2015 Verano de Escandalo lineup (06/14, Monterrey)

AAA TV (SUN) 06/14/2015 Arena Monterrey, Monterrey, Nuevo León
1) Dinastía, El Elegido, Faby Apache, Pimpinela Escarlata vs Mamba, Mini Psycho Clown, Parka Negra, Taya Valkyrie
2) Drago vs Fénix, ?, Daga, Steve Pain, Aerostar, Bengala, Súper Nova, Súper Fly, Hijo del Fantasma [Alas de Oro]
3) Monsther Clown, Murder Clown, Psycho Clown © vs Averno, Chessman, Cibernético and ?, Electroshock, Hijo de Pirata Morgan [AAA TRIOS]
Psycho Circus ninth defense.
4) Angélico & Jack Evans vs Dark Cuervo & Dark Scoria [cage]
5) El Patrón Alberto © vs Brian Cage [AAA HEAVY]
second defense
6) La Parka, Myzteziz, Rey Mysterio Jr. vs El Mesías, Johnny Mundo, Pentagón Jr.

Air Date: 06/20 & 06/27…or 07/04 & 07/11, if the World Cup is just aired as a normal show. It’s also likely this will end up on iPPV.

Rey makes his regular big show appearance against an unexpected opponent. Johnny Mundo turned rudo last night on Lucha Underground, but it was assumed he’d be coming to Mexico as a tecnico. Doesn’t appear that way now, as he’s set up as a rival for Misterio. Maybe this leads into TripleMania somehow. This is a fun looking lineup, but there’s no obvious set up for the big match at TripleMania.

Alberto and Cage finally have their title match. It actually does seem like something that could be brought for TripleMania, but it feels like this is the moment where Alberto wins and it’s not a strong match after that. Something indecisive is definitely possible.

Cage match could steal the show. The storyline is La Secta feel overlooked by management, the reality seems to be AAA overlooks Secta sometimes and brings them back for feuds at other times. Those feuds never seem to end well, they really could use this one turning out better.

The mystery man on Electroshock’s team has to be Kronos, but maybe with a new name? I can’t imagine why it wouldn’t be after all this time.

Alas de Oro – AAA’s version of Reyes del Aire – hasn’t been run as part of a normal TV show since 2008. Good to see it back. This is just as much as sequel to the Triplemania cruiserweight ten match, which also was scheduled to feature 10 people. Kind of thinking the mystery man in this one might be to protect against someone no-showing this time. Angelico, Australian Suicide, Jack Evans, Joe Lider and Pentagon are replaced by Aerostar, Steve Pain (back again!), Super Nova (healed?), Super Fly and the mystery man.

Dinastia and Mini Psycho Clown keep their feud going in the opener. Taya & Faby continue to be on a lot of TV shows, and are pretty much the only women used.

Texano Jr. not being on the card is strange. I think that’s the first major one he hasn’t been on since he joined AAA. It could be a numbers thing, but I wonder if there’s a chance of him being sent some place else as part of a trade for the Lucha World Cup.

CMLL anniversary date set?, FULL TV, Chavo on Lucha Underground style

CMLL announced this year’s Anniversary show would take place on September 18th, kinda. The “write a story about CMLL” kid’s contest winners will be recognized at that show, and the fine print of the contest rules lists that show as September 18th. That’s such a quiet announcement that CMLL could get away with changing it, but it’s likely to be the correct one.

What’s the main event? I have no idea. This week’s edition of the bloated CMLL Informa spent a lot of the last segment trying to press Volador and Mephisto to agree to a hair vs mask match. Mephisto didn’t really answer, but it’s as reasonable a candidate as anything – which more to say there is no strong match for September yet. CMLL’s focused on Rey Escorpion versus Ultimo Guerrero too, but both those matches feel like matches for lesser shows and not ones which will draw 16,000 people. (It’s unlikely CMLL has anything that’ll draw 16,000 people.) I still think there’s a tease to a cage match this summer, but it doesn’t seem to be coming together quick enough to be run against the Lucha World Cup – maybe just some random Friday in June.

The FULL promotion has a TV taping tonight at Carpa Astros in Mexico City. Their main events are pretty similar in style to the Leyendas shows – Mascara Sagrada, Octagon, Tinieblas vs Cien Caras Jr., Heavy Metal and Pirata Morgan headlines tonight. They do better at including younger guys on the undercard, though it’s still unclear what will air. Tinieblas Jr. says all of his shows will only be two hours long as to not be too tedious. The three other shows they’re running at Carpa Astros are today on June 4th, June 18th and July 2nd. Their next TV taping is 05/29 in Toluca, so pretty much everything from tonight’s show should end up airing.

Also, Alushe did more beat boxing.

The Handsome Timmy D Express has an interview with Chavo Guerrero, talking about how he’s been involved with Lucha Underground. Chavo loves the show, saying the wrestling is the best in the world and the production is even better. Chavo says he did not see the first episode until it aired on TV and was completely blown away by the production. “Usually, it’s the production that has to catch up to the wrestling, but this was the other way.” The first taping after that, Chavo says he urged the guys to up their game to match the quality.

Chavo says he’s been told by high up people “every single frame that airs on Lucha Underground, Robert Rodriguez approves.”

The Wrestling Observer has consistently talked about a give and take about how the style of show and wrestling should be, and Chavo ends up addresses that discussion:

Chavo says he was “butting heads with other people, who wanted it to be more lucha”. Chavo was pushing that it can’t just be lucha, because it would be seen as knock off lucha (compared to AAA), it had to be different. Chavo says there are bad parts of lucha and good parts of lucha, just like there are bad parts of US wrestling and good parts of US wrestling, and as long as they use the good parts of everything, it’ll turn out well. “This is Guerrero style. This is how Eddie and we wrestle.” Brings up Shawn Michaels too as a guy who mixed the different styles.

Chavo says they’ve been helped by the wrestling landscape – the 10 years post-WCW opened the door for a strengthened independent scene, and now there’s a lot of great talent they can pluck and use on their own. (Chavo also notes he has interested people contact him all the time looking to see if they can get in here, but they’re only looking for people who can work their Lucha Underground style.) Chavo explains part of his job is to help evolve the wrestlers.

“My job is kinda get them is to calm down a little bit (laughs) – just because you can do a backflip doesn’t meant you should a backflip. We want you, we want – I’m trying to teach some of these guys, ok, there’s a time and a place when you do things to get the most out of them, because some of these guys are working so hard out there, and I’m like guys you’re working too hard, sometimes less is more. And they’re getting it, they’re getting it, they’re understanding it, they’re so good, they’re so talented, they just need to be directed a little bit. And that’s what we’re trying to do here. And some of our main stars, in the next year or two, are going to be even better because they’re going to be better. Because some of these guys have been on TV for four years, five years, but they didn’t know what a hard camera is. They didn’t know they were supposed to play to this camera before, and that’s what we’re teaching them and showing them. And, lucha is, lucha is – is – it’s a different entity in it’s own, so we’re teaching them this style, which is what we want them do with this style, which may work in other places, but they’re all getting it, and the wrestling from the first episode to better is going to get better and better and it’s going to continue to evolve.”

The hard camera speech is just about the same HHH gave on a conference call about Finn Balor. That’s not saying Chavo borrowed it, it’s saying there’s both places note the same differences between indy (and lucha) wrestling and TV wrestling. I’m pretty sure I saw people doing flips for flips sake last night, but I’m growing less interested in the process as compared to the product.

There’s a long discussion about intergender wrestling, how the production crew went from not knowing wrestling to being blown away by what the wrestlers were doing, about Son of Havoc’s changing feelings on the show, and Chavo’s own thoughts of being part of the first match ever on the show. It’s worth a listen.

Cassandro is about to have surgery which will put him out of wrestling for several months, and there’s a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for living expenses in the meantime.

Video promo for team Fantasma, Psycho and Texano, who seem to be going by Team MexAAA. There’s also a Psycho Clown text interview. They’re strongly pushing the idea they’re not going to lose by turning on Psycho Clown, which is hard to believe until it happens. I think that if you’re trying to establish the legitimately of the tournament, you’ve got to have every team treating winning it like the biggest deal (more than how much they dislike their teammate.) But if building Verano de Escandalo is more important, than you need to run something big to set it up on this show.

Titan says Cavernario told him he’d get a rematch, so he’s focused on winning the Leyendas de Plata on Friday and then winning his title back. He’d like to go back to Japan as well.

RobViper has a music video for 01/16 CMLL.

LuchaWorld has KrisZ’s news update.

SuperLuchas looks back ten years ago at Mistico vs Hijo del Perro Aguayo.

Fuerza Guerrera, Mascara Ano 2000, Villano III, Villano IV and Villano V were honored by the Mexican senate.

+LuchaTV talks to Rey Fenix about the El Bestiario competition.

Lucha Underground 1×27: Ancient Medallions

Aerostar & Jack

matches

Aerostar defeats Jack Evans (8:29, top rope Canadian Destroyer)
Fenix [O] defeats Sexy Star, Pentagon Jr. [X], King Cuerno, Cage, the Mack, Killshot (10:14, standing moonsault)
Hernandez defeats Alberto el Patron (5:07, cover after Johnny Mundo put Alberto thru the office window)

all the gifs for the show are here.

developments

Jack’s not going to be able to wrestle when he’s 30

Dario revealed to his brother, the monster in the cage, he spent half his father’s fortune on acquiring seven ancient Azteca medallions. (There’s one for each tribe.) Naturally, now he’s going to have people fight over them. Dario explained it as wanting to recreate the battles originally fought for them, but I suspect those ancient battles had less package piledrivers. Dario just wants violence, though he noted that a person holding all seven would be like holding a gift from gods and might be strong than the monster.

Dario didn’t really let anyone else in on this plan, not until he called seven wrestlers to the ring for an unexplained match. Dario appeared prior it to explain the seven medallions, saying they could grant immortality, and they’d be given out in a series of matches to come. The seven way match here was the first of those matches, a wild match full of action and pinfall break ups. Pentagon and Sexy Star had issues during the match, but pretty much everyone fought everyone else. Fenix finally took the win.

Fenix was resting in the locker room after the match when Cartina (with spooky light powers) confronted him. She’s against Fenix now. The best I can figure, judging from her always not quite straigthforward dialogue, is she was working with Mil’s best interests (or at least own belief in Mil’s best interests) all along. Catrina manipulated Fenix into killing Mil Muertes because Mil is all about dying, and presumably he’ll be back stronger this time. Catrina definitely warned Fenix that Mil was coming back stronger. Fenix reached out to get her, but Catrina disappeared. Fenix wasn’t alone though – three mystery masked man in green lightning leaped were lurking on the top of the lockers, leaping off as the segment ended.

one knockdown after another

That wasn’t the only locker room. Earlier, the Mack caught Big Ryck counting out a new stack of bills but couldn’t get an answer about who it was from. Ryck accussed Mack of being in the Temple to make the people happy, but Ryck is there to make money because that’s all that matters. Ryck came off as if he was shifting back towards the rudo side, or at least the mercenary side. Mack stuck with the tecnico side in his match and he and Killshot appeared to be fighting Cuerno & Cage after their seven way match was over.

Someone else definitely leading towards the rudo side was the debuting Jack Evans. Within the first 30 seconds, he was walking on his hands, urging people to look him up on YouTube, and screaming that he had invented lucha libre. Jack’s over the top rudo act kept him booed while he and Aerostar were having their own crazy match, including Jack doing a 450 splash to the floor. Aerostar had a hurt leg near the end of the match, allowing Jack to catch up to him on the top rope, but Aerostar surprised everyone with a top rope Canadian Destroyer for the surprise win.

Dario continued his plan to get the trios titles to the Crew by telling Angelico, Son of Havoc and Ivelisse they’d be forced to face the rudos in a ladder match for the titles. Dario offered to just let them vacant the title due to Ivelisse’s injury, but they – and she – refused to give up.

The #1 contenders match was the main event, but probably the shortest match on the show. Dario had declared there must be a winner by pinfall or submission, which turned out to be pivotal. Alberto had an early chance to set up for the armbar when Johnny Mundo ran down and tripped Alberto out of the ring, then threw him thru office window. (Dario, in the office, reacted by getting himself a new drink.) Mundo threw Alberto in and gave Hernandez an easy win. Mundo offered no explanation past “This is MY world!”

thoughts

Cage is strong, but not invulnerable

Another great episode. The Aerostar/Jack Evans match totally exceeded my expectations. I know both guys were good if given the chance, but I was expecting this more to be along the lines of a five minute establishing win for Jack. Jack got established and looked good, but Aerostar was treated like an important guy even after he lost the Best of Five. (It probably did help that it was the one match I didn’t know the finish too and was generally surprised – point for anti-spoiler crowd.)

7 way was the epitome of a crazy spot fest. It wasn’t just the spots themselves though, it was third guys running in to get in their two cents and moves piling on moves. Everyone came off as a big star, they touched on the Pentagon/Sexy issues, and they snuck in a Cage/Cuerno vs Killshot/Mack feud in the background. Pentagon had his moment of being the world’s greatest luchador before getting beat, which is the way it goes for him sometimes. Everyone had their moments.

Johnny Mundo breakthru moment

The Catrina/Mil Muertes/Fenix story could use a moment to breath and explain. I think it’s a little bit intended to be mysterious, because Catrina and Mil Muertes are mythic creatures and explaining them grounds them in reality too much, but there’s it’s got to be clearer why they’re hitting a big cosmic reset button on their set up. There’s some good aspects of this, the new trios teaser introduction came off great, but it would benefit by grabbing the viewer by the hand and walking thtem thru what’s supposed to be going on.

Main event was not really clicking at the same level as the other matches, but it was the match which could didn’t need ot be epic – the glass breaking angle was going to trump a better match anyway. It came off as a big deal, along the lines of the Blue Demon Jr. injury angle from the first set of episodes and the crowd totally went with it.