Mistico does not wrestle in Xalapa, Fuerza vs Black Terry, Dragon Rojos, Merida, Hogan

CMLL (WED) 12/05/2012 Arena Xalapa [En Contacto]
5) Rush & Shocker b Mr. Niebla & Negro Casas
Crowd supported the rudos strongly during the match. Rush explained to the reporter that it doesn’t matter if the crowd is booing him, he’s a natural rudo who just can’t stand the other rudos. He isn’t going to change sides, but only rudos can be idols so he’s going to keep acting this way. Rush said he wanted masks not hairs and his only rivals are in Japan.
6) Último Guerrero & Volador Jr. b Diamante Azul & La Sombra
Mistico appeared, with the claim ‘he was injured a few days ago’. Diamante Azul replaced him. Fans were very unhappy. The luchadors were more interested in talking back and forth on the microphone then wrestling. Volador stole Sombra’s mask to pin him.

CMLL was promoting this show on TV strongly this weekend, and local newspaper articles promoted the show around Mistico appearing. None even hinted Mistico might be a question mark, even though it was obviously a possibility since he hasn’t wrestled since his injury to anyone’s knowledge. He was also booked in a show this weekend in Acapulco, but I can’t find results from that show. I guess it’s possible Mistico might have wrestled that show and got hurt there or sometime before Wednesday, but it seems more likely people involved knew Mistico wouldn’t be ready for this date and decided to advertise him anyway. (CMLL not advertising Mistico for any of their own shows yet is an obvious clue.) The new Mistico has gotten CMLL to places they’re not running regularly, but they’re not going to be returning to those places pulling stunts like this.

Black Terry Jr. (flickr)

IWRG (THU) 12/06/2012 Arena Naucalpan [Black Terry Jr. (flickr), IWRG]
1) Araña de Plata Jr. b Matrix Jr.
2) Galaxy & Saruman b Epidemia & Imposible
3) Alan Extreme, Eita, Eterno b Cerebro Negro, Dr. Cerebro, La Cobra
Cerebros fell apart again, lost in straight falls.
4) Canis Lupus, Oficial 911, Oficial AK47 b el Ángel, Trauma I, Trauma II
Angel & Trauma II could not get along, lost in straight falls. They made mask match challenges, which 911 demanded to be part of as well.
5) Black Terry, Negro Navarro, Pirata Morgan b Bestia 666, Damián 666, Fuerza Guerrera
Tecnicos (Terry’s team) took 1/3. Fuerza tossed his mask to Terry to draw the second fall DQ. Terry paid him back with a foul in the third for the win. They agreed to a super libre match.

Tonight is IWRG’s annual year end banquet/awards dinner/dance. They’ve been promoting guys like Negro Casas, Felino and Dr. Wagner Jr. will be in attendance.

Tonight’s CMLL show goes on, including the Sombra vs Ultimo Guerrero match for a Trofeo Sin Nombre. In other action, Dragon Rojo says he’d like to win this block, and then repeat as Copa Junior next week, as an early Christmas present. He feels this would be a great way to end his year, winning a tournament and being double champion, and then he can settle things with Ultimo Guerrero. Rojo is probably the second favorite, with Tama Tonga everyone’s best bet as winner.

An interesting side note from the Dragon Rojo Jr. interview is the CMLL article happens to mention him as “the grandson of Leonel Rivas”. I’d never seen the real name of the original Dragon Rojo before. That name (+Google) leads us to find out the original Dragon Rojo was actually a Guatemalan luchador who had long ago lost his mask as Barbaro when he came to Mexico and was remasked for a feud with Sangre Chicana. Dragon Rojo Original peculiarly vanishes from history outside his one Anniversary main event, but that’s probably because we’ve been looking in the wrong place.

Today is also the show in Merida with Blue Demon, Dr. Wagner Jr., and various ex-WWE wrestlers. There was an autograph signing yesterday. Blue Demon Jr., doing an interview to promote the show, mentions he lived in a hotel in Merida for the first two years of his life with his biological mother, until he was adopted by Blue Demon Senior. He’s usually reluctant to mention he’s an adopted son, but here it leads to a discussion of being accepted by his new brothers and finding out his new father is actually a luchador.

This week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter had more details about Llaves y Canados trying to bring in Hulk Hogan. As they said in their press release, they really did go to Orlando and have a meeting with Hulk Hogan. As you’d expect if you’ve followed Hogan’s recent career, he said money was not the issue but he’s physically incapable of having a match or even just standing in the ring and having people run into his punches. There was talk that they still could bring Hogan to Monterrey just for autographs or some similar appearance. I still don’t see the way you make money bringing him in for an event at Arena Coliseo Monterrey prices, but I do concede there could be value of having photos of your luchadors with Hogan, or a endorsement promo he could do that they could show forever; this might be plausible if you look at it as a loss leader doubling as long term marketing.

The same newsletter mentions TNA has interest in bringing in ex-WWE trainee Hijo del Medico Asesino. I’ve never heard a bad word about Hijo del Medico Asesino and I hope he gets more opportunities. However, there’s dozens if not hundreds of more sensible candidates, many of whom work for the AAA promotion they’re supposedly working with. Maybe it’s just easier because immigration paperwork is already handled for him, but if he really was going to be a big star for Mexicans in the United States, it’d seem like he at first need to be a big star for Mexicans in Mexico. Medico Asesino is working in Arena Aficion shows in from of 50 or less people right now.

Canek, holding a training seminar in Tabasco, explained lucha libre is down in Mexico because there’s not enough technical preparation and the quality of wrestling has plummeted. In his view, Vampiro, Konnan and Mistico could not stay popular because they just didn’t put in enough time in the gym. Canek says he took “Killer” [Murder] Clown from not knowing anything about lucha libre to AAA in 15 days with his training. I guess Canek taught Killer Clown how to be tall?

El Luchador has more of it’s short interviews with people from the show. Hombre de Negro explains he started off related to Panico and leader of the Black Syndicate, but he’s changed as CMLL has needed to him. His greatest enemies are apathy, laziness and anything that gets in the way of success in CMLL. No wonder he seems angry, his enemies always seem to be winning. (He’s also been on the show for about 2 minutes this year, as if the guy playing the role had other things to do this year.) Magnus explains his name comes from a Roman emperor who was better than everyone else, just like he is, his music (Keep Rolling) happened to play the first time he went to the gym and his brother got it for him but he’d prefer to use the old Mistico music and his ego is his biggest enemy.

Bill has highlights of first half of August 2012 Arena Coliseo Guadalajara.

Links

British Night canceled; CMLL’s show still to go on

The British Embassy and Fundación John Langdon Down have issues a press release withdrawing support for tonight’s scheduled British Night themed show at Arena Mexico. The foundation helps children with special needs, and the show was supposed to be British themed, but all of those themed bits will not be happening. The specfic paragraph

El Comité de Caridad de la Embajada Británica entiende que la Fundación John Langdon Down A.C ha retirado su apoyo debido a lo que la Fundación considera una la falta de seriedad y cumplimiento por parte del Consejo Mundial de la Lucha Libre de beneficiar a la Fundación John Langdon Down A.C. con un porcentaje específico del total de la venta de boletos de la función.

The foundation pulled out because they wanted to know the specific percentage of the tickets they would be given, and CMLL was either evasive about the answer or it wasn’t the answer they wanted to hear. The press release ends with a guilt line of “it’s up to CMLL to decide if they will donate any money or none at all”, and then saying they’ll have nothing more to say about this. You may notice the press release includes a “fail” tag, and the original twitter message uses #CMLLFail tag, not seen since CMLL’s last dumb booking move. Safe to say there are harsh feelings from the charity to CMLL on this one.

A charity organization saying they’d rather withdraw support for you than take any money makes anyone look horrible. Still, we don’t know the actual details here and maybe shouldn’t be in a hurry to assign blame until we do. Both sides probably share some blame. We can assume they thought they agreed to some amount of money being donated prior to this event being announced (or it wouldn’t have got this far), but we don’t know if they mistakenly agreed to different things, or which side tried to change the agreement after that fact. It really could be either.

The bottom line is a fun theme night is out the window (maybe with whatever trophy Sombra or Ultimo Guerrero was going to win) and a charity has decided it’d rather get no money rather than whatever it was being offered. The actual CMLL Friday night show at Arena Mexico will still go on, but with a lot less pomp and circumstances.

We’re still getting a Sombra vs Ultimo Guerrero match CMLL probably wouldn’t have bothered to do otherwise. If you were going to spend money on a ticket and you”d still like to thank the Foundacion for it, you can donate directly on their website.

CMLL hasn’t responded yet. I hope they do, but there’s no guarantee they will.

12/08-10 lucha times

box.

== AAA ==

AAA-Televisa: what’s left from Naucalpan – minis, Rockers vs Oficials, and Chessman/Texano vs Mesias/Vampiro

AAA-Fusion: more from the Garza show. There hasn’t been a next one announced as of yet, which means this could be planned for three weeks. Right now, I’m guessing DTU’s three tag match and Consejo vs Perros

== CMLL ==

Galavision/Televisa: The Friday night shows are rough to predict this week, but easier for the next couple weeks. I’m going to guess Copa Junior airs here + the short segunda to fill out the time. Update: the early evening repeat is pre-empted for no particular reason, but the late night show is still listed

FOX: would be left with the Puma/Cometa trios (is Puma/Cometa feud of the year?) and random midcard Averno/Rojo/Escorpion vs Atlantis/Shocker/Titan

52MX: Sombra vs Terrible!

C3: Guerreros vs Revolucionarios, Valiente gets himself a feud, and maybe a segunda feud.

GDL: build to Angel de Oro vs Negro Casas + more Cometa vs Puma and Tuareg vs Cancerberos

EstrellaTV (Puebla): Sombra vs Terrible!

El Luchador: “The luchadors will have to do their best in their last mission under the watchful gaze of el Consejo. Shocker receives a surprise visit and reflects on his life amid fears he has for his next meeting with Mr. Niebla. The stars turn in favor of Dragon Lee, but pride stands in the way of his success. Princesa Blanca’s absence affects Felino’s health and he considers retirement.”

En Busca de un Idolo: Euforia vs Triton & Dragon Lee vs Niebla Roja in what should be the final opening round matches.

I haven’t talked enough about this show, but the one thing really stands out to me is something never shown – there’s no on screen mentions of standings or how everyone is doing in the overall competition, just the judges scores shown and the one flash of the score total in the post-match debriefing. There’s no sense of anything but the result of the previous match. It really stuck out to me after Titan’s loss last week; we knew he was probably getting thru because of the voting points, but Atlantis was reacting like it ws a crushing loss. There still is time for Polvora confronting Tirantes on the toliet. It’s not the biggest problem – the biggest problem are the people being spotlighted are being spotlighted for being failures (Polvora & Puma) and Tirantes claiming no one looks shouldn’t come off as accurate – but if the concept of the show is a competition some wins, shouldn’t we know who’s ahead? (No one’s watching this show, it scarcely matters, but it does speak to a systematic problem with CMLL – who’s winning?)

Neither of the reality shows are doing much for making stars out of the key participants. Even the Blanca/Estrellita feud has been way played down outside of the one early episode – they made a point of saying Blanca hated all the tecnicas and not just any one in particular in the lead up to the cage match. (That bit with Blanca & Tiffany being evil women to the tecnicas was great though.) Bucanero’s arc ending and being written out of the show completely with 3 episodes left was peculiar, but the whole way it’s gone has not been so positive. The one feud that’s being pushed strongly is Mr. Niebla vs Shocker, and CMLL doesn’t seem to want to do that in any fashion.

Terra: a really strong show; Marcela vs Amapola, Invasors vs Atlatnida being highlights but other matches not being too bad either.

== Other ==

IWRG-TVC Deportes: Angel vs Eterno, the Terry/Navarro/Pirata vs Solar/Astro/Ultraman rematch

IWRG-AYM Sports: AFAIK, the final AYM show that’ll air in the US – it’s going away Wednesday. (I feel like I’ve mentioned this often but still will get asked about it for the next month.) Another Oficials vs Comando match, another Angel & Trauma II team up and Piratas/Trauma I vs Junior Dinamitas/Wagner

ACM: this show has gone random, no point in guessing.