Arena Mexico has Volador versus Ultimo Guerrero tonight. It’s a match that feels repeated, but CMLL does space it out for Arena Mexico viewers. They’ve done it exactly one a year in this arena for the last five years. The last was Volador winning the Universal tournament last year, and Volador’s won all the recent match-ups. The bigger problem is both have lots of singles matches on their own and wrestle about the same match every time out, so a match between them is the most predictable possible CMLL match. It’ll work for the live crowd but it doesn’t seem exciting if you’ve seen a lot of them.
Rush, Terrible, Cavernario team up with to face Atlantis, Valiente and Diamante Azul in the semi-main. That has the tag team champs togehter but mostly is notable because Cavernario is teaming with Los Ingobernables on a show where Besita del Ring is booked. Bestia teams with the Guerreros instead against Volcano, Kraneo and Stuka. The best match may be the tercera, with Soberano, Flyer, and Audaz taking Dragon Rojo, Templario, and Polvora. Amapola, Reina Isis, and Metalica fight Marcela, Lluvia, and La Jarochita. I had to look this up and I’m not sure why: this is the first time Marcela is wrestling on a Friday night and Dalys is not. Robin & Super Astro Jr. versus Coyote & Grako opens the show and fits in the category of “Possibly Good.”
The CMLL show will stream on Marca and Facebook. Neither seems region-blocked at the moment. I’ll also be streaming on YouTube. Lucha Central has a preview of the show.
CMLL must announce tonight that the Universal tournament starts next week, or they can’t fit in 2018. CMLL has skipped years with every other tournament. It was only a matter of time before they didn’t get around to running this one too.
Caristico says he’ll be able to return to the ring starting Monday in Puebla.
El Grafico has an interview with Avispa Dorada, who says she was surprised to debut in CMLL so soon. She believes it helped that she’s a woman 100% dedicated to lucha libre and there are not as many women doing that.
There was a sponsored show (Pepsi/Squirt) last night in Arena Mexico. The main event was Terrible, Rush and Cavernario took on Diamante Azul, Volador and Hechicero, who must’ve been a fill-in for Caristico.
With Guerra de Titanes just happening, it seemed like a good idea to check in on Konnan’s Keepin It 100. Konnan thought some things worked and something didn’t. He, like Fenix and Laredo Kid, was caught off guard by the negative reaction to Fenix talking about his injury. He thought the Drago/Fantasma match was very and the crowd just didn’t react as well because they were burnt out by the extreme match before it. He thought trios title match was great and Laredo, Vikingo, and Myzteziz are going to be future stars.
The Latin America tryouts came up. Konnan thinks highly Dragon Bane, Keyra and Lady Maravilla (none of the other names came up) as people who are definitely going to make it big. He also thinks none of them are ready for WWE, since they don’t speak English and don’t work WWE style. He also warned them that WWE would offer them “peanuts” if they signed now, instead of building up a name like Fenix, Penta, Bandido, and others have done. But, they’re young and wanted to have the experience, so Konnan told them to do it – and said they’re all under AAA contract, so WWE can’t take them right now anyway. Konnan emphasized how important it was to have people under contract with so many companies looking to find talent. Everyone agrees with that, but the reaction I got when I mentioned the idea of AAA contracts was mostly disbelief they really existed.
Konnan also mentioned AAA and Twitch have agreed to a deal for 2019, AAA and Facebook are talking about a deal for more Lucha Capital, there are plans to a tour of Colombia instead of just one show, and – as always! – there are more things going on but AAA’s not ready to talk about them yet.
Puma King checks in from Japan on his latest video.
The Gladiatores has a 50-minute interview with Toscano. The title says he’d like to have a retirement match in Arena Mexico.
LuchaWorld has the latest news update.
Canek does not like extreme wrestling.
An interview with Pachuca’s Pepe the grasshopper.
Lineups
CMLL (TUE) 12/11/2018 Arena México
1) Bengala & Leono vs El Coyote & Grako
2) La Jarochita, Princesa Sugehit, Sanely vs La Comandante, Metálica, Reyna Isis
3) Guerrero Maya Jr., Pegasso, Star Jr. vs Kawato San, Tiger, Virus
4) Drone vs Okumura [lightning]
5) Black Panther, Blue Panther, Blue Panther Jr. vs Ephesto, Luciferno, Mephisto
6) Atlantis, Diamante Azul, Stuka Jr. vs Cavernario, Euforia, Terrible
CMLL is overdue a new feud here, but they might just be marking time until running random stuff for the holidays. Panthers vs Infiernos is usually good. Kawato, Tiger, Virus, and Okumura should form a group for all the times they team with each other.