Last week, I added another year set of 2005 lineups I could find from El Siglo de Torreon. I had a handful of these in there already, and added about ~250 more. I’ve added the info to the wiki where possible. I now have more lineups for Arena Olimpico Laguna, a venue that doesn’t get talked about outside of it’s local area, than UWA/CMLL stronghold Arena Puebla. (An accessible Puebla newspaper archive would be helpful to fix this.)
Those lineups are in the luchadb. I haven’t done the export this time because lack of interest, but I can whip one up if people want them in a different format than I have here. You can use the data however you want, though I’d appreciate you giving me and any sources credit when possible.
I’m also playing with an idea of doing some more through caching of the database, which might speed up the match finder and other processes. If things are working weird, I may get around to fixing it. Who’s to say?
In addition the results, I’ve got the usual links to articles that caught my interest below the fold. Remember, these are all 2006 stories, not current ones.
2006 is a year of movement for the Laguna luchadors. Stuka Jr. (after February) & Misterioso Jr. are now spending most of their time in CMLL. The guy hyped as the next person to get that chance is Soberano Jr., who we know better today as Euforia. He’s supposed to have a title match with Dr. Wagner earlier in the year. Months later, it’s mentioned that show got rained out. It’s not his only chance: Ultimo Guerrero faces Soberano early in the year and again around Christmas (where UG only wins after Euforia’s brother Hijo del Soberano accidentally gets him DQed.) There’s a big bio of Soberano Jr. after he wins (I think) the FILL Middlweight Championship from Monterrey’s El Potro; he’d later go to Monterrey to lose it back. Soberano Jr. mentions his dream is to go to CMLL, and the year ends with both him and Hijo del Soberano revealing they’ve been selected to go Mexico City to try out.
Ultimo Guerrero also manages to feud with local Tony Rodriguez briefly during the year. (Rodriguez says he beat Negro Casas for a middleweight title in 1991?) Canek & Rayo de Jalisco Jr. also pass thru. Rayo suggests that the La Parka character is actually a knockoff clone of him. I’ve never heard that before and I don’t really see it outside the colors (which would make Rayo a knockoff of Black Shadow.) Huracan Ramirez complains about fake Huracan Ramirez. Solar says Solar things. Dr. Wagner Jr. is the national star who’s the most part of things. The one year anniversary of his father is noted, with “Wagner Promociones” running a show in his honor among a few other CMLL heavy shows. (“Mayra González” is listed as promoter.) He also talks about the soon to be coming mask match with Atlantis.
There’s stories on local guys too. Arena La Rosita hands out awards to Cavernario Galindo Jr. (best rudo), El Dorado (tecnico), Oso Negro (novato rudo) and Espacial (novato tecnico) for their 2005 work. Verdugo Jr. talks about having surgery for a brian clot. There’s the annual “the commission is horrible” article. There’s the old timer complaining about the low quality of lucha today. This year, it’s Espanto II, who seems more justified than most of these. He’s mad about the many mooning spots on a recent AAA show, and the rest of the work there. Local luchador Satan passes away in a car accident, a sad situation I don’t want to make fun of. The idea of “Satan tribute show” that’s run after is a little weird. I don’t think Tommy End was booked.
A new arena, Coliseo Laguna, starts running in October. Their first show includes the ring literally falling apart during the semimain, with the referee getting injured in the process. (The last two matches are finished without a working ring.) The promotion seems to have an advertising deal with the newspaper, because the shows get added attention. The newspaper also reports on results (well, some of them) and has ticket giveaways. It doesn’t seem to be working well for them, because they move from Wednesday to Thursdays to Fridays. Interestingly, the last two shows they run in 2006 are billed as TV tapings, airing on a local station. Those shows have AAA main events, but also include a kid named Brillante Jr. working an opener. This area seemed to have other lucha TV in the 80s (maybe the same show as Galavision in the US), and I’m half convinced there’s a shed in Torreon that has all sorts of untold gold on VHS tapes. We’ll never know.
This is the third full year for Brillante Jr., the future La Sombra, who’s 16 most of the year. He goes from being mentioned as Brillante’s son to hyped as one of the most promising young wrestlers by the second half of the year. Sombra later revealed that he originally want to go to tryout for CMLL at the end of this year (so the same tryout as Euforia), but was convinced to wait one more year. The future’s coming, though. The most remarkable main event of the year is at Brillante’s home arena, Gimnasio el Ranchero. Lineups rarely turn up for that building (and it’s unclear if it’s because they’re not running or if there’s just not space to write about them), but their September 17th show is listed. The tecnico main event side is Mistico, La Mascara and Brillante Junior – or, CMLL’s top star, the first guy they tried as a replacement, and the second guy they tried as a replacement, working a small building together before it all happened.
I started to put in more 2006 lineups when they actually happened then the years prior, but I think I’m still missing about 2/3rds of them. I’ll go eventually thru that too just to fill out the gap, but probably not right away. The next slow time project will be either going back to Lucha Libre magazine or subscribing to Siglo’s archive and going thru some old results there.