CMLL (FRI) 03/15/2019 Arena México [CMLL, ESTO, Estrellas del Ring, Heraldo de Mexico, Lucha Central, Marca, Ovaciones, R de Rudo, Record, Superluchas, The Gladiatores]
Homenaje a Dos Leyendas 2019 (Salvador Lutteroth & Blue Demon)
1) Hijo del Villano III, Pólvora, Vangellys b Audaz, Esfinge, Tritón 
10:58. Rudos took 2/3. Audaz replaced Titan (moved up) on 02/27.
2) Átomo, El Gallito, Microman b Chamuel, Mije, Zacarias el Perico
14:03. Tecnicos took 1/3. Money thrown in.
3) Diamante Azul, Soberano Jr., Titán b Ephesto, Mephisto, Templario
8:02. Straight falls, great match. Diamante Azul & Titan replaced Caristico & Dragon Lee (moved up) on 2/27.
4) Cuatrero, Forastero, Sansón b Bárbaro Cavernario, Gilbert el Boricua, Negro Casas
16:35. NGD took 2/3 in Negro Casas’ return from injury.
5) Euforia, Gran Guerrero, Último Guerrero © b Carístico, Dragón Lee, Volador Jr. [CMLL TRIOS]
17:16. 2nd defense. King Phoenix & Penta were pulled from the show on 02/27, replaced by Dragon Lee & Caristico to keep an international stars theme. Guerreros took 1/3 to keep the titles. Money thrown in (and not all cleaned up; coins were very visible on the mat during the main event.)
6) Ángel de Oro & Niebla Roja b La Bestia Del Ring & Terrible [hair]
21:03. Los Ingobernables were DQed for excessive violence in the first, then took the second fall. In the third, Bestia beat Niebla, Angel de Oro beat Bestia, Terrible suffered a shoulder injury, and Angel de Oro beat Terrible to take both the rudos hair.
CMLL promos: Los Ingobernables, the Chavez family, the Blue Demon Family & Sofia Alonso, Los Guerreros Laguneros, NGD, Soberano, Diamante Azul & Titan, the micro tecnicos, and Hijo del Villano III, Polvora and Vangellys.
Pressroom interviews: Chavez Brothers (Box Y Lucha, +LuchaTV), Los Ingobernables (Box Y Lucha, +LuchaTV), Los Guerrero (Box Y Lucha, +LuchaTV), Blue Demon’s son Alejandro Munzo (+LuchaTV), who makes a point of saying there will only be on Blue Demon when asked if a new wrestler will take on the name.
I haven’t posted my recap yet – there are enough other ones up there that you should be covered for the moment. The quicker version was the undercard was generally low level good stuff, better than an average Friday if not feeling like a big match. The title match was one of the better possible version of a match seen a lot. The main event was not the best possible version of that match, probably one of the lesser ones. Terrible’s right shoulder is messed up catching a tope just when they started the final 1v1 sequence. It led to about 40 seconds of panic and then a finish to get out of there. Bestia and Terrible got their hair cut in front of the fans, and their hair buzzed off later backstage.
Maybe the takeaway from the show as the loud negative reaction the Blue Demon ceremony. Sofia Alonso, Tenoch Huerta, and Alejandro Munoz were part of a presentation that was heavily booed live. (Thru the magic of editing, you could make out a few whistles but it just seemed like a weirdly dead crowd on video. This might be a reason the show wasn’t up as quick as originally promised.) My guess is the fan who is coming to Arena Mexico sees the luchador Blue Demon Jr. as the rightful heir to the legacy and were negative about a ceremony that didn’t include him or acknowledge his existence. The Arena Mexico crowd also seems a bit entitled, buying tickets for big shows seemingly just to show up and boo whatever the company is presenting. Arena Mexico appeared to be close to full, which is a big (but depressing) achievement given the card. It didn’t seem like an indication the crowd was really into Angel de Oro & Niebla Roja, since they were loudly booed during the main event. It is people showing up for the sake of showing up.
CMLL’s internet presentation of the show was a disaster, but a disaster in a more familiar way than October’s streaming issues. Putting the pieces together after the fact, CMLL appears to have decided by Wednesday (and probably earlier) that they were not going to stream the show live to keep fans from Mexico who didn’t buy a ticket from seeing it. Julio Cesar Rivera mentioned on CMLL Informa that fans in the US would be able to see the show, but no one understood what it meant. CMLL did not explain what they were doing until about an hour before the show, where a series of Tweets and a Facebook post explained the show would be airing live on Nuestra Vision (a digital-only channel available on a few scattered affiliates) live in the US, posted on YouTube at midnight (did not happen at the time), air on Televisa today and stream on Marca on Tuesday. Nuestra Vision is owned by the same people as Marca, so the most optimistic way of thinking about is CMLL trying to get around the issues they’ve had with internet.tv by trying a different platform. Just, the platform they picked was available to so few people that they might as well have not even bothered. (If you did see the show on Nuestra Vision, I’d be really interested in hearing what it was like.) Keeping everything quiet until the last minute did not help CMLL make any more money and just annoyed everyone, but that is consistent with CMLL’s strategy – and really most Mexican wrestling companies. They remain terrible at dealing with the public they’re trying to sell towards.
The show is up on YouTube now so this really hardly matters anymore for now. But keep in mind this weirdness with Homenaje a Dos Leyendas when Aniversario comes up in September. If they avoid talking about the streaming situation on Monday/Tuesday of that week, just assume the most unhelpful possible outcome is happening and you won’t be able to see the show until the next day.
CMLL announced the Incredible Pairs tournament is happening in April this year. No specific dates were announced. I would like to bet on Atlantis & Villano 4 being a team.
Rush defeated Bandido last night in Ring of Honor in a match of two men who had been undefeated to that point. This launched Rush into a feud with Dalton Castle. Castle has been doing a losing streak and had been teasing a turn as a result, all of which seemed to be dropped in favor of a Rush/Castle match at MSG. You can already tell that there are going to be too many matches on that show and things are going to have to be cut for time; Rush/Castle seems like a good bet for that. I could see them actually matching up well but it doesn’t seem like a big priority.
Rey de Reyes is tonight in Puebla. It’s a 9:30 pm ish start for me – this page will help for you given the weird Daylight Savings Time issues – but the big point is it’ll probably be a late night, given AAA usually runs at least 3 hours for big shows. It’ll stream on Twitch in both Spanish and Vampiro Speak. I wrote a lot of words on this show on this show for Voices of Wrestling. The one big change from that is we’ve gone from “maybe the Young Bucks will be there” to “oh, either they’re at the Mexico City airport or someone is really good at photoshop“. It does solve the mystery of why AAA is headling the show with a tag match – there’s a good chance the Jacksons are walking away with the tag belts. AAA hasn’t even strongly hinted they’ll be there. AEW definitely wants their wrestlers to only appear by surprise at this point in time, but the promotions they’ve been running in are trying to fill buildings in the hundreds, and generally sold out already and so can try some ticket selling for creating a moment that might get those same people to come back next month. AAA is trying to sell a building in the thousands, and to people who are probably not going to another AAA show this year because AAA doesn’t run that many tapings in Puebla. The people AAA are selling the moment to are the people on the internet. If those people don’t know it’s happening until after it is all behind a Twitch paywall, it doesn’t do AAA much good. If this is AEW & AAA using each other to make both of them a bigger thing together, great deal. If this is AAA marking out to do a surprise Young Bucks appearance on their show in a way that doesn’t really benefit them, not as great a deal. We’ll see.
The rest of the show looks so good that the main event doesn’t even really need to hit to make it a worthwhile show. Big Mami & Nino Hamburguesa don’t fit the product AAA seems to want to go with, but AAA can’t possibly get rid of them because they’re so great at what they do and they get over every time. The women’s match will have big spots and usually is pretty good. The Reyes de Reyes will probably be better than last night’s title match, if only because there are some fresher names involved. The Perros del Mal/Poder de Norte match is a sleeper because there’s no reason for it to exist, but the people involved should make that one fun too.
AAA has a history of Rey de Reyes video package.
Blue Demon says he’s better than ever right now. Blue Demon is at a comic convention in Mexico City this weekend, which maybe is why he isn’t on this show. Given how much time AAA has focused on Wagner & Demon, the main event of this year’s TripleMania, it probably should be a big deal that they’re not on the card tonight. It literally didn’t occur to me until this paragraph. To some significant event, AAA sells itself as AAA and the individual people involved do not make a huge difference. They do make a differenc,e we’ve seen what happens if enough of the important once vanish, but AAA is AAA.
A couple of indie shows last night:
Lucha Libre Real (FRI) 03/15/2019 Arena Azteca Budokan, Ciudad Nezahualcóyotl, Estado de México [+LuchaTV, Estrellas del RIng]
1) Chris Stone Jr., Redentor, Syrus b Baby Camaleón, Príncipe Deka, Sombra Azteca 
2) Reina Dorada & Rossy Moreno b Baronessa & Espia Maya
3) Akuma b Samoano & Tonga
2 vs 1 but Akuma won anyway. Halcon 78 Jr. made the save for Akuma after the match.
4) Metaleón, Mr. Leo, Tiger b Hijo de Canis Lupus, Troyano, Último Gladiador
Hijo de Canis Lupus replaced Eterno
5) Aero Boy & Súper Crazy b Black Taurus (Indie) & Dragón Bane
6) Fresero Jr. & Mr. Iguana b Cuervo & Dark Scoria © [Lucha Libre Real TAG]
These shows have been turning up in full on +LuchaTV. Fresero & Iguana have been a rare indie team that’s caught on with indie programmers. That feud in the third is politically weird: CMLL guy feuding with two fringe AAA guys, and setting up a CMLL/AAA team. No one probably cares.
Sanchez , Invasion Indy (FRI) 03/15/2019 Arena Neza [+LuchaTV, Estrellas del Ring]
1) Karma I, Karma II, Máscara Oriental b Hantar, Kronoz, Misterik
2) Motocross, Punker Bizarro, Rey Caballero b Chico del Barrio, Chilango, Pachuco
3) Arlequín Negro, Liderk, Spector b Flama Roja, La Roca, Toro Negro Jr.
win via foul, setting up a rematch on 03/24
4) Cerebro Negro, Dr. Cerebro, Neza Kid b Herodes, Sangre Chicana Jr., Warrior Jr.
good match. Sangre Chicana and Herodes Jr. invited Warrior Jr. to join their junior group
5) Hijo de Pirata Morgan & Juventud Guerrera b Flamita & Golden Magic
Golden Magic & Flamita aren’t working well together and Flamita unmasked Golden Magic at the end of the match.
6) Penta Zero M & Rey Fénix (Indie) b Hijo de LA Park & Volador Jr.
Lucha Brothers won. Volador wanted another fall, didn’t get it, so he and Park unmasked Penta & Fenix.
Not a lot of people seemed to care about this one; lights are very low in the photos but it seemed less than half full and reports are down on the main event. Had no idea a Flamita/Golden Magic feud was going on.
The Arena Mexicali promoter is indefinitely suspended. It reads as though they got caught using an unlicensed wrestler and ran an unapproved extreme match.
The King Rey Mysterio (who says he’s a nephew of Rey Sr.) claims someone is extorting him with photos him unmasked.
Musashi appears to have returned Michinoku Pro, after about 10 months in Mexico.
Konnan Big is a stand-up comedian now.
Lineup
CMLL (FRI) 03/22/2019 Arena México
1) Star Jr. & Stigma vs El Coyote & Grako
2) Kaho Kobayashi, Marcela, Mystique vs Amapola, Dalys, Reyna Isis
3) Audaz, Flyer, Stuka Jr. vs Kawato San, Pólvora, Vangellys
4) Cavernario vs Forastero [lightning]
5) Ángel de Oro, Niebla Roja, Titán vs La Bestia Del Ring, Mr. Niebla, Terrible
6) Carístico, Diamante Azul, Volador Jr. vs Euforia, Gran Guerrero, Último Guerrero
Back to normal isn’t a big leap when the big show wasn’t that big. Main event is close to a rematch of the title match, with Diamante Azul stepping in for Dragon Lee. The feuding teams meet in the semi-main and will be overshadowed by Friday night Mr. Niebla. Forastero can try to beat Cavernario two straight weeks.