CMLL tonight, The Crash in SLP, La Llave a La Gloria wraps tomorrow

tonight (and that Cavernario photo is always welcome)

The Crash (THU) 08/10/2017 Domo de San Luis Potosí, San Luis Potosí, San Luis Potosí [El Sabor del Ring]
1) Aero Kid, Androide, Belcebu b Cancerbero, Gran Amenaza, Súper Kiss
locals match
2) Látigo, Pegasuz, Tiago b Astrolux, Rayo Star, Rey Celestial (Puebla)
money thrown in
3) Keira © b La MagnificaChik TormentaDiosa Quetzal [The Crash WOMEN]
Both Magnifica & Quetzal replaced Lady Maravilla. Keria beat Quetzal to retain the title.
4) Drastik Boy, Flamita, Jack Evans b Bestia 666, Demus 3:16, Hijo de Pirata Morgan
Draztick Boy replaced Rey Horuz. Bestia & Jack fueded.
5) Daga & Zorro DQ Garza Jr. & Último Ninja
everyone (referee included) fouled everyone before the DQ was called.
6) Blue Demon Jr., Rey Mysterio 619, The King (Rey Fenix) b La Máscara, M-ximo, Rey Escorpión (Indie)

This was a big building (11K) and they filled a lot of it. Like every other promotion, the photos they sent out were carefully chosen and it wasn’t quite as packed on other sides of the arena, but I’m thinking this might be the biggest attendance they’ve had for a show so far. Tickets were reasonable prices, 100 to 350 pesos.

MicromanFever has a recap of Garza Jr.’s interview Fuego en el RIng. Garza says some interesting stuff, and makes the case that The Crash having a TV show or even full matches on YouTube is not that important in 2017, highlights are enough. This is a worthy debate, except the most recent highlights The Crash have posted are from March. The Crash is farther behind on The Crash shows than I am.

Garza Jr. said he and Fenix are headed to NOAH for a week at the end of September, and then they’ll stay for two months if they get over. That doesn’t quite make sense, especially with both of them booked in Torreon in October, but it’ll come out in the wash.

Today’s CMLL show is one of those times where I’m more preoccupied by what we can learn about CMLL going forward than any of the matches actually happening today. I’m wondering about one of the feuds. It’s not the Niebla Roja/Gran Guerrero one, though that’s the main event. It’s not really the Diamante Azul/Rush one, though it plays into it. It’s the Princesa Sugehit versus Zeuxis mask match rivalry, the longest running of all of the and the one where both people have been pointing towards the Anniversary show first. We might find out if they’re actually getting to it tonight.

Last year’s Gran Prix featured both the 8v8 main event, but also an excellent Cavernario versus Rey Cometa hair versus hair match underneath. There probably will be a space for an apuesta match underneath again this year. Only we know it can’t be Diamante Azul vs Rush since they’re in the Gran Prix itself, and it’s not likely to be Gran Guerrero versus Niebla Roja since they’re already getting to talk about the Anniversary show in-ring. (CMLL rule of thumb is none of the backstage promos really matter, but in-ring mentions of a date means it’s actually happening on that date.) That just leaves the women’s match, probably the match of the three most people would like to see on the Anniversary show, maybe happening two weeks early. There’s also really no room on the Anniversary show if both Guerrero/Roja and Azul/Rush are happening. CMLL could (correctly) see Rush putting up his hair as the biggest possible draw on a show that’s otherwise featuring a feud between the formerly third and fourth members of a group and maybe their best shot at drawing a good house this year.

I didn’t think Azul/Rush was happening before last week, and I’m still not sure it is – they could easily just be screwing around for the sake of something to fill out August, or to build tension on the Mexico team before the foreigners start to arrive (and they may start to arrive next Friday, that’s probably why the King Haku news came out this week.) And the women have been pretty consistent at saying they want their match at the Anniversary show for months; you’d think someone would’ve given them the heads up by now if that’s not happening. We’ll have more information by the end of the night. If Zeuxis & Sugehit make in-ring mask challenges but don’t mention a date, and if Rush & Diamante Azul looks like it could keep going, then you can start to put next month’s show.

The card itself is a lot of matches that could be good but nothing that really jumps out as speical. Dragon Lee & Mistico are Niebla Roja’s partners of the night against the Guerreros (with Mephisto in for Euforia.) Diamante Azul and Rush will have a singles match, which has been no good every time they’ve had it. Caristico is in a fourth match, rare for him, teaming with Soberano and Valiente against Sam Adonis, Negro Casas and Cavernario. It’s a weird fit unless Caristico is the next Adonis rival. Zeuxis teams with Amapola & Dalys against Sugehit, Silueta and Maravilla in what should be one of the better CMLL women’s trios matches. The Panther brothers & Esfinge face Puma, Tiger and Disturbio, and Shockercito & Stukita versus Mercurio & Pierrothito open the show at 8:30pm.

Besides the foreigners possibly coming in, Mistico, Titan, Ultimo Guerrero and Rey Bucanero will be going out, off next weekend for those ROH UK shows.

Tickets for the CMLL 09/01 Gran Prix are on sale, will run from 185 to 830 pesos including service charges. That’s the scale CMLL seems to for it’s lesser big shows; it’s the same range they ran back in December 2014 for a cage match with a bunch off upper level guys and Felino losing his hair.

Televisa announced TripleMania will air on Canal 5 (an over the air station available nationwide) on August 26th. The announcement was a single tweet, and there’s no info about when it’ll air (which is expected to be late in the night after the McGregror/Mayweather show) or how much will air.

AAA’s La Llave de la Gloria tryout will finish up Saturday. (I’d suspect the next news update won’t come until after it concludes.) AAA will select winners, who will get to work the opener of TripleMania in a couple weeks. We’re not sure how they’ll choose, how many they’ll choose, or even really who exactly they’ll choose from, but parts of the event will likely be streamed on AAA’s Facebook.

Part of me hasn’t liked this contest, because I liked logic and consistency in things and the logic of this tournament has been kept well hidden if it exists. On the other hand, you can’t turn over a rock in Mexico without finding a guy who can do a cool headscissors you’ve never heard of in your life, and it’s interesting to see people out of nowhere who are really great at what they’re doing. AAA’s track record of utilizing talent contest winners is sketchy, but a lot of the people who want far in the Quien Pinta Por La Corona contest years ago ended up getting noticed and used by indie promotions too. It’s worth watching to see who uses this to break out everywhere, and who’s worth scouring random YouTube channels to find a little bit more.

AAA now says tickets for the La Llave de la Gloria semifinal will be free for anyone who shows up at 10AM tomorrow. They’ve got the star of the deal twice as big as anyone else on that poster.

Dr. Wagner Jr. was doing a press tour yesterday to promote the TripleMania mask match. Here’s a clip from ESPN. There doesn’t seem to have been any news, but they’re pushing the show hard locally and I’d suspect Psycho Clown will make the same sort of rounds next week.

Nicho’s operation went well. It sounds like he got both knees done at the same time.

SuperLuchas has a Q&A with GCW referee Kris Levin, who will be back with those wrestlers when they work the September DTU shows.

German filmmaker Doris Dörrie says her next film will be made about a family of Mexico luchadoras. There’s no estimation of when the movie will be made.

The Gladiatores has a recap of a local Tijuana show. Hope everyone had a good time but the finishes sound awful: no finish because a faction ran in, no finish because both teams broke up, a clean finish!, that same faction wins via cheating but then kicks one person out and adds another, and a main event where a team lost because they broke up by the end. Indie lucha libre trying to be creative makes for some dreadful sounding shows; they’re twenty years behind the times on these finishes.

Lucha Memes started announcing matches for 09/03 in Coliseo Coacalo
1) Keira vs Makabre

Lucha Libre Mexicana-Los Reyes del Ring says 80s micro luchador Nicoali is in poor health.

Hijo del Santo writes about Dory Dixon.

Segunda Caida reviews Black Terry, Diablo Jr. & Demonio Infernals vs the Villanos.

Kcidis draws Sam Adonis.

A story on policeman/luchador Guerrera Rock.

There’s an exhibition of Mexican masks in Lisbon, Portugal.

AAA on Televisa: 2017-08-05 

Mundo moonsault

Recapped: 08/08/2017

Matches: 

Dr. Wagner Jr. beat El Mesías
(7:25, Wagner Driver, ok, via 
luchalibreaaatv )

Psycho Clown versus Pagano had no finish
(9:25, Mesias & Wagner run in, ok, via
luchalibreaaatv)

Johnny Mundo © beat Texano Jr. for the AAA World Heavyweight Championship
(8:48, foul, ok, via
luchalibreaaatv)

What happened: 

I needed an extra GIF and this seemed OK

Earlier, Fantasma tried to talk Vampiro into doing the three way title match. Vampiro explains he already made Texano & Mundo for the title tonight and he can’t change it, but he can make Fantasma referee. Later, Mundo berates Vampiro only to find out Vampiro stripped Taya of the Reina de Reinas title belt. Vampiro threatens to do the same to Mundo, and Mundo threatens lawyers. Vampiro says it won’t matter because “next week”, Texano will beat him for the titles anyway. Mundo isn’t concerned because he has Kevin Kross on his side. Vampiro points out Kross is fighting #1 briefcase now and might be coming for Mundo at any time. (Hilariously, we can see the #1 briefcase sitting on a table nearby.) In the graphics, AAA’s stopped referring to the individual titles and are simply calling Mundo the “Tri Champion”. Vampiro shows up before the match to announce Hijo del Fantasma as special referee.

Texano is more técnico in this match, though he and Fantasma have problems with Fantasma accidentally gets in his way on a dive. Mundo kicks out of both of Texano’s finishing moves on fair counts. Mundo crawls out and brings in a chair, Texano kicks him and grabs it, Fantasma stops Texano from using that chair and pulls it away, and Mundo fouls and cradles Texano while Fantasma is throwing out the chair. Fantasma counts the pin, also missing a tights pull. Mundo makes Fantasma raise his arm after the fact. Texano attacks Fantasma for costing him the match, but Fantasma takes him out. Kevin Kross urns in for no obvious reason, and that’s enough to get Fantasma and Texano stop fighting. Kross still gets with a double clothesline. Mundo comes in to congratulate Kross on a job well done, but Kross gets in his face. (No one has a briefcase here.) Hernandez walks out to argue with Kross, and Mascara de Bronce follows behind to springboard into a dropkick on both Hernandez and Kross. Mundo gets his turn to slam Bronce, then Texano and Fantasma attack Mundo. Neither Kross nor Hernandez make the save, watching from the outside. Mundo’s held in the middle for a lasso shot. Hernandez, Mundo and Kross all leave together even though they were about to fight. Texano and Fantasma argue in the ring and Bronce mostly disappears.

Psycho tope

Announcers discuss the Alvarado’s terrible history in apuesta matches. This time, Mesias’ played nine minutes in, but Mesias actually came out – he came thru the crowd and attacked Pagano. From behind. Psycho just watched as Mesias hit Pagano with the barbed wire bat, then decided to make the save. Wagner runs out, and Psycho Clown stands around doing nothing until Wagner gets there and hits him with a chair. It’s dumb. Both Psycho and Pagano end up bleeding, Pagano bleeding a lot. Pagano should win by DQ for Mesias’ attack, but no decision is ever called. Medics come into take the técnicos away without doing anything to stop the rudos, and get attacked. The técnicos are repeatedly pulled off the backboards and attacked viscously for a while; this is the same bit as in Juarez, but goes on for longer and feels heavier.

Jesus Zuniga announced this match as the semifinal. Even live, it’s not the semifinal – but it was on the poster so I guess he was looking at that. Dr. Wagner is totally a técnico thru the match. Pagano’s music starts to play seven minute in. Pagano is never seen, but Mesias stops fighting to look for him, waits about twenty seconds, and then is easily beat because of the distraction.

La Llave de la Gloria and the annual AAA pilgrimage are talked about in the Noti AAA. They also talk about the Mesias/Pagano rivalry.

Thoughts: 

excessive dive GIFs are the refuge of someone with no good ideas

This wasn’t the greatest advertisement for TripleMania. None of the three singles matches came across as a big deal as expected, and all the matches had underwhelming endings if they even had endings. These matches were supposed to be TripleMania level, but they weren’t as good as Suicide/Bengala last week and it didn’t feel like a big show was coming. The post match attack after the second match was at least a little bit effective, but the title match picture has so many different agendas and none of them are really clicking.

The main event was fine, I guess, and maybe I’m underrating it, but it felt underwhelming considering the guys involved. They working slow wand less impressively than you’d expect with the similar match on Lucha Underground. This was the one of these matches where someone actually trying the moves that actually win matches, only the crowd didn’t seem to care all that much and it never felt the intensity of a big title match. All the different subplots and extraneous aren’t helping the match they’re building at Triplemania; the three way doesn’t feel like the big title match, but the minor one that’s killing time for a PPV cycle before they get to the really important matches (Kross/Mundo? Fantasma/Texano?)

Pagano & Psycho Clown tried to have a straight technical match and it was OK at best. It’s not what either man does well, and looked slow and clunky at times. The crowd wasn’t all that into it, not reacting much to the near falls they were doing. They seemed to like the characters but weren’t much interested in the outcome, or they knew there was not going to be an ending until a finisher or a foul. That turned out right, since this was just a set up to have the TripleMania rudos destroy the TripleMania técnicos, and they cared much more about. The angle was effective but the match itself wasn’t worth seeing.

The opener was a casual singles match that was just doing the safe but not so interesting stuff, and then had the always terrible music finish. Pagano never even actually appearing made Mesias look even dumber, but it’s still a dumb finish. Given that ending, they wisely didn’t seem like it was that important to do all that much in the match. Wagner showed more than Mesias, but this wasn’t a shadow of the TripleMania fight they were redoing here.