Lucha Underground, La Llave de la Gloria Stage 4, Angel de Oro still champ

CMLL (TUE) 08/01/2017 Arena México [Ovaciones]
1) Apocalipsis & Inquisidor b Bengala & Magia Blanca 
CMLL recap lists Espiritu Negro in the match, photos show Inquisidor (moved down!) to replace him.
2) Fantasy, Stukita, Último Dragóncito b Pequeño Nitro, Pequeño Olímpico, Pequeño Violencia 
tecnicos took 1/3
3) El Consejo, Oro Jr., Star Jr. b Arkángel de la Muerte, Luciferno, Metálico 
Luciferno replaced Inquisidor. Tecnicos took 1/3.
4) Drone, Fuego, Stigma b Misterioso Jr., Raziel, Sangre Azteca 
Sagrado was announced, but double booked. The preview listed Misterioso in the spot. Tecnicos took 1/3.
5) Mistico, Stuka Jr., Valiente b Felino, Mr. Niebla, Negro Casas 
tecnicos took 1/3.
6) Ángel de Oro © b Rey Bucanero [CMLL MIDDLE] 
Angel de Oro took 2/3. first defense.

The main event look good from what I saw and the rest of the show lived down to exceptions. I haven’t heard it for myself yet, but it sounded like the CMLL announcers went with the idea that El Consejo is a new young person, even though he’s dressed in Nitro’s gear and looks exactly like 50 year old Nitro.

CMLL changed Saturday’s lineup to have Chamuel (evil small clown) instead of Chico Temido (blond mohawk) in the micros match, begging the question: Did CMLL book the wrong little person? Note that they had Nitro and Consejo booked on shows at the same time.

In the same vein: Stukita will be headed to women’s wrestling promotion REINA on 08/15. They’re doing male matches in the openers on those shows because they don’t really have enough women left to do a women’s only card, and Stukita will also be working a Fukumenmanía card on the 17th.

CMLL’s website has interviwes with Blue Panther & Sam Adonis. Adonis claims he’s got a friend in Texas who owns a farm, and Sam will talk to his farmer friend about giving Panther a job after he ends his wrestling career on Friday night. What a generous man. Univision is airing a piece on Sam Adonis this Saturday. Blue Panther says he’s looking forward to the crowd chanting Si Se Puede after he wins on Friday. I do wonder how that crowd is going to react if Adonis wins on Friday, if it moves from mostly booing the over the top rudo because it’s fun to mostly being actually seriously upset.

Lucha Underground

Lucha Underground tonight is episode 29, “The Hunger Inside”. Matches announced for the show

• Fenix vs Pindar in a Cueto Cup quarterfinal
• Dante Fox vs Prince Puma in a Cueto Cup quarterfinal
• Johnny Mundo vs El Dragon Azteca Jr.

The preview also mentions catching up with the Dario/Matanza relationship, checking in Captain Vasquez (who hasn’t been on the show in months) and Marty messing with Melissa some more.

The Azteca/Mundo match fits the same mold of all the Cueto Cup quarterfinals: one guy who’s been near the top of Lucha Underground for about the entire run versus one guy who’s come in later and been stuck on the third tier of guys looking for a breakout match. “El Dragon Azteca Jr.” should be an important character in the mythos of Lucha Underground but has been mostly been portrayed as hapless and hot headed sidekick for a couple seasons. His role in the plot and the possible departures of others makes it likely he’ll be leaned on a lot more in any possible future seasons, and he could use a strong performance to get him going again.

If you’re a person who watched AAA when Steve Pain was around, and know that Pindar is Steve Pain, you’re probably pretty excited for that quarterfinal. If you’re the vast majority of people, you’re somewhat surprised about the fourth most important person in the Reptile Tribe making it this far with no discernible character traits. A recent Lucha of the Hidden Table mentioned Cage was having some knee problems at this point, which was the reason the Cage/Pindar match was so short, and maybe the reason why Pindar is wrestling Fenix while Cage gets some time on the sidelines. Hopefully, Pindar gets to make something out of this opportunity.

As far as I can tell, the last time Prince Puma & Dante Fox had a match was 2014 in China for WWN Live. (WrestlingData has their matchups but also spoils the result here.)

On the Way 2 Real podcast this past week, Justin Harvey of the MMM Podcast mentioned his sources say it’s actually MGM who owns the rights to distribute Lucha Underground in the US, not Lucha Libre FMV or El Rey. His version, which probably comes from people who work directly in the production side of Lucha Underground, is MGM is actually selling the rights to the show back to El Rey. I’d always understood it the other way, that El Rey owned the show and MGM just had the international rights. It’s an importance difference – it’d mean that if El Rey doesn’t pick up LU S4, MGM would be free to take the show to another US network.

Edit: I got the general sense of it correct but the details not quite; should’ve listened again before writing. The correct idea is MGM does not have the LU US rights now , but those rights would revert back to MGM should El Rey not agree to renew by a cut off date and MGM would be free to try and sell them elsewhere and may or may not have any success doing so.

Finding networks willing to pick up wrestling shows has been tough for TNA/GFW/Impact (and LU has some content that might be a bigger concern to other networks), but almost any other network would be carried by more providers than El Rey.

This is deep dark guessing at LU future, but – as Justin alludes to – could explain what’s the hold up with the renewal. MGM wants $X per season now, El Rey wants to pay something less than X, and the two sides might be having a staring contest until they get close enough to the drop dead date and a deal gets done. A wrestling only company might be more eager to take what El Rey’s offering because they need to keep the running, but a corporation like MGM isn’t going to be affected to wait six more months if it means they get paid a bit more in the end. This is all assuming is Justin right, which, no slight meant to anyone, but no one person saying something on the internet should be held up as the definite truth of what’s going on.

Ivelisse, who has said some things on the Twitter deal recently that have not exactly been correct, says “filming is resuming soon” in a plug to book her on shows. I think that’s probably just trying to get some urgency in getting bookings, but I’m putting it here just in case it turns out Ivelisse knew it first. I credit everyone here.

Wrestle Corner interviewed Vampiro, which is totally delightful if you want to hear Vampiro explain the history of Japanese wrestling. It was taped as San Diego Comic Con so you maybe can read into something he was saying. He says it was Dorian who called him to work for Lucha Underground way back when.

Lucha Underground Season 2 starts on SamuraiTV this Friday.

La Llave a La Gloria

AAA announced Vendaval, Arabe Jr., Rocky Lobo, Delirius, S/N, Celestial, Cosmico, Pequeno Talisman, Chicano, Dragon del Baijo as the winners of their Round 4 La Llave a la Gloria tryout. Some of these are familiar: Rocky Lobo is overqualified to be involved, having just been on Elite TV last year with experience in NOAH & Dragon Gate – Rocky was even in the 2012 AAA Quien Pinta Por La Corona contest, where he advanced out of Puebla but did not win. Celestial, Cosmico and Pequeno Talisman are the Perros del Mal minis. Chicano is the occasion IWRG luchador who’s based in Chihuahua.

The other names are a bit obscure. There’s a Vendaval around Mexico City, but I suspect this is the one who wrestles in Tabasco. Arabe Jr. is long time early match wrestler in La Laguna, but hasn’t shown up yet on the AMLL channel. (He’s in this match on Facebook.) Delirius wrestles in Queretaro, but there’s not many new videos from there. I have nothing in the database for a Dragon del Baijo, and S/N is literally “sin nombre”; they put his registration number up there so he would know he won, but his identity is a mystery to everyone else.

If we count the people who have appeared in La Llave de la Gloria matches on TV tapings but haven’t actually been listed as finalists in tapings, I believe they’re at 65 people. Even that number is suspect, because there’s obviously another way into the tournament (training with someone associated with AAA?) and we don’t know exactly how many people will get in that way. And maybe some of the people who advanced thru tryout don’t make it to the final for some reason or another. I’m going to go with “there’s a lot of people left.”

The final stage is August 12 at Arena Naucalpan. It starts at 9AM, so it must be an all day thing.

Other AAA Things

Leo Riano’s column says it’s a 99% chance TripleMania airs on Televisa. Riano also seems to praise the idea of TripleMania being on the same night as a big boxing show but thinks CMLL should avoid being on the same night as a big boxing show, so I dunno.

EN+CARADOS, +LuchaTV’s podcast, had Lady Shani, el Caifan, Dr. Cerbero, and Hijo de Dos Caras. It’s pretty easy to root for Lady Shani based on some of her comments on this podcast, and there’d be some sound reasons for her to beat Sexy Star: TripleMania is a great place to make a new star and Sexy Star needs some in-house opponents with some credibility. They could even do a double turn, since Sexy Star seems to want to be a tecnica and Shani would rather be a ruda. There’s absolutely zero chance Shani’s going to win; the goal here seems not to be “put on matches people would be interested in seeing” but actually “keep Sexy Star happy”.

On the same podcast, Hijo de Dos Caras said AAA invited Alberto to TripleMania, but he doesn’t think Alberto is going. Alberto himself said he was going last month, so something changed. AAA and Alberto have had a rocky relationship, so it’s not necessarily the recent airport incident, could be any number of things.

Arena Queretaro seems to have sold out for the AAA/TAO show.

Other Things

Alberto el Patron wants you to know that he was a much bigger star than his uncle ever was. OK. He’s also retiring in two years, where two years is not a fixed amount of time.

Queretaro luchador Brujo Maya passed away on Monday. He was only 25. Cause of death isn’t mentioned. Brujo Maya was Canek’s nephew and the son of local luchador Perro del Ring.

In Arena Aficion, Nemesis & Cadillac won the X-LAW Tag Team titles from Aeroboy & Rey Gato and Mini Psycho Clown kept the AAA minis title over Concord.

DTU’s July shows are showing up, in some form, on Smark Mark Video in the US. There’s a trailer up for them and it mentions four shows – maybe it’s full shows, maybe it’s just the GCW matches? It’s coming soon.

Ciclope & Miedo Extremo debut for GCW in New Jersey on 09/16, as part of the DTU/GCW talent sharing. Aeroboy & Drastick Boy are working the ChilangaMask copromoted shows that same weekend and there’s the (Cicero) Chicago show with Hijo del Santo and others that Sunday. I’m kind of surprised how many luchadors are working outside of Mexico that weekend, but I suspect that’s all about the economic differences.

The latest Lucha Talk is up.

LuchaWorld has the latest news update.

Segunda Caida reviews King Cuerno vs Mil Muertes from Ultima Lucha 2.

Lineups

IWRG (SUN) 08/06/2017 Arena Naucalpan
1) Celestial vs Lunatic Xtreme
2) Fly Tiger & Shaolin vs Demonio Infernal & Diablo Jr.
3) Mike & Teelo vs Argos & Dr. Karonte Jr.
4) Bombero Infernal, Freelance, Hijo del Alebrije vs Eterno, Kempo Jr., Monaguillo
5) Black Dragón vs Gallo Frances
6) Herodes Jr., Hijo del Pantera, Internacional Pantera vs Emperador Azteca, Golden Magic, Hijo De Dos Caras
7) Hijo de Pirata Morgan & Pirata Morgan vs Black Warrior & Warrior Jr.

These cards getting longer is something I only think about because AYM typically will only tape the last four matches. We’ll never get to see who wins between a Ninja Turtle and a Caristico Brother. Warrior Jr. getting a main event probably years because he’s ready simply because his father is there.

CMLL (TUE) 08/08/2017 Arena México
1) Acero & Aéreo vs Pequeño Universo 2000 & Pequeño Violencia
2) La Vaquerita, Marcela, Sanely vs La Seductora, Metálica, Tiffany
3) Rey Cometa vs Forastero [lightning]
4) Drone, Fuego, Guerrero Maya Jr. vs Ephesto, Felino, Luciferno
5) Ángel de Oro, Niebla Roja, Titán vs Mr. Niebla, Rey Bucanero, Terrible
6) Mistico, Rush, Valiente vs Cavernario, Negro Casas, Último Guerrero

This is a better card than last night, you can start watching about 40 minutes in. I thought this might be Forastero’s first singles match here but he had one back in November against Fuego. Rush booked as a tecnico because they actually believe that’s the side he belongs on.

CMLL (TUE) 08/08/2017 Arena Coliseo Guadalajara
1) Mr. Trueno & Rey Trueno vs Frezzer & Furia Roja
2) Príncipe Diamante, Starman, Stigma vs Arkángel de la Muerte, Disturbio, Inquisidor
3) Lady Maravilla, Silueta, Skadi vs Amapola, Dalys, Zeuxis
4) Blue Panther, Johnny Idol, Stuka Jr. vs Dragón Rojo Jr., Pólvora, Sam Adonis
5) Diamante Azul, Marco Corleone, Volador Jr. vs Euforia, Gran Guerrero, Pierroth

No results from last night, but Volador, Diamante Azul & Euforia are the carry overs from that main event so the feud’s in there somewhere. Diamante Azul brings the Occidente Heavyweight Championship with him in every match but has not defended it since May of 2014 – and I think everyone pointed it out when he was in the Universal tournament, so perhaps they’re getting on it.