Day: February 28, 2017

CMLL (MON) 02/27/2017 Arena Puebla [CultIcon, El Popular]
1) París & Zaeta Roja b Rey Apocalipsis & Toro Bill Jr.
2) Millenium & Robin b Espíritu Maligno & Policeman
Straight falls. Espiritu & Policeman broke up during the match.
3) Fuego, Oro Jr., Stigma b Arkángel de la Muerte, Canelo Casas, Puma
Puma replaced Okumura
4) Ephesto, Hechicero, Mephisto b Johnny Idol, Máximo Sexy, Stuka Jr.
5) Volador Jr. b Euforia [lightning]
6) Carístico, Rush, Valiente DQ Gran Guerrero, Niebla Roja, Último Guerrero
Caristico replaced Misitco, Valiente replaced Dragon Lee. UG fouled Rush.

Show doesn’t sound like it was that good (and yet I’ll watch it tonight anyway.)

Arena Puebla had the blue canvas, the same that’s been used in Arena Coliseo. Literally the same one; I think they made it for the Retro show, and have moved it to Puebla since that show makes TV and Coliseo no longer is taped. (Coliseo had an old looking unlogo blue canvas this past week.) Arena Mexico got a black canvas, with the connection of both being the Victoria sponsorship disappearing. Losing Victoria would hurt; they’re owned by the same people who own Corona (and just wanted to switch which brand they were promoting), so that’s a long time sponsor who might be going away.

CMLL says Mistico was hurt in his match with Cavernario on Sunday and will be out for the moment. Caristico replaces him yesterday and tonight. CMLL didn’t address the Dragon Lee disappearance, and he’s still listed tonight.

Today, CMLL has a show. They definitely do. Uh huh. The main event – Caristico, Dragon Lee and Rey Cometa versus Cavernario, Felino and Negro Casas – could be good if they give it time, but there’s no sure sign of that. Semimain might also be good, Guerrero Maya, Johnny Idol, Stuka versus Hechicero, Ripper and Vangellys – but there’s not a lot of excitement to it. The lightning match is supposed to be Esfinge vs Okumura, who knows what’ll be now. Oro Jr., Stigma and Triton take on Cancerbero, Raziel and Skandalo in the tercera. The minis have Acero, Electrico, Stukita versus Mercurio, Pequeno Olimpico and Pierrothito. All those matches might be good, have people who are not good, and have no particular interest in them. The show will open with Bengala & Marvel versus Camorra & Coyote.

Culticon previews this show, which airs on CMLL’s YouTube channel at 7:30pm.

Guadalajara has the Diamante Azul versus Yoshi Tatsu match you didn’t know you wanted.

CMLL never put up the CMLL’s second minis cibernetico.

The Crash 03/25 announcements

The Crash announced the Young Bucks vs Daga & Rey Mysterio on their 03/25 show. That match should be great. Daga having a great match with the Young Bucks would probably be very helpful for his US indie aspirations.

The Crash says they’ll have the Young Bucks vs Rey Mysterio & Daga on their 03/25, and announced DJZ, Bobby Lashley, Robbie E and Brooke from Impact Wrestling. The last two don’t seem like they work a lot of outside dates. Robbie wrestled in AAA in the past when they were with Impact, and that’s probably what’s happened here. The Crash hasn’t announced anything with Impact (like they have with a California indie to split the cost of brigning in wrestlers), but they’re operating like they’ve got a deal.

One thing is up in the air is The Hardys as The Crash Tag Team champions. The Hardys announced they’re done in Impact Wrestling effectively immediately, and the Wrestling Observer expects they’re going to WWE and probably soon. The belts are meaningless themselves and The Crash can just crown new champions, but a reason they were champions was to do a tag match with Penta & Rey Fenix. It might have to occur on the 03/25 show if it’ll happen at all.

El Tijuanense talked to Flamita about his The Crash Cruiserweight championship reign. Flamita say he’s got no problem defending against Famous B, would like to face Mexicans like Laredo Kid and Fenix, and still wants to go against Extreme Tiger when he’s healthy. It’ll be a while before he gets to those, though he does seem open to the idea of defending the title while in Japan.

Daga and Garza are also working the FULL show the week before in Tijuana. If that stays that way, that shows the independence of those guys to work in the same venue as The Crash for another promotion.

Today in AAA vs The Crash Drama

Arturo Rivera had a couple of rants on Facebook, which R de Rudo noticed. In one, he said the idea that AAA was ever trying to trademark The Crash was false, because there’s no value in the name. He also tried to imply Konnan’s working illegally in Mexico. In another post, he says Robreto Figueroa is angry at him because Rivera compared Figueroa to a rat on a radio show. Arturo apologizes – to the rats. He’s angry at Figueroa for going to TripleMania on AAA’s invite/flight and ending up negotiating a deal with Konnan while saying he was sticking with AAA.

Later on, possibly unrelated, Konnan went off on Joaquin Roldan as a proxy for all the Roldans (since the other two blocked him.) Konnan’s accusing AAA of sending IMPI (trademark) officials to stop Rey Fenix from wrestling under that name. He says AAA owns Brian Cage, Rey Mysterio and Hayashi money, and all the wrestlers money from the iPPVs and PPVs. And he says AAA wrestlers were working in the US without correct work visas (so tourist visas).

That last bit has been somewhat publicly acknowledged by LU officials; they haven’t mentioned the tourist visa part, but mentioned the reason Taya and Daga and others missed weeks of Season 3 tapings is because MGM would no longer allow them to use people without work visas. If anyone had been caught using a tourist visa, the wrestlers could’ve been kicked out of the country – at worst, they could be banned from the US for years like Mike Bailey currently is – and there might have been some penalty for LU itself.

(The visa issues messed up the very first LU taping, causing them to rebook the entire episodes thru Aztec Warfare 1. It’s unbelievable that would be allowed to be an issue again when it was such a colossal mess up the first time, but it obviously wasn’t done right.)

AAA & those people would know their money issues, but all those guys working with The Crash and not working with the AAA seems to confirm they’re not happy with AAA. (It does suggest that AAA could fix those problems somewhat if they just paid people what they thought they were owed – it’s unclear if AAA doesn’t think they need to, or just doesn’t have have the money.) The IMPE story is really wild; IMPE’s own site says AAA’s trademark requests have not been approved, and I’m not clear on how a trademark official could stop someone from having a wrestling match – but Mexico works in weird ways, and Konnan’s been consistent with his belief that there are people in the trademark office doing things on AAA’s behalf.

Meanwhile, 126f noted that, in Alberto’s most recent interview with +LuchaTV, Alberto’s position on AAA was “I do not much like the people who work for the company, inside or outside the ring.”  That’s harsher towards AAA in other interviews (though more honest.) Alberto’s getting handed a Rebelion shirt at the first opportunity. He says he’s got agreement work more three more dates for the Crash but he’s been busy on the dates they’re running so far. The funniest Alberto subplot is referenced here – Alberto wants to work Arena Mexico at least once again, but CMLL has no interest in paying what Alberto wants.

Oscar Garcia Jimenez, AAA’s lead graphic designer for the last eight years, mentioned on Facebook that he’s no longer with AAA. That post makes it sound like it wasn’t his decision. Graphic designer is probably too narrow of a description: he was the guy who designed their poster and artwork, but he also created the looks for characters like Drago and Taurus. AAA is a small business so he was handling a lot other roles; I think the last time his name came up in the news was the Ludxor/Nino de Ebano injury story, when there was an dispute about which person cause Ludxor to miss a doctor’s appointment. You would’ve seen Oscar on TV as the guy doing the haircuts for the last few years. I’ve seen him at the AAA offices and he was always friendly. I’m sure he wouldn’t remember this, but he’s actually one of the first lucha people I met in Mexico – we were at Super Astro’s restaurant, and Oscar and Cibernetico just happened to stop to say hi to Astro. It’s a pretty stunning moment when you’re walking around and you just run into people who work for AAA in the first hour you’ve been in the country.

The timing of this in relation to the La Llave de La Gloria logo issue makes it seem like they’re related. I don’t really know anything here, but I don’t think that’s the case. I’ve been thinking it had to be Record or Reforma who stole the logo, because AAA had Oscar and the little I knew of Oscar, I was pretty sure creating a new logo would’ve been something he would’ve been excited to work on. I’ve enjoyed his work in AAA and I hope he gets to do more of it somewhere else. Meanwhile, AAA has a small office, and it seems like it’s getting smaller all the time.

Other News

El Rey sent out a press release with Lucha Underground’s schedule for March. Long story short, someone did the math and realized they could just air all of season two and the first half of season 3 if they started airing four episodes a week for a while. It’ll be four episodes a week for a while, and then cut down to two episodes a week for about the same amount of time if they’re still planning on the May 31st return date.

We still don’t have a return date for Elite, but everyone still believes it’s coming back in March. CMLL included; a card in Sinaloa this past week was changed so Golden Magic and Mistico wouldn’t be in the same match, with CMLL not wanting their luchador in the same match with Elite’s Magic.

Trauma II explained his disappearance: he had a leg injury and was in a cast for some time. He’s not 100% but recovering quicker than he thought.

ESPN Lucha Libre has interviews with Mistico and Cibernetico. No real breaking news but fine enough mainstream profiles.

Psycho Clown beat Joe Lider & Pagano (and the other clowns) in a three way in Arena Xalapa. Local report says money was thrown in.

Box Y Lucha 3273 has Diamante Azul vs Pierroth on the cover.

DTU has a poster for it’s 03/24 Arena Aficion show, and announced Ayako Hamada will be appearing. They’re also teasing a Dragon Gate tryout to come.

An indie – not sure which one, but doesn’t seem like an existing group – is running on 04/02 in Coacalco. Matches include Rey Cometa vs Suicida vs Arez.

Penta Zero M faces Matt Riddle on 04/03 in New York.

Octagon, Atlantis and Juventud Guerrera work the 04/15 PWR show in Santa Clara.

What Culture Pro Wrestling released the first round matches for the Mexico block of it’s World Cup on 04/30. As expected, Caristico has been quietly removed from the card. Juventud Guerrera replaces him. Drago is matched up with local El Ligero, so they could eliminate him from the tournament while avoiding him wrestling one of the ex-AAA guys. That seemed to work out for AAW.

This article on the FULL press conference from last week mentions they’re planning on running Monterrey, Queretaro, Puebla, Toluca, and San Luis Potosi with the Alberto del Rio Distromania shows. (Maybe it was mentioned elsewhere?) That might one couple week tour to each location.

LuchaWorld has the latest edition of their podcast and this week’s Poster-Mania.

Segunda Caida resumes reviewing Lucha Underground Season 3, appears to be unaware of how much Sexy Star they still have to watch, I’m darkly entertained.

Wrestling With Words has a review of Friday’s CMLL show.

+Lucha has a new edition of Usted queria lucha?, with a meeting of the Pentagons. They’ve also got a new edition of their podcast with Psycho Clown, Veneno and referee 19 y 1/2.

Lineups

CMLL (MON) 03/06/2017 Arena Puebla
1) Hijo de Centella Roja & Vega vs El Malayo & Guerrero Espacial
2) Black Tiger & Espíritu Maligno vs Hijo del Signo & Policeman
3) Soberano Jr., Star Jr., Stigma vs Canelo Casas, Sangre Azteca, Virus
4) Ángel de Oro, Stuka Jr., Titán vs Bobby Villa, Dragón Rojo Jr., Pólvora
5) Atlantis, Carístico, Dragón Lee vs Ephesto, Luciferno, Mephisto
6) Rush vs Último Guerrero

Including Elite, this is the 6th singles match between Rush & Ultimo Guerrero in the last 11 months. Ultimo Guerrero has won every single one of them. They just did this ten days ago in Coliseo, where UG won by DQ. CMLL desperately needs to give different people chances in main events; they’re in the same place as AAA was a couple years ago, where they’re going to be hurting for star power if the handful of people they have on top are injured or leave.

This at least the second time they’ve moved Espiritu Maligno to the tecnico side, and last time it was for a short term hair program. It’s about that time to get a hair match in Puebla, and they’ve liked to run their own Homenaje a Dos Leyendas shows in the recent past.