Hechicero stays champ, Pagano suffers rib injury

CMLL (FRI) 12/29/2017 Arena Coliseo Guadalajara [Arena Coliseo Guadalajara]
1) Black Sugar & Tigre Blanco b Carlo Roggi & Mr. Apolo
2) Joker, Nautilius, Sádico b Rielero, Star Black, Vaquero Jr.
changed from an atomicos (no Esfinge & Rey Trueno), challenges followed for a mask and title match.
3) El Gallito & Microman b Mije & Perico Zakarías
money thrown in
4) El Alteño L Tritón, Explosivo, Neutrón, Omar Brunetti, Príncipe Kisho, Frezzer, Mr. Trueno, Maléfico, León Blanco [cage, hair, mask]
Order of escape: Explosivo, Malefico, Triton, Mr. Tureno, Omar Brunetti, Neutron, Leon Blanco, Principe Kisho, leaving Alteno & Frezzer. Alteno lost to Freezer.

I’m not sure I have that main event result right; the match result takes a right turn to mention “Alejandro Fernandez” as a pop culture reference and I don’t know which guy that is. I did look up Alteno’s facebook and it matches the guy shown getting his head shaved, and I should feel fortunate to get Guadalajara results. I probably will spend some time in the next week going thru all the shows where we got video of a Tuesday GDL match but never actually results.

CMLL (SAT) 12/30/2017 Arena Coliseo [CMLL]
1) Acero & Aéreo b Pequeño Universo 2000 & Pequeño Violencia
2) Astral, Príncipe Diamante, Starman DQ Grako, Hijo del Signo, Inquisidor
Signo’s first match unmasked. Tecnicos took 2/3, Signo fouling Starman.
3) Felino, Pólvora, Rey Bucanero b Guerrero Maya Jr., Rey Cometa, Tritón
Rudos took 2/3
4) Hechicero © b Blue Panther Jr. [NWA LH]
4th defense. Coyote & The Panther were seconds. Hechicero took falls 1/3 to retain.
5) Marco Corleone, Niebla Roja, Volador Jr. b Gran Guerrero, Kráneo, Pierroth
tecnicos took 1/3 to win the last CMLL match of 2017

Hechicero is still champ, so 2017 wasn’t completely terrible.

Today (Sunday) is a quite day. Many of the Sunday shows are moved to Monday this year for New Years, but not as many as last week. A lot of places seem to be taking a weekend off and aiming more for next weekend’s Dia de los Reyes celebrations.

Notable shows

• CMLL has Sin Piedad, the Sam Adonis versus Negro Casas hair match. I suspect Adonis is going to keep winning, but it’s not a sure bet. Like last week’s show, there are other matches but nothing else notable. If this show draws well, and it seems like it might, it’ll all be because of that apuesta match.CMLL’s show will air at the early time of 5pm. It’ll be on ClaroSports as a Friday show. I’m not sure if I’ll be around for this one live.
• The usual Arena Puebla show is on, with a Mephisto/Caristico main event, but it’s not expected to be taped. We’ll be lucky to get results.
• IWRG has a “every match in a cage” show, which includes an Ovett/Chico Che hair match.
• DTU is in Arena Aficion
• AAA has events in Arena Lopez Mateos and Arena Xalapa
• Arena San Juan has a unique Bandido vs Niebla Roja main event, plus Sagrado vs Golden Magic.

It’s probably not happening Monday, but the Guerra de Titanes lineup should be out at any time next week, and we’re expecting to get the FantasticaMania lineups on Friday.

Microman translated Volador Jr.’s post show interview from Friday, where he seems grudgingly open to facing Caristico in an apuesta match for the Anniversary show but clearly still doesn’t like him any more (and CMLL probably can’t get a finish out of that.)

Atlantis was advertised for a show in Veracruz and did make the show, but did not wrestle. I have trouble making out what he’s saying, there’s a lot of noise in the clip, but it does sound like he’s planning to be back in 2018.

AuburnPub has a nice story of Marco Corleone, as local New York state guy who ended up living a crazy life.

Pagano suffered a fractured rib in Torreon last night. It was a spot gone very wrong with Murder Clown, which they’re now turning into a storyline on Twitter. A fractured rib usually takes about four weeks to heal, which means Pagano would be pushing it to be make it back for Guerra de Titanes. AAA hasn’t said anything specific up with Pagano – maybe something with Mr. Aguila – so it wouldn’t disrupt things if he had to sit it out, and they may announce him for a match in hopes he’ll be fine by the time the show rolls around.

MedioTiempo has an interview with Murder Clown, who explains his brother got him into trying wrestling as way to get in shape for a college basketball team tryout. He caught the bug and debuted in 2004. I don’t think we’ve ever figured out what his pre-Killer Clown gimmick was, which is odd because it’s not like many guys his size were wrestling in Mexico.

AAA’s TV show this week is pretty much “the best of 2017 that wasn’t TripleMania.” The women’s match which airs is Ayako/Shani, not Ayako/Taya. I thought they could be showing the World Cup one of these weeks, but they showed the two minute highlight package version from earlier this year, so perhaps not. Maybe it’ll be the earthquake benefit show instead.

Saturday night in AAW, Matt Riddle was announced as getting a title shot on their January 20th. (They announced it before the main event, causing me to be sure Jeff Cobb was going to take the title from Rey Fenix to do the Riddle/Cobb match again. It was very sneaky.) Matt Riddle, who has a rep for double booking himself, is currently scheduled to be on the The Crash show on Tijuana. I know AAW was aware of the The Crash booking before they made that announcement. I’m told the The Crash knows Riddle is booked in AAW. Riddle hasn’t talked about this, but my assumption is Riddle is working AAW (where he works frequently) and not Tijuana. I think we’ll just be lucky if The Crash actually announced a change ahead of time, because that’s not been their deal.

WXW announced Rey Fenix & Penta el Zero M were pulled from their March 9-11 shows because hey’re going to be working Lucha Underground instead. That’s unfortunate. Most shows for February and March don’t seem to be announced but there’s probably other sorts of reshuffling going on behind the scenes to accommodate LU’s schedule. On some level, Fenix & Penta probably wouldn’t be getting these sort of bookings without LU – they’d be deserving, but not enough people would be aware of them without an English language outlet to make it worth WXW’s time – but it’s hard to take LU’s side when they’re doing the minimal amount to promote these guys.

Probably worth of more note is Jeff Cobb is announced for the same tournament and hasn’t been pulled. Cobb (Matanza) has been one of the wrestlers most known to be unhappy with his current Lucha Underground situation. LU’s talked about letting unhappy people go as long as they come back to be written out. Maybe this is an indication that’s been agreed upon with Cobb, or maybe nothing’s been agreed upon at all.

LuchaWorld has the latest news update and this week’s Poster-Mania.

Black Terry Jr. has highlights from his trip to Japan.

The Gladiatores has an interview with Sombra Vengadora.

nothing more about lucha libre past this point, just general malarkey 

This wraps up the fourteen year of luchablog, with about ten years of daily updates. Thank you for reading.

If you follow on Twitter too, thanks for putting up with my increasingly cranky and antagonistic posts. I’m aware it’s happening, it’s not a great look, but I can’t seem to stop myself. And thanks to people like Rob and Freddy and Jose and plenty of others for tolerating me personally when I’m being useless and won’t just eat the free post show tacos, and for pushing me to do things I’d never do on my own. What you get here doesn’t really give you a true idea of what kind of nonsense person I am in reality. I’m probably a bit over dramatic (and it’s about to get a lot worse), but there’s are people who went out of their way to make my life easier, and I’m not good at letting them know how much I appreciate it. I really do appreciate it.

There are some things I have to struggle with on my own. With all respect to everyone else, I feel like luchablog is the best place site on Mexican wrestling that exists. I also feel like that means I’m a tiny spec, it’s not nearly enough, not good enough, that there should be some next level I should be getting that I have no idea how to even understand, let alone reach. I feel like I should be doing someTHING, be part of something more, but I don’t know if that more even exists, or if I really should be doing something less. And it’s entirely possible these are just issues with the rest of my life that are just bleeding into this.

Lucha libre is a niche of a niche of a niche, so there’s only so much people will ever care, and lucha libre (and wrestling itself) often seems to repel people against caring. Maybe this is as far as it can be taken, and maybe I should learn to be more content with what I’ve accomplished and what I’m doing. There’s just this nagging part of me I can’t quiet, that says doing this as it is forever is not enough, that I wouldn’t accept the lack of growth in others and I shouldn’t accept it from me. I don’t know. If I had answers, I’d write them. This year, I’m certain I don’t have the answers.

Here’s what I do know: I’ll be back tomorrow with a new update, and a recap if I have time for it. And the day after that, and for a long time to come. And I’m definitely not looking for people saying nice things about me in the comments or on Twitter. I appreciate any thoughts along those lines if when I refuse to acknowledge them, but I’m not looking for those with this. I think I need to work on trying some different things in 2018. If I do, and if they’re any good, save the praise for that.

There’s is one actual announcement. I’m bringing back the Tapatia awards. I’m not going to mention it on Twitter until it’s ready to go, but voting will be open in the next couple of days and be open long enough to let you (or me, mostly me) finish catching up on 2018. They’re going to be stripped down, with less categories and less depth, because I don’t want it to be intimidating. Awards get attention, more attention for lucha libre is good, so this is one of those things I feel like something has to do. And I think that’s the thing you can continue to expect in 2018: if there’s something worth doing about lucha libre that no one else is doing, you can count on me throwing myself at it.