CMLL New Year’s Day show, GALLI

CMLL tomorrow

Not much news today. I don’t see any IWRG results from any of the usual sources; I think +Lucha might have decided to take a deserved weekend off. There are no shows tonight because of New Year’s Eve. You’d think lots of social drinking and lucha libre would be an obvious mix. Maybe next year.

There are interesting things coming, they’re just a little away. NJPW has announced the FantasticaMania lineups on January 6 in recent years. That’d mean seeing them around 11 pm CT Saturday night. AAA has a year-opening press conference next Monday morning. They’ve done it a few years in a row now, so I guess it’s a tradition to hear about big (possible) plans for the rest of the world and a TripleMania main event (which may no longer be Park/Wagner.) AAA will probably reveal the lineup for at least the Mexico City AAA TV taping and maybe more. AAA is airing this year’s TripleMania in the Wednesday Lucha Capital timeslot this week. I think AAA would like to go back to running Lucha Capital the following Wednesday if a Facebook deal can be done, and that might be an announcement as part of next Monday’s press conference.

There’s a couple CMLL shows before those announcements. CMLL is not streaming tonight. They will stream tomorrow at the holiday 5 pm start time with some curiosities. Akuma & Camorra are widely expected to lose to Yago & Hijo del Signo in the rudos apuesta match. The Akuma/Signo preview match was not good, and none of the other matches were positive. The recent low water mark for these January apuesta matches was the Soberano & Star Jr. versus Cholo & Ramstein from Three King’s Day 2015, where Ramstein appeared to have no business being in the ring (either due to injury or other reasons), the match went atrociously poor, and Ramstein wrestled once more to show his face before disappearing from CMLL forever. I suspect that is what will happen again here – Camorra seems to have friends in the right places to get a hair match payoff that benefits no one but himself, but might just vanish after – but the concerning thing is most of the people in that really 2015 match are higher regarded than those in the 2019 one. It is CMLL, so there will be plenty of chances for other disasters, but this could be one of the best matches of the year.

The top matches could be better. Caristico and Penta got generally strong reviews for their match on Friday. The match on Tuesday won’t have many surprises but should still get a great reaction. Caristico and Ultimo Guerrero have had less Arena Mexico singles match than you’d expect – this will be the 7th, including 1 for Elite – for two guys who were among the biggest names in Caristico’s defining years. Caristico has won all the matches but one (a semi-final in a Universal tournament where Caristico crashed and burned on a dive), though it feels like Guerrero is the favorite in 2019.

There are high hopes for Dragon Lee, King Phoenix and Penta versus Cuatrero, Forastero, and Templario as well. The rest of the card has Hijo del Villano and Hijo de LA Park part of the fourth match, a women’s trios match and an opener that might be better than the apuesta match. The show starts at 5 pm on Tuesday and it should air on YouTube; no sign of a last-minute iPPV this time around.

Puebla has Volador/Sanson. Guadalajara has Terrible scheduled to defend his title against Diamante Azul, but no one’s quite sure what will happen.

Arena San Juan has the MexaWrestling vs Lucha Memes show with Flamita/Horuz & Audaz, Caristico and Dragon Bane vs Aramis, Arkangel Divino, and Toxin. Naucalpan has an all cage match show. I’m not sure if either will live, but both figure to turn up on +LuchaTV eventually. There are AAA staffed shows in Arena Lopez Mateos and Arena Neza.

The next news post won’t be until late Monday, if not Tuesday.

I was at the first show at the New Arena GALLI in Melrose Park, which turns out to be a cut-out area in an indoor soccer facility. (Lucha Libre shows and indoor soccer buildings seem to go hand and hand.) The area they were in was a little tight and seemed smaller than the space they had at the since-closed Villa Park location. I wonder if they might move it around to a different part of the building in the future. They filled the area they had, with Bandido being the popular outside attraction for the night.

I filmed the Bandido vs DJZ vs Isais Velasquez vs Gringo Loco main event. The match was pretty good. They switched it from a tag match, probably to set up the finish they were doing, and money was thrown in after the fact. It’s likely a better version will turn up at some point: there were at least seven different cameras filming the show in some official capacity. I only recognized Wrestling with Unicorns, someone else was filming the show with a drone.

The post-match talked about a four-way cage match; I haven’t been around GALLI since the Rey Fenix/Aeroboy match so I was a little bit lost. GALLI explained it on Facebook: on 01/20 it’ll be Aero Boy vs Gringo Loco vs Bandolero vs Skayde Jr., mask on the hair on the line in the cage, though it’s actually promoter Carlos Galli’s hair instead of Gringo Loco. Rey Fenix will be back on the show, though he’s not listed on the poster yet.

MLW announced they’ve signed Gringo Loco to a contract, following him appearing on their Cicero and Miami tapings. MLW deals tend not to be exclusives, just the first right to book if there’s a conflicting date, so he’ll probably be around on other shows as well.

Puma King celebrated the new year in Japan; he’s still around DDT for a while longer. He posted a message that seemed to sum up his year: “The only thing you can not recover is time. It’s better to repent for what you did than to live thinking of what you could’ve done.” This seems like solid advice I should take if only I had any of idea of what I to do. I’m jealous of those who figured it out.

Today concludes the 15th year of writing this site. I started in 2003 after doing writing about CMLL TV for a couple of years prior. It became this daily maniac thing around 2006 and has become a distressingly large portion of my life since. I made a point to take some days off this year. Having accidental days off, where I wrote but it didn’t get posted for WordPress weirdness, and having no one seemingly notice made it clearer that the whole enterprise as is not as vital as I like to imagine it is. Relaxing and taking an easier route is something I’ve had a hard time grasping so far; maybe next year.

Thanks for reading. I hope you all have gotten something out of the site. In a very tiny niche, I get a lot of attention for writing something that almost no one actually reads and some benefits from it. I also get to be an anonymous weirdo most of the time, and that’s something I’m pretty comfortable being. I do not know what 2019 will bring, but I hope this site will continue to be worth your time.

(I will be deleting any praise in the comments. Get out of here with that.)

Tijuana’s EMW (AAA allied) says their next show is February 1st.

Interviews with Pachuca’s Pumara, Guerrera Isis and Poetico.

Lineups

CMLL (SAT) 01/05/2019 Arena Coliseo
1) Bengala & Leono vs Apocalipsis & Inquisidor
2) Estrellita, La Maligna, Sanely vs Amapola, La Comandante, La Seductora
3) Black Panther, Blue Panther Jr., Drone vs Nitro, Tiger, Universo 2000 Jr.
4) Flyer vs Pólvora [lightning]
5) Ángel de Oro, Guerrero Maya Jr., Soberano Jr. vs Ephesto, Felino, Hechicero
6) Atlantis, Carístico, Valiente vs Euforia, Gran Guerrero, Último Guerrero

Diamante Azul nowhere to be found (and Carisitco working a lot of shows) suggests he’s really missing more than a weekend of shows. The Fantastica Mania shows are going to be interesting but I’m not sure what it’ll look like back in CMLL during those two weeks.

9 thoughts to “CMLL New Year’s Day show, GALLI”

  1. Thanks for what you do! I don’t think I’m the only one that notices when you don’t have a post, but I know you deserve a break whenever you want. Your sites are vital and I would not enjoy nearly as much wrestling as I do without your work. Wait. Is that good or bad?

  2. I’m definitely another person who notices when you don’t post, so thanks for another great year!

  3. I know you’ll delete this, but as somebody who had only the faintest familiarity with lucha libre before Lucha Underground started, reading your articles has gotten me following AAA and CMLL regularly, and enjoying the heck out of it. Thanks for your hard work, it IS appreciated!

  4. Cubs you suck, but i love this site – now you cannot delete this ;) I love this site, check it often and even go back through old stuff (yes I know, if I could get it diagnosed as a medical condition I could do a fund raiser).

    Your obsession is also my obsession, I’ve actually contemplated taking Spanish lessons since in browser translators are not always helpful.

  5. Thank you for everything that you do. I have been following you for years and appreciate all your hard work and dedication to the lucha libre scene. First time posting but it’s been long overdue. I always wonder how you are, how the hell do you get all your info, and how do you find time to write?!?! Anyways Dios te bendiga amigo y Feliz ano nuevo. Saludos de Orange, California.

  6. Thank you for your years of service, and congrats on 15 years.

    This site has always been a staple for me on the internet for news, vids, and useful resource for info,

    It was a staple for me most during my college years and kept me sane during the chaos of my life.

    Thank you for everything.

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