lucha TV preview for weekend of August 17th

The 11 week Cueto Cup tournament comes to an end this week on Lucha Underground. Random trivia: all three Veneno matches (and I’m going to take a mighty leap and assume it’s only 3) didn’t turn up in Lucha Underground taping results. Sometimes they showed up as “Cage beat some guy”, but I actually do not know what specifically happens in the Sexy Star/Veneno match next week. I do know that Canadians seem darkly amused.

I also do not really know what will air from Monterrey, because AAA went wildly out of order and also taped enough stuff for three shows (yet included a match with none of their guys on the longer version of the show.)

No IWRG Wednesday show this week, because Super Astros is running tomorrow. That Sunday show will have a long battle royal.

09/16 CMLL Anniversary notes & iPPV prices, La Llave a La Gloria, AAA/Impact

(please remember to get both matches to face off next time, thanks)

CMLL did post the 09/16 press conference on YouTube after Informa, but all the news from it was out already so there wasn’t much point in watching it. CMLL’s quotes from the press conference has Niebla Roja saying he’s accomplished more since leaving the Guerreros than he did with them. He did have 0 Anniversary main events as part of the Guerreros so I guess that’s technically correct, but he seemed to win a lot more with them. Niebla Roja says he’s going after Ultimo Guerrero next and then Euforia; I like Euforia being the big boss at the end. The Notimex report on press conference has Niebla Roja acknowledging his match with Gran Guerrero is unpopular in “social networks” and Roja saying they people will come out anyway. He’s probably right; there were plenty of people there to boo Volador & Sombra, but it’s not as though they left. Niebla Roja doesn’t come off as likable as he should for a new tecnico main event of the Anniversary show but I’m under the belief that’s not going to matter much in the long run.

Zeuxis & Princesa Sugehit appear to making history. As best I can tell, this is the list of 1v1 luchadora matches on CMLL Anniversario show.

  • 2017: Zeuxis versus Princesa Sugehit, mask vs mask
  • 2015: Dark Angel beat Princesa Sugehit (Dark Angel farewell match)
  • 2005: Marcela beat Dark Angel (CMLL women title’s relaunch)
  • 1996: Lioness Asuka beat Lola Gonzalez (TWF Women’s championship)

It’s not a long list, but it’s not going to be a long list when they stop promoting wrestling for decades and never had it as a serious part of EMLL prior to that ban. AAA, who’s come along after that ban, has had three as best I can tell (Taya/Faby, Mary/Faby and Sexy/Shani this year if it happens with no one being added.)

Just getting an apuesta match onto this card at all is a measure of success at all – and something which I suspect will be incessantly mentioned on commentary just as soon as someone reads this section – and there’s some talk about making it the main event. It won’t be the main event, CMLL was clear about that with how they ran yesterday’s press conference, and how they’ve booked women thru the years. There’s a good marketing idea behind having a woman’s match being the main event of an Anniversary match someday, but it’s something that would’ve needed to be built up for months (if not longer) to make that work – to pick one example, the title match Zeuxis & Sugehit both should’ve been one of the top two matches, and the fans should’ve also not been surprised by it being on of the top matches. Right now, it’d only be in the main event And as much as we might not be thinking much of the Niebla Roja/Gran Guerrero bit, there’s no indication CMLL sees anything wrong with it. And just putting a woman’s apuesta match on top to have a woman’s match on top is no guarantee of success; CMLL ran Marcela vs Tiffany in 2012, as a main event, which drew less than 4000 (albeit going up against TripleMania.) They’ve got make people want it be the main event for a long time to make it work. This match might be the a step in getting there, but it’s a long road.

Apolo Valdes writes about the announced matches, ok with the women’s match, not as sold on the men’s, but acknowledging you’ve got to give new people a chance to prove themselves. This is probably going to define Gran Guerrero & Niebla Roja’s career, at least for a long time

On Informa, CMLL brought on a rep from internetTV.com to talk about the iPPV. The 09/01 Gran Prix will cost 100 pesos (probably $6 with fees) and the 09/16 Anniversario will be 150 pesos ($9 USD).

This is the same system AAA has used for their recent iPPVs, to mixed success. The stream usually works, it’s more an issue of the production getting the video to the stream. There was talk about having videos and chat rooms to help people order, which all sounds good – the problem always is (with CMLL & AAA & everyone else) that there’s no one around to explain what’s gone wrong when something goes wrong. I was watching an iPPV this past weekend, and it just died a million times with no one explaining what was going on, and I just considered it sunk money and moved on. At least these things don’t cost that much.

The service would seem to allow an English language feed – AAA did that, but there’s no mention of one for CMLL.

The winners of AAA’s La Llave a La Gloria tournament are Angel Mortal Jr., Angelikal, Ashley, Bronco Gonzalez Jr., Chicano, Dragon Solar, Fetiche, Hijo del Vikingo, Pardux, Solaris, the Tiger, Hahastary, Tiger Boy and Villano III. That’s 14 people. This contest was announced as requiring participants to go to one of the tryouts to get in, but Gonzalez, Vikingo, Mortal and Dragon Solar are not mentioned as participating. Of the 14, 8 had already appeared on TV in La Llave de la Gloria matches (Angel Mortal, Angelikal, Ashley, Bronco Gonzalez Jr., Dragon Solar, Hijo del Vikingo, the Tiger and Tiger Boy.)

All 14 people will appear on TripleMania. Making it 14 people long is going to make it tougher for the individual people to stand out in that match and to put together the match itself (7v7? a second battle royal?) but I can also see why AAA would want to grab as many people as they can. People are going to drop out, people are going to not hold up, and AAA could use as many people as they can who stick around. Usually, these talent search contests have 1, or 2, or a small number of winners, and then a lot of people who did well get quietly signed. AAA’s not been quite straightforward on how they’re getting there, but 14 is a lot more honest assessment of how many people they want to keep than usual.

AAA’s annual pilgrimage is going on right now. I haven’t spotted anyone unexpected there except maybe La Chiva. Angel Mortal Jr. is already with the group; it’s almost like the whole talent search contest was a pre-arranged way to bring him in.

Impact/GFW starts a run of taping tonight with a slightly taped delayed show. They’re taping all the way thru next Tuesday (that last night is being hyped as a Latin Night.) Drago & Fantasma were part of the last set up tapings. Johnny Mundo and Taya were already reported as being there, and Taya’s been hinting about it on Twitter for the last few days. I suspect Mundo is going to be used in a big way on a short term basis, as a way to distract from Alberto el Patron not being around. LU contracts, as they’re understood, should not allow Mundo and Taya to be on GFW, but it’s also pretty clear at this point that’s not going to be enforced when it comes to people AAA is working with and will be enforced with people they don’t (NJPW, ROH.) These tapings are said to be for shows all the way thru November – which also means there might be some clarity/finality to the LU situation by the time Impact tapings again and this will be a dead issue.

On Facebook, Pagano revealed he’ll also be working the shows. It’s unclear if more AAA people will also be there. It normally would be good promotion for AAA to send Mesias too and for and angle to build up TripleMania for a different audience who might be interested, but AAA’s now nine days away from that show and hasn’t officially announced any way for people to see the show without going to the arena. There’s no use in selling something if you can’t tell people how they can buy it.

Todo x el Todo updated their Twitter picture with a cropped version of their lineup for 09/23 in Tulancingo. They haven’t actually posed the full poster. Why is this so hard. Why. To be fair, it looks like TxT is going to have more issues than posting lineups because what we can see reveals they’re putting Mil Mascaras in a main event.

Aeroboy didn’t win La Llava a La Gloria but he did win the Arena Aficion Guerra de Naciones over Sam Adonis.

Juice Robinson is in Mexico.

CultIcon and TKD watch this week’s Lucha Underground.

Segunda Caida watches Los Brazos vs Rocky Star, Eddy Guerrero and Lizmark.

LuchaWorld has the latest news update.

Kcidis draws some new warnings for tickets.

Lineups

Revolucha (SUN) 09/10/2017 Gimnasio Nuevo León
1) ? vs ??
2) Christi Jaynes vs Larry MirandaBaby Puma
3) Hip Hop Man vs Mr. 450Sammy GuevaraDoukiZumbiVeneno? [Copa International]
4) Huracán Ramírez, Mistico II, Rayo de Jalisco Jr. vs Jeff Jarrett, MVP, Sam Adonis

Here’s the thing: that main event looks like an awful match. It may get over and I hope people buy tickets and have a fun time at the lucha libre show and everyone goes home happy but I have no idea how Rayo de Jalisco & Huracan Ramirez and MVP & Jeff Jarrett are supposed to work together to have a competent match. Mistico and Sam Adonis don’t have greatly convergent styles either but at least they may have worked against each other by this point.  Everyone’s leaning into the Mexico/US thing hard but there’s got be something there when the match actually takes place.

A show I (and maybe you) are not going to watch isn’t really that important, but it is super curious Jeff Jarrett is working this show. Revolucha has worked with The Crash before and maybe they’re getting him in thru them, but no Crash regulars are working this show. (Guevera and 450/Mecha Wolf show up there form time to time and Zumbi worked the DF show, but they’re not exactly Garza.) The Crash guys couldn’t work that show without losing Mistico – except, Jarrett works with all those guys CMLL doesn’t work with, so it’s surprising CMLL would be cool with this. And it’s surprising Jarrett is working in Mexico for a promotion that’s not specifically one of his two Mexican partners. It would seem like this is going to be a giant headache for the promoters, all for Jeff Jarrett to do the lesser version of the same act that Sam Adonis is going to do at probably a higher expense. Promotion lucha libre shows seems hard enough already without trying to up the difficulty level like this.