Mexico City remains red, Dragon Rojo to return, MLW/”LU”

Mexico City will stay in a red health light for another week, to little surprise. Hospitalization rates continue to rise; this is nowhere near ending despite Mexico City pushing the end date back one week at a time.

They’re also changing what “red light” means. The somewhat lucha libre related bit is “sports classes and gyms outdoors” are now allowed. That’s different from sports activities; someone could practice lucha libre but not put on a show. The distinction there is slight and will likely be exploited. Training has continued indoors despite the restrictions, judging from plenty of social media photos.

The Wrestling Observer Newsletter mentions AAA’s current plan is taping outdoors in new locations in February and March, but everything remains subject to COVID.

On CMLL Informa, Dragon Rojo said he was healthy after two years of being out, cleared to return. He hasn’t been in the ring yet, so he may not be in matches any time soon, and he’s currently back home in Torreon to finish his rehab. Astral announced his return to CMLL months ago and hasn’t appeared on any of the empty arena tapings; neither of them might be seen until CMLL can run normal shows.

Elsewhere on the show, Titan and Polvora both said they’d face each other in a mask match that’s unlikely to happen any time soon.

WrestlingInc’s reports WWE and Rush talked about a deal, but WWE didn’t offer what Rush wanted. WrestlingInc says AAA represented Rush during the agreement, which seems strange: Rush isn’t signed to AAA, AAA isn’t in the habit of negotiating contracts for wrestlers for other promotions and Masked Republic has said they’re representing Rush & Dragon Lee. It’s possible “AAA” could just mean “Konnan”, though Konnan negotiating deals for people to WWE is an eyebrow-raiser. The idea of Rush talking to WWE is not a surprise. Maybe it’s news the story wasn’t “Rush & Dragon Lee talking to WWE” but I also may be parsing this too much at this point.

LA Park & Hijo de LA Park won the MLW tag team championship on their show Wednesday. Mil Muertes debuted on the show; the promotion, which is doing a tease of Lucha Underground coming back. Lucha Underground is not coming back, but MLW will likely be bringing in other Lucha Underground characters for a promotion versus (fake) promotion story according to this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter. (No names are mentioned; my guess is it’d be generally US Lucha Underground alumni because of the ongoing AAA lawsuit.) MLW doesn’t have much buzz, Lucha Underground did at one point, so the bet is MLW will get curious people to check them out. This seemed to work for Impact for one combo show back at WrestleMania 2018, though LU was hotter even then and the LU fans didn’t seem to stick around after the show. The last MLW teasing tweet did get a lot of reaction, so maybe they’ll hit upon something here. LU itself isn’t coming back.

Psycho Clown versus Sam Adonis will take place in Arlington, Texas on February 12th. Psycho Clown seems to be wrestling a lot in Texas; Texas is open for wrestling to some extent and Psycho Clown needs the work. Expect to see more Mexican wrestlers who have the ability to work in the US to find whatever shows they can as this hiatus goes on.

Mas Lucha has the 16 people in Lucha Madre’s “Torneo Fuego Madre”: Camuflaje, León Dorado, Tromba, Jerry Calavera, Glenn Calavera, Piraña, Thunder Storm, Yoruba, Cobre, Rey Quetzal, Chavín, El Mimo, Shere Khan, Belial, Yutani, Ciclón Ramírez Jr. y and Tío (Kill) Korton. Mas Lucha will be airing one match a night at 9 pm, similar to their own tournament from last year. The matches will have “more than 10 distinct stipulations”; I presume that means each match has a stipulation. I’ve been warned these may be weird stipulations.

DTU’s most recent show will go up on Mas Luchas on 01/24.

Did you know: Grako’s gimmick is he’s a governor, expects the fans to vote for him. He’s a rudo. That Furia de Titanes has a detailed breakdown of Grako’s finishing move.

Events in Tuxtla Guiterrez, including a lucha libre show this weekend, have been suspended again due to the rise of COVID-19 cases.

LuchaWorld has a list of the top 10 tag teams in Mexican history. One of the weird, and hard to understand, parts of going back through the 60s and 70s results is how there was no real tag team championships at that point in history. There were Arena Coliseo tag champions (which went to young guys who only worked on lesser shows) and Arena Mexico tag champions, but those belts wouldn’t be defended more than once or twice a year and sometimes not at all. It also doesn’t seem to be a pressing issue to anyone; no feels tag team belts are missing or necessary, even though many small promotions eventually seem to have city tag team belts and championship defenses seem to be big draws after the UWA starts up 70s. (The UWA squeezes in more weight classes just to so they can increase the number of title defenses to book out, but don’t create tag belts until around seven years in.) If you go through the kayfabe magazine stories and rankings, Lagarde & Guajardo are billed as the best tag team, but that history isn’t preserved the same way as title reigns.

Canalla II (Miguel Angel Varela Seron) passed away on Wednesday. His biggest success was in the 80s and 90s as part of the Pavillon Azteca crew. He is Ice Killer’s brother.

Colombian luchador Rayo de Plata passed away on Wednesday according to Box Y Lucha.