UG punishes Niebla Roja again, new CMLL heavyweight champ tonight?, next Crash lineup

CMLL (MON) 06/05/2017 Arena Puebla [CultIcon, DeporPuebla, Efekto, El Popular]
1) Astro, Meyer, París b El Perverso, Guerrero Espacial, Sombra Diabólika
2) Astral, Espíritu Maligno, Magnus b Ares, El Malayo, Joker
3) King Jaguar, Olímpico, Virus b Fuego, Guerrero Maya Jr., Tigre Rojo Jr.
King Jaguar replaced Toro Bill Jr.
4) Atlantis, Titán, Valiente b Hechicero, Máscara Año 2000, Vangellys
Tecnicos took 2/3.
5) Ángel de Oro, Mistico, Niebla Roja DQ Euforia, Gran Guerrero, Último Guerrero
Tencicos took 2/3. UG fouled Niebla Roja.

Today’s CMLL show has Volador Jr. returning to Arena Mexico (this time for sure), teaming with Valiente and Stuka against Cavernario, Negro Casas and Shocker. Shocker is replacing Mr. Niebla, because they forgot Niebla was pulled into the Guadalajara heavyweight championship match. Negro Casas is replacing Felino because I dunno, but it does put the tag team champions on the same team for the first time since October. The last tag team title program CMLL ran was Casas/Shocker versus Volador/Valiente, maybe they’re setting it up again.

The best match on the show might be another Panthers/Dinamita match, with Cuatrero, Sanson and Mascara 2000 being the Dinamita group. Titan/Ephesto is the lightning match that’ll probably end sadly. Fuego, Idol and Stigma take on Misterioso, Sagrado and Virus. There’s a minis match and a typical opening match. It’ll air on CMLL’s YouTube channel at 7:30pm.

Arena Coliseo Guadalajara has the ten person heavyweight cibernetico, which they say will determine the champion, not the final two advancing to next week. So does CMLL’s Facebook. I hope they’re right, it’s a much better finish to a match that way. Rey Bucanero, Dragon Rojo, Kraneo, Gran Guerrero are in it but have no chance. Euforia, Pierroth and Mr. Niebla all feel like long shots (and I wish I could totally rule out Pierroth winning but it seems more plausible than the other two.) Rush, Marco Corleone and Terrible are the favorites. CMLL is booked as if Rush is actually the heavyweight champion so he should have the title, but CMLL titles rarely make total sense.

This lucha tag match at Powerbomb.TV‘s Break the Barrier show this Sunday is now Puma & Felino vs Guerrero Maya Jr. & Skayde. This is the match which was first announced as Puma & Tiger versus Traumas. This show is a special situation, they’re trying to get eyeballs on their VOD network by running a show with people you might see on that network, but I can not imagine ever running a show because it seems incredibly stressful for the payoff. I mean, I’m really happy people do it (including people who may not be all that happy with me at the moment), but lucha promoters are only slightly less insane than lucahdors. Every other match on the Powerbomb.tv show seems to not have had this drama, it’s the lucha one causing the issue.

The situation with the Traumas hasn’t really been talked about much – I heard Adam Lash talk about it on We Don’t Know Wrestling last week and you should listen it to if you want to understand the sequence of events. I was asked about the Traumas when they were being brought up, and said I’d heard no more about the kidnapping/assault accusations Trauma II’s ex-girlfriend made since that it was reported. Only, I didn’t really know enough of what I was talking about, since Powerbomb.TV was later told other information which caused the Traumas to be replaced. I don’t know the information, just that there’s something backing up that original story which is getting people to back away from using Trauma II. If Trauma II did attack his ex-girlfriend, then I wouldn’t want him on my shows either and there’s a lot bigger problems here than wrestling. If he didn’t, he’s going to have to do something to prove his innocence to English speaking promoters if he wants to be get booked there going forward. Trauma II will probably be continued to be booked in Mexico whatever comes of this, which could a whole other ineffective digression in itself.

The Powerbomb.TV show is just a $15 ticket if you’re near Old Forge, Pennsylvania on Sunday. It’s also going to stream live, starting at 2pm, on Powerbomb.tv’s network. Powerbomb.tv is $10 month/$100 a year, but they also offer a 10 day trial where you’re not even asked about your billing info. They’d like you pay for the service and I think you should if you enjoy it, but any new user could sign up this week, and get the stream live on Sunday before deciding if they want to subscribe.

the Houston Press has a really good story on lucha libre, focusing on the local scene and the growing lucha shows in the US. It’s long but worth your time. There’s a lot of talk about the real injuries from lucha, including the mention of a Houston luchador death from a couple years ago that I don’t think I heard of before.

Wrestle-1’s Kohei Fujimura is headed to Mexico starting on June 9th. He did an interview talking about how he’d like to return to Japan as a masked man. No promotion is mentioned, but I guess we should be on the look out for a new name showing up in IWRG.

Black Boy & Flamita defeated Daga & Hijo del Pirata Morgan in Tijuana. Arkangel kept The Crash Junior championships over Latigo & Mirage.

RobViper has highlights of CMLL C3 02/24/15.

Lineups

The Crash (FRI) 06/23/2017 Auditorio de Tijuana, Tijuana, Baja California
1) Black Danger vs Oraculo
2) Rey Horus © vs Matt Sydal, Lio Rush, Sami Callihan [The Crash CRUISER]
3) Douglas James, Flip Gordon, Jack Evans vs Bestia 666, Hijo de Pirata Morgan, Mr. 450
4) Jeff Cobb & Keith Lee vs Brian Cage & Willie Mack
5) Penta Zero M & The King vs La Máscara & M-ximo
6) Daga vs Garza Jr., Damián 666, Nicho el Millionario [hair, cage]

The main event is billed as a tag match but only one person is losing their hair (so it’s a four way.) Nicho getting one last payday before his operation seems like the most likely option.

Maximo is “M-ximo” here. Interesting he changes his name and La Mascara has not. The fourth match has a lot of large men who like to do an occasional flip. Second match looks good, should probably not be the second match.

In theory, when Konnan said The Crash wanted to work out what they were going to do for video (TV, YouTube, iPPV, whatever) by next month, he meant by this show. In reality, I’m not really expecting anything it until it happens.