Lucha POP, LA Park, CMLL/AAA

thecubsfan news

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.

12 thoughts to “Lucha POP, LA Park, CMLL/AAA”

  1. Lucha POP will fail very quickly. It’s amazing how promoters all over the world still have not figured out that late 90’s Russo/ECW type wrestling does not work.

  2. Kind of left everyone hanging on the PdM/XPW announcement. Is it perhaps ending with say “a US promotion that has run 2 shows in the last 8 years”?

  3. @TheHardcoreFan: I was going to go with “a US promotion that I swore went defunct over a decade ago, which makes me wonder if we’re going to have Lucha POP vs Perros del Mal shows in 2021”, but then I actually went to the XPW wikipedia page and was so thrown off by the “XPW was originally based in California, where controversy and X-rated content were of huge importance.” line that I lost my train of thought.

  5. Wasn’t XPW the promotion,that was trying to copy ECW and provoke them but got beat up on PPV?
    Anyway I’d like to see Park vs Wagner at Triplemania.

  7. I was thinking Lucha Pop was gonna be like Ice Ribbon in Japan. A slightly uncomfortable to watch women’s wrestling promotion. :) Its about the same thing as DTU. What’s the difference?

    You know cubs, I’ve really been disappointed in all these new start-up lucha promotions ever since Super Calo’s failed Revolution Free Style promotion came and went. I had such HIGH HOPES for Super Calo’s group. DJs, break dancing contest, mini break dancers, lasers, etc. and all it was….was a poorly lit indy lucha show with everyone coming in to the same song.

  8. The difference is just that the brain of DTU got out of that promotion and now create a new concept, Crazy Boy wasn´t the one that ran the ideas in DTU , let´s say the expertising part of DTU just change of house and it´s a new one POP!

  10. Lucha POP is not a Crazy Boy thing, should not have any affect on his status with AAA.

  11. Crazy Boy it´s still 100 percent AAA and now he is the on ein charge of DTU, in the past he was just the coordinator of each match, and he wasnt even the match maker, POP is a new concept and the one in charge it´s Dhani, it will take time to differenciate the product but I think it wont take much time, the problem is that Dhani was the main one in DTU and now he wont be. God Bless DTU, let´s hope they finish the year alive :)

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