Day: June 26, 2015

AAA has a big show coming up soon. How soon? AAA won’t say. This year’s TripleMania date has been kept quiet, been treated as a top secret, which is a bizarre way to build up to the biggest show of the year. This is usually a show AAA tries to break records with, but this year it’s a show they don’t want to advertise. Perhaps it’ll finally be announced tomorrow on AAA’s TV show, but maybe we can figure it out on our own first.

Let’s start of with some rules

• TripleMania can’t be happening in the next few weeks. They’ve waited too long to announce the show, but they’re not insane. It’s not happening tomorrow. It’s not happening the day after tomorrow. It can’t be happening until some time after the UK tour (07/11). AAA has TV tapings up to the 10th, so I’m pretty sure TripleMania would’ve been brought up by now.
• TripleMania is likely happening in July or August. It’s always possible they could sneak in to early September, but they start running into a short turn around before Heroes Inmortales (middle of October) the longer they stretch this out and they run into competition. CMLL may have it’s own problems with their big show of the year, but it wouldn’t be optimum for AAA to run the same weekend, or even the weekend prior. This show can’t really be later than 09/06.
• TripleMania is not on a weekday and probably a Sunday. This isn’t a hard and fast rule, but TripleMania has been on Sundays four of the last five years, and most every AAA big show is on a Sunday.

Let’s just go with Sundays while acknowledging Saturdays could still be possible.  (It’d be harsh to send people back on the road the next day after a long night for TripleMania anyway; AAA probably needs both Saturday and Sunday clear regardless of which day the show is run.) Here’s the Sundays left

July 19
July 26
August 2
August 9
August 16
August 23
August 30
September 6

AAA has announced a house show on the 19th with too many people that can’t miss TripleMania. Same thing on the 26th; it’s a little less star power, but they wouldn’t have OKed that card if they might need those guys.  And today, they added a show in Juarez on 08/02 with Myzteziz and Alberto is booked on an indy show on 08/02, so that’s a safe no. Alberto & Rey are booked in Bolivia on August 15th & 16th, cross those off. (At least seven different wrestlers who’d be on TripleMania have been announced for the Battle of of Los Angeles from 08/28-08/30, so that’s a no. CHIKARA King of Trios is on September 4, 5, 6; while Fenix, Aerostar and Drago could be eliminated early and sent home, AAA would probably want them in Mexico for most of the weekend if they were booked on the show. How’s this looking?

August 9
August 23

August 23rd turns out to be the same day as SummerSlam. That’d normally be easy enough to scratch that date off too but we just saw what happened with Money in the Bank and Verano de Escandalo. And I’ve got nothing to cross off August 9th. I think that’s as far as we can go, but it’s pretty far: if TripleMania is on a Sunday, it’s either August 9th or August 23rd. 

Speculating has been pointing towards an early August date and I’d bet on August 9th if I had to choose between the two because of that WWE conflict, but I don’t any hard proof to cite one or the other.

(Did I miss a booking? It’s strangely hard to track down upcoming Alberto & Rey dates, so maybe there’s more conflicts out there. There’s a 50/50 chance someone’s going to immediately knock off one of those dates after I post this, and I’ll update if that happens.)

This is the other thing: there’s got to be a big hold up to not announce the date. If it’s that August 9th date, we’re talking about it being six weekends away: you’d abosultely want to start promoting a card that close. Even if it’s August 23rd, that only 8 weeks for a card normally hoping to pull in 20,000 (including a far chunk of people who will be traveling in.) It’s obviously a determent to the whole thing to hold off announcing the show at this point, so there’s got to be an even bigger reason not to say anything. Maybe they’re still negotiating with a big name to come in, maybe they’re not sure they’ve got a card to run Arena Ciudad de Mexico are looking for dates on other buildings. There’s something going on, and that’s an even bigger mystery than the date.

Today’s CMLL show follows up on Wednesday’s confusion and match making with a Guerreros versus Revolucionarios main event. That should end up with Rey Escorpion and Ultimo Guerrero repeating their challenges. Hopefully only those two, or I want my Wednesday back. That show – Juicio Final? – probably needs a good semimain. This show has a random relevos incredibles with Sombra, Rey Bucanero & Rush versus Diamante Azul, Negro Casas, and Volador Jr., which could provide a lot of different possibilities for a big show semimain match. En Busca de un Idolo matches are Flyer/Zavala (promising) and Panther Jr./Casas (promising doom).

LuchaWorld reviews Tuesday’s En Busca de un Idolo matches. The voting isn’t final yet, but Zavala & Maya will be way ahead of everyone else. They’re doing good in the results, slightly better than everyone else in the judging, and just blowing everyone else in fan poll so far. Everyone else will be within 40 points of each. If any of the others turn it around in the fan polling, they’ll make it to the top 4 quick.

El Pancracio’s recap of Thursday’s Liga Elite press conference has Juvi saying he’ll be teaming with Rush, so it must be Volador Jr. & Shelton Benjamin as the other team. Juvi called Volador a bad clone of him. Fuerza Guerrera and Octagon are still teasing their mask match; that feud started in 1991 when Octagon was still in EMLL. +LuchaTV has video of the press conference, so you be weirded out by seeing Octagon in front of the CMLL logo.

The Lucha Dragons were in Mexico City this week to promote the WWE’s November tour. A WWE official said they’re planning a lucha libre themed movie, and “expect to” tape TV in Mexico in 2017. The WWE TV in Mexico often comes off as a carrot on a string.

Virus says he enjoyed his match with Avisman at ChilangaMask, and also Pagano/Hechicero. (The Peridico Enfoque Arena Puebla reporter was very busy this week, this is his fourth article.)

Vice Mexico visited the DTU show at Arena Aficion to write about extreme luchadors. It’s a familiar piece – luchadors insisting they do extreme wrestling right and it really hurts – but it’s still well done. Rich Swann makes a great cameo.

A TV special on Okumura & (still masked) Kamiatachi aired today in Japan. I’m not sure what show it was on, only that there were a lot of kanji messages about it on Twitter.

Cassandro has an interview win the Guardian, talking about El Paso, to promote his upcoming UK tour.

Hijo del Fantasma was actually in London to promote the completely separate but overlapping AAA shows there.

+LuchaTV had an interview with Los Ingobernables.

Black Terry Jr. has highlights of XMW Tag Team tournament.

SuperLuchas writes about an injury that ended Alberto Munoz’s career, Flama Azul winning a mask, and CMLL honoring Bobby Bonales.

CMLL & AAA have free shows this weekend in Tuxtla Guiterrez.

Segunda Caida reviews Oro Jr. versus Metalico. I forget exactly when Oro broke his jaw in that match. Metalico’s really come out much better from that feud (since he came up with the new character and wasn’t out for months), but they’re still about in the same place. There doesn’t seem to be that sort of midcard apuesta feud going on this year.

Voices of Wrestling has a review of this week’s Lucha Underground.