Mexico’s sub-secretary of health announced the national social distancing policy is extended to May 30th, with the possibility of ending it early in locations with a lower amount of COVID-19 cases on May 17th. They expect the disease to peak in cases between May 8-10 and that 95% of the cases will happen between June 25. They expect a gradual reduction of social distancing, not an immediate return to life was prior, and there may be restrictions or advertisements about traveling between different regions.
AAA will be starting their four week Lucha Fighter Live tournament on Saturday night at 8 pm CT. The show will air on YouTube and Facebook. It appears to be only in Spanish, as with all non-Twitch AAA content. There’s been no announcement about how the tournament will work. AAA announced there would be a 16 men, 8 women, 4 minis on the show. They’re staggering the announcements about every hour. As of 1 pm Friday CT, the participant list looked like this:
Women: Lady Shani, Lady Maravilla, Big Mami, Hades, Faby Apache
Men: Nino Hamburguesa, Octagon Jr., Laredo Kid, Chessman, Drago, Dave the Clown, Psycho Clown
Minis: None yet.
This is being billed as content for fans stuck at home, which it certainly is. There are also other reasons the show may be happening. It’s possible these shows are happening at all because Azteca asked AAA for new content. Konnan mentioned there was TV pressure in that direction on the Masked Republic segment of his podcast this week. (That appeared to be taped prior to AAA’s announcement of these shows.) AAA does get a rights fee from Azteca in exchange for AAA getting to air their shows, the first time AAA’s gotten such a fee, and it’s likely money they can’t afford to lose. Azteca has not yet announced airing these shows. They tend to make those announcements either on Friday night AAA TV show or the sports wrap up that follows it later that night. Multimedios has also announced they’ll also be airing this show live; AAA may getting paid for those airings as well, though it’s unlikely to be the near same fee.
Laredo Kid’s name sticks out among the participants. AAA has enough wrestlers in and around Mexico City that they don’t need to fly people in for this. Laredo Kid is a fly-in. AAA may not be paying Laredo Kid if he doesn’t work – he’s not under contract – so Laredo Kid’s going to fly back and forth for four weeks at a time where flying seems like a poor idea. I’d expect Mr. Iguana and perhaps others will be doing the same. The tournament will definitely be better for having those people involved but the match quality is not the thing most interests me at the moment.
AAA has not announced a venue for this show. There’s a lot to these shows feel like they’re being put together at the last moment – AAA hasn’t explained how the tournament is working – but not naming a location is probably an intentional move. It’ll keep fans away at a time when they’re trying to keep a closed set, and it may keep away government officials as way too. Mexico City is threatening to enforce their social/safe distancing program via fines. Those threats have been inconsistently applied to wrestling promotions in other locations, but it is a reason not to announce where the tapings will take place in advance. It’s also an additional reason why it would be better to tape in advance rather than go live. AAA’s advertising some sort of fan polling to determine matches – maybe someone gets saved from elimination as in the last season of Lucha Capital – which seems to exist to enhance the interaction but isn’t absolutely necessary to tape a tournament.
In an interview with Roberto Figueroa and Hugo Savinovich, Konnan named Primo, Epico and Lio Rush as recent WWE cuts he’d like to see in AAA. Konnan’s also talked about being wary about bringing anyone new in, fearing not having enough work to go around and leading to disgruntled wrestlers; he felt this was an issue for WWE and had been for AAA back in 1995.
AAA and Kenny Omega are teasing Omega taking part in their eSports competition. They haven’t announced when it’s happening, but it’s clearly happening.
Pagano’s empty arena show at Arena Kalaka takes place Sunday at 6 pm local (7 pm CT). It’s a three match show, where the big draw might be figuring out what Sin Cara is calling himself now. They’re looking for 100 pesos as a virtual ticket donation.
Facebook page Veracruz Lucha will also be hosting an empty arena show on Saturday at 8 pm. The announced card is all local luchadors, where Rocco Marvin might be the only one known outside the area. They’re not saying where the show will be held, only “Arena de Lucha Virtual.”
The family who owns Arena Lopez Mateos says they will be shutting down the arena within the next year if they can not raise money the needed money via fundraiser. The fundraising site is up, though not yet taking donations. They’re looking for $4,600 USD. The arena dates back to 1967, always owned and operated by the Hector Guzman family. It’s used as a venue for prestige indies like Lucha Libre Boom, DTU and Lucha Memes, their own in-house big name shows under UWE and other names, and shows using their students and regulars as AULL. Those AULL shows are the backbone, but they’ve drawn a miniscule amount of fans in recent years, even canceling a recent show because so few people showed up. (Those shows also seem to feature the same names on top year after year; it’s hard to think of the last indie star who graduated through that school and promotion.) Arena Lopez Mateos is a historic venue and also one seemingly necessary as a venue for the indie promotions.
Kaoz also ran empty arena shows, with the idea they’d use them for their own content. Not sure if it’s going to be a fundraiser or just a video to have new video, Strangely, some may some dumbly, they were also OK with someone bootlegging the show and putting it up on their own, kneecapping their strategy.
The Kaoz story reminds me of Arena Verdugo Nazi in Guadalajara being shut down earlier this week. I don’t know this for sure, because people were hinting at “underground” shows happening in other ways, but others might have found out the building was still running when the group who bootlegs the indie Guadalajara shows continued to post videos of matches in that arena. This is an X-Fly main event from one of these shows, where he (and the tightly packed fans) are unconcerned about any health issues. I thought I had missed a poster or lineup for an old show – the channel had been posting old content from 2017 recently – but it appears to be new matches. They’re continuing to post matches from Arena Verdugo Nazi, which suggests the arena decided to ignore the order to shut down or it was rescinded. The owner of the arena ran a few food/supply drive in the last couple of days. There’s photos of them being back in the arena for it.
CMLL Informa had the official introduction of the third Blue Panther son, Cachorro Lagunero. The 20-year-old luchador has been wrestling on non-CMLL shows the last couple of years and was expected to debut in CMLL some time this year. Like with the Gemelo Diablos, he’s billed as coming to CMLL when they restart but it’s not clear when.
Blue Panther Sr., who had previously said he was sticking around just long enough to get his youngest son started, appeared only in pre-taped video from his home to introduce the segment. Atlantis, who is two years younger, appeared in studio to talk with his son. I haven’t watched the piece to see if he gave an idea of his return date yet, but the news for Mexican sports has dried up enough that there are paid reports recapping Informa segments now for media outlets so we may get a report in a few days.
CMLL will be airing the 2016 Homenaje a Dos Leyendas this week on Televisa. That’s the Volador/Negro Casas main event (and probably Rush/Maximo not airing.) It’s possible it’ll turn up on CMLL’s YouTube later. If Azteca is putting pressure on AAA to record new matches, it may just be a matter of time before Televisa asks the same of CMLL.
Lucha libre writer Dr. Rafael Olivera Figueroa, “El Aribitro”, passed away. Both CMLL and AAA acknowledged his passing. I didn’t recognize the name, but maybe I just haven’t gotten far enough in my magazine reading; Furia de Titanes obit mentions him as a writer for Combates, El Halcon, and Lucha Libre magazines, and also the author of his own “Memorias de Lucah Libre” book chronicling the history of lucha libre. He was around for the start of both LLI/UWA and AAA and worked as a doctor in his other life.
The 04/25 Lucha Libre Boom show has been officially postponed.
Puma King teaches you how to make your own mask. I’m in the need of the mask so I should probably watch.
The Asociacion Nacional de Luchadors Profesionales Independientes, the Octagon led attempt at a wrestlers union, got press for handing out food and necessities to some of their members. This group is usually not mentioned outside of Octagon interviews; their Facebook page hasn’t been updated in a year and a half and it was unclear if it was an ongoing concern. This is Octagon’s first media appearance since the allegations of not paying his children came out.
Ciber the Main Man is currently embroiled in his own paternity issue. Sabrina Sabrok, an Argentinan TV host/adult actress, told celebrity press that she’s unsure who is the father of her daughter. Sabrok was married to filmmaker Erick Farjeat, so it could be him – but she revealed she was also with Cibernetico at the same time, so she’s really not sure. Cibernetico said this was the first he knew of the possibility, acknowledging they had a “very passionate” relationship but weren’t looking to start a family together. He and Sabrok had not kept in touch since that time, wasn’t looking and felt that Farjeat was the real father since he’d been the one in touch with the daughter.
Intocable says he’s broke without work, living on a loan from his brother. Super Porky says he’s only getting by on money and food Psycho Clown has gotten him.