AAA on Televisa: 2016-08-27 

Recapped: 09/04/2016

What happened: Pagano beat Psycho in a cage match, meaning Hijo del Tirantes would be referee for their mask match. Mary Apache refused El Apache’s request to return back to the rudo side. Garza Jr. replaced Fenix as Fantasma’s partner (who was still promoted for the TripleMania anyway.)

What was good: The three way tag match was the best match, but you wouldn’t miss much if you skipped the show entirely.

Where can I watch it: It’s on AAA’s channel. Read More

Alberto leaves WWE, Taurus leaves AAA, Caristico leaves – hmm, not sure yet

tonight
tonight

Alberto el Patron was officially released from WWE. The deal had been done for days and WWE simply waited until Friday to announce it. They probably would’ve waited until Friday afternoon if Alberto had not announced he was doing a press conference today. I tweeted a lot about it, and SuperLuchas has a lot of quotes in one place.

There wasn’t huge news at the press conference. Alberto said both he had achieved everything he could in WWE, and also that he was bored and unhappy and hated getting on the plane for every show. Alberto told a story of his son hiding his bags so he wouldn’t leave for WWE and he wanted to spend more time with his family. He claimed he and WWE agreed to part ways and there is no 90 day no compete this time. He can work in Mexico starting today, and he can work in the US starting in October. Alberto did not rule out the possibility of someday returning to WWE.

Alberto says he’s talking to CMLL and AAA and would be talking to both groups tomorrow, but he expects to be paid a certain amount wherever he goes. He also mentioned possibly going to Elite, but seemed to be less sure about them and had not been contacted by them. Alberto would like to wrestle in Arena Mexico again and would like to team with his father (though he noted it’s very unlikely he’d get to do both this upcoming Friday.) Wherever Alberto goes, he does not want to sign a contract to be tied to a promotion and does not want to be full time. He plans on doing about 60 matches a year (so a couple weeks a month) for two years, then retiring in San Luis Potosi. He’s already looking at life beyond lucha, mentioning he’s in negotiations to become president or CEO of a MMA company. That’s likely Combates Americas, given his long running relationship with them. He’s also in talk about bringing a restaurant chain to the US, the same one that announced a deal with CMLL earlier this week.

Lucha Underground never got brought up (and seems unlikely given his imposed limits on dates and contracts.) The Wellness Suspension, and whatever he tested for, was not discussed. I didn’t listen to the conference, just read the comments, so it may have been a different feel live, but it came off via his comments as a guy who’s (understandable) down with wrestling after the last few years while also knowing it’s going to be the simplest way for him to make money in the short term. It may work for him, it may even work for the promotions that use him, but it did not come off as like this is going to be an inspiring run. It’s not the Cody Rhodes proving people wrong bit, it’s a guy seemingly more beaten down by life. He said 60 matches, but I suspect it’ll be end up being much less. There’s a quote in the SuperLuchas piece where Alberto says his father asked if he wants to be a top wrestler for his entire life like uncle Mil Mascaras or if he wants to enjoy his life. Alberto picked enjoying his life.

Paige was with Alberto, but was not talking to the press and did not appear on the panel. Paige is said to have quit WWE earlier this week, though that might mean much as far as seeing her. As we saw with Rey Mysterio, WWE can keep people from going elsewhere while they’re under contract.

Today’s CMLL show is scheduled to be Mistico, Dragon Lee and Caristico against La Mascara, Euforia and Negro Casas. The internal storyline is Dragon Lee & La Mascara facing off after last week’s mask match. The external storyline is if Caristico will actually be here, since he’s scheduled to be on Elite’s show in Naucalpan at nearly the same time. It’s impossible he could make both matches and it seems like CMLL wouldn’t allow their guys to work Elite anyway. Caristico hasn’t said anything, CMLL and Elite have continued to promote him as appearing. We may not know where he is until he’s spotted at a show.

Everything else is a random selection of matches in true CMLL fashion. Matt Taven debuts as part of the new relationship with CMLL. It’s a weird deal to me that his first matches after two knee surgeries are in a promotion/style he’s not worked before, but no one else seems outwardly bothered by it. He’ll be teaming with Mr. Niebla & Shocker, two guys who know a lot about knee surgeries. They face Mascara Dorada, Maximo Sexy, and Volador Junior. The lightning match is Valiente versus Felino. The opening tag matches are Astral & Stukita vs Pequeno Nitro & Pierrothito in the minis match, Blue Panther Jr., Pegasso, Soberano Jr. vs Okumura, Tiger and Virus in the second, and Angel de Oro, Rey Cometa & Titan against Ephesto, Hechicero and Vangellys. All the matches have the ingredients to be good but none are safe bets.

CultIcon also previews today’s show. The show will air tonight at 8:30pm, back on ClaroSports.

As mentioned, Elite also runs tonight. The scheduled main event is LA Park vs Blue Demon vs Silver King. If Caristico is in Arena Naucalpan, he teams with Golden Magic & Xtreme Tiger against Magno, Sharlie Rockstar and Toscano. Octagon and Fuerza Guerrera will have a match which will end in DQ. The show starts at 8:30pm, and then airs on Azteca Saturday night.

Taurus announced he was leaving AAA last night on Facebook. He’s changed his name to Black Tauro and seems to be generally keeping the same look. SuperLuchas notes it was just a month ago where Taurus was at the TripleMania press day talking about all his big goals in AAA. He wasn’t close to getting to them; Taurus won the Copa Antonio Pena in his debut as that character (after stints as Machine Rocker & Semental), but didn’t have a meaningful match in AAA in the following 10 months and seemed to get lost in the booking change. Taurus follows Hijo del Pirata Morgan as a AAA midcard leaving AAA. Both Taurus & Pirata are listed on AAA’s taping in 09/16 (and spot shows on the other side of the countries the same day), but will instead be part of the CaraLucha four way main event with Rush & Trauma I. Taurus was not on Star Battle Japan show (though it’s hard to be sure of which decision was first.)

We’ve seen people near the top (Fenix, Cibernetico, Sexy Star) leave because they decided AAA was holding them back from what they wanted to do, and we’ve seen people near the bottom (Tiago, Mini Drago, Ludxor) leave because they felt they weren’t getting much out of the relationship. It hasn’t worked out for everyone for sure, but people in the middle leaving is new. This is only speculation, but Elite needs people now that they’re no longer working with CMLL and we know Elite’s offered deals to many people in AAA before, so that may be happening again.

Super Nova took to Facebook because there was a rumor he had quit AAA as well. He has not, but acknowledged he’s now the person under the Bengala mask. Texano Jr. had mentioned this a while back but it hadn’t gotten picked up much.

Fenix was on Facebook Live last night. I thought this might have an resolution to his AAA status, but Fenix avoided the topic as best as he could (though he did note AAA owns the Fenix name; LU does in the US.) It was mostly Fenix deciding to say hi to his fans rather than be bored in his hotel room for a half hour, which was nice of him. He did promote upcoming shows, which led us to finding out about Pentagon and Fenix going to Phoenix on 10/09. Fenix plugged the 09/16 AAW match against Chris Hero and his 09/10 match versus Pentagon in New York City.

 

Also tonight, Lucha Underground has a panel discussion at the Los Angeles based PaleyFest.  It’s part of an El Rey presentation, and they’ll be screening next week’s episode a few days earlier for the people in attendance. Fenix, Vampiro, Taya, Catrina and Melissa Santos are among those scheduled to be there. Tickets are still available at $20; this is something I’d totally go to if I was in LA.

Voices of Wrestling reviews the return of Lucha Underground. Mid Week War had Chris DeJospeh on as a guest to talk about episode 1. Not many scoops, but good discussion about the premiere and how Honky Tonk Man ended up as a prison guard.

Lucha Memes Chairo 5 on 09/25 in Arena Naucalpan
1: Volador Jr. vs Rey Horuz
2: a Lucha Memes vs IWRG Torneo FILL (8v8 cibernetico).
IWRG: Black Dragon, Kanon, Dragon FlyAtomic Star, Lilith Dark, Arana de Plata, Fireman, Demonio Infernal
Lucha Memes: Astrolux, Garrobo Punk, TekilitaBaby Star Jr., Black Metal, Ciber PunkTonak
3: Keira, Lady Maravilla, Magnifica vs Belial, Impulso, Arez
4: Black Terry, Virus, Solar vs Caifan, Hechicero, Alberto Dos Rios
5: Trauma II vs Sharlie Rockstar, must use El Pozo to win (so also no DQ)
6: Dr. Cerbero vs Ultimo Guerrero
7: Freelance, Sadico, Sucidia vs Dragon Lee, Titan, Rey Cometa – whoa
8: final match to be announced Sunday

Lucha Libre Boom/DTU 10/16 in Arena Naucalpan:
1: Volador, Caristico, Titan and Mascara Dorada in Copa International
2: Septimo Dragon, Eterno, Fly Star, Toxin Boy vs TBD
3: Ronnie Mendoza & Draztick Boy vs Sadico & Mike Segura vs Arez & Belial
4: Barbaro Cavernario & Misterioso Jr. vs Fantasma de la Opera & Carta Brava (LLB) vs Paranoiko & Ciclope vs Angel o Demonio & Ovett

Marcela & Tyson La Bestia are a couple, which somehow came out of a preview of the 09/16 CMLL show. Tyson’s name is because his father was a boxer, so he ended up named after Mike Tyson.

Azteca Deportes has a long bio of El Matematico.

Lucha Azteca7 Elite: 2016-08-27

cool exchange leads to Dragon Lee countering the handspring in the best way
cool exchange leads to Dragon Lee countering the handspring in the best way

Recapped: 09/04/2016

What happened: Zumbido cheated to beat Bandido, Dragon Lee defeated Flamita, Mr. Niebla fouled Maximo, but all of that set up a match on show we didn’t see or appears to have gone nowhere.

What’s really happening is CMLL and Elite are breaking up. This is the last Elite show in Arena Mexico for the time being, a kind of lame duck show without anyone knowing it was a lame duck show. The following week was a best of episode, and a new era for the promotion will kick off the week after. There’s no indication of any of this on the TV show, but the Liga Elite tournament is noticeably missing.

What was good:  Dragon Lee versus Flamita was really good while obviously not coming close to their ceiling. I liked the opener.

Where can I watch it: It’s on my channel and the Elite channel. Read More