FantasticaMania tour announced, Lucha Capital 2 official

NJPW officially announced the 10th FantasticaMania tour earlier this morning. Eight shows have been announced

• 01/10 (FRI): Osaka
• 01/11 (SAT): Ehime
• 01/12 (SUN): Kyoto
• 01/13 (MON): Aichi
• 01/16 (THU): Korakuen Hall
• 01/17 (FRI): Korakuen Hall
• 01/19 (SUN): Korakuen Hall
• 01/20 (MON): Korakuen Hall

That’s the same amount of shows as last year. The change is four of them will be run in Tokyo for the first time. FantasticaMania has had run three shows in Korakuen since 2016. Those three shows felt stretched for fresh main event matches this year. Adding a fourth show seems overkill, even before considering firing Dragon Lee costs them an easy main event for the last night. Perhaps they’ll just make the first one a normal tour show, with all tag matches and no special main event, but the other shows are still going to be a challenge.

The Korakuen Hall shows typically air live on NJPW World. The tour opener did as well this year. That Korakuen Hall week is going to have about seven CMLL streams (Japan & Mexico) in six days. I will probably die.

The FantasticaMania announcement comes one day after NJPW announced the Super Junior Tag League, with Volador Jr. in & Dragon Lee out. (Dragon Lee wished Titan good luck today.) Mistico staying with CMLL is an important deal for this tour since he is one of the bigger CMLL stars during FantasticaMania.

AAA announced officially Lucha Capital yesterday. They announced it twice, actually. The Lucha Capital Facebook popped back to life to mention it, then that post was deleted, and AAA instead did a slow surprise video roll out on their Facebook. The new season starts next Wednesday at the same Pinche Gringo BBQ as last year. The only change is they’ve pushed the start time to 9 pm, a half-hour later than usual. It’ll start immediately after the NXT/AEW TV shows finish. (Mexico doesn’t get AEW but they do get NXT live; either way, they’re hoping to draw some people who want even more wrestling after those conclude.) All shows will air live on Facebook Watch. It was simple to watch them on VOD, and even sometimes preferable given the slow times between matches.

We have no idea what the format will look like for Lucha Capital 2. We don’t know who will be involved, outside of Vampiro mentioning doing something with it. AAA didn’t announce anything beyond the time and date of the first episode. The first season seemed intended to be built around Fenix & Penta, which didn’t work out due to Fenix’s injury. Fenix & Penta are now in AEW, which would make it tough for them to be in Mexico most Wednesday. (It also will make it more difficult for AAA talent to appear on AEW’s show, though they really only need 8-10 people for Capital if it’s like last year, and it’s not like AEW’s been using a lot of AAA talent as it is.) Laredo Kid & Taya were the winners last year. Laredo Kid is out of action now. Taya could be back. AAA could bring in people from Impact, though that might be complicated if they also want to use Killer Kross in the tournament. There’s a lot of interesting questions to be answered, though we might not get any answers until 9 pm next Wednesday.

On CMLL Informa, Soberano stated his current goal is to break the record for the longest Mexican National Welterweight Championship reign. It’s technically held by Tarzan Lopez, though we don’t know exactly how long it is. Lopez gave up the belt sometime in 1939, no one’s tracked down when or even why. Soberano’s going with the number on wikipedia which ends Lopez’s reign the first day of 1939. That’s probably not correct but we don’t know what is correct. Soberano would need to hold the belt for 1027 days to break that record, which means thru March 4th next year.

Soberano also revealed he hurt his clavicle in his Super J Cup match with Rocky Romero, was told to take two weeks off, but decided he must keep on wrestling because he had too many big matches.

Princesa Sugehit was part of the CMLL media interviews on Wednesday, which seems to indicate she’s still on track to return this Saturday.

A 1999 WCW TV pilot for a lucha libre show, “Festival de Lucha”, will be added to the WWE Network today. WWE Network News had the story. One match from the taping had previously been shown, but the full taping has never been aired. It was taped for a TV show, so the matches are likely on the short side, but it was a long sought after missing piece of footage, featuring a lot of luchadors who rarely or never appeared in WCW otherwise.

The Crash 11/01 “Anniversary” lineup

• Rush & Dragon Lee vs Penta & Fenix
• Los Haragnes vs Triple Amenaza in a triple apuesta match
• Mecha Wolf & Bestia 666 vs Los Traumas for the Crash Tag Team championship
• Solar vs Negro Navarro – new
• Christina Von Eerie vs Lady Flammer (c) for the Crash Women’s championship
• CIMA, Jeff Cobb and Jonathan Gresham will all appear.

Christina Von Eerie announced she’ll be on this show last night. Casey Michael spotted that first. Von Eerie was an AAA regular in 2010, winning the mixed tag team championship with Alex Koslov. She returned to Mexico for one match in 2013. She hasn’t been visible much in the US, so it’s a bit of a surprise.

Lucha Memes 11/03 Battle of Puebla

• Tony Iron vs Arez in a quarterfinal
• Multy vs Makabre in a quarterfinal
• Prayer vs Aeroboy in a quarterfinal
• Aramis vs Malayo in a quarterfinal

+LuchaTV has a sit-down interview with Violento Jack.

LuchaTalk has a new edition of their podcast.

Lineups

CMLL (TUE) 10/15/2019 Arena Coliseo Guadalajara
1) Explosivo, Fantástico, Luminoso vs Frenético, Mr. Trueno, Rey Trueno
2) La Jarochita, La Maligna, Silueta vs Amapola, Dalys, Reina Isis
3) El Audaz, Rey Cometa, Star Jr. vs Olímpico, Tiger, Virus
4) Diamante Azul, Kráneo, Volcano vs Felino, Hechicero, Vangellys
5) Carístico, Soberano Jr., Valiente vs Mr. Niebla, Rey Bucanero, Terrible

No Arena Mexico or Arena Puebla lineup yet, but the Guadalajara lineup is out. And it is nothing special.

MDA (SUN) 10/20/2019 Arena Naucalpan
1) Atomic Star & Auzter vs Black Dragón & Príncipe Aéreo
2) Leo & Mike vs Ra-Zhata & Shil-Ka
3) Fly Warrior & Puma de Oro vs Fulgor I & Fulgor II
4) Alas De Plata vs Imposible, Brazo De Oro Jr.
5) Dragón Bane & Hijo de Canis Lupus vs Demonio Infernal & Lunatik Xtreme
6) Penta 0M & Rey Fénix (Indie) vs La Máscara & Puma King

MDA has the Lucha Brothers here. IWRG will have them again here on 11/01. Lucha Brothers are showing no sign of slowing down or an exclusive deal with AAA.