Rush & Park battle in Arena Mexico, Teddy Hart in Elite, Leyenda de Plata, Mini Drago

@JonatHan on Periscope
@JonatHan on Periscope

ELITE (THU) 07/14/2016 Arena México [+LuchaTV, MedioTiempo, Plantilla Deportiva, R de Rudo]
1) Cancerbero & Raziel b Ciclón Ramírez Jr. & Príncipe Diamante
2) Jinzo & Súper Crazy b Felino & Tiger
Crazy mocked Tiger after the win.
3) El Hijo del Medico Asesino, Hijo del Dr. Wagner Jr., Karonte Jr. b Hijo De Dos Caras, Hijo de LA Park, Rayman
4) Diamante Azul b Teddy Hart [Liga Elite]
Teddy Hart replaced Caristico. This was listed on the poster as a Liga Elite match but not announced as one after the change. Azul won a German suplex.
5) Atlantis & Dos Caras Sr. b Máscara Año 2000 & Universo 2000
Dos’ first match in Arena Mexico since 1997
6) Rush DQ LA Park [Liga Elite, super libre]
turned in a brawl with weapons being pulled out of the crowd (when they weren’t going into the crowd.) Both men bled. Rush threw a wooden cooler at Park a few times, Park later did the same, and was DQed for doing the same. (Referee Edgar fled after calling the DQ and it did not appear to be the planned finish to the match.) The two ignored the result and continued fighting for a couple minutes, finally being broken up by security. Park & Rush got back in the ring and cut promos until their mics were cut, then fought again for another couple minutes before breaking apart.

There’s a periscope video of the match from the second row, which gives you a good sense of how crazy the brawl got and how rabid the fans were for it. I was not surprised the super libre match ended in a DQ – it seems like all CMLL super libre no DQ matches actually end in DQ – but this wasn’t a foul or mask pull DQ. This was the referee seemingly legitimately losing control of the match and deciding it must be stopped. (Since Edgar has that earpiece, he probably wasn’t the only person involved in making that decision. There’s always the chance this could’ve been an angle, but it didn’t come off like any angle CMLL’s ever run.) Anyway, it didn’t stop the match and it’s probably for Elite’s benefit it didn’t stop, the fans would’ve been livid. There were plenty of people angry about the DQ, but the Rush & LA Park continuing to fight made it feel like some crazy event. I don’t think there would’ve been a riot, but there would’ve been a lot of unhappy people who wouldn’t be coming back again.

This looked like the biggest Elite crowd in the Azteca era. There seemed to be a bit of manipulation – it looked like the upper bowl was closed off to make sure the lower bowl filled up – but this match (and probably the legends in the semimain) drew in a way nothing has drawn for them before. They could easily do 10K+ for a rematch – but maybe it’d have to be at the Palacio de los Deportes or Plaz de la Monumental in Monterrey, because I’m not sure CMLL’s going to allow them to do this match again in Arena Mexico given how they reacted last night. If this was CMLL pulling the plug on the match, then it’s definitely never going to be as good as it could be under those conditions and would need to be done elsewhere to reach it’s full potential.

(I am even a little concerned CMLL might even ask Elite/Azteca not to air the match, as they’ve done in the past with the Wagner/Park brawl and Volador/Niebla bloody match in Puebla – it was definitely being filmed the whole way thru the post match brawl and CMLL may not be able to stop Azteca, but there’s a good chance CMLL would omit if it was a show they were airing themselves.)

Of note, a bloody crazed Rush did a post match interview, but LA Park did not.

Teddy Hart told the press that this would not be the last time we see him in Arena Mexico. This is Teddy’s first appearance in a major promotion since he left 2012. It’s hard to believe Elite would fly Teddy in to work one unadvertised match, so maybe he’s showing up tonight – only, Elite flew in David Tita to work just one match only a couple weeks ago, so they’re fully capable of such strangeness.

Teddy’s been most recently working in California, including teaming with Rush last weekend, so that’s probably the way he got back to Mexico. Teddy’s antics got him fired multiple times for AAA, a thousand times looser company than CMLL, so it seems unlikely he’d stick around in Arena Mexico for long even with Elite calling the shots.

It must be noted Elite surely knew Caristico wasn’t going to appear on this show as soon as he got out of the hospital and made no attempt to let anyone know. That’s bad business. For what it’s worth, Arena Coliseo Guadalajara continues to promote Caristico as appearing there on Tuesday.

Elite does not air tonight. It moves to Saturdays starting week, in between a soccer game and boxing.

CMLL’s show tonight looks to have a great match, though it a very different style. The Leyenda de Plata tournament restarts tonight. This tournament honors el Santo, and historically has featured CMLL’s most exciting luchadors. 2016’s field has Mistico, Volador Jr., La Máscara, Titán, Mephisto, Tritón, Cavernario, Guerrero Maya Jr., Ripper, The Panther, Virus and the returning Dragón Lee in a cibernetico match. The winning luchador will face Negro Casas next Friday.

Titan’s going to be busy next week, so he’s likely not advancing. Mistico, Volador, Mascara, Mephisto, Cavernario and Dragon Lee (last year’s runner up) seem to have the best chance, but this was a tournament Virus almost won last time; a surprise is not totally out of the question.

The actual main event is Atlantis, Diamante Azul and Rush versus Euforia, Gran Guerrero and Ultimo Guerrero. A few days ago on Facebook, Rush said he’d have surprises and new Ingobernable soon. There’s no one less governable in the world of wrestling than Teddy Hart, so it’s really interesting he’s hanging around Mexico right now. I’m not sure that’s the direction, but it’s a strange possibility which has to be considered now.

There’s really no angles on the rest of the card. The opener is listed as Vaquerita & Skadi vs Tiffany & Seductora, but the preview today has Isis in place of Seductora. It’s not a big difference. Angel de Oro, Rey Cometa, and Stuka Jr. take on the Hijos del Infierno, who defended their trios titles last Tuesday in Guadalajara. Rey Bucanero, Terrible, Vangellys take face Valiente, Maximo and Super Crazy, who’s making a rare non-Elite appearance on CMLL shows. Those recent appearances were part of his feud with the Casas family, who are not involved in this match, so it’s strange to see him tonight. Might not be an angle, might just be everyone else being used in the Leyenda de Plata.

CMLL will air on Clarosports as normal. The show is not on NJPWWorld. It looks like it might have been a one time event for Volador vs Kushida, because it’s not on the schedule going at the moment. Japan is getting the Gran Prix tomorrow night, airing on SamuraiTV at 10pm local.

MugsNoticas has an article on the history of the Leyenda de Plata tournament, noting Negro Casas would be the first four time winner if he held onto it this year.

DTU is also running tonight in Arena Neza, with a six way extreme cage match as the main event. There’s a three way tag match on the card between Titan & Triton, Motorcross & Dr. Cerebro, and Pesadilla & Rocky Lobo, which would require the CMLL guys to bolt from Arena Mexico as soon as the semimain is done and make it over to Arena Neza. That’s a 45 minute drive, so they probably wouldn’t get there until 11:30, which seems way too late (and that cage match would still have to go on after.) Maybe they’d move to the start of the show to get them out of there quick? This all comes up because, earlier in the week, Titan posted on Facebook that he hadn’t been contacted to work the DTU show and wouldn’t be on it, but then later deleted that post. I dunno; Titan was doing Facebook live videos last night, so he might have explained it. The rest of the card looks interesting, but I’m not so sure about that match happening as scheduled.

Mini Drago has quit AAA, according to a post on his Facebook. His note is along the lines of Ludxor’s complaint, though with less details: poor working conditions and favoritism. His brother, Mini Charly Manson/Tiago quit back in March, and posted a note of support on his Facebook.

Mini Drago started in AAA exactly 10 years ago tomorrow, as Mascarita Divina. He’d been a second tier tecnico mini for the last decade, with maybe his most notable moment a bad leg injury on a diving headscissors that kept him out for a long time. He got the Mini Drago character in February 2014, which helped at first but not of late: he’s only appeared on TV about five times in the last two years. (This is where we’re seeing the departures from AAA of late, the guys at the end of the roster who aren’t content working the B towns.) His most recent TV appearance was last August, AAA’s just not booking a lot of mini trios for TV any more, but he was listed as returning to TV on the upcoming 07/29 Toluca card. That was a card released early and has not been officially confirmed by AAA. Perhaps he got bumped from the card and that was the breaking point, or maybe he just realized the upcoming anniversary and decided to move on.

Tiago’s only appeared a couple times since leaving AAA, but I’d guess he and his brother are going to be either teaming or facing each other an indie show soon.

Adictos del Deportes had a report saying AAA was creating a new Sexy Star, based on an instagram photo by AAA’s main Japanese contact and designer showing a new outfit. The Adictos del Deportes had said they heard a woman who tried out for WWE might be brought in to AAA for the role, but they didn’t know much. I freaked out at first but, after talking to more people about this, that outfit turns out to be one Sexy wore back in 2012 and it was more a “good luck for whatever’s next” message that didn’t get translated to English well.

Adictos del Deportes, which is run by the same people who handle Llaves y Canados and lucha libre for Multimedios, is kind of being used a news site to build angles for their promotions. (It’s successful gambit if you can get people to buy into the articles.) This is the third Sexy Star article they’ve run in a shot time – there was a fairly unbelivable story about Sexy going into MMA even before boxing a couple days ago that seem worth link. It suggests Sexy’s on the September ColiseoMania show and they’re just trying to keep her name up as a big star.

Stuka says he hopes Saturday’s appearance in ROH opens up more CMLL participation, and a longer run there for him so he can go after a title or have a rivalry.

Demus & Electrico have been wrestling in Canada for Midget Wrestling Warrior since July 7th. They finish up in Brandon tomorrow.

Lucha Underground’s Chris DeJospeh was on Wrestling Mayhem Show’s Mid Week War podcasts this week. On the Lucha Underground one, he noted last week’s Son of Havoc/the Mack match was originally a two out of three falls match, but the entire show went long (25 minutes over) and they had to edit it down and change the stipulation later. That’s why there were no falls outside on a falls count anywhere match.

RobViper has a music video of 06/18/2004 CMLL, the debut of Mistico.

Cross Arm Breaker has reviews of Herodes vs Tony Salazar and La Fiera vs Jerry Estrada

Templario & Wasson and Willy Banderas & Bryan Villa talk up their match at CaraLucha next weekend.

SuperLuchas talks to Mr. Potro, Sepulturero and Terry 2000 about their three way cage match in Tultitlan this week.