lucha TV preview for weekend of September 21th, 2018

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I did this post last week. It never got posted. It’s still in my drafts, but the chart got updated.

As the afternoon goes on, I’m less certain The Crash will be streaming and so I haven’t even put in on the list. Roberto Figueroa, the lead announcer for the last stream, does not appear to be in Tijuana. Do not plan your Friday around watching that show.

The two AAA TV airings are now two weeks apart. (This happens a few weeks ago when the Gala/Canal9 show aired a Best of TripleMania show instead of a new episode.) Space gets the second half of Veracruz, while the main show gets the second half of Aguascalientes.

The YouTube channel was doing a catch up last week, but I think this means the episode in between is the one going up this week. Should I just be listing what’s new on YouTube rather than what’s on TV? More people watch AAA on TV than on YouTube or Twitch but I don’t know if any of those people read this site. I’m writing previews most of the streams anyway, and I’m not sure if this weekly post has a purpose.

Lucha Underground says there’s #1 contenders match; the title seems to be a suggestion of the people involved. Jake Strong in a handicap match seems something likely to be infuriating. The preview also says Ivelisse and XO Lishus find a new partner, so either Joey Ryan is being killed off really quick (no) or the preview wasn’t quite sure what stuff aired to this point.

CMLL, AAA & The Crash (?) all streaming tonight, Hechicero to PWG

tonight

Tonight is an insanely busy night of lucha libre. AAA, CMLL, and The Crash are all running streaming events tonight. It’s possible all three will be overlap; AAA and CMLL will mostly, with the Crash starting a couple hours later on in the Pacific Time zone. None of it is a must-see show or has a huge match, but all seem to have something worth watching. It might be a good night for whatever the 2018 equivalent is for channel flipping.

CMLL’s back to normal after last week’s Aniversario show. The big winners, Barbaro Cavernario & Rush, are back for the main event. The losers, Volador & Matt Taven, are not. The main event has Atlantis, Diamante Azul and King Phoenix taking on Cavernario, Rush and Terrible, in Terrible’s first Friday main event since returning from injury. This match should give us some more Cavernario/Fenix, and might establish where the caveman fits in with Los Ingobernables back at full strength.

Mistico and Negro Casas meet in a special lightning match. Surprisingly, this is only the second time they’ve had a singles match. Mistico won about three years ago on a Sunday show, in a match not a lot of people saw. Casas is best in singles matches under ten minutes, so this lightning match set up will work well for him.

Cl4n and Guerreros are back at in the fourth match. Esfinge, Triton and Stuka Jr. face Sanson, Cuatrero and Rey Bucanero in a trios match of two trios missing their third man. The Panthers team with Fuego to take on Okumura, Virus, and Kawato in a match I always think will be better than it usually ends up being. Magnus & Star Jr., who seems to have been dropped a bit on lineups of late, team up in the opener against Akuma & Espanto Jr.

This show will start at 8:30pm on Marca and Facebook. I will be trying to stream this on YouTube (and so this is the show you’re most likely to get a writeup of tonight.)

Lucha Central has a preview of the show.

Reporte Indigo talked to Barbaro Cavernario about how managed to get an accounting degree while being a professional wrestler. Cavernario actually went to school in Guadalajara, and he’d spend that very long bus ride between Mexico City to Guadalajara (and back) doing his homework. He’d schedule his classes so he could spend all of Monday and Tuesday at school (from 7 to 10AM) so he could be free other days. Cavernario says there’d be times where he’d wrestle on Sunday, jump on the 10AM bus back to Guadalajara, get home at 5AM, shower, eat breakfast, and go right to class.

Kaho Kobayashi will be out three months with an injury, so she will not coming to Mexico in October as planned.

CMLL starts a look back at the Gran Prix with the 1994 version.

AAA is back after a week off with another AAA versus ELITE show. This is actually the third one; Elite won the streamed show in Mexico City and also a non-streamed version in Tijuana. It’s probably about time to for AAA to actually get a win, though the show itself doesn’t look too compelling. There’s good people on the show but not arranged in interesting matches.

The main event is a case of that issue: Fantasma, Psycho Clown and LA Park have been interesting matches, but Electro Shock is also there to weigh it down. The semi-main has a possibly fun team of Hijo de LA Park, Taurus and Laredo Kid, but they’re stuck with an odd AAA unit of Joe Lider, Pagano, and La Parka.

AAA somehow has two teams in the tercera, both Rey Escorpion & Texano and Mamba & Maximo against the one strange team of Golden Magic and the returning Hijo del Dr. Wagner Jr.  The younger has not been seen on AAA TV the concept of the father/son Wagner feud was dropped back in April. That feud being dropped seemed like a reason why Rey Wagner was leaving AAA back at Verano de Escandalo. Rey Wagner seems very much in AAA now, possibly because he’s getting two apuesta matches in the next twelve months, but maybe something else has happened positively with his son.

Aerostar, Argenis and Nino Hamburguesa face Emperador Azteca, Ciclon Ramirez and Demus in the second match. These are the AAA debuts for Demus & Emperador. The opener might be the best match of the show: the unlikely AAA team of Faby Apache, La Hiedra and Lady Shani taking on the Elite steam of Keyra, Lady Maravilla and Starfire. Starfire hasn’t been seen much, and maybe needs to pick up a win to justify being in the Heroes Inmortales title match.

AAA is saying this show will start at 9pm CT on Twitch, which probably means the first match is starting more around 9:15 or 9:30. It’ll go up on AAA’s YouTube page a couple months from now.

Lucha Central has a preview of the show.

La Parka talked about how much better Mexican wrestling is than US wrestling, which follows him being booed at the taping. Parka says the reaction to the match between him and Eli Drake would’ve been more positive to him at an AAA show, which is certainly true. But it’s not like these were really Impact fans who didn’t know who Parka was – these were Mexican wrestling fans who know Parka and reacted honestly. La Parka says he wouldn’t want to go to wrestle in the US full time for his family but would open to doing it for 2 or 3 months.

Faby Apache, Murder Clown and Dave the Clown talk being luchadors for Dia de Lucha Libre/Luchadors.

Dr. Wagner Jr. said things about Jeff Jarrett. I can see the point of this feud but also I have zero interest in it.

The Crash has a surprisingly quick turnaround from their last show, two weeks ago. The Crash said they’re streaming everything on Facebook going forward. It’s The Crash, and it’s lucha libre, so that may not actually happen that way. The show did stay on Facebook last time and streamed relatively well.

The main event is a meeting between Gilbert el Boricua and Mecha Wolf 450, a feud of Puerto Rican wrestlers who feuded in Puerto Rico and have had some interactions here. The semi-main might still be the bigger match, since it has Penta & Caristico teaming agianst Daga & Volador, four of the bigger names. I think they’ve got the card set up this way to try and make Mecha Wolf a star when they need their own guys to be star, but the reactions will be interesting.

Also possibly interesting: if Volador shows up, since he hasn’t been seen since losing his hair match. He missed his bookings both on Monday and Tuesday. What we know about the Crash is they wouldn’t say in advance if he’s missing the show, but they did remove Fenix from the opening video so maybe that’s something to look for. Last show’s tag match between these four guys wasn’t very good, but I think the teams work better this week. Like Mecha Wolf, this is a big show for Daga to come off as a star against Penta & Caristico.

The middle matches here might be the matches anywhere tonight. Bandido & Flamita team with Rey Horus against Templario, Niebla Roja and Angel de Oro. Bandido’s brought up the idea of making Rey Horus the third Mexablood member, and maybe something happens along those lines tonight. Horus has been a big part of The Crash but always seems to be left out of their groups. Meanwhile, Templario has been great in CMLL and this is one of his more high profile matches out of it, getting a higher spot than he would in his home promotion. He and Bandido should match up fantastically tonight.

Soberano Jr. faces ACH in a match which looks good on paper. Tessa Blanchard doesn’t have to wrestle a luchadora tonight. Instead, she’ll be opposite recent DTU guest Miranda Alize in a trios match with Kody Lane, Torito Negro, B-Boy and Lil Cholo. Everyone who ever worked Lucha Underground is going to end up working at least one show for The Crash. The opener has Zarco, Starboy and Vietno against Silver Star, Demencia and Animal in a match that’ll have many spots and hopefully hit most of them.

The Crash lists 10:30pm CT on their poster. That seemed to mean an actual start around 11:00pm CT last time around; their opener should be getting started just about the time CMLL is finishing up. Again, they’ve sad last time that all shows would stream on The Crash’s Facebook but I have no confidence about them and they haven’t specifically said it today. If you don’t want to stay up to find out, it should be available on VOD later.

Lucha Central also previews this show.

PWG in Los Angeles on 10/19 has these lucha libre related matches

  • Puma King vs Rey Horus vs Flamita
  • Rey Fenix vs Bandido
  • Hechicero vs Zach Sabre Jr.

Those should all be pretty good matches, but it’s the last that sticks out the most. Hechicero & Sabre was a match that Lucha Memes teased as happening a couple times but was not put together. Sabre’s cut way back on his indie matches as he’s worked more with NJPW, so even a date like this in PWG is pretty rare and he wouldn’t be facing Hechicero unless he specifically wanted to face him.

Hechicero appeared in ROH a couple years ago but hasn’t appeared on US indies. This is a big opportunity for a guy CMLL obviously believes is good but doesn’t really do a lot with. That description also fits Puma King, who has since left CMLL, and Hechicero showing up here has people wondering if the same thing has occurred or will occur. From what I’ve been told, that is not the case – Hechicero is still in with CMLL and there are no plans for him to leave that promotion. Things can always change – I don’t think Puma thought he was leaving CMLL when he worked that first show for Powerbomb.TV – but do not read to strongly into this.

Rey Mysterio signing with WWE has been expected for months. WWE still hasn’t made it officially official, but PW Insider reported a few days ago that Mysterio had signed for a two year day (where Rey can get out six months early if he wants.) Multimediamouth talked to AroLucha, where Rey was being billed as the key figure in the promotion. The CEO Jason Brown says their (non-exclusive) wrestling contract with Rey expires at the end of the year and they were not caught off guard by him going to WWE, but that Rey will still be involved with the company and retain his ownership share. AroLucha says they’ll continue building their company. Their company has run six shows, only one since February and has not announced plans for a next show after their funding run completes. I’m guessing they’re waiting to see if the footage they’ve taped already will get them a TV deal.

An odd match this weekend is Penta going to Arena Aficion to face local luchador, Eskimal Junior. An interview with Eskimal sheds no light on why this match is happening, though he does note he’s quite the underdog.

The Mexico City lucha libre commission will hold a service fair at their offices on 10/02. They’ll be signing luchadors up for health insurance among other programs.

Fuego Latino took Venom’s mask in Ciudad Victoria on Friday. This Venom is Marcos Zuniga Ramirez, 44 years old, 14 years a wrestler.

Puma King & Barby’s latest video has his debuts in PWG and Impact.

Ray Richard says he’s retiring at the end of this year.

+LuchaTV has an interview with Aqui Esta La Lucha.

Lineups

indy (SUN) 09/30/2018 Mambocafe Insurgentes, Cuauhtémoc, Distrito Federal
1) Máscarita Sagrada & Mini Rey Misterio vs Pentagoncito & Piratita Morgan
2) Estrellita & Lady Apache vs Luna Mágica & Rossy Moreno
3) Dragón Dorado & Hijo De Octagon vs ? & Imposible
4) Solar I, Súper Astro, Villano III vs Máscara Año 2000, Pirata Morgan, Romano García
5) Blue Panther, Fuerza Guerrera, Negro Casas vs Carístico, Mano Negra, Octagón

Full card for the Fuerza Guerrera 40th Anniversary show. I respect Fuerza for his cranikness but I would respect him more if he was cranky enough to refuse to book Octagon and his “kids” on his own show.

como estaz 5×9: bandit

Rob and I can’t seem to find time to do a podcast when we’re actually in the same place, so the episode count remains reset and we instead use Hangouts to talk about the CMLL Aniversario show and PWG’s Battle of Los Angeles. One of these things was excellent. One was just above average. I bet you know which one is which but I’m going to keep up the mystery for the purpose of filling out this intro.

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This is the longest podcast we’ve done in some time but I think the pace and the information was pretty good. Last rambling than usual! Thanks for listening.