AAA tapes tonight in Xalapa. Two of the Dream Team, Alberto el Patron & Myzteziz, face Mesias and Texano Jr. in the main event. Semimain continues the Hell Brothers/Demon/Parka issue with Aerostar as the third wheel. The undercard is full of promising matches, including Fenix/Psycho vs Fantasma/Pentagon. Belial and Gotita de Plata make appearances in the opener.
CMLL is main evented tonight by Volador, Thunder and Ultimo Guerrero vs Rush, Sombra and Negro Casas in an incredible partners trio main event. It seems like another match building towards Rush facing Thunder in a match at some point, but incredible partner matches are often used to set up matches which wouldn’t have come about otherwise. (Or, maybe they’re just going to end up with UG/Thunder vs Sombra/Rush because Thunder in a singles match is a rough idea.) There’s not much of ongoing storylines on this (or any other) CMLL show, with the closest being Maximo and Thunder facing off again in a semimain trios.
El Siglo de Torreon has a story on Perro Aguayo Jr. memorial on Wednesday’s show in San Luis Potosi. They say 12,000 people were at the show. That’s a 7,000 seat venue, so I think they’re just picking a number. The tribute t-shirts, going for 100 to 150 pesos, were the hottest selling items. They note that even though it was suggested Rey Misterio Jr. would be at the show, he did not appear there. There’s another article where AAA luchadors dispute that list of prices put up by Univerasl last week, but also note you shouldn’t be in lucha libre for the money.
The subject of luchadors pay also comes up deep in a Forbes Mexico interview with Dorian Roldan; when asked, he says luchadors start off at about 200,000 and some are paid just under 1,000,000 Mexican Pesos. (That’s a $13K to $67.5K US.) The article says there are 92 luchadors under contract, though they may reduce to 80. The number of luchadors in AAA is my most favorite dumb stat, because it seems like it’s useful but the concept is so fuzzy to make it practically useless. (Is Belial in AAA? Counting appearing yes, probably not if you’re just including people who get that starting salary.)
The article is primarily another piece about their expansion into the US to get some of that sweet US money; with a lot of familiar info. The useful line is when Dorian says “Our idea is to be the next Mortal Kombat or Power Rangers” – it informs the product you’re seeing on Lucha Underground.
Rey Misterio Jr. and Konnan talked to the Baja California’s Attorney’s office, giving statements about Perro Aguayo Jr.’s death. (A third luchador went with them, but his name isn’t mentioned.) Not much is said about their statements, just they were as surprised by the events as everyone else. They’re still looking to talk to Manik, Extreme Tiger and the doctor. Not sure why it’s taken so long to talk to the doctor, that would seem to be one of the first things to do.
Daniel Aceves, an Olympic medalists who’s father was honored on a past Homenaje a Dos Leyendas, threw his support behind creating a new national commission to oversee lucha libre and boxing. He feels the CONADE (which governs sports in Mexico) already has the authority to do so, just needs the funding to make it happen.
LA Park calls Perro Aguayo Jr. a great human.
R de Rudo has a column wondering who will replace Perro Aguayo Jr. as the best rudo in Mexico.
WWE announced they’d return to Mexico again this October
- 10/16 Merida (Coliseo Yucatan)
- 10/17 Mexico City (Arena Ciudad de Mexico)
- 10/18 Monterrey (Arena Monterrey)
Tickets go on sale 04/15, six months before the shows actually take place.
SuperLuchas looks back at past April 2nd shows, including the debut of Arena Coliseo and the Princesa Sugehit versus Dark Angel mask match.
If I’m reading Syrui’s blog entry correctly (iffy!), La Gitana is Mascara Dorada’s sister.
Olimpico is involved with a TV Azteca dancing show in some way.
Matt D at Segunda Caida reviews Nuevos Infernals at Padrismo.
DJ Spectro looks back to Gran Coloso vs Mascara 2000
LV reviews this week’s Lucha Underground. Rotten Tomatoes visited Lucha Underground, learned five things about the show that you probably already know. Good PR anyway.
Coliseo Papa Milo held a press conference for their 04/10 show.
Lineups
CHILANGA MASK (SUN) 04/12/2015 Coliseo Coacalco, Coacalco, Estado de México
1) Impulso vs Keira
2) Justiciero & Magnifico vs Tigre Rojo & Tigre Rojo Jr.
3) Jeque vs Herodes Jr.
4) Virus vs Avisman
5) Arez & Belial vs Aramis & Iron Kid
6) Aero Boy vs Soberano Jr., Alas de Acero
7) Black Terry vs Psico Kid
8) Negro Navarro vs Dragon Lee (CMLL)
Full card for their first of two matches in Coacalco in April. Dragon Lee vs Negro Navarro in the main event is the latest announcement and a Different Style Battle – but I’d trust Dragon Lee more than most young flyers in that match. Virus vs Avisman is a sleeper excellent match.
There’s a rumor from MLW radio that the LU production team has other commitments and they won’t be back to taping until next year.That sounds as if the team won’t be back so probably no Lucha Underground season 2. Wouldn’t be surprised if El Rey will give Skip Chaisson (sp?) the whole enchilada to produce the show since he’s already the one making the vignettes anyways…
I heard that – from Meltzer on the JR show, haven’t gotten to MLW radio because the preview didn’t look too lucha – and it came off 70% like Bauer or Meltzer were unaware the was always going to be a break between seasons airing and a tremendously long break between filming which would allow people to go do other stuff. If they’re right, it still just sounded like it was vaguely going to be pushed back and not canceled. I was hoping there’d be more concrete info in the Observer, but there really wasn’t.
There was a statement in there that Dave believes they’ve lost “$20 million at least” on this show, which translates to me to a $500K per episode and that number seems so insanely high that I had trouble believing it. That seems like they’d be losing more money per event than WCW at their worst. If it’s costing them that much, then (someone somewhere along the line is getting rich and great for them and also) the pie in the sky Univison/Televisa deals (also speculated on there) wouldn’t seem to be enough. But it also seemed like speculation – obviously informed speculation but not actual reports – so I dunno.
Why Chilanga Mask isn’t on a million dollar TV, smh…
With Perro gone now, who is “officially” No. 1 rudo? Mesias or Texano?
Maybe they do a Rush/Thunder apuesta match ASAP so they can go back ro Rush/UG?
OK, yeah, it now sounds as if someone thought that 5 months after the finale meant after August not knowing that the taping for the finale will be held in a couple of weeks, =p Metzler has been wrong on a lot of things so I wouldn’t take the “20 million loss” things seriously.
The Contender was said to cost 2 million per episode, so 500k is pocket change, Of course, it probably took a week to shot each episode, and in a week, LU could tape a dozen episodes, 2m/12= 150k per episode? ok, 10 years later it might be higher, but not having Sugar and Sly would halve costs, so… Hollywood style is the studios making lots of shell companies and charging each other to inflate the cost 3 or 4 times, so even that 500k figure would be exaggerated, someone told Metzler after the first show that “it looked like a 500k per episode production” and Dave has run away with it, but the first episode had them with aerial shots, using a crane to zoom out from the LU billboard then pan down the building, those “hours pass in seconds shot”, and other expensive stuff. Now it is more streamlined, they’re taping 2 episodes per day so the episode cost might be around 200k, they might be in the black already, although every show or film loses money, even The Walking Dead is losing money according to AMC, that’s why Frank Darabont is suing them. AAA won’t see a penny from the show, but they’re used to it :
Dave just seems to be making stuff up, like that “Ultimo Lucha” being a 2 or 3 hour live and maybe even a PPV. Or the show moving to Univision. I don’t think it could move to Univision simply because the format, they would had to change lots of things and tone down the violence to, no thanks. but Metzler seems to be making things up so that when they won’t happen people goes “OMG they’re failing” even though they were never in the cards to begin with -_-
From the FORBES article
“En cálculos de Mxsports, la Triple A tiene un impacto económico en taquilla superior a los 300 mdp anuales por los 800 eventos que realiza en el año.”
Mxsports might be making the figures up, but lets go with them. 300 million would be 20 million dollar at current rate, but since the column has figures from 2012 and 2013, their data might be old, maybe 25md? 30million if 4 years old… assuming 15 dollar per ticket average, that would be 1.5-2 million fans per year, or about 2000 per show. CMLL probably has the same or somewhat higher numbers. Wikipedia claims NJPW is the 2nd biggest promotion after WWE in revenue and attendance, yet, it would take them half a decade to get 2 million fans, and Enuhito has said that they had 22 billion yen revenue in a year, which with the current rate is 18 million dollar, so they’re number 4 at best, behind WWE, AAA and CMLL (they have more revenue than the gate, though) Maybe number 3 in profits behind CMLL and AAA =p (Bushiroad owner seems to be a money mark, so maybe NJ is also running with loses, or real losses compared to WWE)
OK, seriously, AAA would get only a fraction from the 25 million figure. Most would go to the local promoters. Dorian does say that live events are 3rd in importance to them, behind sponsors and promoters. So they would be getting more money from their sponsors than their share from the 300 million pesos. Dunno why he makes a difference between promoters and live events, do they have a live event tour by themselves where they don’t need a local promoter? Those 800 shows are not including shows where they send a few workers for local promoters?
He doesn’t talk about merch, maybe that’s the live events for them, who knows. They have photographers so you can pay to get a pic with your fave(s), that’s a good source of revenue, besides being a good way to track how over a wrestler actually is (but then Fabi and Taya would have to be main eventing x_X) but the shows end so late that many people leaves during the main event, several times, (not exclusive by AAA) they have tried to have the pic sessions before the show starts, but good luck with stars showing up on time or fans… and of course, there are shirts and masks, so the potential is there, yet, no mention by Dorian. Good to hear that major events is last in their list, Perro Jr was a tragedy, but the RdR debacle was something that could put a company with a foot on its grave in the 80s, but they seem to be doing fine.
But I do seriously believe that AAA and CMLL are easily ahead NJPW in revenue and attendance, of course, based on brute force of having 7 or 8 times more events. AAA might pull ahead with sponsors paying them premium rates simply because they’re on national TV, but the case can be in favor of either being the n2 in the world…
Yes, I’ve always fought people who said NJPW was No. 2 in the world. It’s clear as a day AAA and CMLL draw bigger on almost every area.