02/19 X-Project Lineups

Yesterday’s was the first press conference for X-Project, the new group led by ex-IWL director Valerie Ritcher. Their debut show is on 02/19, but she didn’t get far in announcing things before some interruptions. Sexi Star (“director” of Lucha POP) and Daga (“director” of new Daga Dynamic Dojo) argued with Valerie about their own shows also taking place on 02/19. After a bit of that, they revealed all 3 of the promotions – and a few more – were actually working together and would be co-promoting these events. “X-Project” turned out to be an umbrella organization united existing and new smaller promotions.

R de Rudo and Estrellas del Ring have recaps of the press conference. Sexi Star writes about her group’s involvement on the LuchaPOP Facebook. The group announced two cards for the debut night:

DDD (SUN) 02/19/2012 Arena Lopez Mateos
1) Angelico vs Zumbi
2) Lufisto vs La Vaquerita [POP WOMEN]
3) Juventud Guerrera vs Zema Ion
4) Trauma I & Trauma II vs Sami Callihan & Samurai del Sol [AULL TAG]
5) Davey Richards vs Daga

VO (SUN) 02/19/2012 Arena Lopez Mateos
1) NGX luchador vs KBW luchador, Super X luchador, OMEGA luchador [XProject CHAMP]
2) Vanely & Yuki Star vs Big Mama & La Felina
3) Fenix (AAA), Freelance, Sugi San vs Dark Dragon, Samurai del Sol, Zema Ion
4) El Mesías vs Blue Demon Jr. vs ?
5) LA Park, La Parka Jr., Super Parka vs Raven, Super Crazy, Tommy Dreamer

(Raven has a promo hyping his match.)

There’s should be something for everyone on these shows, because there is so much on these shows. The DDD show is a 3pm start, and the “Valerie Office” (another new promotion!) show follows at 6 pm. These are separate shows with separate admission,  though you get a discount if you buy both

               1 show   Both
1st Row          350     600 (pesos)
2nd Row          250     400
Other Ringside   200     350
Bleachers        100     150
Kids              50      80
(in USD, it's $47 at the top down to $4 at the bottom)

Those are premium prices. They have to be. This may be pitched as the union of Mexican promotions, but it’s built around flying people in from outside of Mexico. There are 7 coming in from the US and 1 from Canada over these two shows (maybe with another depending on who the surprise is.) There’s plenty of expensive Mexican talent too – the Parkas, Mesias and Demon are not cheap.

An incredible list of names comes with an incredible cost for paying that list of names, and I’m not certain how you make the math work here. IWL has drawn good at times, but with more friendly prices. LuchaPOP has not really drawn well at any price. The Mexican boutique indy promotions have evolved into something like the US ones, with mostly the same group of people who go to all the shows. It’s enough people to chant “This Is Lucha! [clap clap clap]” very loud, but it’s not enough for the people putting on these shows to break even. X-Project is going to have to draw in a lot of people who aren’t coming to these shows, find other (large) sources of revenue, or lose a whole lot of money. The focus here seems more on putting on a show the people running it will like – there’s no good business reason to bring in Mesias & Demon when you’re already doing the Parkas vs ECW on top, much less a lot of the other people – so this is probably the “lose a whole lot of money” scenario.

That’s sad, because there’s actually some good stuff here, months worth of interesting main events glued together in one night. LA Park, La Parka, and Super Parka as a team is a fantastic idea, and maybe one that’ll catch some attention out of the usual circles. LA Park & La Parka as a team has a lot of curiosity value. Traumas vs Samurai and Callihan should be a superb match. Fenix/Freelance/Sugi vs Dragon/Ion/Samurai will be crazy. Juvi is crazy, so his match with Ion should be interesting too. And Davey Richards vs Daga was pretty good the last time. I’ve been to a few really long wrestling shows to know they can exhaust you before the end, but if you can you can take six hours of wrestling in one night, you’re going to see some memorable matches.

This show will be running against the usual CMLL shows (which probably will be in week 1 of it’s rivalry of the month) and IWRG (which, who knows.) IWL/DTU is the weekend prior. I’ve kept getting it confused, though it’s still going after the same group of fans and they may not be as excited to spend back to back Sundays watching a long nights of lucha. But, if you’re a fan of this kind of show, you really owe it to yourself to go – there’s no guarantee you’ll get another one again.

6 thoughts to “02/19 X-Project Lineups”

  1. Love the random matches being put on these shows and having Sugi there is just fantastic and his match looks absolutley nuts.

  2. Some corrections: Vaquerita vs LuFisto is for the POP FEMME CHAMP

    Traumas vs Sami and Samuray is not of the AULL Tag Teams Champ

  3. My understanding is that this group has investors, so this is probably what they are wanting on the shows, and what they think will draw. It is a loaded show, but my educated guess is that someone is looking to get DVD money or something…

    Cards look great. I wonder why they went thru the trouble of getting Super Parka, and not Hijo del Park? I wonder if he will work masked, as he usually does in the US…

  4. Looks like a good set of shows though X-Project’s opener could easily end up as a cluster-f***. Super Parka, L.A. Par-K and La Parka Jr. is indeed a weird trio. I would rather see Hijo de L.A. Par-K replace La Parka Jr. even though an older Raven and Tommy Dreamer teaming with Super Crazy makes sense for the current trio. Daga vs. Richards should be good. The Fenix-Freelance-Sugi vs. D. Dragon-Samuray-Ion trio looks amazing.

  5. Hijo de La Park hasn’t been around much the last three months. He’s popping up this weekend in Arena Aficion, but that’s only his third match since November. Not sure if it’s injury or some other reason. Super Parka is the much bigger deal for star power, and that’s obviously a big deal here.

    DVDs would make sense. The ECW/Parkas match might draw some interest, since they’re the Mexicans who would be known by the US DVD people, and maybe there are people who are Davey Richards completists (odd people.) It’s definitely worth a try, but there’s no history of any great success with the few other DVDs that have been released – DTU ones were tough to get a hold of, and the AAA ones were never mentioned much after they were released.

    I wonder who would be taping the show? TVC Deportes did the DTU shows, but that also involved airing on TVC Deportes (which would inevitably mean the footage turning up on YouTube.)

Comments are closed.