Titan/Mephisto tonight, MDA, 02/16 The Crash, Mundo, Vangellys

MDA (SUN) 01/21/2018 Arena Coliseo Monterrey [LuchaMania Monterrey]
1) Black Rider b Babe Fox, Rey Pantera
2) Greco Baez & Makabre DQ Galactar & Quinto Elemento
Furor attacked the tecnicos, upset he wasn’t booked in the same match with his partner Greco. They both attacked Quinto Elemento.
3) Dos Caras Sr. & Toscano b Furor & Vazco Jr.
Dos Caras beat Jessy with a campana. Galactar attacked Dos Caras & Toscano and formed a group with Furor & Vazco.
4) Xtreme Tiger b Laredo Kid [APWA LIGHT]
Tiger submitted laredo to an armbar. The Furor/Galactar/Vasco group attacked Laredo & Tiger, wtih Greco Baez & Toscano making the save.
5) Apolo & Juventud Guerrera b Hijo De Dos Caras & Hijo del Dr. Wagner Jr.
Juvy beat Dos.
6) Alberto el Patrón & Último Dragón b Rey Wagner & Zorro 
Alberto & Wagner brawled around the building. They were in the middle of doing rematch challenges when four mystery people in masks came in, attacked them both, then attacked everyone who tried to make a save. Alberto was put thru a table. The mystery people were revealed to be Konnan, Juventued Guerrera, Sexy Star and Kevin Kross, calling themselves “MAD”. Alberto and Wagner recovered enough to run MAD out of the ring.

+LuchaTV posted highlights of the MDA main event and the big post-match angle with remarkable swiftness. The post match fight had a lot more physicality than I thought. There’s also an interview with Konnan introducing his new faction. and a secret meeting of Konnan recruiting others.

These MDA shows have generally just be matches to have matches, the main event angle and the stuff with Furor & Galactar seem out of character for them, which suggests someone must be putting new ideas in. Konnan mentioned on Twitter that his big project will be ready in a few months, which I presume means he’s not the person behind who scripted this bit (though it’s Konnan, so I’m sure he was unafraid to give his thoughts on how to do it.) I recall Zorro mentioning he left AAA in part because of a behind the scenes role he was promised but never given – maybe he found one here? It’s a shot in the dark.

If they’re going to get this over outside of Monterrey, MDA really needed people to see it quickly so I suspect they did what they needed to do to get it covered quickly. It does stick out that those clips up went up right away while they were also posting a Generacion 21 show from two weekends ago.

Sexy Dulce talks about switching from the tecnica side to the ruda side. She’s never really was a tecnica anywhere but in her mind but ok. The LuchaMania Monterrey recap notes she was booed heavily the moment she unmasked.

CMLL (MON) 01/22/2018 Arena Puebla [@arena_puebla]
1) Hijo de Centella Roja & Meyer b Policeman & Sombra Diabólika 
Tecnicos took 1/3.
2) El Malayo, Fuerza Chicana, Perverso b Arkalis, Black Tiger, Tigre Rojo Jr. 
Tecnicos took 1
3) Amapola & Reyna Isis b Lady Maravilla & Princesa Sugehit 
Rudas took 2/3.
4) Ephesto, Luciferno, Tiger b Esfinge, Rey Cometa, Tritón 
Rudo took 2/3.
5) Diamante Azul, Stuka Jr., Titán b Hechicero, Johnny Idol, Sam Adonis 
tecnicos took 1/3
6) Rey Bucanero, Terrible, Vangellys b Carístico, Kráneo, Valiente [Relevos Increíbles] 
TGR (which may not be TGR any more) took 1/3, Terrible beating Caristico by pulling of his mask.

The big news of this show might be an injury. CMLL reported Vangellys suffered a right knee injury catching Valiente’s tope and the fear is he ruptured his patella ligament. They’re looking more at it today. That would be surgery and a long recovery if it’s as bad as it sounds.

I half paid attention to the matches and nothing really stuck out. Adonis is back after missing the weekend. Isis did submit Sugehit, which might mean something but probably will mean nothing.

Mephisto defends the CMLL Welterweight Championship tonight against Titan in Arena Mexico. When this title match came up last week, one reason a title change seemed unlikely is CMLL had so many tecnicos singles champions already. Now they have one less, with Angel de Oro losing his to Cuatrero. I still think Titan is a long shot. He’s got a good history as a long shot, and should make the match interesting whatever the outcome.

This is last night of the split crews, with FantasticaMania 19 luchadors due back soon. Without them, the main event is Guerrero Maya, Stuka and Marco against Niebla, Rey Bucanero and Pierroth. Esfinge, Rey Cometa and Triton again form a trio, this time against a team that’s scheduled to be Hechicero, Polvora and Vangellys. Someone else will obviously replace Vangellys if there’s anything at all to his injury. The bottom half of the card includes Stukita in the minis match and a women’s match. The show will air on YouTube at 7:30pm as normal.

Guadalajara has Terrible versus Diamante Azul tonight. Will Diamante win a singles match? If he loses this non-title one to follow the other two he’s lost recently, it’s going to be a trend. (But if he wins the non-title one, does that means he’s not winning the title on Friday? You can tie yourself into so many knots.)

CMLL’s article on Mr. Niebla & Atlantis winning the incredible pairs tournament mentions this year’s tournament will specifically February 2nd, 9th, and 16th – that means this is the upcoming Friday show is the last ‘normal’ one for a few weeks.

SuperLuchas pointed out a NJPW sit down with Sofia Alonso, talking about FantasticaMania. The most interesting part is she believes CMLL has the talent to do these sort of tours in the US or Europe, but they’d need a partner promotion and a relationship as strong as they have with NJPW.

The Dragon Lee & Titan face the Young Bucks and the Best Friends on this week’s ROH TV, which is now up on Fite. It’s the main event of the show and is a fun watch.

FITE also has a March 2017 show from Omega Lucha in Texas, with a Black Taurus & Hijo del Espector vs Blue Demon Jr. & Dr. Wagner Jr. main event.

The Crash announced the main event of their 02/16 Tijuana show will be Rey Mysterio, Fenix and Penta versus Extreme Tiger, Rey Horuz, and CIMA. They’ve also added Daga & Masada vs Violento Jack & Aeroboy in a TLC match. Those matches, especially the main event, are a really good draw and should be good matches. They also work with the idea the Rebelion Amarilla won’t be allowed to work on the shows because of their suspension; the Crash can get by without them with those matches. It’s too bad The Crash won’t release the video of these shows, as that match would have a lot of interest from people who aren’t going to be in Tijuana on that day.

The Crash says Bestia 666 & Black Danger will be meeting with the Tijuana lucha libre commission about their suspension today. This is a very serious thing, which is why they’ve released a graphic promoting it. I’m thinking the best thing that can come out of this bit is the suspension only applies to the Rebelion Amarilla so they just come up with a new name and there’s no longer two factions using the same name with a different color scheme.

AAA posted an interview with Johnny Mundo to hype his title match Friday (and to reassure everyone that he would actually be in Mexico.) Mundo accuses Wagner of ripping off his style and not actually being a doctor, and of Vampiro not actually being a vampire but only sucking down cupcakes and milkshakes. Those are hard accusations. Vampiro was scheduled to respond on Zona Ruda last night. It really didn’t click with me until yesterday that Friday’s going to be another CMLL/AAA head to head deal.

Rey de Reyes tickets are on sale in Puebla. No matches are announced and the poster is an unspecific picture of regular AAA stars. Hernandez is pictured but Mundo is not for what it’s worth. Prices, with fees, runs from 104 to 1550MXP (5.50 up to 82.50USD).

Vampiro says he’s returning to wrestling full time. Earlier, he said he was 90% sure he was going to move to Guadalajara. He has been living in Thunder Bay and running his school and flying in for stretches to work for AAA so this would at least mean he’d be in Mexico. I think returning to wrestling full time might mean he’s just concentrated on it instead, not that he’s going to be necessarily going to be wrestling a whole bunch.

Turn Latin America executive five president was talking about upcoming content for their channels with ttvnews when Ultima Caida came up. That’s the wrestling themed show that was/is being filmed with help from AAA that’s come up before. The lead character is going to be an aspiring second generation luchador who’s father may have issues with his son going into the business. Here, it’s said the plan is for that TV character (or the gimmick he ends up with) to actually become an onscreen AAA luchador at some point. The show will air sometime in the last third of the year, so we won’t see anything about this for some time.

AAA actually did this bit once before. They released a cartoon movie back in 2009, where the character of Lasser Boy was introduced as La Parka’s young brother. Lasser Boy became an AAA wrestler in 2010, but only appeared a couple of times on TV before disappearing entirely. (It’s one of the great unexplained AAA stories.) Maybe that’s where the idea for doing this again came up. It might also explain why AAA’s continuing to do a talent search, since they’ve got to find the right person for this role and might have already made plans for the guys they brought in last year.

AAA/Junior Promotions show in San Luis Potosi on Wednesday had a main event rudo side listed as Joe Lider, Mr. Aguila, and a mystery Perros del Mal member. La Orquesta’s El Monjado column says the mystery Perros del Mal member turned out to be Kahn-Del-Mal wrestling. Kahn had been announced as seconding the Perros, not wrestling, and isn’t a trained luchador. The column notes Juniors has pulled this sort of thing before – years ago, they did a bit where Perro Jr. claimed he beat up Cibernetico in the lockerroom and that’s why he wasn’t going to wrestle on the show when Cibernetico simply wasn’t there – but there’s no real recourse because the same people who run Juniors are also in charge of the local lucha libre commission.

For it’s part, AAA’s been advertising mystery Perros del Mal members on house shows around Mexico. It happened earlier this month in Xalapa, where they used a local wrestler in that spot. Listing in multiple places suggests this is what AAA is ending to the local promotions, not a bit they’re doing on their own. It’s unclear if AAA is actively doing this as a bit, or if they had planned to bring in an old Perros del Mal guy (Halloween?) and it fell thru and they just didn’t bother to change the lineups. Either way, they should be sending someone in that spot and they’re not.

Alberto’s Luchando por Ellos show did not go off with a hitch. In a press release, he accuses Héctor García, the subdirector of sports in the Cuauhtemoc delegation of Mexico City, of causing trouble for his show. Garcia and his group were going to run the logistics of the ticket taking and such, and were promised 50 tickets in exchange. A few days before the show, they demanded 250. Alberto told him it’s a charity show, he wants to sell those tickets for charity, so he wasn’t going to give them away. Garcia and his people pulled out and Alberto and his family and friends had to manage the tickets and logistics themselves. Alberto also Garcia accuses of messing with traffic locally to prevent people from getting to the show, and that Garcia convinced boxer Barbie Juarez not to come when she was going to donate money. I wish Alberto was more credible because him being someone with nothing to lose going after government officials would be fun.

RIOT revealed Sammy Guevera would be on their mystery show on 02/03 because Sammy revealed it already. The article mentions Sammy’s millennial habit of pouring the milk in the bowl first before the cereal. I am a cereal first person, but I tried this just to see if there were innovations in the cheap breakfast field that I had been missing out on. I found it was hard to determine exactly how much milk I needed to pour in without the cereal as a guide, and the cereal was not the proper amount of squishness with the milk poured through it. I would not try it again. This is more important than whatever I’m writing in the next paragraph.

Master Fly lost his mask to Rocco in Arena 2 de Junio.

Ciclope & Miedo Extremo debut in Chicago’s GALLI promotion this Sunday.

LuchaWorld has the latest Lucha Update and this week’s Poster-Mania.

LuchaSorpresa writes about all four shows of FantasticaMania.

Lineups

CMLL (SUN) 01/28/2018 Arena Coliseo Guadalajara
1) El Yaqui & Javier Cruz Jr. vs Carlo Roggi & Mr. Apolo
2) Principe Daniel & Tigre Blanco vs Demonio Maya & Thunder Boy
3) Joker vs Sádico [lightning]
4) Black Sugar, Magnum, Neutrón vs Difunto, Gran Kenut, León Blanco
5) Frezzer, Furia Roja, Guerrero de la Muerte vs El Chakal, Maléfico, Nautilius

A rudo vs rudo main event with more rudos feuding (and also the Tigre Blanco & Thunder Boy.)

CMLL (SUN) 01/28/2018 Arena México
1) Acero & Aéreo vs Mercurio & Pequeño Nitro
2) Magnus, Oro Jr., Príncipe Diamante vs Hijo del Signo, Metálico, Templario
3) Lady Maravilla, Marcela, Princesa Sugehit vs Dalys, La Seductora, Zeuxis
4) Blue Panther, Blue Panther Jr., The Panther vs Johnny Idol, Okumura, Sam Adonis
5) Carístico, Dragón Lee, Valiente vs Cavernario, Mr. Niebla, Último Guerrero

The Axis of Evil is back together and back against the Panthers. The tecnicos are going to fight over who gets to with Metalico.