Tonight’s the start of CMLL’s Universal tournament. If you’ve not watched this tournament or standard CMLL tournaments, you’re in for the opposite of a treat. First round match ups will be seeded by a three to five minute battle royal, and most every match in the tournament will also be that length. The person who’s losing will squeeze in a few trademark spots and then lose, sometimes in very underwhelming ways. The block final (tournament semifinal) and the actual final tend to be good, but most of the tournament is champions losing in remarkably quick fashion.
The Universal tournament has been used to give a win to Japanese people for international relations or to give a win to someone who’s about to be part of the Anniversary show. There’s no Japanese people this year and the Anniversary show already happened, so there’s no obvious purpose to this tournament. Ultimo Guerrero seems to win everything, so it might just be Ultimo Guerrero winning another thing. The next big apuesta match seems like it’ll include Volador and Rush and Volador’s the only one in this match (and he hasn’t won this tournament yet), so it could be Volador getting the build up win. It could be used to elevate someone from the midcard to a top position and create a new star, but that’s the most unlikely.
It’s tough to see anyone besides Ultimo Guerrero winning this block. Shocker’s used as a star but they haven’t been doing many singles matches with him in Mexico City. Dragon Lee & Cavernario are great, great enough that even a four minute match between them would be very interesting, but lighter weight champions tend not to go as far in this tournament. Angel de Oro and Dragon Rojo have been treated as stars and would be dark horse finalists if they wanted to mix things up. Luciferno is obviously losing in his first match.
The actual main event is Super Parka making a surprise return to Arena Mexico, teaming with his son Volador and Atlantis. He did well in his previous match, mixing it up well with Rush, and they’ll be facing the Ingobernables again. The semimain has an Alvarado family team up, where La Mascara teams with Brazo de Plata & Maximo against Mr. Niebla, Euforia and Felino. I’m not really sure why that’s the semimian and not the tournament, but that’s what the preview says.
The show will air on ClaroSports.com at 8:30pm CT. http://www.clarosports.com/en-vivo/. (It’s best to open the page one or two minutes early; sometimes the page just doesn’t load and you have to refresh repeatedly.) This is the final week I know of between CMLL & Claro. They were talking about a longer term agreement at that time, and the fact that a ClaroSports ad is now showing on the ad boards suggests maybe a deal was made.
I might not be around to record this.
I have a preview of Heroes Inmortales on Voices of Wrestling. I think this show would continue AAA’s streak of having fun TV episodes if it were a TV episode. It’s missing something as a $19 iPPV, at a time where it probably needed something extra. (I’m trying to think of how it would’ve been received in a world where TripleMania went fine; maybe it’d be OK then?) I’m pretty sure “$19” bugged me, maybe more than it should. WWF/WCW PPV history showed raising prices doesn’t hurt PPV buys (and sometimes actually helped them.) Metaphorically, there’s still a stink in the air from TripleMania, it doesn’t feel like AAA’s done a lot to clear the air, and $19 is a bit like pretending everything’s fine. (In reality, they might have just told the iPPV people to set up the next show and neither side remembered they raised the price last time.)
An article makes the case Copa Pena is one of the most important tournaments in AAA. They only have two of them, so I feel like they must be right.
Many AAA luchadors are working a The Crash show in Tijuana tonight. The main event is Alberto, Rey Misterio and Rey Horuz (an ex-Mysterio) versus Briaan Cage, Daga and Hijo del Fantasma. Pentagon defends the promotion’s cruiserweight title against Bestia 666 and there’s a unique Fenix versus Agelico vs Seiya Sanada vs Matt Cross four way match.
Sexy Star is now getting booked in the US thru Clutch City Productions, which is strange because a) she’s probably still a while from being able to work anyway and b) all the other AAA people who’ve been in the US have been booked thru AAA. She was barely in AAA this year before the injury so maybe she’s doing her own thing? I’d guess the one sure thing is all the luchadors who have been brought to the US/Canada post Lucha Underground have been doing well and those from the show who haven’t gotten indy work yet are eagerly looking for some.
How are ticket sales going for Monday’s Todo x el Todo show? El Hijo del Santo is back to teasing it might be his last match ever depending on how his body feels. It reads like there’s a Puebla show on 10/17 should he live.
Felino says he’s not yet thinking about retiring. 2015 Felino matches make me think about retiring.
Mala Hiebra debut this weekend at Cara Lucha.
Segunda Caida review Misterioso, Rey Misterio Jr., Volador I vs Rocco Valente, Tony Arce, Vulcano
Profile of Cuernavaca luchador Crazy Rock and preview of the show he’s working this weekend.