CMLL (MON) 01/07/2019 Arena Puebla [CMLL]
1) Black Tiger & Sombra Diabólika b Ares & Guerrero Espacial 
Team Black Tiger took 1/3.
2) Astral, King Jaguar, Príncipe Diamante b El Malayo, Fuerza Chicana, Joker
Tecnicos took 2/3.
3) Gallego, Mr. Cóndor, Rocky Santana DQ Súper Muñeco, Súper Pinocho, Súper Ratón
Perverso was oddly listed on the rudo team, but regular Diabolico Mr. Condor appeared after all. Diabolicos were DQed in the first fall for excessive violence, lost the second, then won the third when Tirantes DQ Super Muneco for a foul that did not appear to be one. Rematch was set up.
4) Ephesto, Felino, Mephisto b Niebla Roja, Stigma, Stuka Jr.
Stigma replaced Kraneo (moved up). Rudos took 1/3.
5) La Bestia Del Ring, Rush, Vangellys b Hechicero, Kráneo, Valiente [Relevos Increíbles]
Kraneo replaced Diamante Azul (injured, never should’ve been advertised). Rush fouled Kraneo in the first for a DQ, Hechicero betrayed the tecnicos in the second. The rudos won the third and left the tecnicos unmasked.
This show sounds bad, but everyone assumed it would be. The main event might have been worse than expectations. Vangellys got along with the guys who spent many months mocking him and taking his hair, what a forgiving world war 2 enthusiast.
Tonight might be the best CMLL card for some time. CMLL’s loaded up the Arena Mexico card with those wrestlers how are headed over to Japan, which means Friday night star power on a Tuesday night. Dragon Lee, Mistico and Rush team up against NGD, for the first time ever in Arena Mexico, as tonight’s main event. Caristico, Soberano and Volador versus Gran Guerrero, Ultimo Guerrero and Terrible is also a unique match and has Volador & Carisitco on the same side before they face off for a couple weeks. Angel de Oro versus Templario seems like it could be pretty fun.
The question about all these matches is if the effort level will be there, or if everyone will be taking it a little bit easy to make sure they don’t get hurt right before they go on a lucrative trip. The answer to that question has varied from wrestler to wrestler in the past. If they’re trying. all three of those matches should be good.
Audaz, Flyer, and Titan are in the bottom half of the card, teaming against Kawato, Okumura and Virus (who all are not going.) The women’s match includes new champion Metalica and rarely seen Skadi. Coyote & Grako have another streaming match – it’s their sixth in about a month – facing Bengala & Sonic in what should be a solid opener.
The show starts at 7:30 pm and will air on YouTube.
AAA had a media event today. There really wasn’t much to stay about it. This was not the big year preview AAA’s held the last two years. The big announcement about the TripleMania event didn’t happen. No announcement happened: there is still no lineup for any upcoming AAA TV show, and no announced timeline of when they might come. Instead, this was a simple media event to get the dates for the Mexico City taping (01/19) and the Impact in Mexico (this Friday & Saturday.) The best I can figure is AAA decided to not hype their matches until Impact held their show since AAA seems to be helping out with the Impact show at least to a small degree. I’m not sure, but it’s going to leave not much time to hype that first TV taping.
It did leave Lady Shani, Poder del Norte, Texano Jr., and Dave the Clown with not much to talk about. They did say all of those people would be on the Mexico City show and talked up the Pepsi Center WTC as the new AAA Mexico City home. They said the usual platitudes about trying to be even better in 2019 and avenging their losses.
In addition to Pivotshare, RIOT is also now available on the Highspots Wrestling Network as part of their $9.99 subscription.
Lucha Underground has a sit-down interview with Fenix. These would be more effective if they were airing before this recent season or leading into something specifically, they’d get people excited if there was something to be excited for.
LuchaWorld has the latest news update.
+LuchaTV has a new episode of their YouTubecast.