AAA announces Lucha Capital Facebook Watch tournament, Caristico/Rush

CMLL (MON) 10/29/2018 Arena Puebla [CMLL, Lucha Central]
1) Espíritu Maligno & Joker b Astro & Meyer LA MEJOR LUCHA LIBRE EN VIVO DESDE LA ARENA PUEBLA 29 DE OCTUBRE DE 2018 (posted by VideosOficialesCMLL)
Rudos took 1/3.
2) Millenium & Robin b Espanto Jr. & Fuerza Chicana LA MEJOR LUCHA LIBRE EN VIVO DESDE LA ARENA PUEBLA 29 DE OCTUBRE DE 2018 (posted by VideosOficialesCMLL)
tecnicos took 1/3
3) Esfinge, Kráneo, Stigma b El Malayo, Hechicero, Templario LA MEJOR LUCHA LIBRE EN VIVO DESDE LA ARENA PUEBLA 29 DE OCTUBRE DE 2018 (posted by VideosOficialesCMLL)
Tecnicos took 2/3.
4) Cuatrero, Forastero, Sansón b Flyer, Stuka Jr., Valiente LA MEJOR LUCHA LIBRE EN VIVO DESDE LA ARENA PUEBLA 29 DE OCTUBRE DE 2018 (posted by VideosOficialesCMLL)
NGD took 2/3.
5) La Bestia Del Ring, Mistico, Rush DQ Carístico, Diamante Azul, Último Guerrero [Relevos IncreíblesLA MEJOR LUCHA LIBRE EN VIVO DESDE LA ARENA PUEBLA 29 DE OCTUBRE DE 2018 (posted by VideosOficialesCMLL)
Tecnicos took 2/3. Rush fouled Caristico for the DQ.

Show sounded like it’s was nothing special. The feud appears switched to Rush/Caristico. Local news did a story on usual regular video story on Tigre Rojo Jr.

CMLL isn’t the interesting story today, so let’s hurry thru their show tonight: NGD take on Titan, Valiente and Niebla Roja, which seems to be setting up Cuatrero & Titan. Nothing else really pops out as good, with “who’s replacing Stukita in the opener” as the only big question on the show.  The show start at 7:30 pm local, but that’s an hour later than usual if you haven’t changed your clocks yet.

Lucha Capital

AAA and Facebook announced today Lucha Capital, a new show exclusively for Facebook Watch. The show begins tomorrow and runs every Wednesday until December 19th. This is not just extra AAA matches, it’s an actual deal with Facebook. The announcement for the show came from a Facebook studio.

Lucha Capital will air at 8:30 pm CT on Facebook Watch.  The matches will be live from Pinche Gringo BBQ in Mexico City. Tickets are free for the first show are free, with details on other weeks to come. You will be able to watch the show later if you can not watch it live.

24 wrestlers were announced for the tournament, representing different groups.

AAA: Psycho Clown, La Hiedra, Lady Shani, Nino Hamburguesa, Pagano, Murder Clown, Mascarita Sagrada, Maximo, Hijo del Vikingo, Vanilla
Lucha Libre Elite: Keyra, Lady Maravilla, Laredo Kid, Golden Magic, Puma King
Impact Wrestling: Scarlett Bordeaux, Fenix, Pentagon, Taya
Lucha Underground: Drago, Aerostar, Texano Jr.
MAD: Killer Kross, Australian Suicide, Taurus

Scarlett was in Record’s article on this tournament, but not mentioned in AAA’s press release. This tournament makes more sense with 24 people, but something happened thereUPDATE: Scarlett is in the tournament after all.

There are some people being moved into odd groups. It makes for at least 3 people in each group, but I’m not clear on Taurus being in MAD and it’s odd to see Pentagon & Fenix as Impact reps. Taya is the big surprise. She’s confirmed she’s back for this. It’s unclear if she’s back for more than this, but things have changed in the year and a half since she left AAA. Dorian Roldan mentioned wanting to bring Taya (& Sexy Star) back to AAA earlier, though I don’t think happens unless Konnan is involved. Vampiro was the person who announced Taya was back on the Facebook stream, hinting at the issues but not going into it.

The tournament structure is, uh, complex. They mention “3 points for winning”, but there’s no difference between points and wins, so I’m going to do my best to explain just in wins.

Weeks 1-3 (10/31-11/14) “Etapa Like”: everyone gets a match. There will be four matches each week.

Weeks 4-6 (11/21-12/05) “Etapa Follower”: everyone gets a second match. There will be four matches each week. If you’ve won both of your matches, you advance all the way to the 12/19 final. If you’ve won one match, you move onto next week’s play-in. If you’ve lost both, I guess you’re done.

Week 7 (12/12) “Etapa Fan”: those people with just one win will get a final chance to get a win and advance to the final. They’re planning on having five matches on this show.

Week 8 (12/19) “Gran Final”: four three-way matches, leading to two semi-final singles and one 1v1 final.

Simpler: Everyone gets a couple matches to determine seeding. The top 12 will advance to a one-night tournament. It’s going to be really hard to figure a top 12 with just 2 matches, so they planned a tiebreaker week. You’ll get at least 3 matches from most everyone in the field and AAA will run more 1v1 matches in this tournament than they have on TV tapings this entire year. This is also an AAA tournament, so there’s a pretty good chance things will change or not make sense by the end.

People who watch live will also be able to vote for their favorite luchadors, and the person who gets the most likes will get a medal. The winner of the tournament gets some prize that’ll never be mentioned again, just like the similar tournament they did on Fox Sports back in 2010. The prizes don’t really matter as much as the matches, which look like they could be good but we’ll have to see how it comes across after the first week to know.

Vampiro & Jose Manuel Guillen will be announcers. Vampiro is not good at announcing, seemed to get rattled by social media feedback on his bad announcing during previous live shows, and this is a show where part of the job is reacting to live Facebook comments. It’s probably not going to go well.

The show begins tomorrow. Host la Griega announced these matches

  • Psycho Clown vs Murder Clown
  • Taurus vs Pagano
  • Puma King vs Pentagon Jr.
  • Vanilla vs La Hiedra

I’m not really sure how Puma works in this tournament since he’s starting in DDT on 11/30; I don’t like his odds. I suspect the other first-round women’s matches are Keyra/Maravilla and Shani/Taya.

Other News

Blue Demon Jr. has been quietly added to the 11/16 AAA show in Colombia. Oddly, they updated the poster and Black Danger and Ultimo Maldito are not Kahoz & Espectro.

LA Park wrote on Twitter that he has nothing against AAA, Dorian Roldan, and Marisela Pena – he’s leaving on good terms, which means he’ll probably be back sooner than later.

Puma King will face MJF on the 11/10 MLW show near Chicago.

The documentary on Lucha VaVoom is now available on iTunes.

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

The new +LuchaTV En+Cardados podcast is up. They’re at 96, and I might be able to spell the podcast name correctly by episode 100.

Lineup

CMLL (SUN) 11/04/2018 Arena México
1) Angelito & Fantasy vs Mercurio & Pequeño Violencia
2) Astral, Eléctrico, Súper Astro Jr. vs Hijo del Signo, Metálico, Yago
3) Black Panther, Drone, Tritón vs Disturbio, Tiger, Virus
4) Rey Cometa vs Dragón Rojo Jr. [lightning]
5) Ángel de Oro, Niebla Roja, Valiente vs Dark Magic, Euforia, Negro Casas
6) Carístico, Diamante Azul, Místico vs Euforia, Gran Guerrero, Último Guerrero

They seemed to set up Rey Bucanero/Niebla Roja, and this card isn’t even that exciting. This might stream for Dia de Muertos but there’s no real reason to watch it.