IWRG (SUN) 12/20/2020 Arena Naucalpan [Mas Lucha]
1) Halcón Mágico b Chef Benito 
2) Diosa Quetzal & Mexica b Death Metal & Miss Delicious
3) Baby Xtreme & Charro Negro b Baby Star & Lunatik Extreme
the mystery men attacked both men after the match
4) Jessy Ventura & Pasion Kristal DQ Big Chico Che & Big Ovett
5) Hijo del Alebrije, Hijo Del Espectro, Toscano b Capo del Norte, Capo Del Oeste, The Mummy
Capo del Oeste is either a typo or a new Capo. The IWRG wrestlers attacked Lucha Time after the match.
IWRG was the only promotion of any significance to decide they were going to keep running after the health red light was declared. They did it with no fans and with a different card than announced. The people missing tended to be the bigger names (including both sides of the Puma King/Canis Lupus main event), which suggests it was more a money issue than a health one. It’s not essentially clear why they ran, except they’re IWRG so they keep running and they already bought the trophy for Toscano. IWRG will probably keep running if they can get away with it and not lose money doing it.
Every other notable promotion canceled. CMLL’s 12/25 show is off; if you bought the PPV, you should have gotten a refund this morning. No idea if those matches will happen later. The delayed Arena Lopez Mateos anniversary show is canceled and won’t be made up. The two Arena Neza shows, including the usual New Year’s Day show there, are both indefinitely postponed. Sunday’s Lucha Memes show was postponed. Mexican wrestling is all but done for the year. The restrictions on it likely won’t end soon, though promotions will start to sneak back to run shows in a few weeks regardless.
The Bandido/Volador match has now been canceled three times. It was originally scheduled for Aniversario, postponed again after Bandido felt less than 100% in his 10/09 PPV match, and now again on Christmas. It probably would’ve been scheduled in November had CMLL’s weekly PPV not turned into monthly PPVs.
The 12/27 OCESA/AAA Rock y Lucha show is still listed as happening on Ticketmaster. It’s possible that’s already been taped. There were a lot of people wondering why CMLL just didn’t tape the 12/25 show ahead of time. I have a lot of questions about CMLL taping every week instead of just taping multiple days a week.
Beyond Mexico City and Mexico State going to red health code, Baja California is also now back in Red. Veracruz, which had flipped to green for two weeks, has gone back to yellow. The upcoming danger is many people traditionally leave Mexico City and the surrounding area during the Christmas weeks to go back to the states where their family are from. Spreading COVID from the hardest-hit region of Mexico to the rest of the country is going to make the recovery even tougher.
AAA’s Facebook is now visible in Mexico only. This, combined with the termination of AAA’s YouTube channel, seems a result of the FMV/AAA lawsuit. (I was dead wrong.) FMV claims all money generated by AAA outside of Mexico is theirs, so AAA is protecting themselves and their ad revenue by restricting access outside of Mexico. AAA’s Twitter/Instagram accounts may not be affected since they’re not places where AAA makes money, but it is hard to be certain about AAA’s future at this point. The AAA PlutoTV stream of old episodes keeps going for now, though it also may be in danger of disappearing if the money issues can’t work out. If you’re Pluto TV – or Marvel or any other partner – and get dragged into this mess, it’s likely preferable just to wash your hands of AAA at that point.
For AAA watchers, this means we’ll probably not see the remaining AutoLuchas matches, at least any time soon. There’s no YouTube channel to post it right now, and no video was posted to Facebook. (Marca/Claro posted their CMLL YouTube videos so only Mexican IP addresses can see them, and that’s a possible future for AAA.) There will likely be the same restrictions for new AAA shows as well until the resolution of the AAA/FMV lawsuit, but it may be months before there are new AAA shows.
If you’re a person who posts AAA content with YouTube, I’d be careful about it for the immediate future. AAA never cared. I don’t know that FMV really cares outside of making sure AAA can’t use it, but there’s a chance of takedowns now that wasn’t there before. And if FMV holds onto the rights and sells them to someone not AAA, the plan suggested in the lawsuit, that new buyer will likely be working very hard to maintain exclusivity over that content.
(And even while I’m typing that paragraph, I’m wondering if I might as well put AAA on the Google Drive at this point.)
IWRG posted a teaser of something with AAA. AAA hasn’t said anything, so this seems more likely to be something important to IWRG (AAA wrestlers on their shows) than something important to AAA (Arena Naucalpan as an AAA training facility.) An article about the teaser in Ovaciones didn’t really say much.
12/20 ROH’s Final Battle results
- Rey Horus defeated Dalton Castle
- Dragon Lee defeated Tony Deppen to retain the ROH TV Championship
- Rush defeated Brody King to retain the ROH Championship
La Bestia del Ring interfered in the main event and appears to be starting with Ring of Honor. ROH has not announced Dragon Lee & Rush signing a new contract, but bringing in Bestia and keeping the titles on the Munoz heavily suggests they all will be sticking around.
ROH had a segment where Mexasquad (Bandido, Flamita, and Rey Horus) could have been stripped of the ROH six man championships, but the challengers refused to take them by forfeit. They remain champions. A singles win for Horus might set up a TV title match with Dragon Lee sometime during the upcoming block of TV.
WrestlingInc reports there’s an idea for a new WWE “Mexican Lucha Libre” series. The article reads like someone’s pitched the concept and perhaps is leaking it publicly to drum up interest. The article makes it clear nothing has been approved or set in motion; this is the latest iteration of “WWE has a plan for Mexico/Latin America” that’s been going on for fifteen or so years. If there’s anything we can definitely take from this, it’s the last iteration of this plan – put a WWE Performance Center in Peru or Chile or someplace in Latin America – isn’t on their roadmap right now since this is a conflicting pitch.
A WWE “Lucha Libre” series would be a WWE style show with masked men, some Mexicans, and a similar presentation to every other show WWE does. The NXT UK brand nods to the history of wrestling in that region but it is a WWE style show at its heart because WWE sincerely believes they’ve figured out the only correct way to put on a wrestling show. WWE has also made it abundantly clear they dislike lucha libre, believe it’s an inferior and incorrectly style, and anyone wrestling that way needs to be reprogrammed. A WWE Lucha Libre show would be lucha libre in name only. WWF Super Astros featured a lot of lucha libre talent and felt more like Mexican wrestling (because WWE didn’t care all that much about it to change things), and it’s unlikely even something like that would exist for long in WWE today.
A new WWE lucha libre show would obviously have a big effect on lucha libre. WWE Lucha Libre contract offers are unlikely to be large amounts, but that’d still be competitive with what luchadors are offered in Mexico. Many Mexican wrestlers would jump at the chance to be in the WWE system, even if WWE Lucha Libre is a long way away from actual WWE. Gran Metalik might wrestle more than once a month and for more than two minutes, though even that is no guarantee. Again, this is a long way away from happening.
WrestleZone reported Penta and Fenix re-upped with AEW this summer, extending their contract for a year. I asked around (!) and this story is accurate. They’re now under AEW contract until the end of August 2021.
Murder Clown won the Perros del Mal Heavyweight Championship from Taurus on Saturday. The championship is from the long gone Perros del Mal promotion and has alternately been referred to a “heavyweight” and “light heavyweight.” Taurus won the belt from Pentagon back in 2017 and has occasionally worn it on TV, but it’s not been an active thing. The last few title matches have all been in the US, as was this title change.
01/22 Lucha Memes/Martinez Turf Zone Arena in Fort Worth, Texas
Lucha Memes announced the 12/20 cancelation as their own serious decision based on the health situation. It rings quite hollow when they’re full-on to their next show in Texas. The health situation is the same, the rules blocking shows just don’t exist there. This Memes show should be good but it’s no great idea.
Bestia 666 says his father Damian 666 is out of the hospital and back home. Bestia’s mother remains in the hospital dealing with COVID-19.
Olympic medalist Daniel Aceves, who appears in CMLL annually to honor his father as part of Copa Bobby Bonales, says he secretly wrestled under a mask from 2009 to 2012 as Siglo XXI. The article implies he did it in CMLL, but there’s no record of that. There are a few Siglo XXI matches in my records from that time period, though most seem to be of a wrestler in Nuevo Laredo.
Luchadors who passed away over the weekend
- Puebla’s Verdugo (Rodrigo Hernandez, 48) had wrestled for 31 years on indie shows. The obituary mentions he passed away “due to health problems that had bothered him for some time”
- Mexico City luchador Gran Kendor II passed away on Sunday.
- young Naucalpan luchador Galactus passed away early Monday or late Sunday. He was an early match guy on recent Lucha Libre Boom shows and wrestled a bit in Arena Naucalpan. It appears to be a sudden death; he was scheduled to work one of the canceled shows this past weekend.
- retired San Luis Potosi luchador Bruno Victoria Sr. passed away
LuchaWorld has a great obit of Dr. Alfonso Morales. He’s also the cover image of this week’s Box Y Lucha.
The promoter of Arena Tigre Padillla talks about being sidelined for nine months. He has no idea when they’ll be able to return.
Att the Q3, Stephanie McMahon announced a 2021 partnership with Corona Beer’s US distributor. Even though that brand(and other brands in the portfolio) don’t exclusively target market Hispanics, it makes sense that this deal could trigger another SuperAstros type of venture.
WWE has a great roster and could make it work. Acquisitions would follow. NXT MX or NXT Americas would not work in my opinion. It would have a be a legit Lucha Venture.
I always felt Lucha Underground should sell their IP to WWE. WWE needs content for it’s Network and many broadcast partners and has more than enough talent to give it a go.
Is this how WWE sets foot in Mexico, by taking advantage of the Roldan’s massive blunder?
Anyone think WWE will try and buy AAA?
When WWE buys companies they usually do their due dilligence and have any open “problems” taken care of before they make a clean purchase. With the current AAA issue & who knows who else they may owe money to – I feel if WWE was serious about Mexico they’d buy out CMLL instead. Lutteroths would make out like bandits if they could get money for worthless CMLL & retain the properties which are the real value.
Would Vince buy a wrestling company so no one else could? It is possible. Especially if he thinks AEW would buy it.
AAA is a strong IP. TV content, live events and merch are all areas where Vince might see potential.
Vince even cut a deal with the United Center in Chicago, agreeing to run shows there after 23 YEARS, if they wouldn’t rent to anyone else. It shows his attitude about the current wrestling environment.
I’m sure he would, and we know they have made inquiries in the past, but he’s not gonna have WWE on the hook to pay out millions depending on what AAA owes creditors and/or future lawsuits. If a deal could be reached where WWE pays off all that but the Roldans receive far less value for AAA, that could likely work as well even if it leaves Dorian with pie on his face. If AAA is ever at the real financial danger point I’m sure WWE is Dorian’s exit strategy.
WWE (or anyone else) can not use the AAA IP in the US until the lawsuit with FMV is resolved. AAA and Lucha Underground IP has no value to WWE until/unless that is finished. And, given what WWE’s paid for other brands, they’re unlikely to cover the current cost of the lawsuit.