Lucha Fighter episode 2, notes on the first show, Arena Lopez Mateos

The second episode of Lucha Fighter airs Saturday at 8pm CT. It’s billed as live and listed on YouTube as airing live, though it is believed to be taped already. AAA has indicated Nino Hamburguesa, Myzteziz, Lady Maravilla, and Lady Shani will be on the show. Octagon Jr., Chessman, and Pagano have also been announced for the tournament and haven’t wrestled on the men’s side, so they’re probably in action. Matches are unclear, though that’s maybe the idea if they’re going to do fan polls. How fan polls are going to work for matches that have been taped is above my pay grade.

On Keepin’ It 100, the hosts discussed the first Lucha Fighter show. AAA was held to a 25 people in the building rule for the show, which dashed a plan to have people around ringside cheering as AEW has done. Konnan booked the show from home though he indicated this isn’t the first time he’s been working on AAA show while not being there. He’s had situations where he sent in voice messages for each match on the AAA card while at an Impact event. Konnan intentionally kept the Lucha Fighter matches short, both to keep people interested and because a lot of people were coming off a month of not wrestling. Mr. Iguana/Wanger did good numbers, as well as the idea of voting for matches.

The Fantamsa remasking comes up in terms of Disco being amazed Fantasma got paid big money to lose his mask in Mexico and then just gets to put it back on in the US. Konnan’s asked about how those mask losses happen with top stars; he says it’s a negotiation (not an order) and a tough negotiation when it came to Fantasma. In general, it’s typically the wrestler telling a promotion they’d be willing to lose their mask at any time and the promoter getting back to them to hash out the details (time & money) if they want to proceed, though there’s also sometimes where a promotion will make the offer to the wrestler first. That scenario costs more, though typically a promotion is only going to approach someone they believe would be willing to lose for the right price.

Debate has an interview with Mr. Iguana, as part of a series in checking in with how people in different lines of work are doing during the pandemic. He says he had five minutes notice he was going to have the match with Wagner, due to the fan vote, but both really enjoyed it. Iguana says they were all kept separate while waiting to wrestle and the place was disinfected regularly. Iguana says AAA is paying their wrestlers under contract.

Cody Rhodes was answering text messages from fans yesterday. A person got through to ask if AEW would be doing more with AAA, and Cody said he hopes that travel and border issues would be smoother after the crisis passed. Also, “I really like Taurus!”

SuperLuchas has an interview with Hector Guzman, who’s been doing a lot of press to get his donations drive going. (That’s a smart thing to do.) They have been told the building is recommended to be closed for three or four months, “we’ll have to wait until practically August to hold the Anniversary show.” That is notable because of Lucha Memes continuing to promote a show on July 5th in Arena Lopez Mateos (and seemingly selling tickets for the show.) It seems highly unlikely that show will take place on that date given what Guzman says here, but maybe Lucha Memes knows something we don’t or Guzman hasn’t talked to Memes about the situation recently.

The donations Guzman is looking for would go to help fund the Arena Lopez Matoes anniversary show; Guzman says Blue Demon, LA Park and Hijo de LA Park vs Dr. Wagner Jr., Hijo de Dr. Wagner Jr. and Galeno del Mal was the planned main event, with people who had made their name internationally but had not been seen in that arena later also being used. They’ve been turned down when asking to run empty arena shows. Arena Lopez Mateos still has maintenance people coming to a couple of days a week, never more than two at a time, to clean, repair and paint. They also want to buy things to improve sanitary conditions when they can run (antibacterial gel dispensers, temperature gauges come up.) Guzman is also considering limiting all shows to two and half hours or less, feeling there’s less a risk of contamination than with the shows going three or four hours like normal.

other empty arena shows

Segunda Caida goes back to 2012 for a Black Terry/Chico Che match.

Box Y Lucha has a 2006 interview with Rambo.