Octagon defeats AAA, Metalico staying retired, Memes/PALL

Octagon won the rights to continue using the name Octagon as a luchador in a legal fight that reached Mexico’s Supreme Court. Octagon had won twice in lower courts only for AAA to continue to appeal. The Supreme Court didn’t make a ruling themselves, they instead simply rejected AAA’s final appeal unanimously. This is the end of a four-year battle, starting from the moment Octagon left AAA. AAA does not appear to have been successful in their long-running lawsuits – both this one and the El Hijo del Santo one come to mind – but have shown a willingness to drag them out as long as possible. AAA has said nothing about the decision or the court case all along, as typical for them. Octagon has retweeted articles about the decision on Twitter but said no more.

There were two arguments in favor of Octagon keeping use of his name. I’m not sure which one applied, or if both. Octagon was Octagon in EMLL, prior to AAA’s existence. It was likely developed by Antonio Pena, but it wouldn’t seem to necessarily transfer to AAA when it was created in another company. (This is different from a Fenix or a La Parka, who didn’t use those names until AAA.) The second argument is lucha libre characters are not simply just a name and an outfit, but more the work the luchadors themselves put into it over years, and a wrestler who has personified a character for many years should have ownership of it for developing it. That was the case the Kraneo/Ripper/Morphosis group tried years ago, and it seemed to end with no resolution (and Psicosis & Histeria ending up back in AAA after all that.) This positive outcome for Octagon would seem to have a benefit for wrestlers like Cibernetico and Zorro, who used those names before coming to AAA and also inhabited the characters for many years. This appears to set the precedent that they’ll be able to use those names, and not The Chris and Ciber the Main Man if CMLL or anyone else with TV wants to use them again. Though AAA may try to fight it legally because that’s what they like to do.

AAA’s case was mostly centered around the idea that they filed for the copyright first and so they should have ownership. There had been conflicting stories on if Octagon himself signed off on it. Either way, it doesn’t matter now and he’ll continue to use the name Octagon.

El Planchitas says La Parka’s sons – the kid who was attacked by Hijo del Fatansma on a couple of AAA shows earlier this year and later said to be years away from wrestling – will actually be debuting in the ring on a June 22nd AAA spot show. He won’t be wrestling as Hijo de La Parka – the article sidesteps what his name will exactly be – and he’ll be a rudo because he’s shown more aptitude for that so far. The same column mentions there was no issues between Octagon and Dragon Dorado/Legendario(/Vengador Radioactivo/Maximus), the younger wrestlers just wanted to go on his own. Legendario was primarily teaming with Octagon & Octagon Jr. or wrestling in undercard matches when they were booked, and going on his own might gave him a chance to be more than the third guy in an occasional traveling group.

Metalico took part in the usual Wednesday CMLL interviews, insisting he’s retired. He said people argued losing a retirement match in CMLL could still allow him to wrestle on the indies, but he feels wouldn’t be a man of his word if he did so and someone who compromised his principles. Metalico was booked for the Arena Rey Bucanero show on this past Saturday, something that was announced before the retirement match but did not wrestle. It is an odd situation because this is the most popular Metalico has ever been, probably most in demand he’s been as a luchador, and yet he’s done and he has to be done. Metalico said he’s teaching Olympic wrestling at Rey Bucanero’s school on Thursdays and Saturdays and would like to open a school entirely dedicated to that style of wrestling if he had a bit more money. He has an upcoming meeting with CMLL officials and will talk to them about being a trainer at CMLL’s school. Someone – thank you whoever did – asked Metalico if had any consideration of becoming a referee. Metalico said he had not thought about it and it had not been brought up to him by CMLL. That sounds like my guess is wrong. It also may just need more time. Wrestler to referee transitions are uncommon, but there’s usually a couple of month break in between them to get some distance from their other in-ring career.

Mascara 2000 also took place in the interviews, vowing revenge on Ultimo Guerrero while being unsure how or when that would actually come. He doesn’t want his nephews betting their masks against Ultimo Guerrero’s hair because he thinks that’ll be unfair but some bet will have to be made.

CMLL Informa announced Mistico & Dragon Lee and Ultimo Guerrero & Gran Guerrero as being in the second block of Copa Dinastia on 06/13. The other two will be announced in between falls on Friday night. Those two teams become the favorites to win the tournament.

CMLL has a brief story on Soberano, Star Jr., Tiger (and Edgar Noriega) visiting Lille, France yesterday. They were invited by the French Embassy in Mexico and appeared as part of a Mexican cultural celebration. They went all the way over just for one match and should be back for Friday.

IWRG tonight has a special Thursday show. During the peak of the Young Bucks being booked everywhere, an indie ran a weekday show that was basically named “This Was The Only Day We Could Get The Young Bucks”. Penta 0M is working for IWRG tonight. Penta teams with Canis Lupus against the Traumas in a match that will have chops and Destroyers.  Dragon Bane meets Flyer in the semi-main. Aramis, Metaleon, and Imposible against Demonio Infernal, Eterno, and Lunatic Extreme also might be good. No idea if it’ll be streamed.

Lucha Memes helped form the PALL alliance of Mexico promoters which includes IWRG. They got booted from that alliance in the last few days.  None of the promotions have addressed this generally, but there are friends-only posts on Facebook that are pretty angry.  Memes had a June 29th date for Arena Naucalpan and no longer does. MDA will be running on June 30th. My hunch is this just comes down to MDA giving IWRG a better deal on the arena than Memes was but there’s always weird politics involved with indie wrestling that complicates things. For the same reasons, I’d caution everyone not to say bad things about each other since they’ll all want to work together again in about nine months time but it may be too late for that.

Lucha Memes’ next two shows are supposed to be co-promoted with Tijuana Wrestling Entertainment and Generacion XXI, both who are still supposed to be part of PALL at last check. It doesn’t seem like they’ve pulled out from the shows, but it is always possible PALL might lean on them to do so if things get harsh enough. Likewise, part of the benefit of the PALL alliance for the promoters is that they were going to sign wrestlers everyone in the PALL would be able to use to freeze out other promoters from being able to use them. Now Lucha Memes is one of those other promoters and may be frozen out of the talent they helped sign. I’ve got no idea how many luchadors actually took those deals but would assume the frequent IWRG guys like Aramis, Dragon Bane, Hijo de Canis Lupus are likely to have done so. I’m also not sure how MexaWrestling will end up fitting in; those are their regulars too. I am sure this is going to be a mess.

Lucha Memes still keeps on announcing matches for their next show, despite not having announced a venue at the moment.

Lucha Memes/TWE?/MexaWrestling? on 06/30 in ???

• Prayer vs Multy
• Lunatik Fly & Lunatik Extreme vs Alas de Acero & Iron Kid
• Jonathan vs Templario – new

Jimmy debuted in Dragon Gate tonight, with Flamita & Draztick Boy also on the show. (Also, Ultimo Dragon made his Dragon Gate debut, which is a real big deal.) Jimmy posted about the trip on Facebook before flying over and “sometimes good things happen when you don’t expect them” suggests he didn’t know this was coming for a long time.

MLW has Dr. Wagner & Hijo del Dr. Wagner against LA Park & Hijo de LA Park on 07/06 in Cicero. I’ve seen that match before, including Congress Theatre in Chicago way back in 2010. It drew really well that time (though no one stopped to ask me to pay for a ticket that time because I showed up very late.)

LA Park says he’ll be Rush’s servant if he loses to him on 06/16 Kaoz. Or maybe if he loses in a title match at a separate date? I don’t know. I’m very confused at the existence of captioning.

Lucha Talk has a new podcast episode.