Bobby Zavala talks, Cueto Cup starts tonight, new LU booking site

Cavernario wins again

CMLL (TUE) 06/13/2017 Arena México [CMLL]
1) Pequeño Nitro & Pequeño Violencia b Acero & Aéreo LUCHA LIBRE MARTES DE NUEVOS VALORES EN LA ARENA MEXICO 13 DE JUNIO DEL 2017 (posted by VideosOficialesCMLL)
2) Arkángel de la Muerte, Metálico, Sangre Azteca b Oro Jr., Príncipe Diamante, Star Jr. LUCHA LIBRE MARTES DE NUEVOS VALORES EN LA ARENA MEXICO 13 DE JUNIO DEL 2017 (posted by VideosOficialesCMLL)
rudos 2/3.
3) Estrellita, Marcela, Princesa Sugehit b Amapola, Dalys, Zeuxis LUCHA LIBRE MARTES DE NUEVOS VALORES EN LA ARENA MEXICO 13 DE JUNIO DEL 2017 (posted by VideosOficialesCMLL)
tecnicos took 2/3, with Sugehit pulling off Zeuxis’ mask and cradling her in the third.
4) Misterioso Jr. b Fuego [lightning] LUCHA LIBRE MARTES DE NUEVOS VALORES EN LA ARENA MEXICO 13 DE JUNIO DEL 2017 (posted by VideosOficialesCMLL)
less than five minutes. Misterioso unmasked Fuego after the match.
5) Hechicero, Morphosis, Rey Bucanero b Blue Panther, Rey Cometa, Titán LUCHA LIBRE MARTES DE NUEVOS VALORES EN LA ARENA MEXICO 13 DE JUNIO DEL 2017 (posted by VideosOficialesCMLL)
Rudos took 2/3
6) Cavernario, Felino, Mr. Niebla b Stuka Jr., Valiente, Volador Jr. LUCHA LIBRE MARTES DE NUEVOS VALORES EN LA ARENA MEXICO 13 DE JUNIO DEL 2017 (posted by VideosOficialesCMLL)
Straight falls. Cavernario submitted Volador to set up a title match next week.

Bobby Zavala spoke publicly for the first time about his firing on +Lucha’s podcast. They had talked to him off the podcast right after the firing, but this was the first time he went on anywhere. (LuchaWorld has a recap in their news update.) Zavala says he never got a reason from CMLL why he was fired and they just refused to talk to him after he was announced as firing. His version of events is starts a luchador attended dinner on Thursday, where Ultimo Guerrero said whatever it was that infuriated the Alvarados. Zavala claims they were very upset even after Ultimo Guerrero left the gathering. Zavala admits to be on Arena Mexico security footage of the day of the car destruction with the Alvarados, but explains it as only being there to try and calm down the Alvarados and maintains that he didn’t participate in the destruction. He got a text from Edgar Noriega around 1pm that he was suspended from the show that night, then heard nothing more until he was fired. It sounds like the only person who’s talked to him since was Jose Luis Feliciano (also part of the programming committee) who said it was Paco Alonso’s decision. Dragon Rojo tried to get Bobby his job back, but Bobby says he told him to stop. Bobby says he’s been back in Torreon the last few weeks taking care of family business but will begin working indies and praised AAA.

CMLL is a strange duck of a wrestling promotion, but they tend to go thru great pains to not fire anyone. They may give a luchador few bookings and so little money to cause them to quit, but they’re not known for firing people unless the issue is forced. There’s almost certainly more to the story than the version Bobby is telling. Either way, Bobby’s moving on, and he’ll probably be teaming with Maximo and Mascara soon enough.

Lucha Underground tonight is episode 3×22, “The Cup Begins” This is the first show as part of the Cueto Cup; Lucha Underground unveiled the bracket yesterday. It appears the next four shows are going to be the first round matches in each group, going alphabetically. The A group is tonight:

  • Aerostar vs Drago
  • Pentagon Dark vs Argenis – video clip
  • The Mack vs Mala Suerte
  • Famous B vs Texano

The first match follows up on Drago betraying his team last week. Pentagon Dark’s match is his first since episode 13.  Argenis hasn’t been in since episode 10! (I think he was not around the weekend they did Aztec Warfare.) It’s been a while since we’ve seen the Rabbit Tribe: Mala Suerte is the black rabbit of the trio. Famous B was unsuccessfully recruiting Texano last we saw both of them.

On Facebook, Vampiro had been talking for a few months about a new website that was going to launch in time for the Season 3 return. Season 3 returned, it wasn’t mentioned, I just chalked it up as a Vampiro thing and moved on. It’s now up at VampiroTV.com – the domain is because there was a Vamprio TV show scheduled to launch too (and may still.) Among the services Vampiro is offering is the ability to book Lucha Underground talent thru him; he’s the director of talent after all.

The talent list is strange: it includes people like the Black Lotus Triad, two of which are believed to be under WWE contract and the third is probably not being flown in from Japan to work a US indie. It includes Prince Puma, who does not appear to be working with Lucha Underground at this point. It could be someone just gathered all the LU profile photos and put them up without being too concerned about who was available, but Killshot and the Mack seem to be missing. I dunno. It’ll possibly be easier for promoters to figure out how to get LU wrestlers (especially the AAA crew, since it’s intimidating to contact someone speaking another language), but I’d guess the more popular people were already being contacted on directly and don’t need an intermediately. Still, I hope it gets people booked places.

Eric Van Wagenen was interviewed on the Indy Mayhem Show a little while back; it was posted this week but taped two weeks ago. There’s a couple interesting tidbits: Netflix doesn’t tell them viewership numbers, but they’ve noticed their website traffic and merchandise sales are up since being on the service. Way back on the first Lucha Underground taping, they had 300 people RSVP but only 100 people show up. They’ve had no problem filling the place since they got on TV – they were turning away 100s right away.

EVW’s asked about his highlight of season 3, and says it’s still to come. “There’s a match at Ultima Lucha 3, which is one of those ones where it has only happened to me like twice before, where I watched it, and I was so, um, disturbed be it, I didn’t know if was great-I didn’t know if was the greatest thing I’d ever seen or the worst thing I’d ever seen it.” The other two matches were Grave Consequences and Cero Miedo. “It felt evil, it felt like ‘oh my gosh, what did I just see?'” Van Wagnen explains he had a friend in crowd who was sure fake blood was involved “because there’s no way human beings could bleed that much and still be walking around”, so he took the friend to the back to show the wounds on the luchador to prove it was real blood.

I think that’s episode 37 or 38.

AAA debuts tonight on Front Runner TV in the UK at 9 pm.

DTU’s Alto Impacto championship changed hands on Monday. La Hormiga is the champion, defeating Black Fire in Cuautepec on a fair show. Black Fire hasn’t been working DTU shows since December.

Taya & Johnny Mundo got engaged.

AAA is participating in a Mexico City campaign against prostate cancer.

Lucha Va Voom will celebrate it’s 15th Anniversary in August, so they’re having a Quinceanera themed show on August 3rd in Los Angeles. I can’t believe they’ve been around 15 years. Time flies.

Lineups

IWRG (WED) 06/14/2017 Arena Naucalpan
1) Vardeus vs Power Bull
2) Ángel Oriental & Keiser Drago vs Fly Tiger & Skanda
3) Kanon, Saruman, Shaolin vs Dowki, Picudo Jr., Vórtize
4) Black Dragón & Shadow Boy vs Atomic Star & Lunatik Xtreme
5) Látigo, Metaleón, Mr. Leo vs Aramis, Dinamic Black, Emperador Azteca
6) Centvrión, Eterno, Ovett vs Cerebro Negro, Demonio Infernal, Súper Mega

The IWRG card for today didn’t turn up online until Yesterday, which is late minute. That semimain should be very good.

CMLL (TUE) 06/20/2017 Arena México
1) Fantasy & Último Dragóncito vs Pequeño Olímpico & Pequeño Universo 2000
2) Magnus, Metatrón, Oro Jr. vs Akuma, Canelo Casas, Sangre Azteca
3) Blue Panther Jr., Pegasso, The Panther vs Puma, Tiger, Virus
4) Blue Panther, Drone, Fuego vs Cuatrero, Sam Adonis, Sansón
5) Carístico, Mistico, Valiente vs Ephesto, Luciferno, Mephisto
6) Volador Jr. © vs Cavernario [NWA WELTER]
15th defense

An oddly loaded Tuesday card, with a main event that headlined Friday night shows in the past and some really solid looking matches from 3-5. Metatron makes his first appearance in about three months; he’s worked a handful of times in Guadalajara.

CMLL (TUE) 06/20/2017 Arena Coliseo Guadalajara
1) Fantástico & Tigre Blanco vs Guerrero de la Muerte & Linterna
2) Astral, Omar Brunetti, Sensei vs Espíritu Negro, Frezzer, Hijo del Signo
3) Esfinge, Guerrero Maya Jr., Soberano Jr. vs Forastero, Misterioso Jr., Sagrado
4) Felino, Mr. Niebla, Negro Casas vs Johnny Idol, Rey Cometa, Stuka Jr.
5) Diamante Azul, Marco Corleone, Niebla Roja vs Pierroth, Rush, Shocker

Doesn’t look like there’s any follow up from last night, so there must not have been an angle. Soberano and Misterioso finally meeting again in the tercera. Espiritu Negro works Guadalajara exactly once a year every year.

DTU (SAT) 07/01/2017 Arena Roberto Paz, Guadalajara, Jalisco
1) Erwing, Irwing, Luigi vs Billy, Hard Boy, Macizito
2) Hijo Del Mosco vs Drolux, Toto, Espíritu Divino
3) Kid Cometa vs Moria, Cobre, Kingston
4) D-Polux Jr. & Voldemort vs Gio & Junior
5) Kastigador & Vengador vs Black Golden & Seiya and Mike Segura & Pesadilla
6) Jimmy Lloyd & Marcus Crane vs Índio Cherokee & Shiryu Dragón and Ovett & Paranoiko and X-Law 1 & X-Law 2
7) Matt Tremont vs Crazy King [GCW EXTREMO]

Another show on the DTU show in a few weeks, this time with GCW having a title defense against the Guadalajara member of Los Macizos.