Black Dragon unmasks Gallo Frances, Zeuxis 2nd title match tonight, Alberto

photo by Black Terry Jr.

IWRG (SUN) 08/13/2017 Arena Naucalpan [+LuchaTV, Black Terry Jr. (Flickr)The Gladiatores]
1) Atomic Star b Fly Tiger
2) Climax & Shaolin b Demonio Infernal & Skanda
3) Bombero Infernal & Bombero Infernal Jr. b Eterno & Lunatic Xtreme
Eterno used the ropes. He and Bombero Infernal continued to fight backstage.
4) Cerebro Negro & Dr. Cerebro b Argos & Dr. Karonte
5) Hijo del Pantera DQ Emperador Azteca
Pantera tricked Azteca into being DQ.
6) Herodes Jr., Internacional Pantera, Máscara Año 2000 Jr. b Dinamic Black, Golden Magic, Hijo De Dos Caras
Mascara pulled Dos’ mask and cradled him for the win.
7) Gallo Frances b Black Dragón [mask]
Gallo Frances was unmasked as Jérôme Motta, 35, 15 years a wrestler from Lyon, France.

Main event looks like the typically dramatic IWRG mask match. Gallo Frances is also known as Jerry Motta & Jerry Snake.

CMLL (SUN) 08/13/2017 Arena México [CMLL, CMLL (highlights)]
1) Artillero & Espanto Jr. b Bengala & Sonic
2) Canelo Casas, Hijo del Signo, Nitro b Astral, Oro Jr., Sensei
3) Misterioso Jr., Sagrado, Virus b Johnny Idol, Pegasso, Stigma
4) Zeuxis b Marcela [CMLL-REINA INTL] Campeonato Internacional CMLL-REINA (posted by VideosOficialesCMLL) Marcela vs Zeuxis por el campeonato CMLL Reina (posted by TvRegeneracion)
Zeuxis took falls 2/3, the last with the La Roca package piledriver, to win the vacant title. She’s announced as going to Japan in October.
5) Ángel de Oro, Titán, Valiente DQ Cuatrero, Hechicero, Sansón
Sanson fouled and unmasked Angel de Oro
6) Carístico, Marco Corleone, Volador Jr. b Cavernario, Gran Guerrero, Pierroth
Pierroth replaced Shocker (so CMLL had to relent on no father vs son for the night.)

The second video link has a slightly longer version of highlights for the title match.

Zeuxis has her second title match in as many days, tonight in Arena Puebla. She beat Marcela for the vacant CMLL-REINA International championship, and she faces rival Princesa Sugehit tonight for the Mexican Women’s Championship. CMLL usual booking philosophy is they’ve already done the one title change to build up this feud (when Sugehit beat Zeuxis) so they probably won’t do another one at least until after the mask match – but two title wins in two days would be a good story. They’ve have good matches during this feud and this shouldn’t be different.

The main event is another rematch, with Caristico, Marco and Mistico against Diamante Azul, Ultimo Guerrero and Negro Casas. That seems to be setting up Azul vs Marco, possibly for the heavyweight title. Gran Guerrero and Niebla Roja are opposite sides of a trios match once again, this time in the semimain with Angel de Oro, Johnny Idol, Sam Adonis, and Euforia rounding out the match. If you think you haven’t seen Johnny Idol much, you’re correct; his last YouTube appearance was about three weeks ago, and you have to go back to June for an appearance on a non-Tuesday show. Idol hasn’t been on a Friday show since January, though that streak should end soon.

The Panthers & Soberano face the Invasors in another rematch from last week. In the surprise of Morphosis actually showing up last week, I didn’t think about the other thing going on with him: he wrestled the whole match in his mask, which he lost back on Christmas. Morphosis’ only other YouTube match of the year was in June, where he started the match masked but unmasked during it. I guess he “forgot” to do last week. We’ll see what happens this week, or if maybe something else is going on. (Technically, Morphosis is a different character than Histeria, but he gave up wearing the Morphosis outfit years ago and just wrestles in a Histeria one.)

Second match is a rare straight Puebla vs DF match, with Lestat & Espiritu Maligno against Disturbio & Metalico. They usually only run those matches when they’re setting something up, but there’s plenty of other stuff happening on this show. It may just be numbers. The opener is an equally strange match of tecnicos versus tecnicos, with Millenium & Paris facing Centella Roja and his son. The show airs on YouTube at 09pm.

GFW announced that Alberto el Patron has been stripped of their championship. He remains indefinitely suspended. GFW hints at some conditions Alberto has to meet before he’ll be suspended; it stands to reason he’s probably not expected to meet those conditions by their next taping on Thursday if they’re stripping him of the title. I was skeptical of this suspension being anything more than PR, but it looks like they were serious about it.

Last week, the WON mentioned Alberto and The Crash were no longer working together. They hadn’t worked together this year except for Alberto doing a promo on the Mexico City show to set up a match with Carlito that never happened, but perhaps he was in the plans to be used on the 09/02 show with the usual names not around because of BOLA. Alberto still seems to be working with Tinieblas’ FULL promotion (September 17th in Tlaxcala) and MDA. Last month, Alberto told SI that he was defending the GFW title at TripleMania and there was a lineup floating around with Alberto defending against Lashley. Lashley was announced in Copa TripleMania instead, and maybe AAA had been told Alberto wouldn’t be champion by TripleMania in advance.

Imagen Deportes has a video story on Arena Azteca Budokan.

Lucha Underground posted a Rey Mysterio fact sheet.

Hip Hop Man, La Mosca, and El Pibe won the Arena Azteca Budokan trios titles on the Hip Hop Man anniversary show. They beat Yakuza, Kamikaze and Hanaoka, so hopefully that means Hanaoka’s injury in the La Llave a La Gloria tryouts wasn’t so bad.

The Crash’s poster for a show in Toluca (no date) includes Rey Mysterio.

Lineups

CMLL (SUN) 08/20/2017 Arena México
1) Fantasy & Último Dragóncito vs Pequeño Olímpico & Pequeño Violencia
2) Pegasso, Star Jr., Starman vs Arkángel de la Muerte, Hijo del Signo, Sangre Azteca
3) Ángel de Oro, Guerrero Maya Jr., Stuka Jr. vs Cuatrero, Forastero, Sansón
4) Dragón Lee, Juice Robinson, Rush vs Pólvora, Terrible, Vangellys
5) Diamante Azul, Matt Taven, Volador Jr. vs Euforia, Mephisto, Negro Casas

CMLL sees Taven as a bigger start than Juice – which makes sense from a Mexican perspective, since this is Taven’s third time in and Juice is new.

Sanson/Angel de Oro rematch, so good chance they’re headed to the title match in a couple weeks.

CMLL (SUN) 08/20/2017 Arena Coliseo Guadalajara
1) Amperage & Avispón Negro Jr. vs Destructor & Stress
2) Cosmos & El Yaqui vs Linterna & Relámpago Azul
3) Príncipe Kisho & Terremoto King Jr. vs Gran Kenut & León Blanco
4) Esfinge, Magnum, Neutrón vs Difunto, Pitbull I, Ráfaga
5) Espectrúm vs Guerrero de la Muerte [hair]

My expert analysis is “uh, maybe Guerrero de la Muerte wins, I don’t really know.”