AAA splits their roster

Alternate title: Fenix is probably not as thrilled to win the Fusion title as he thought.

AAA article is here – not sure this is most dramatic way to do it, but we’ve been there already. The storyline is Marisela made the decisions. And may have turned ruda, if these decisions are to be believed – at the least, an interview explaining some of this would be fascinating. The roster splits will not be enforced until after TripleMania.

The rosters:

That’s 41 for Fusion, 45 for Evolucion. (Missed Saturno in my first count.) There’s no explanation of why any of the decisions were made. The lists for both says ‘and more.’

Missing names

  • Dr. Wagner Jr. No surprise.
  • LA Park. Which confirms they know LA Park quit, and may have known for a while.
  • Juventued Guerrera, which seems like an oversight but you never know with Juvi.
  • Uro Rocker. He’s probably meant to be with the other Rockers.
  • Sexy Star. She’s headed to CMLL going to be out for a long while so it doesn’t matter.
  • Anyone from IWRG – no Eterno, no Dr. Cerbero, no Centviron.
  • Lanzeloth of DTU, who worked both the last Fusion taping and the February Sin Limite one. As well as Dama de Hierro and Nemesis from the last Fusion taping.
  • Dizzy – and the La Chiva who only show up on spot shows. None of trainesr/very part time luchadors like Angel Mortal are listed, nor really would I expect them to be.
  • It would’ve been a nice touch to draft Astro de Plata to a side. He’s still far away from returning, if he ever will be, but it’s the thought and they’re already drafting many people who don’t seem like they’ll actually be wrestling any time soon.
  • Teddy Hart is still listed on their roster page, but I think that’s more a roster page oversight.

Edit: Other people note Ricky Marvin and Heavy Metal are missing. Konnan probably should be listed as well, but he can be assumed to be on the Evolucion brand.

Break ups

  • Consejo appears to be done as a group. Mascara Ano 2000 Jr. & Argos are on Fusion, while Texano Jr. & Silver King are over on Evolucion. (Silver is also broken up from long time ally Ulitmo Gladiador.)
  • Billy el Malo has been split up from the Bizarros and from the Apaches, which might end up being a good thing.
  • Maximum Velocidad is on Evolucion, away from all the rest of the DTU guys on Fusion.
  • The Air Force is split up, but really hasn’t existed as anything more concrete than common entrance music in years.
  • There are 7 minis on the Evolucion side, but no minis title. Likewise, there are four women on the Fusion side, but no women’s title. I don’t know that there needs to be one. It does mean the talked about Mini Abismo Negro vs Dinastia feud is either happening right now or never. (It’s also possible that the minis and women’s titles are supposed to float between the brands – it’d make some sense, but has not been said.) Dinastia instead has title defenses against the least impressive rudos (who are rudos while their big versions are tecnicos.)

There’s no escaping the Fusion side being much weaker than the Evolucion side; it’s the B-promotion from the start. There’s about three matches worth of guys who have been TV regulars, so either a lot of people will have to be added or some guys who haven’t been given chances will have new opportunities. It won’t be hard to fill out the spaces – more people from DTU, more people from IWRG, more people we haven’t heard of but will be meeting soon – but it’ll continue to be hard to draw people to the Fusion shows. We’ve seen the Rockers vs Clowns not work out well for those tapings, and you can only run Fenix & La Parka vs Parka Negra & Pentagon Jr. so many times. This looks like a situation built for another Vampiro return – he’d be a top guy as a tecnico or rudo based on lack of other options. Not a great option, but you need to have some stars before you create new ones. Ideally, a guy like Jack Evans or Chessman would be moved over – they’ve got nothing to do on the Evolucion side and would be one of the top guys on the other side. Same thing with the Apache/Atomic Boy feud, which would be at least the third biggest one on the Fusion brand, and is around the fifth on Evolucion.

The advantage to the Fusion side is it’s going to be an overall younger crew and probably more exciting matches. The fans will get some good matches. Everything could be built around Fenix, because there’s no much else going on.

I would’ve actually guessed that Evolucion would’ve been shorter on names, just because of the ultimate plan to go to the US and use wrestlers from there would mean they don’t need as many Mexican names. It’s actually gone the other way.

Overall, it looks the rosters are reflective of current feuds and current feuds only; these roster don’t take affect until after TripleMania, but most people will still be stuck feuding with the same people they’ve been against all year so far.

These splits are only for the single branded Evolucion/Fusion tapings. Both groups will still be on the Sin Limite shows. Since the Sin Limite tapings are the only places where storylines are happening, it’s unclear how much of this actually matters. AAA could create the different identities for each brand, but they could also just be running tapings with half the roster, and quickly forget who’s supposed to be on each side. There’s potential for interesting things, and there’s potential for this to be the new AAA Tag Team Tournament, a lot of effort into nonsense.

LA Park leaves AAA, Stuka vs Rey Escorpion, Titan returns, LLUSA on hiatus (again)?

CMLL

CMLL (TUE) 04/23/2013 Arena Mexico [CMLL, Yahoo! Deportes (Photos)]
1) Apocalipsis & Camorra b Molotov & Oro Jr.
Oro Jr. & Apocalipsis took the place of Robin & Cholo.
2) Estrellita, Goya Kong, Lady Afrodita b La Comandante, La Vaquerita, Zeuxis
Lady Afrodita, back here for the first time since January, replaced Silueta.
3) Fuego, Hijo del Fantasma, Sagrado b Misterioso Jr., Puma, Vangelis
Tecnicos took 2/3, Fantasma beat Misterioso.
4) Sangre Azteca b Tritón [lightning]
Counter dropkick for the win.
5) Stuka Jr., Super Porky, Valiente b Dragón Rojo Jr., Pólvora, Rey Escorpión
Stuka beat Escorpion again, taking falls 1/3, the last with a Code Red, setting up a title match.
6) Euforia, Mr. Niebla, Último Guerrero b Ángel de Oro, Shocker, Thunder
Shocker replaced Diamante Azul, Angel de Oro replaced Marco Corleone.

Marco did appear on the show to explain his injury.

CMLL (TUE) 04/23/2013 Arena Coliseo Guadalajara [@acogdl]
1) Espectrum & Ráfaga b Esfinge & Leo
Rudos took 2/3.
2) Gallo & Starman b Cancerbero & Maléfico
Starman took 1/3.
3) Amapola, Princesa Blanca, Princesa Sugheit b Dalis la Caribeña, Luna Mágica, Marcela
Rudas took 2/3.
4) Rey Bucanero, Terrible, Tiger b Delta, Diamante, Titán
Titan replaced Angel de Oro (in Arena Mexico instead.) This was Titan’s first match since early February. Rudo were DQed for excessive violence in the first, but took the next two falls.
5) Atlantis, La Máscara, La Sombra b Averno, Ephesto, Mephisto
Tecnicos took 2/3.

LA Park announced on Facebook that he had quit AAA. He was very complimentary towards AAA (even as far as to apologize for past issues) but said he wanted to be free like a hippie.

LA Park is the current AAA Latin American championship, which would not be the first title to disappear from AAA when the champion left with it. That title has never really had much of purpose and would not be missed; the new Blue Demon title could easily take it’s place. The bigger hit is not having LA Park around for the AAA US stuff, where he would’ve been a helpful cross over star. Park is already a guy who works US shows fairly frequently, and perhaps that was already an issue with AAA or was soon going to be. I think it’s also possible that Park and Wagner might have found someone willing to promote their mask match, though the absurd venues proposals suggest they’re still fooling around at this point.

A news site in San Antonio says this weekend’s scheduled Lucha Libre USA show there has been rescheduled to ‘a future date’. (This seems a good idea, rescheduling to a past date never works out.) They’re refunding the tickets at point of purchase. The Lucha Libre USA site used to list tickets for Austin and Laredo for this weekend as well, but both those links are now removed (and Dallas and Chicago tickets have never been on sale.) The Austin show never had a venue, while the venue for Laredo show seems to have taken down the link to buy tickets (though ads are still on the site.) LLUSA hasn’t announced anything besides the San Antonio postponement, but this looks like they may be going away again.

Rob has highlights of 03/26/13 CMLL

Bill has highlights of 03/15/12 IWRG.

LuchaWorld has KrisZ’s news update.

Links

Lineups

CMLL (MON) 04/29/2013 Arena Puebla
1) Milenium & Tigre Rojo vs Blue Center & Siki Ozama Jr.
2) Metálico, Starman, Stigma vs Hijo del Signo, Hooligan, Nitro
3) Blue Panther, Hijo del Fantasma, Rey Cometa vs Felino, Puma, Tiger
4) Diamante Azul, La Máscara, Shocker vs Dragón Rojo Jr., Pólvora, Rey Escorpión
5) Atlantis, La Sombra, Máscara Dorada vs Negro Casas, Último Guerrero, Volador Jr.

Metalico & Signo feud continues here. I hope Arena Puebla doesn’t get stuck with that as their Anniversary show.

CMLL (TUE) 04/30/2013 Arena Coliseo Guadalajara
1) El Divino & El Ídolo vs Exterminador & Infierno
2) Black Metal, Esfinge, Metatrón vs Arkángel de la Muerte, Canelo Casas, Skándalo
3) Fuego, Pegasso, Tritón vs Nosferatu, Shigeo Okumura, Vangelis
4) Delta, Hijo del Fantasma, Sagrado vs Misterioso Jr., Olímpico, Pólvora
5) Marco Corleone, Rush, Thunder vs Dragón Rojo Jr., Mr. Águila, Psicosis

Canelo Casas’ first appearance here.

top six stories of the last two weeks

  1. LA Park announced he has quit AAA. He showed up at a Todo x el Todo press conference as a surprise last week to challenge Dr. Wagner Jr. to a mask match (for the millionth time), then announced this week he wanted to be free and it was time to move on. LA Park is the current AAA Latin American champion, but AAA hasn’t done much with that title. AAA hasn’t said anything about the situation.
  2. Blue Demon signed a contract with AAA in the ring at the very busy AAA TV taping in Leon. Demon announced AAA would be holding their own version of the Leyenda de Azul tournament, calling it “Legado Azul”. Demon also introduced Axel, el Nieto del Santo, as joining AAA. Feuds were set up between Axel and cruiserweight champion Daga, and Demon and Konnan, who announced he was returning to wrestling. Ricky Marvin returned to AAA later in the show, joining the Perros del Mal, and Mesias and Demon feuded after the main event.
  3. CMLL announced Rey Cometa and Namajague would face off in a hair match this Friday, as part of the Arena Mexico Anniversary show. It’s a continuation of their Dos Leyendas feud, and a surprise since Mr. Aguila vs Shocker appeared to be set up as a hair match on that show instead. The hair vs hair match is not the main event; instead, a Mistico (II) vs Averno match for the vacant Mexican Welterweight Championship will end the show, and the finals of the Gran Alternativa tournament (Atlantis & Hombre Bala vs Rey Escorpion & Bobby Zavala) will be the semimain event.
  4. Mistico is also feuding with Volador on the Sunday series of shows, leading to Mistico having two big singles matches in Arena Mexico in the space of three days.
  5. AAA held it’s first Evolucion show in Veracruz. It kept the ongoing feuds going but did not do anything new. It’s unclear when and where this will air, and AAA has said that people on the show are not necessary part of the Evolucion brand. The split into two brands is still being brought up, but nothing much has happened on screen with the split since the it was announced a month ago.
  6. A show honoring Hector Garza this past Sunday in Arnea Solidaridad featured Monterrey, CMLL and AAA wrestlers in one card (though the two promotions were kept separate on it.) The show came close to selling out the arena. Latin Lover, retired from lucha libre, did run in to help the tecnicos in the main event and sold photographs during the show.
  • Texano Jr. kept the AAA Mega Heavyweight Championship over Mesias in Puerto Rico. It was a good match. Octagon Jr., using that name, also particpated on the show but took a loss, while Blue Demon Jr. won the Pro Wrestling Revolucion heavyweight championship.
  • Arena Coliseo Guadalajara announced a double apuesta match between locals as it’s own Kid’s Day shows. Kid’s Day is offically Tuesday, but the weekend is full of extra Kid’s Day themed shows.
  • Eterno won the IWRG IC Middleweight Championship title
  • Chico Che lost his hair in IWRG’s annual Guerra de Golfo tournament.
  • Rey Demonio Jr. lost his mask on the Arena el Jaguar anniversary show.
  • Monterrey’s Kaientai won an international fourway match on a Chilangamask show in Chicago.