would be less fearful of going out into a late dark night.

El Siglo de Torreon also has an Espanto II obit. Their listing for Thursday’s show at AOL has Super Punk in the main event, so either Ultimo Rebelde II has changed his name or Hooligan has two sons wrestling here now. I didn’t know, or I forgot, that they have a website too.

Judging from these posts – Angel o Demonio on LuchaMania, a follow up on LMdLL – no one working Sunday’s Arena Coliseo Monterrey show got paid. The promoter took the money and disappeared.

Silver King & Mesias will be on Motel Diablito on Wednesday, and Mesias will be on Glam Show on Friday. Kind of surprising, since those are shows on 52MX, which has all that CMLL programming. You’d think CMLL would get their own guys on other shows, or at least prevent AAA guys from being on them.

Headline: “Olimpico hopes to save his mask in the cage match.” No way!

There’s talk of creating a female version of 100% Lucha. I believe that’s GLOW. Or WOW.

Cronicas Y Leyendas has video of Alushe vs the Giant Rudos, from 1992. He’s been doing this for a long time.

Hablando de Catch returns to talk about Payasos in lucha libre.

Fuego en el Ring speaks to a Huracan Ramriez, a music teacher in his other job.

Hereos del Ring bio of the day: Aerostar. They mention the Dormilona, so I’d guess that’s in the game. Also, the Super Fly bio mentions his repeated destruction at the hands of Electroshock, so that’s great. There’s a video of a three way match over at GameTrailers, and the flow of the game looks a smoother to me than the videos they’ve been posting on their official site; maybe it’s having two CPU players instead of one (or none?) The game designer explains it’s the part of the rudo campaign mode – 22 stages! – and we learn Scoria and Brazo are all the way at the bottom of the ladder (and Brazo looks surprisingly fun to play as.) There’s another video interview about the game on the site.

LuchaWorld has KrisZ’s news update.

AAA on Televisa #952 (08/21/2010)

Aerostar Special - #2? Near death, too.

Gimnasio De La Unidad Deportiva, Toluca, Estado De Mexico, 07/29/2010 – Toluca remains a great place to hold an AAA show.

Aerostar, Laredo Kid, Súper Fly vs Billy Boy, Decnnis, Tigre Cota: The problem with with trying to get these guys over now is they’ve spent the last three or so years treating everyone here as completely unimportant, and the people who have been treated as important aren’t around for them to beat. They gain nothing by fighting each other, and that’s all they get to fight. As we’ll see in future weeks, there’s no sense either side has advanced or grown in anyway. The Militia is not wearing new gear or getting a new entrance or using new moves or appearing as any sort of special group, they’re the same random people wearing gear of gimmicks they’re not not using any more.

The reality is the plan isn’t for anyone to get over (see: loss here, every single guy being destroyed by Mesias) so there’s no problem!

Fabi Apache & Mari Apache vs Christina Von Eerie & Jennifer Blake in a lumberjack strap match: I guess the idea was to do this same match a different way, but it wasn’t a better way. It was just a way. They at least soundly set up a stipulation, which gives me a tiny bit of hope that we might get sensible/built stipulations for the Pena show. Gotta dream.

Dr. Wagner Jr. & La Parka Jr. vs Electroshock & Silver King: When I put this into DailyMotion, the autofill asked me if I meant Silver King & Electroshock vs Dr. Wagner Jr. & La Parka Jr., because we’ve also seen that. I guess they could’ve been right, because I can’t remember this one or that one. Right guy won to build this up, I think. This story doesn’t work for me – Dr. Wagner Sr. long ago saying Silver King was better doesn’t really outweigh Dr. Wagner Jr. having the belt to prove he’s the best (or Silver King being irrelevant for most of his AAA time.)

Extreme Tiger, Joe Lider, Nicho el Millionario vs Alex Koslov, Damián 666, Halloween: and we’re back to doing matches without finishes. Everyone seemed to be working hard. Mesias is clearly who Parka was calling, but I still don’t understand why he was masked or running into thru the crowd. I’m pretty sure Joaquin would’ve let him come thru the entrance, and it would’ve made more sense for him to make the save when the rudos were about to do something dramatically heinous, rather than the chair thing they do a dozen times a main event.