IWRG (SUN) 10/12/2014 Arena Naucalpan [The Gladiatores]
1) Septimo Dragon & Sky Ángel b Cirujano Jr. & Hip Hop Man
Guanajuato’s Septimo Dragon and Estado de Mexico made their debut.
2) Diva Salvaje, Estrella Divina, Miss Gaviota b Rayan, Spartan, Violencia Jr.
Estrella’s debut and Violencia’s first match here since March 2013.
3) Leo, Mike, Rafy, Teelo DQ Avisman, El Hijo del Diablo, Oficial 911, Oficial AK47
911 faked a foul to get the second, so Rafy did the same in the third.
4) Canis Lupus, Demon Clown, X-Fly b Dr. Cerebro, Pantera, Veneno
straight falls. Last fall saw Pantera & Cerbero have Lupus & X-Fly in submissions, but the referee rule that capitan Veneno gave up to Demon Clown first.
5) Hijo De Dos Caras, Negro Navarro, Toscano b Hijo de Pirata Morgan, Pirata Morgan, Pirata Morgan Jr.
Negro’s first match here this year. Piratas took 1/3, when Hijo threw a beer in Dos’s face to set up Pirata Sr.’s win.
With Pirata Morgan Jr. involved, IWRG continues to increase the number of (kind of pointless) masks which could fall at Castle of Terror. I could see them stretching out the Demon Clown match until December. Ninja Turtles are here a couple weeks and they’re already doing screwy wins. Just winning is not creative enough.
Stewart Allen, who did English language announcing for CMLL, has passed away. The story goes CMLL sold a run of tapes to a company in France and Stewart and another announcer was brought in to do a new commentary track so it could be sold again elsewhere. (Stewart’s started with as Dave Bradshaw as his partner, then it was changed to Matty Deller later on.) It being CMLL, these tapes were months old, without any context and sometimes vastly out of sequence, so we talked a couples times as Stewart tried to track down airing dates and understand what was happening. He enjoyed calling CMLL and would’ve loved the chance to do it at a bigger level if CMLL had the forethought to run their own current English language broadcast. (He would’ve been great for TripleMania too.) Instead, the tapes eventually changed to an all Minis show, then dried up entirely. The shows still air on the Fight Network in Canada under the Fighting Spirit name (including tonight), but they haven’t had new material in many years. I’d still hear from him when his women’s wrestling podcast had a lucha libre related guest was on, and he did plenty of other types of wrestling. Stewart always struck me as a guy who loved wrestling and was happy to be part of it. He’d be in my neck of the globe when Shimmer would run shows, and I always thought about how I should go over there just to say hi and thanks. I regret that I never did. Stewart will be missed.
Willie Mack was released from NXT. He had just started with NXT. I have no idea how that works that quick, but Mack was a guy AAA and Lucha Underground were clearly interested in prior to him signing with NXT. It seems like 50/50 odds he’ll be picked up by the next batch of Lucha Underground tapings in January, especially if he’s headed back to Los Angeles anyway.
The picture of Mr. Niebla and Rush here is pretty good.
Segunda Caida reviews the first Blue Panther vs El Hijo del Santo from the UK.
Lucha Libre in Japan
10/12 Stardom: Star Fire & Mystique b Miho Wakizawa & Koguma [Goddesses of Stardom] – this is a league tournament, with two blocks of four teams (so three matches each and a final.) Star Fire & Mystique start off 1-0.