lucha TV preview for weekend of May 12th

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AAA will air the Ayako Hamada/Taya in a street fight, a match that got a lot of attention when it took place in Tijuana

It’s a CMLL singles match week. Beside Cometa/Soberano tonight on Claro, there’s Mephisto/Negro Casas in Puebla and Cometa/Cavernario on Tuesday.

I should really find a way to stream IWRG’s Rey del Ring.

Rey Cometa/Soberano, Impact/LU, Lucha World Cup in October?

tonight

Tonight’s CMLL show still doesn’t look like one of their best on paper, but has a couple of exciting matches. The marquee match is the fourth, where Soberano Jr. has his first ever CMLL championship match, facing Rey Cometa for the national welterweight championship. Both are talented flying luchadors, but tecnico/tecnico matches can be a bit more challenging (and why CMLL often stuffs the Reyes del Aire with rudos.) It has the makings of continuing Soberano’s big year. CMLL hasn’t gotten behind Rey Cometa as champion and a title change is a definite possibility. CultIcon breaks down the match.

The actual main event is yet another Los Ingobernables versus Diamante Azul match, with Atlantis and Stuka hanging around to team with Azul. That may give them a chance to tease Atlatnis versus Rush again, though Atlantis was just saying he has no interest in putting his mask up against someone’s hair. The semimain has Peste Negra (Cavernario, Niebla, Casas version) against Angel de Oro, Dragon Lee and Valiente, which is hyped as Dragon Lee versus Cavernario. It’s Dragon Lee’s last match in Arena Mexico for now, though CMLL’s got him traveling all the way to Guadalajara for a sponsored show tomorrow before flying to Japan on Sunday.

The third match on the show might end up being the most entertaining: the Nueva Generacion Dinamitas (Cuatrero, Forastero, Sanson) taking on Drone, Esfinge and Guerrero Maya Jr., a combination of six luchadors which should produce a pretty exciting match. The second match may be the most predictable outcome of the night, with cursed luchadors Astral & Principe Diamante teaming with Robin against Cancerbero, Raziel and Virus. Astral did sneak out a DQ win over the Cancerberos not that long ago. Note that all four trios matches have set units teaming up; I can’t think of the last time that’s happened, and CMLL usually seems to work against their teams actually teaming up. Leono & Sensei take on Artillero & Hijo del Signo in a opener which will persuade you to tune in late.

The show airs at 8:30pm on ClaroSports. As of 9 hours before, the feed was geoblocked, but there’s plenty of time for that to change. I’d like to take the night off, but I’ll probably be around.

Vampiro says Lucha Underground wrestlers will NOT be appearing on Impact, the opposite of what his boss Dorian Roldan had said a few weeks ago. Vampiro says AAA wrestlers and Impact wrestlers may appear on each other’s shows, but it’s an AAA deal and not a LU one. This makes more sense given the deals associated with LU but, if you can figure out where AAA ends and LU starts as far as wrestler contracts go, you’re smarter than me.

My hunch has been Dorian said what he did primary as a way to get people talking even while there was a limited chance of anything happening – in the same way CMLL talks about possible surprises on every show and then runs the most boring show possible – and expected the reaction to be people excited about the possibilities without realizing wrestlers who haven’t been able to other TV for a year were going to be upset about it. Vampiro’s track record isn’t perfect, but I wouldn’t spend too much time thinking about LU wrestlers on Impact until something’s actually announced.

On The Wrestling Compadres Slamcast, Jeff Jarrett mentions there’s a plan for an Impact/NOAH/AAA World Cup in Japan in October. Plan might even be too strong of a word – the thing Jarrett seemed most certain about it is it not being official yet and not being sure if he wanted to put it out there

We’re actually in discussion, obviously we’ve partnered with NOAH out of Japan, AAA out of Mexico, we’re looking at – I don’t want to throw this out too quick but anyway – we’re looking at a world cup based out of Japan in October. The “i”s are not dotted and the “t”s are not crossed, but we want to bring that type of programming to Impact 2017/2018.

AAA had hinted at wanting to do the 2017 Lucha World Cup in Japan at least a year in advance, but there’s been no mention of one at all this year. There seemed to be a space in the schedule for it take place in May, but that’s coming and going with no news. AAA’s original TV schedule is less definite in the last few months of the year: there were October tapings in Pachuca & Queretaro, but not on any specific dates. As Jarrett’s talking about putting it on, I suspect Impact would be airing the show in the US (probably as one of their One Night Only shows), but this still seems a long way from happening. The real takeaway here is the concept hasn’t been discarded.

AAA had a busy Thursday in official events. La Parka & Joaquin Roldan were officially added to the Toluca Sports Hall of Fame. Psycho Clown and others were part of a presentation for Boing!’s new app. And the was a press conference for Ring and Rock Stars show in September. The annual resort based TV taping will be September 23rd (not the 16th as had been originally announced.) They’re pushing it as a vacation destination with travel packages to Riviera Maya to the show, with activities starting as soon as fans get on the flights for the shows and free tickets/flights for children with adults. Psycho Clown & Dr. Wagner will be on the show, with the idea that it’ll be one of the first times to see them unmasked. (They’ve got a lot of confidence about Verano de Escandalo.) No prices appear to be announced.

This week’s Zona Rudo is up, with tributes to El Apache, a feature on Faby Apache (seemingly taped before), and a sit down interview with Aerostar & Scoria.

FULL held a press conference for their run of shows starting a week from today. Not a lot of news, the usual talk about restoring dignity to lucha libre and vague talk about a TV deal to be announced at some point in the indistinct future. Tinieblas went as far to say there will not be excessive violence or a chair usage, which is highly unlikely to be true (at best, he’s setting up an angle to be angry when the Knights or Swagger or another rudo breaks his promise.) The idea of “bring back lucha libre to a clean sport with no cheating” is a strange falsehood, reliant on people being unaware lucha libre used to be even more violent in those olden days and more people were attended shows then than now. Luchadors and promoters say this because they think it looks good when the press repeats it, but no one really believes it. FULL also announced a few of the non-Mexico City lineups, which are generally the same as that one.

Atlantis and Tinieblas were among those given the Mertito Deportivo (Sports Medal) by the Mexico City legislative assembly.

Lucha Underground on Tele5 drew 110K for episode 3, and 80K for episode 4. That’s about the same the first week. The show is moving up about a half hour next week, which seems like a good sign. (It’s been airing at 11pm & midnight.)

RIOT on 05/20 in Arena Femenil Monterrey

That’s the full show. The story is Low Rider & Sammy demanded to be on the RIOT show, so now they’re on the RIOT show to get schooled by exoticos.

Lucha Memes/MDA on 06/04 in Arena Puebla

Current FMLL promoter Jorge Roman talks about his deceased brother Rocky Roman, as he prepares to run a show to honor him this weekend.

Canek says he needs to win the masks of Rayo de Jalisco, Dos Caras, Tinieblas and Mil Mascaras for his career to feel complete.

Uproxx talks to Vibora, who notes how hard it is when you debut and then the show goes on break.

Fuego en el Ring has their latest podcast. Rayo de Jalisco is a guest, and it sounds like the Leyendas Inmortales show will have the usual Dinamtias versus Rayo main event.

LuchaWorld has a news update.