top six stories of the last two weeks

(It’s harder to do this when I stop posting for a while.)

  1. CMLL’s 80th Anniversary Show was a mixed success. Reports were the tickets were sold out, but there were a handful of empty seats in the upper most reaches (and some sections that had been marked not to be sold actually including people; it’s confusing.) It definitely was the biggest gate in the history of the promotion and a one night business success. Almost all the matches were at least very good and some were great. The noticeable exception, a match that was only okay due to the short length, is also how the show will ultimately remembered. Volador & La Sombra upset Atlantis & Ultimo Guerrero to prevent the legends from having their mask match, which greatly upset the paying public. The remaining hour of the show was filled with FRAUDE chants (and an AAA chant, in the sense that this was like something ‘bad’ AAA would pull), with many in the crowd rejecting the show until eventually getting behind Volador in the mask match. It didn’t help him, as La Sombra took his mask in the culmination of a 3.5 year rivalry.
  2. Other action on the show included a great Blue Panther versus Averno submission matches (where the promised rules were actually enforced, much to Averno’s surprise) and a very strong Revolucinarios versus Estetas match during the peak of the crowd rejection. Negro Casas and Rush continued to assault each other in the undercard in a match which technically included four other people, not that anyone was paying much attention to them. Also: Super Porky did a tope!
  3. Volador Jr. was immediately the subject of (usual) rumors about his mask loss leading to him to jumping elsewhere, but quickly proceeded to defeat Mistico (in a singles match) and Sombra (in a tag match, sending Sombra out in ambulance) and doesn’t seem to be going anywhere any time soon. The volume of rumors about people jumping from group to group should increase greatly leading up to the WWE’s October trip to Mexico.
  4. The deaths of a couple dozen and the homelessness of hundreds have the much more important effect of canceling Hijo del Santo’s three way mask match with Dr. Wagner Jr. & LA Park, TxT announced about 18 hours before the show was originally hyped as happening. In reality, the show had been off for weeks if not months and never really had a chance of happening and most people forgot it was supposed to happen until a very unfortunate press release.
  5. Rey Bucanero & Tama Tonga picked up the CMLL Tag Team championship belts in NJPW from Jushin Lyger and Hiroshi Tanahashi (who clearly only won them as a pretext for Tanahashi to be in the CMLL Universal tournament.) CMLL’s holding a #1 contenders tag team tournament, and Tonga is expected to Mexico soon for another fall tour.
  6. AAA held a TV taping which was more notable for it’s hurricane relief drive than most of the action. Dinastia retained his minis title over Mini Abismo Negro, a new foreign luchador Australian Suicide debuted, and Drago and Psicosis are back to feuding. There wasn’t a strong build in results for Heroes Inmortales, but none of the pretaped or behind the scenes vignettes were mentioned and maybe they’ll help.
  • Ultimo Gladiador lost his hair in a three way match with Joe Lider & Daga. It was surprisingly Gladiador’s first hair loss, though not a surprise he lost this match given the other participants. The hair match was the main event of a good AAA/RCH show in Arena Naucalpan.
  • LA Park won the new IWL Heavyweight Championship in a match including Dr. Wagner, Justin Credible and Canek, plus the usual shennagins that happen in an LA Park match. Super Crazy also won the IWL IC title and Secta Negra the WWA Trios titles on IWL’s 3rd Anniversary show.
  • This year’s Lucha Libre Expo, first postponed until November, has been canceled. They hope to bring it back in 2014 (but don’t hold your breath.)
  • Fenix came up short challenging Taiji Ishimori for the GHC Junior Heavyweight Title.
  • CMLL celebrated a patriotic weekend by having Marco Corleone beat Mr. Niebla. It would’ve been an odd decision in any other week.
  • The IWRG students and maestro Black Terry feuded a lot with Tony Rivera and his students (including a really fun trios match we saw live.)
  • CMLL also unveiled an 80th Anniversary mural in Arena Mexico, depicting the history of the promotion and every single mask lost in a mask match in the first 80 years of the promotion (thru Namajague.) There is also an outdoor photo exhibit as part of a lot promotion for the show.
  • The Trueno brothers won a tournament for the vacant Occidente Tag Team Championships in Arena Coliseo Guadalajara.
  • People who kept titles: Estrellita (twice!), Terrible
  • We deeply researched the case of the missing CMLL minis…who started popping back up right before we finished our research. This is why I shouldn’t try.
  • Rob and I podcasted a bit. Oh, right, I went to Mexico! Everyone was nice and it was a good time and then I came home and got very sick (for probably unrelated reasons.)

One thought to “top six stories of the last two weeks”

  1. Sorry you got sick when you got home Cubs :( Hope you feel better soon and thanks for all the news!!!!

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