CMLL Torneo Increibles de Parejas begins, IWRG results, Tirantes to Federacion

IWRG

IWRG (THU) 06/10/2021 Arena Naucalpan [Mas Lucha]
1) Kenji b Güero De Tijuana Zon a de Ejecución, Thursday Night Wrestling | IWRG (posted by Más Lucha)
2) Black Shadow II & El Bendito b Águila Oriental & Noicy Boy Zon a de Ejecución, Thursday Night Wrestling | IWRG (posted by mluchatv)
3) Diosa Quetzal & Miss Delicious b Lilith Dark & Satania Zon a de Ejecución, Thursday Night Wrestling | IWRG (posted by mluchatv)
4) Mini Relámpago & Mini Rey Misterio b Blackgoncito & Chico Malo Zon a de Ejecución, Thursday Night Wrestling | IWRG (posted by mluchatv)
5) Black Dragón, Dick Angelo 3G, Legendario, Puma de Oro b Black Terry, Dr. Cerebro, Karaoui, Veneno and Aster Boy, Caballero de Plata, Gravity, Tonalli and Alan Extreme, Dinamic Black, Freelance, Relámpago [Zona de Ejecuccion] Zon a de Ejecución, Thursday Night Wrestling | IWRG (posted by mluchatv)
The Terry, Cerbero, Karaoui, Veneno team had issues and fought after.

I watched only the second match, which had a few fun spots with the MexaBoys. Mas Lucha seemed to miss posting a result of the main event so I had to (gasp) watch the finish myself to find out what happened. I’m not quite sure why the veterans ended up fighting but it seems likely an apuesta match. In a remarkable coincidence, many of them are facing each other Sunday.

IWRG (SUN) 06/13/2021 Arena Naucalpan
1) Hijo Del Ángel vs El Bendito
2) Relámpago vs Mini SpiritMini Canis Lupus
3) Corsario Negro & Drako vs Alan Extreme & Puma de Oro and Fly Warrior & Fulgor
4) Eragón, Freelance, Relámpago vs Dick Angelo, Hijo Del Enferermo Jr., King Charro
5) Dr. Cerebro & Karaoui vs Avisman & Black Terry
6) Aeroboy & Asterboy vs Baby Extreme & Látigo
7) Lady Shani & Mamba vs Diva Salvaje & Jessy Ventura

This is billed as “AAA vs IWRG”, though it’s more like “Mamba wrestlers with Las Shotas in memory of Pasion Kristal.” Semimain could be good if Aeroboy & Latigo can convince Asterboy & Baby Extreme to use their good spots at good times.

CMLL 

CMLL kicks off the usually-annual Torneo Increibles de Parejas tonight. It’s 16 teams of tecnicos and rudos teaming, or at least that’s the idea.

June 11th Block

  • Cuatrero & Dark Panther
  • Hechicero & Stuka Jr.
  • Gran Guerrero & Místico
  • Cancerbero & Espíritu Negro
  • Atlantis & Negro Casas
  • Templario & Volador Jr.
  • Dragón Rojo Jr. & Titán
  • Gemelo Diablo I & Valiente

June 18th Block

  • Carístico & Virus
  • Último Guerrero & Euforia
  • Bárbaro Cavernario & Felino
  • Sansón & Blue Panther Jr.
  • Ángel de Oro & Mephisto
  • Rey Cometa & Raziel
  • Atlantis Jr. & el Hijo del Villano III
  • Panterita del Ring & Gemelo Diablo II

Ultimo Guerrero & Euforia doesn’t make any sense unless Euforia’s meant to be a tecnico now, but CMLL doesn’t can make up the rules to their own competitions. Angel de Oro is still meant to be a tecnico and is teaming with rudo Mephisto. Caristico & Virus and Templario & Volador stick out as weird teams of non-feuding partners who might have a chance to go far. The final is on June 25th.

There are three non-tournament matches tonight

CMLL (FRI) 06/11/2021 Arena México [Arena Coliseo Guadalajara]
1) Pegasso & Stigma vs Dark Magic & Okumura
2) Stephanie Vaquer vs Princesa Sugehit [lightning]
3) Atlantis Jr. & Flyer vs Felino Jr. & Pólvora

The opener seems an encouragement to show up late. Vaquer/Sugehit sounds like one of the better possible women’s 1v1 in CMLL, though I’m not sure what’s that worth. The tercera is another variation of the Atlantis Jr./Flyer versus Tiger/a partner matches which were going on before the pandemic. They hadn’t gone well.

The show is sold out of the 500 tickets allotted. It will stream for around $5, through Ticketmaster Live. (The link was briefly not working this morning.) The 06/18 Friday show, the final Friday with a 500 tickets cap under the current plan, is already running low on tickets.

CMLL announced their free streaming June 19th show will be headlined Sanson, Cuatrero, and Forastero defending the CMLL World Trios Championship against Volador Jr., Caristico, and Mistico. The show starts at 6 pm, the same day and time as the Federacion Wrestling debut PPV. People who are excited for the Federacion Wrestling show are still going to get it, CMLL is just hoping to pick off a few people who are curious but don’t want to pay or don’t trust Federacion’s stream. CMLL’s YouTube shows are typically available later so you likely don’t have to watch it live if you are interested in the other show (or, god forbid, things outside of lucha libre shows.)

CMLL also said they’re hoping they’re to open Arena Mexico at 25% capacity starting with the June 25th show but have not yet gotten approval. The 25% limit doesn’t take effect until June 24th, though I presume CMLL can start selling the extra seats prior to it. I thought there was a hard cap at 1,500, but everyone else seems to be reporting no cap so we’ll just assume I misunderstood something.

The very nerdy thing aside: is we might be able to learn Arena Mexico’s current capacity if it’s 25%, since it has changed numerous times over the years due to remodeling. It’s probably above 4,000, but how much above 4,000 is a source of debate. Everyone cites different capacities via Google of questionable accuracy. CMLL itself doesn’t list a number. This is a reason to want Arena Puebla to be running too, it could solve one of the great mysteries of our time.

Fugaz is out due to a shoulder dislocation. He says it happened first on May 28th, he was able to put it back in, but it came out again on June 4th. They showed that clip on CMLL Informa – it’ll also on Televisa this week – and it was just him doing a running front flip and the shoulder going out on the (slipped) landing. Okumura was in the ring but didn’t have anything to do with it. Fugaz expects to be back in a few weeks and is a full-time Mexico City wrestler now.

CMLL changed Sunday’s non-streamed show to remove both Atlantis and Caristico. Star Jr. and Mistico take their places. Atlantis and Atlantis Jr. are scheduled to work in El Paso. Not sure what other booking Caristico has. Marcela, who is also advertised to wrestle in Monterrey, was left on the poster. CMLL’s had frequent issues keeping track of which wrestlers are available for Arena Mexico shows since they’ve started running again.

Arena Coliseo Guadalajara says Hijo del Stuka Jr. will wrestle on next Tuesday’s show. That’d be his first match anywhere, at least under that name.

In CMLL virtual media interviews, Dragon Rojo claimed he is 100% and Dark Panther said there would be an explanation for his new name eventually. Dark Panther is pitching this and the Copa Dinastias win as a start to a new chapter to his career, which is as good an idea as any. I’ve stopped linking to these interviews because CMLL wrestlers rarely say anything beyond the same generalities (“we think we can win”). That those are the two best bits I could pull out of a half dozen interviews this past week, which hopefully shows how barren they are. The Kaiser Sports site does a good job of assembling them if you want more.

CMLL appears to have dropped their TV listings from their website, so no idea what is airing until it airs (or unless it turns up on social media.)

Other Notes

Federacion Wrestling announced Tirantes will be a referee on June 19th. Tirantes will fit in what is sure to a silly heavy main event. It would be more annoying if he messed up the Penta/Fenix?? vs Bandido/Dragon Lee match, but it certainly is possible.

TNT Sports Mexico launches today. A press release yesterday mentioned an upcoming announcement of Mexico lucha libre programming as part of the channel’s slate. Space is a TNT property, so Mexico lucha libre means an AAA show – maybe just the same AAA show in more places. It sounds like TNT Sports Mexico is not going to be an actual different channel, but a branding bit done on existing channels. For purposes of those of us who live outside of Mexico, this might be worth keeping track of to see if the first airing of AAA moves to a different channel (and a different set of bootleg streams), but it doesn’t seem an immediate concern. Maybe TNT & AAA will say more about this around Verano de Escandalo.

AAA airs Saturday seems to be airing a little earlier this week, at 5:25 pm. This will be the first of the two rain-drenched episodes, so keep expectations in check on the matches.

Arez & Gringo Loco face Jake Lander & Brayden Lee on AAW’s show tonight. That match will stream on their Twitch show on a future week.

ROH TV this weekend has Dragon Lee & Kenny King challenging for the ROH Tag Team Championship against Rhett Titus & Tracy Williams. Next weekend’s show will include Tony Deppen defending the TV Championship against Williams & Lee as well as the Bandido versus Bateman qualifying match for Survival of the Fittest,

Penta and a mystery partner will face Los Traumas on July 3rd in Arena Lopez Mateos, which is more notable that Penta won’t be wrestling at Verano de Escandalo. I didn’t even think about a match for current AAA Tag Team Champions the Lucha Brothers on TripleMania when sketching out a lineup a while back, and maybe it’s no certainly they’ll be there.

MLW announced Arez has signed with them and will start on MLW’s July 10th show in Philadelphia. Like with Aramis, it’s possible Arez could do interesting things in MLW but it’s hard to have faith he’ll do much until it happens. I’d generally want them to see in other places where the risk of them being only used as enhancement talent is much lower, but I can also understand if they didn’t want to wait forever for an offer from another company that hasn’t yet come.

This Arez bit also reminded me that AAA really needs to update their promo photos. And also if they could get a second song for the post-match replay packages I would appreciate it.

Warrior Wrestling officially announced Daga versus Aramis for the new Lucha Libre championship on July 17th.

The Alberto/Andrade card for Hidalgo has been revealed. As should be expected, Andrade and Alberto are not having a singles match.

ROBLES , Patron (SAT) 07/31/2021 Payne Arena, Hidalgo, Texas
1) Bengala & Rey Kuervo vs Prime & Prince Celestial
2) Sayruis vs EstrellatoSúper BeastBlackcatDrakula Jr.Rey LeónZarzy TigerToro NegroHalcón Negro
3) Sexy Dulce & Wendy vs Crystal White & Estrellita
4) Blue Demon Jr. vs AvernoApollo (Puerto Rico)ToscanoHijo del Fishman [hair, mask]
5) Cinta de Oro & Texano Jr. vs Hijo De Dos Caras & Psycho Clown
6) Alberto el Patrón vs Andrade vs Carlito

Carlito gets the main event because Andrade and Alberto aren’t losing (though they’re probably still doing silliness.) I presume Gran Apolo got brought in as an Alberto buddy to lose his hair, which seems appropriately cynical. Apolo was barely working before the pandemic, and nearly only on Nacion shows. I’m curious as to Estrellita’s status with CMLL; this is not the first time she’s shown up on a card with Psycho Clown. I presume this booking pays a lot better than whatever CMLL is paying and she seems to be a trusted Sexy Dulce opponent. Similarly, there’s got to be better things for Averno to be doing than this but I suppose it pays pretty well.

That’s a lineup where they could draw a couple of thousand people and still lose badly on the show. There’s no real reason for the fourth match to exist – no one’s buying a ticket in fear of missing out on Blue Demon losing his mask in a random match, everyone understands lucha libre doesn’t work like that, the only people who believe in that bit are the promoters – and it’s probably adding quite a bit to the talent cost.

Cinta de Oro’s claim of WWE blocking this 07/31 show boils down to him accusing WWE offering to return to running shows as the Payne Arena but they’d have to dump the Alberto/Robles/Cinta show. WWE has run a newer arena in the area instead. It seems unlikely WWE would care enough about this to make that move, but WWE has done things like that in the past.

The Tijuana lucha libre commission suspended Fresero Jr. indefinitely for missing a May 28th show for Promociones Cholo de Tijuana. Their story is Fresero Jr. accepted then canceled the booking at Arena Big Punch and worked in Arena Lopez Mateos instead. Cholo de Tijuana hasn’t said anything about the situation on Facebook. Fresero Jr. has just posted emojis, which I presume is mocking the bit. An Indefinite suspension seems a bit much; the regulation indicates the commission can suspend a wrestler for 10 days to a year, not indefinitely. It also may irrelevant since Fresero doesn’t work in Tijuana much.

Segunda Caida reviews some recent Black Terry matches.

Queretaro luchador Halcon Negro Jr. got some attention about two months ago claiming the casting director of Survivor Mexico sexually harassed him. Tuesday, Halcon Negro Jr.’s manager Rodrigo Fragoso quit and claimed the sexual harassment story was invented for publicity. That article goes into more scandalous claims about a wrestler I barely hear about wrestling, including some Tweets which seem to now be deleted. Halcon Negro Jr. posted on Facebook acknowledging a split with Fragoso and his talent agency while apologizing for things that were posted on social media on his behalf, without going into more detail about what those things were.

LuchaWorld has the latest Lucha Report.