top six stories since the last time I remembered to do this

  1. Averno lost his mask! Every day before, he prepared by doing an interview saying he wasn’t going to WWE, and every day after, he faced La Mascara in some sort of trios match. The mask match will air sometime before the heat death of the universe.
  2. At TripleMania, LA Park took Mesias’ hair, Jeff Jarrett took the AAA World Title, and Dr. Wagner took the main event win. This aired live.
  3. Both shows drew well! Hooray accounting balance books.
  4. Tony Rivera let a blockade of Arena Mexico, restricting access all the way up to the time where people would start to want to have access, then leaving and promising more if he did not get a payoff. There has been no more notice, and Tony Rivera has returned to wrestling indy matches like all of that happened with some other Tony Rivera.
  5. AAA lost TV in the US. No one seems to have noticed, except all the people emailing me about it. Maybe when you say you’re going to HD after TripleMania, you should go to HD after TripleMania?
  6. IWL is running in an internet PPV.

Other News

  • Verano de Escandalo was announced for 07/31 in Guadalajara.
  • Perros del Mal also won the new AAA Trios title, but Perro Aguyao Jr. is back in the hospital with fall back into his previous issues. What exactly his previous issues are are still up for debate.
  • Team Charly won Forjando un Idolo. Shocker is a coaching genius.
  • Mascara Dorada won his CMLL welterweight title back to cap off his extended stay in NJPW
  • Virus defeated Guerrero Maya to win the vacant CMLL (Super?) Lightweight championship
  • Rey Bucanero defeated Hijo del Fantasma who won the NWA LH championship
  • Blue Demon, Casandro and others went to England, and Casnadro picked up the NWA Welterweight title. Always heard the shopping in London was fantastic.
  • Taboo was revealed to be La Parka’s brother. Children had their bikes broken before being kidnapped.
  • Cibernetico has an ax, never ever hits anyone one with the blade part.
  • Unrelated to the last two bits, Mesias was not kidnapped. Nothing to see in this bullet point, move on.
  • Astro Boy jumped to AAA, now named Argos
  • Rafa el Maya suffered a heart attack. He recovered, but still is out action.
  • Diamante is out six weeks with multiple toe injuries.
  • Jack Evans is busy in TNA and NOAH (with Aerostar and Rocky Marvin.)
  • Masked Warriors finished taping it’s second season, announced a third season, still hasn’t aired anything in a long time
  • Arkangel anniversary show announced for 07/17.
  • Pantera, who now is wearing his mask for no reason and almost no one complained about Silver King did the same is complaining now and how weird is that?, won Rey del Ring in IWRG.
  • Lucha POP announced their first show
  • Nakamura came and went. Naito is here now. La Comandante, Strong Man and Hector Garza are heading out.
  • Pollo Asesino is crazy.
  • Juvi is back around and doing stuff. Super X to return and such.
  • Tiger Kid decided his name was not generic enough and became Tiger. An annoying blogger has complained about this five times and really needs to let it go already.

Lucha POP, LA Park, CMLL/AAA

Lucha POP (“Promotion Original Pro-Lucha”) held their debut press conference. It’s a new promotion, being run by people who, at least in part, used to be part of DTU. Their debut show has a lot of the familiar names:

LUCHA POP (SUN) 07/17/2011 Arena Lopez Mateos
1) Ashely vs Megan, Keira, Vanely, Chica Tormenta, Shitara, La Vaquerita, Yuki Star, Lily Fighter [POP WOMEN]
2) Dizzy & Kaliburz vs Arana de Plata & Impluso
3) Zumbi vs Último Gladiador
4) Eterno vs Celestial vs ?
5) Fenix (AAA) & Samuray del Sol vs Dark Dragon & Shiima Xion
6) Extreme Tiger vs Joe Lider

Lineup here. The Traumas were at the press conference and are announced as part of the promotion, but don’t have a match so far. They’re trying to differenate themselves by not just being a hardcore promotion (though that’s the main event), trying to push “all the styles there are.” They’ll be working with AAA, and bringing in people from US promotions (CZW and CHIKARA mentioned), and they’ll be doing a talent search in August. Their shows will be taped for DVD, and available thru Smart Mark Video. They plan to not only run in Mexico City, but around the county and even want to go to the US indies.

LA Park crows to the press about how he’s won every feud he’s been in since coming to AAA: he destroyed La Parka and massacred Mesias, and Dr. Wagner is next. After TripleMania, he and Dr. Wagner were back to teasing that a mask match between them for TripleMania XX, and that’s hinted at here again. I’m sure AAA will want to do something crazy big for the round number, but I ignored them because they’ve been making those challenges for the better part of a decade now and they have less of a chance of working out a finish than ever – LA Park can’t lose his mask to Wagner, and Wagner won’t want to lose his mask any time soon the way things are going for him. Anyway, I love how the Parka/Park rematch has been wiped from the history books when the opposite was supposed to happen; it’s only the difference between doing a match on TV and on the biggest show of the year.

A thread on Box Y Lucha attempting to expose the two mystery CMLL wrestlers who had a tryout on the same AAA TV taping as Argos/Astro Boy. If you recall, the story was SuperLuchas (and others) realized that among the many people in a tryout match were two current CMLL luchadors using other gimmicks to hide their identities (which obviously didn’t go well.) SuperLuchas did not publish the name, not wanting to cause trouble for those luchadors, but this one of those things people like to whisper about.  The thread outs the two as Semental and Mortiz. My information is that Semental was one of the two, but Mortiz was not the other one. It was someone else in that group of opening match guys who are probably sick of being opening match guys by this point. I would not be surprised if Mortiz also had a tryout at some point, since he worked with some of those who are now in AAA, while he was still in Tijuana.

Semental was a real eye opener. Those of you who read this blog but don’t dig into the videos may not be too familiar with him (AAA wasn’t), but he’s a very talented young rudo who’s really as or more skilled the guys who were in Forjando un Idolo and has an eye catching mask (thanks to the double horns.) He’s undersized, but no different in that a lot of guys, and he looks smoother than most. It’s a treat when Semental turns up on TV. He’s also another guy from La Laguna, which implies an Ultimo Guerrero connection, so my assumption was CMLL was just stashing him in the opening matches before giving him a new gimmick (which would’ve been a shame), but one day he’d just suddenly be in a midcard group, following a Euforia-like path. Clearly, he must not have that same feeling. It’s kind of stunning, and made me reevaulate which guys actually might be allied with other guys.

Anyway, this is all frivolous. The outcome, and I believe this was mentioned in the WON as well, is that everyone (but Argos) ended up going back to CMLL for better pay and at least a promise of a better position. And I suspect we’ll continue to see wrestlers try to play the promotions against each other.

Other contractual issues: One thing I haven’t figured out about the Jack Evans/TNA deal: if he’s allowed to work in the US, does that mean all of AAA is no longer restricted by the contract they signed that handed over US promoting rights to another country, or is Evans somehow excepted? (He did work Dragon Gate USA previously when all AAA guys should’ve been prohibited.) In that same vein, this week’s WON mentions TNA talked to Zorro again about coming in, but that was before the TripleMania issues and he’s not mentally into wrestling right now due to family issues.

As recently as Monday, there were advertisements for a CMLL show in San Luis Potosi on Wednesday. (If you guessed the main event involved La Mascara and Averno, you have been paying attention the last two weeks.) Except, when people went to buy tickets, the ticket office said the show was canceled, and maybe they’d be back in August.

LuchaWorld has KrisZ’s news update.

Links

Lineups

CMLL (TUE) 07/05/2011 Arena Mexico
***Fan Apperciation Day, July (TUE)***
1) Aereo & Pequeño Halcón vs Mercurio & Pequeño Nitro
2) Hombre Bala Jr., Metatrón, Soberano Jr. vs Apocalipsis, Bobby Zavala, Bronco
3) Ángel de Plata, Fuego, Sagrado vs Dr. X, Hooligan, Loco Max
4) Metal Blanco, Metro, Palacio Negro vs Misterioso II, Pólvora, Yoshihashi
5) Ángel de Oro, Rush, Toscano vs Héctor Garza, Mr. Niebla, Negro Casas

Another fan appreciation show, but Dr. X and Fuego are still stuck in trios.