AAA continues on into San Luis Potosi, Terry & Navarro remain champs

Terry wins

CMLL (TUE) 04/11/2017 Arena México [CMLL]
1) Akuma & Metálico b Bengala & Flyer LUCHA LIBRE MARTES DE NUEVOS VALORES EN LA ARENA MEXICO 11 DE ABRIL DEL 2017 (posted by VideosOficialesCMLL)
Akuma is still around (even if his brother isn’t)
2) Astral, Príncipe Diamante, Stigma DQ Disturbio, Raziel, Sangre Azteca LUCHA LIBRE MARTES DE NUEVOS VALORES EN LA ARENA MEXICO 11 DE ABRIL DEL 2017 (posted by VideosOficialesCMLL)
team short tecnicos won in straight falls! (because Raziel unmasked Stigma to escape the Stigmatica)
3) Princesa Sugehit b Zeuxis [lightning] LUCHA LIBRE MARTES DE NUEVOS VALORES EN LA ARENA MEXICO 11 DE ABRIL DEL 2017 (posted by VideosOficialesCMLL)
Sugehit submitted Zeuxis again in 7:39.
4) Bobby Villa, Dragón Rojo Jr., Pólvora b Fuego, Guerrero Maya Jr., Titán LUCHA LIBRE MARTES DE NUEVOS VALORES EN LA ARENA MEXICO 11 DE ABRIL DEL 2017 (posted by VideosOficialesCMLL)
Revolucionarios took 2/3.
5) Black Terry & Negro Navarro © b Blue Panther Jr. & The Panther [Arena Coliseo TAG] LUCHA LIBRE MARTES DE NUEVOS VALORES EN LA ARENA MEXICO 11 DE ABRIL DEL 2017 (posted by VideosOficialesCMLL)
3rd defense. Champs took 1/3, the last coming down to Black Terry defeating the Panther in a very good match.
6) Cavernario, Mr. Niebla, Terrible b Máximo Sexy, Valiente, Volador Jr. LUCHA LIBRE MARTES DE NUEVOS VALORES EN LA ARENA MEXICO 11 DE ABRIL DEL 2017 (posted by VideosOficialesCMLL)
Rudos took 2/3, Terrible beat Maximo and challenged for a title match.

Terry/Navarro vs Panthers was exactly what you’d expect and want it to be, and should be watched if you have any interest in those guys. With the (long term?) goal of Lucha Memes running in Arena Coliseo and those guys remaining Arena Coliseo Tag Team champions, you can see where they’re heading. It’s indie lucha libre, so you just kind of hope they get there.

There’s a lot of signs people in charge don’t actually watch CMLL – scroll down to the lineup section for more on that! – but someone, somewhere, had to decide to bail on the Valiente/Pierroth idea.

The coach of Cruz Azul was at the show, which turned into a minor story because Cruz Azul isn’t playing well and the only proper response if your sports team is playing badly is to chain yourself to the goal posts or some such thing.

Tonight in San Luis Potosi, AAA tapes TV for the first time since Joaquin Roldan passed away. He (and Fishman) will be honored before the show. AAA has a ‘show must go one’ mentality, but perhaps the rest of the show will be toned down because of the moment.

Even if it’s a normal taping, it’s unclear exactly what we’ll see out of this show. It’s hard to believe there will be as many changes as in Neza, changing all the matches is hard to do, but the biggest storyline on TV right now is “Vampiro is making changes!” so there will be some. There will also be some because people who are scheduled to be there may no longer be. Hijo del Pirata Morgan is scheduled in the fourth match but jumped to The Crash about a week ago. Octagoncito is in the opener and his whole status is confusing.

The scheduled main event is Psycho Clown versus Dr. Wagner in a singles match, which is the advertised main event on a few upcoming tapings. It’ll be tough to change that one without upsetting some people but you never know. Taya, Johnny Mundo and Kevin Kross are back in, and scheduled for the semimain. AAA has an interview with Taya hyping her feud with Ayako and getting to be in a semimain.  You can see the whole card here. The show will start sometime around 9:15 CT, and will start airing on TV on April 22nd.

LoP has a text and audio interview with Eric Van Wagenen about Lucha Underground. In the text piece, Van Wagenen acknowledges Prince Puma’s been stuck in limbo for a lot longer than anyone expected, and seem ready to pass the spot (not the character itself, but the tribe representative) on if he doesn’t stay on. Van Wagenen slips and refers to Puma in the past tense; everyone’s still got the rest of the year to wait this out, time for plans to change, but no one’s expecting him back at this moment.

There’s also talk about the potential movie, which isn’t that close to happening right now, but Van Wagenen pictures as a origin story to leave the future open indefinitely for the TV show. On the podcast, Van Wagenen says he hopes for Season 4 to be on the air by January, but “the one thing I’ve learned with Lucha Underground is to never quite count on it” and nothing’s been approved yet. I think the most important revelation from this is Lorenzo Lamas is currently a helicopter pilot.

CMLL has an article on the special Thursday 04/20 Arena Coliseo show, which will now honor both Ringo Mendoza & Herodes. The preview notes it’ll be the first time for kickboxing matches in Arena Coliseo.

Lucha Memes/MDA has Chairo 10 on April 28 in Arena Naucalpan

Those are two good matches to start with. It didn’t occur to me that they’re running on a Friday night, different than usual. It also kind of suggests CMLL has no big plans for that day if they’re allowing Rush & Titan to work elsewhere and Lucha Memes would probably get a heads up about it being a bad day to run.

Powerbomb.TV announced they’re running a streaming show on June 11th. Lucha libre talent is expected to appear on the show.  They’ve also added a bunch of Black Terry Jr. footage to their channel today.

LuchaWorld has the latest podcast and the latest Lucha Report.

+LuchaTV has Hijo del Fishman, Dark Cuervo and Aeroboy as guests on their podcast.

CMLL hyped Atlantis vs Ultimo Guerrero.

Segunda Caida watched Villano V vs Blue Panther.

Paste Magazine writes about Fishman.

I wrote about a 1962 NWA Middleweight Title change where everyone has the wrong date (luchawiki included.)

Lineups

CMLL (TUE) 04/18/2017 Arena México
1) Bengala, Príncipe Diamante, Sensei vs Akuma, Hijo del Signo, Inquisidor
2) Eléctrico, Fantasy, Último Dragóncito vs Mercurio, Pequeño Nitro, Pierrothito
3) Pegasso, Soberano Jr., Tritón vs Misterioso Jr., Sagrado, Tiger
4) Princesa Sugehit © vs Zeuxis [MEX WOMEN]
3rd defense
5) Dragón Lee, Marco Corleone, Mistico vs Euforia, Niebla Roja, Último Guerrero
6) Máximo Sexy © vs Terrible [CMLL HEAVY]
10th defense

Why did Sugehit win if they were going to do the title match. (CMLL’s live recap was quick to talk about Zeuxis wanting another match, so they knew this was scheduled, but the person who gave them the finish did not?) Why is Triton still booked when he told everyone he was leaving weeks ago? (He’s also booked on two other shows CMLL unusually advertised yesterday; being honest on who’s working shows is not a high priority.)

Maximo/Terrible is not Pierroth/Valiente, and for that it is great. Semimain may move on the stalled Niebla Roja storyline. Third match should still be good if they have a decent sub (guess Esfinge.)

CMLL (TUE) 04/18/2017 Arena Coliseo Guadalajara
1) Javier Cruz Jr. & Neutrón vs Espectrúm & Sádico
2) Magnus, Oro Jr., Vaquero Jr. vs Arkángel de la Muerte, Metálico, Ráfaga
3) Marcela, Sanely, Silueta vs Dalys, Metálica, Tiffany
4) Ángel de Oro, Blue Panther, Valiente vs Kráneo, Luciferno, Mephisto
5) Atlantis, Carístico, Diamante Azul vs La Máscara, Pierroth, Rush

very much a show.

AAA on Televisa: 2017-04-08 

Dinastia does a cool move, doesn’t have enough space

Recapped: 04/11/2017

Matches: 

All matches were taped at Arena Neza on 03/31/2017.

  • Súper Fly beat Niño Hamburguesa (powerbomb 2:46, OK)

  • Dalton Bragg, Dave The Clown, La Hiedra, Mini Abismo Negro beat Bengala, Dinastía, Joe Lider, Lady Shani (Shani backcracker La Hiedra, 11:30, ok)

  • Argenis & Hijo del Fantasma beat Averno & Chessman (Hijo del Fantasma Thrill of The Hunt Averno, 8:48, ok)

What happened: 

double dive

Ricky Marvin seconded his OGT teammates, but was more of a hindrance than a help. He pulled out the referee when Chessman & Fantasma had pins; Chessman didn’t see the other and blamed Marvin for costing him a chance to win. Averno also had a chance to win after a Devil’s Wings, but Ricky came in the ring (in theory to cut off Argenis, but the timing looked way off) and Argenis dropkicked Marvin into the pin. The técnicos won directly after.

Averno screamed and shoved Ricky post match. Ricky attacked Averno, and then Chessman, getting the best of both. Super Fly came out of the crowd, took out Marvin, then unzipped his jacket to reveal an OGT shirt. He’s replacing Marvin in the group.

Earlier, Super Fly complained about his match being restarted at Rey de Reyes, declared he wasn’t done with Vampiro, and said he was too much of a star to face a Nino Hamburguesa. He did reluctantly, and won easily.

Argenis got a pre-match vignette with his newly won sword, sort of positioning as a hero for kids who dream of being luchadors.

Dalton Bragg was introduced as a Vampiro find – and introduced as by Jesus Zuniga as “hipster Alton”. The other announcers corrected him on the name.

Texano, in a neck brace, started the show by announcing he had a second degree neck strain, and a third degree neck strain could end his career. Everyone weirdly treats this as if he could be ending his career right now, even though he just said he didn’t have that neck sprain. Texano asks everyone to support AAA in his absence. In NotiAAA, Fantasma’s Thrill of the Hunt is specifically blamed for this injury.

Noti AAA featured Twitter comments on Vampiro’s new era, all praising him for doing a great job.

Hijo del Tirantes now has a man bun, so he may still be a rudo.

Thoughts: 

what was Hamburguesa’s plan ?

A weak show after last week’s manic behavior. None of the matches were particularly good. The first two had no hope. They tried to get there in the third and it just didn’t really come together. They came off really short on names on this one, with two matches featuring a lot of people who wouldn’t be on TV if they were so short on depth. You can see AAA trying to do something to fix that perception – Argenis getting the Rey de Reyes win and the vignette to boost him up – but it’s going to take some time.

It was also hurt by the Ricky Marvin stuff. The bit where he got in the ring to stand in front of the pin and get kicked into it looked so bad. The entire angle came off more like Ricky was betraying the OGT rather than Averno & Chessman booting him out. And if you stop to think about it any of it, it didn’t really make sense for Super Fly to be hanging in the crowd waiting for a breakup that was supposed to be unexpected to do a dramatic reveal. (If Super Fly really wanted to help, he probably should’ve shown up when the match was still going.)

They could’ve used some skit, no more than a minute, setting up the context of that story before it happened: Averno & Chessman mistreating Ricky in a way to justify him maybe turning later, and teasing a new member. They could’ve used a vignette for other reasons. It was an 18 minute break (plus commercials) from when the squash opener ended and the next match started. There wasn’t anything much of value the whole time. We got the same upcoming events bit shown many times, the Panini segment we see every week, the new staple of repeating what we’ve seen in case you tune in late, and eight long pointless entrances for the match. Sending them all out at once seemed to last one taping. There has to be a more entertaining way of handling that, or at least keeping people from turning away.

The opener wasn’t much but wasn’t meant to be much. I’m not sure it did much for Super Fly, who got a win but can’t look that impressive with Nino Hamburguesa involved, and Hamburguesa didn’t have time to do anything himself.

awkward

The atomicos wasn’t much either. They tried to hide Dalton Bragg’s weaknesses by having him only work with Joe Lider, but it kind of only exposed how limited he was. The moment where he walked out of the way of Dinastia handspring move because he’s been told to just pay attention to Joe is not good at all. Bragg passed the audition of taking a very dumb move for no particular purpose, but his offense was just there and he didn’t have much of a presence. Bragg has a unique look, which I’d guess is what made him stand out to Vampiro, but TV is a hard place to get better.

The match seemed laid out weird, like they were going back to the usual AAA tag style (brief tecnico open, rudo beatdown, tecnico showcase) but then had Bragg wait to do anything until it was supposed to be the técnico’s turn, because that was the only way they make sure everyone but Lider would stay out of the way. The last section all kind of felt disjointed, and there was no strong attempt to explain why Shani was on the tecnico side for this night. Dinasita looked like a star, got little to do, no change there.

AAA really wanted to keep the Perros del Mal faction and name apart of their group, but we’re now a couple months out and they’re doing nothing with it. It’s not even clear if Lider is a tecnico or a rudo at this point – he cost La Parka the Rey de Reyes match, but was a tecnico tonight. Maybe that’s just got lost in the changes, but outside Ayako’s nod to the faction, there’s nothing there.