After two weeks of big singles matches, tonight’s a bit more of a traditional CMLL card. Except for the skeleton ninja in the main event.
Penta el Zero M makes his Arena Mexico on this show, teaming with Los Ingobernables Rush & Terrible to take on Caristico, Valiente, and Volador. Penta versus Caristico is the rivalry, though the story seems as much about everyone versus Caristico. He can’t really trust his partners since Volador attacked him for pretty much no reason last week. It should make for a good atmosphere for the main event, though maybe not the of matches.
Also maybe not the best of matches is the semimain, where Guerreros Laguneros takes on Ciber the Main Man, Scharly Rock Star, and The Chris. The Klan Kaos members had terrible names and worse wrestling performances last week. They were largely saved from a negative spotlight by Penta showing up and their match being forgotten in the aftermath. It would seem like they’d need to be much better against the Guerreros, as the ex-AAA luchadors are more capable of brawling than basing at this point in their careers, but they’d have to be a lot better just to be good. It’s not clear it matters – next week’s Atlantis tribute show is likely to also be a poor match and that’s not stopping CMLL from running it. It probably matters more if CMLL believes fans will turn out for these guys or care about their matches, and that’s harder to determine.
Flyer, Soberano, and Atlantis face NGD in the fourth match. The third match has Puma, Tiger and Virus taking on Triton, Esfinge and Guerrero Maya (since Titan is busy elsewhere.) The opening two matches are for completists only – an average women’s match and the unwelcome surprise of Apocalispis & Inquisidor making it into a Friday night opener. The middle matches may be good but this doesn’t look to have the peaks of the last few shows.
The show will air on Marca and Facebook at 8:30pm. Neither feed is geoblocked today.
Titan & Dragon Lee will be wrestling on the King of Indies show. You can buy it on FITE.TV for $10, and it starts around 10pm. I suspect Titan is going out in the first round against Flip Gordon, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Dragon Lee wrestled 2-3 matches tonight before a match versus Takahashi tomorrow.
Vice has an interview with Microman, Angelito, Microangel and Chamuel about wrestling and politics.
Yesterday, Wrestling Standard reported Rey Mysterio had signed a two-year deal with WWE, and would start “As early as” the Tuesday after SummerSlam (August 1st.) Wrestling Standard is not known as a big source of information. This story was unexpectedly led credence by All In announcing Kazuchika Okada versus Marty Scurll for their show. Judging from Twitter reaction, plenty of Twitter wrestling people had been under the belief Okada/Mysterio was happening on that show, and saw Scurll in the match as a sign Rey really had signed. Later in the night, Dave Meltzer said the Wrestling Standard story was not true at this moment, but may eventually be true.
Here’s what we can be sure of with Rey Mysterio
- Mysterio is eventually going to sign a deal to return to WWE.
- WWE is reluctant to offer exactly what Mysterio wants, or this deal would be done already.
- Mysterio’s greatest leverage is the All In show, which WWE doesn’t want him to be on.
Wrestling Standard probably is going to be right eventually, if they’re not right now – if WWE wants Rey in to not work All In, they’d need him in by August. Rey’s not on the upcoming The Crash July show, and he might not be around by the August one. He’s probably not going to be available for TripleMania, where he might have been Alberto’s opponent.
Lucha Libre Expo (Las Vegas) made a couple of announcements. They had previously said their 08/31 show will be headlined by Rey Mysterio, Penta el Zero M, and Rey Mysterio against Juventud Guerrera, Nicho el Millionario and Super Crazy. They announced their 09/01 show as being LA Park & Psycho Clown vs Hijo del Fantasma & Texano Jr., with the idea that – over the two shows – you’ll see the person who lost their mask at TripleMania wrestle unmasked in the US for the first time. They’re also announcing Drago, Aerostar, Maximo, La Mascara, Pagano, Lady Maravilla, Keira, Chik Tormenta, Aeroboy, Hijo de LA Park, Demus, Black Danger and Destino Negro (Black Boy) for the show.
However, they’ve also announced that the CMLL wrestlers – Rush, Negro Casas, Polvora, Felino, Puma, and Tiger – are now off the show. They would’ve worked the Saturday show, but CMLL said they couldn’t work the entire expo because of other people who were booked, even before the AAA show was set. This is disappointing for the Expo and also a reminder of what is and is not actually going on in lucha libre. CMLL is open to using some indie wrestlers, as long as they’re not wrestling in AAA at the time. AAA is open to using indie wrestlers, and don’t seem to care all that much where else they’re working. CMLL still is not working with AAA, is not working with people who are wrestling on AAA, and is not working with other people they’re angry for a variety of random reasons.
FWIW, my hunch is WWE might still let Rey appear/wrestle at Lucha Libre Expo if they did sign him. All In is just another animal.
Kylie Rae has been added to the DTU August tour. DTU’s also listing about five different surprise dates.
LuchaWorld has the latest Lucha Report.
+LuchaTV has a new edition of Aqui esta la Lucha.