Azteca: me
AAA announced two additional TV tapings yesterday. They’ll be in Plaza de Toros, Apizaco, Tlaxcala on March 5, and back in Gimansio Miguel Barragan on April 12th. I’ve finally put together the torturous AAA TV chart for their year, and it looks like Rey de Reyes much be around March 19th. They held it in SLP last year, so obviously it’ll be a some place new.
That SLP taping is Alberto’s home show and it’d make sense for him to be on it if he’s really coming back to AAA. Maybe it won’t even be that long: with Combate Americas in Mexico next Thursday, it’d be really easy to have him Alberto hang around an extra day just to wave at the crowd at the Friday TV taping. (Even if it’s not the plan now, it’s something they could work out next week.)
If Rey de Reyes is mid March (as normal), the Lucha World Cup takes place in May, and TripleMania is at the end of August, there’s no great spot for a Verano de Escandalo. I’d guess it’ll be a bigger than usual TV taping to run the big angles for TripleMania, but everything from May to August ought to targeting the big show.
This week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter notes TripleMania might be run in Plaza Mexico, the same building as TripleMania No one’s specified an arena to me, but I’ve got the impression of AAA aiming for that for months, and the oddness of announcing a date but not a location definitely suggests they’re at least thinking about trying something other than Arena Ciudad de Mexico. It’d make sense for them to announce it at the TV taping next week if it’s happening, but I think they’ll need more than Psycho Clown versus Dr. Wagner if they want fill that 50K building up.
The not-announced Queretaro February taping I had here back in December seems to be moved or canceled. The Twitter post mentioning it was deleted, and it doesn’t fit in AAA’s schedule.
There’s also a Perro Aguayo Jr. tribute in San Luis Potosi on March 15th. People going to keep trying to money off his life for decades.
Pentagon Jr. plans on winning the Latin American title back, going after Texano’s heavyweight championship, and then facing Mundo in a mask versus hair match if Mundo’s up for it.
CMLL writes about Dragon Lee’s title match with Hiromu Takahashi at NJPW’s New Beginning. The press release says Dragon Lee will be returning to Mexico in between FantasticaMania & New Beginning tour, and Dragon Lee is noticeably not booked on the first few days of that show. I’ve been wondering if the FantasticaMania tour might end with Dragon Lee going to NJPW full time, but that seems less likely if he really is coming back to Mexico in between tours. Could still mean it happens down the line: Dragon Lee said on +Lucha’s podcast he’ll be touring outside of Mexico a lot in 2017, so maybe there’s still something to the idea.
CMLL’s piece on the FantasticaMania tour makes special note of the Will Ospreay being involved as a rival of Titan & Volador. On Informa, Dragon Lee mentioned Ospreay as a guy who’s wrestled internationally this year. Ospreay in CMLL for a short time would work well, but I have no idea if it’s feasible given his schedule.
Also on Informa, Bobby Z was presented as the third member of Los Revolucionarios, and Dragon Rojo says they’ll have their first official team up on 01/20 (next Friday). Guerrero Maya will be one of their opponents.
This week’s Observer says CMLL is losing Azteca America soon. Of course, CMLL isn’t on Azteca America, Elite is. Maybe that’s what he meant? I tried asking Meltzer on Twitter, and he didn’t respond. There’s also a mention of Elite running a TV taping in February, which would be a great sign for them. No mention if they’d still be with Azteca, and that’s the important part. No date or location.
Jinzo replaces Mr. 450 on The Crash’s 01/21 show. He’ll team with Bestia 666 against Rey Horuz & Jack Evans.
I’m on the latest Strong Style Spirit, discussing the NJPW Tokyo Dome show and FantasticaMania.
+LuchaTV has a sit down interview with Rayo de Jalisco Jr. and a new edition of their podcast.
The Blue Demon TV show starts airing this Sunday on Unmas at 10pm ET. I’ve seen zero mention of it in lucha libre circles in Mexico since it debut on Blim. (Which may be just as much be a Blim issue.)
A new lucha libre movie, “Ni tu, ni yo”, starts filming today. One of actors mentions AAA is contributing luchadors to the project, so we’ll likely hear more about this later. The movie is said to be an attempt to bring back the Santo/Demon type movies, and it says something about how popular those were (and still are) that people keep trying to bring those back even though it hasn’t been successful in decades.
TKD and CultIcon review this week’s Lucha Underground
LuchaWorld has the latest Lucha News Report.
Aqui La Lucha posted the Pista Arena Revolucion results from 33 years ago.
MedioTiempo interviews WWS’s Hetzza.