CMLL Informa, AAA/Brazil, The Crash update, Marvel Lucha Libre

The lucha libre news likely will slow down greatly for the next month. CMLL will keep on – but few of their interviews include anything that feels like news. Their non-Ticketmaster Live matches seem intended not to be interesting. Indie wrestling refuses to close up shop no matter how bad the pandemic gets (again), but some announced shows are slowly being rethought. (It’s also harder to run outdoor venues in December and January.) It was great we got TripleMania, and it’ll probably have to keep us for a long while to come.

CMLL Informa today has Volador Jr., Bandido, Negro Casas, Gran Guerrero, and Mephisto. All are there to talk about the Christmas Day TicketMaster Live show. A reminder: the price for that show rises after this weekend. CMLL’s latest YouTube upload promotes the existence of the TicketMaster Live show, which CMLL hasn’t been doing for most of those PPVs.

TripleMania will air on Space Brazil this Saturday. Only Mexico’s Space aired TripleMania live; AAA hasn’t previously aired in Brazil as best as anyone can tell. When AEW popped up on Space and AAA disappeared, I feared AAA had lost a spot due to the northern friends. Instead, this TripleMania airing being paired with the weekly Space Brazil showing of Dynamite seems to indicate AEW has opened a door for AAA. Maybe just for one week, but better than zero weeks. (AAA getting aired in Brazil is interesting in light of the pre-existing AAA lawsuit, but this would likely be part of the existing AAA/Space deal. There isn’t any update on the lawsuit, for what it’s worth.)

I’m unclear on the status of the Arena Lopez Mateos Anniversary show, scheduled for 12/25. As mentioned, there’s currently a curfew in Mexico State ordering non-essential businesses to close at 5 pm. Most wrestling shows run later than that. Mas Lucha says the home promotion has postponed the show, while R de Rudo wrote the promotion is still hoping for an exemption to the curfew. AULL hasn’t announced any plans on Facebook as of yet. If this show was happening in the United States, there would be zero chance of a wrestling show the level of AULL getting an exemption for a curfew. It doesn’t seem completely impossible because Arena Lopez Mateos is a Tlalnepantla local institution, but it seems improbable.

Shows in Arena Tabasco (Villahermosa) are now canceled for the rest of the year due to COVID-19 restrictions. They had started up back in late October.

The Crash is scheduled to return in February, joining Lucha Time, Lucha Madre, KAOZ, and others by taping a series of shows with no fans and airing them periodically. That’s according to an interview with Tijuana boxing, wrestling, and MMA commission president Carlos Labastida, who notes lucha libre has fared far worse than the other sports under his control. Boxing increased to 40 events during the pandemic, even having a week where there were 7 shows. There were 7 MMA shows, with plans for 24 in 2021. Post pandemic, there was just the singles EMW wrestling show; the Crash plans came up as a hopeful sign for 2021. It reads like boxing and MMA had a significantly easier adjustment to running empty arena shows and monetizing them. The Crash hasn’t said much since their last show in February and lost key members of their roster, so they may look different if they do return.

Marvel posted (lightly translated) backstories on all the Marvel Lucha Libre characters. Bullet point version

  • Leyenda America is half Mexican, grew up in the US, and was friends with…
  • Aracno Sr., who trained a student to take over the name, only he turned out to be evil and Aracano refused him a name. The student instead became…
  • Venonide, who now hates the whole Aracno family, including…
  • Aracno (Jr.), the son of the original who also was trained by Leyenda Azteca
  • Terror Purpura seems to be more a “Kingpin” generic evil businessman than a space alien

The AAA announcers were talking about this back history during TripleMania as if they were already known, so I’m guessing I missed some rollout somewhere but this press release making it easier to follow didn’t come until Monday. Maybe they anticipated a lot of interest coming out of the show.

Eterno, Aramis, and Daga filmed a promo for Sunday’s Lucha Memes tribute to Justiciero; all three started training there. It’s now weird to see Eterno with dark hair, but I suppose there’s no sense in dying it with his current look. Daga also posted a group photo from what appears to be a meeting of former Justiciero students.

Today is the 20th anniversary of Blue Demon’s death, which has led to a few (unrevealing) articles. Blue Demon Jr.’s quoted as saying his father deserves a statue.

DoradaFan has a new music video of Komander.

LA Park Jr. debuts on MLW today.

Mas Lucha has a new edition of their podcast. There’s a mention in the Pagano/Chessman discussion that Azteca will not show light tubes shots, which is probably why those were not seen in the main event. I was expecting fire too, and maybe that’s also not allowed. Also, Lady Flammer may be just “Flammer” in AAA.

MicromanFever has a recap of a Hechicero interview with KeMonito.

I don’t really have any interest in Konnan Big versus Fresero & Demonio Infernal but the video setting it up is amusing. It’s also funny that (almost) everyone who does a bit about trying to bring dignity back to lucha libre in Monterrey ends up using Konnan Big.

Lineups

IWRG (SUN) 12/20/2020 Arena Naucalpan
1) Legendario vs Halcón Mágico
2) Diosa Quetzal & Mexica vs Chef Benito & Miss Delicious
3) Baby Star & Puma de Oro vs Baby Xtreme & Charro Negro
4) Jessy Ventura & Pasion Kristal vs Big Chico Che & Big Ovett
5) Hijo del Alebrije, Hijo Del Espectro, Toscano vs Demonio Infernal, Fresero Jr., Súper Nova
6) Hijo de Canis Lupus vs Puma King

This is the Toscano 27th Anniversary show. 27 doesn’t seem like a special number but neither does his match.

IWRG may have said they’re starting at 1:45 but the poster says it’s actually 2:15. That only gives them 2h45m to finish. I don’t think anything is particularly going to happen if IWRG is still finishing up the main event at 5:03, but let’s take a look at recent shows would’ve done with that limit

recent IWRG show lengths on Mas Lucha (and are they under 2h45m)
12/13: 2h18m (yes)
12/06: (premium show so who knows)
11/29: 3h19m (no and not even close)
11/22: 2h52m (no but almost)
11/15: 2h48m (no but almost)
11/08: 2h34m (yes)

The actual shows may be different; Mas Lucha isn’t hitting the “Start Stream” button at 3:45 every week. IWRG shows go long in part because every match goes a lot longer than most promotions. It also seems to go long because IWRG takes plenty of time in between matches. Either of those could be tightened up a bit to get to 2h45m, if there’s someone there concerned about it.