IWRG FILL (THU) 04/30/2015Arena Naucalpan [Black Terry Jr. (flickr), Mano A Mano]
Torneo FILL XLI
1) Canario & Vardeus b Skanda & Soldado De La Muerte
2) Argus, Borego, Chicanito bCharly Boy, Desgarrador,Guerrero 2000
3) Alas de Acero, Aramis, Black Dragon b Black Angel, Magnum 44, Vampiro Metálico
4) Galaxy, Kanon, Picudo Jr. bBlue Monsther, Fresero Jr.,Marduk Jr.
5) Atomic Fly, Espada de Plata, Fly Star, Kaiser Drago, Komachi,Mini Zumbido, Skiller, Toxin BoyDQ Araña de Plata, Atomic Star,Dragón Celestial, Dragon Fly, Electro Boy, Imposible, Power Bull, Shadow Boy [Copa High Power]
FILL (Black Terry) vs Gym Zeuz (Oficial 911), sort of rematch after the cage match on the last FILL show. Match came down to Toxin Boy catching Atomic Star with a chair shot on a dive. Atomic rallied back to take out Toxin Boy with a martinete when he though the ref was knocked out. Ref did see it and DQed Atomic Boy, giving Gym Zeuz the win. Toxin Boy was stretcherd out while Atomic Boy challenged him to a singles match. 911 angrily hit Atomic Boy with a chair, sparking a fight. Eterno got involved in this, wanting to challenge both gyms (Eterno has a training crew?), while Oficial 911 threatened to end Black Terry’s career.
Seems kind of wrong that Oficial 911 is training the Kriminal Boys (Toxin Boy, Fly Star), but 911 is not be the straight laced police officer.
Yesterday was Kid’s Day, but really the entire weekend is full of shows with discounted tickets and high flying tecnicos for youngsters. Tonight’s CMLL Arena Mexico show fits that bill, with the Sky Team defending the trios titles facing Hijos del Infierno and the annual Reyes del Aire.Tickets are marked down to 10 pesos for kids (10 or younger, from the 10th row back.)
Sky Team are almost certainly going to keep their titles, edit: because the title aren’t on the line, the match only taking place so they can get a spectacular win in front of children who might bug their parents to come back another time. (This would be a good time for a two fall win, actually.) Reyes del Aire is more up in the air:
No Chance
- Delta
- Guerrero Maya Jr.
- Stuka Jr. – last year’s winner
- Tritón
- Fuego
- Niebla Roja
- Gran Guerrero
- Misterioso Jr.
- Virus
- Tiger
- Puma
Slight Chance
- Ángel de Oro – a two time winner, for some reason
- Bárbaro Cavernario – doesn’t fit the image, is very good
- Kamaitachi – is very, probably belongs in previous category after being first out on Sunday’s cibernetico
Best Chance
- Dragon Lee – would been an optimum time to continue his 2015 roll
- La Sombra – is La Sombra.
Niebla Roja talks about his career in hyping this match in ESTO.
SuperLuchas has a great obit for Carlos Maynez. (The ‘z’ spelling appears to be the correct spelling.) Maynez promoted his first show at the age of 15 and would continue to do so for 56 years. While Flores was the one running the shows in Torero, Maynez was in charge of the loop of arenas supporting the shows, in Queretaro, Neza (both arenas he owned), Puebla and other locations. Flores died in 1989, and Maynez was put in charge – but so were Canek, Karloff Lagarde, and Flores’ cousin Esperanza Flores, and the combination was not successful. The promotion maintained it’s high level for a few more years, even as it’s talent agreements with NJPW and WWF went away, but CMLL getting on Televisa in 1991 turned it’s luchadors into celebrities and LLI/UWA couldn’t compete. Many wrestlers jumped ship, and the promotion left Toreo to only run Neza as it continued to spiral down. Maynez was kidnapped at one point, then later decided to sell Arena Neza, later sold the rights to name “UWA” to Ultimo Dragon, and was the promoter only in Queretaro from then on.
The whole piece is worth reading. There’s a great only in Mexico story about how what was then called Promociones Mora got the rights to run shows in Toreo de Cuatro Caminos (no contract was signed.) More so, it’s just rare to read long pieces about that promotion and period of time the farther in the past it goes. It’s even more distant without Maynez.
La Mascara & Canek talked about Maynez to +LuchaTV.
Johnny Mundo, Chavo Guerrero Jr. and Eric Van Wagenen appeared on Roddy Piper’s podcast, talking about Lucha Underground among other things. Chavo claimed the original plan was for Unimas just to air a subtitled Lucha Underground on Saturday mornings, but the Unimas people were so blown away after attending the first taping that they insisted on getting a Spanish language version and they had to go back to retape things. (That could explain why the show was suddenly delayed three weeks.) Erik, who again said a second season is not confirmed but felt good about the possibility, described the show this way:
We’re not trying to be a wrestling promotion, we’re trying to be a television show first and foremost […] We’re not building to PPVs, we’re not building to tours, we don’t have to fill 20,000 seat arenas, we’re a TV show, and our attitude is every week you’ve got to give them something.
Chavo added on
Our show is not trying to upsell you – just watch next week, watch next week, that’s all we’re doing.
You can see that come thru with the pacing of the show; there’s no holding back matches because it has to take place on the monthly major show or repeating match ups with slightly different stips because they’ve got 12 shows to fill up. Matches happen when they happen.
Erik also described the brief meeting with the El Rey Standards and Practices officials, something that’s usually a lengthy and detailed meeting with networks
[It was a] 30 second call, where the guy basically says ‘well, just let us know if you want to say ‘fuck”
Everyone laughed about El Rey not saying it was banned, but just wanting a heads up if they were going to use it.
Masked Republic is selling an official licensed Hijo del Perro Aguayo tribute t-shirt thru Pro Wrestling Tees. Hope they can get the standard Perros del Mal t-shirt too. Masked Republic seems like the only ones who’ve figured out how to get official lucha libre t-shirts to sell international on the internet; their own store has Rey Horus, LA Park and Familia de Tijuana merchandise.
CMLL’s subbed out the women’s match on Tuesday for a minis match.
It looks like Vice Mexico is doing a lucha libre series as a tie up with Victoria ad campaign this summer. It uses the same hashtag.
Teelo seems to be off the Cara Lucha show after suffering a nose injury on the Chilanga Mask show last weekend.
+LuchaTV talked to Guerrero Maya & Delta about winning the national trios titles again.
Segunda Caida reviews 04/25 PWR and the Infernales vs Infernales cage match.
LV has a recap of this week’s Lucha Underground.
SuperLuchas looks back at shows 20 years ago yesterday, including Perro Aguayo Jr.’s first appearance.
Seattle Globalist has a story on the local Lucha Libre Volcanica wrestling promotion.
AJPW’s site has a quick note on Kenso in the Lucha World Cup.
DJ Spectro has a obit for Rudy Reyna.
MR’s website says they won’t be making the PDM shirt,but they have since showed on Twitter that they will be,so who knows.
The Piper show was funny,it was like a fight for the three guests to sneak in any actual information about LU while Piper babbled out nonsense at them. He said Lucha Underground is great and he loves it,then he didn’t know who Pentagon Jr was.
Actually, Flores died in 1987. Last show happened in 1995, so by now, looks like AAA has outlived its founder’s demise better than LLI did.
UWA does not seem to be properly documented, most of their huge cards have very little info, no lineups for anniversary shows or other big events. Even thou the press should have lots of coverage on them at the time. SL column is weird since it says El Toreo didn’t charge them for the use of the venue, so how could they blew that? It also said Palacio was “too expensive”, yet, other smaller groups ran it thru the years, so…
People will love to blame on TV the UWA failure. But probably we should go back to try to look what make them a hit in the first place. Loaded cards, probably. But maybe there’s something else. In the 50s, the city authority banned wrestling from TV. But that was not the only thing. They also banned women’s wrestling and… kids (under 16? 14?) attending. Being in Mexico State instead of DF, put them out of those rulings. Kids allowed in the building was probably a game changer for them, who knows if that was still in place in the 80s (and if it was, it prolly was only applied at times as everything the commission does), as far as I can tell, female performers returned to ArMex by 1988 (a year that saw a change in the city management), more or less around the time the tv ban was lifted… maybe more than tv, uwa couldn’t keep up when they lost their advantage?