Templario/Soberano in Leyenda de Plata final, Pequeño Olimpico/Ultimo Dragoncito mask match set for Friday, Orizaba failure show

CMLL

CMLL (FRI) 07/22/2022 Arena México [CMLL, Estrellas del Ring, Kaiser Sports, R de Rudo, The Gladiaotres]
1) Disturbio, Enfermero Jr., Inquisidor b Oro Jr., Sangre Imperial, Valiente Jr. 
13:02.
2) Dalys, Dark Silueta, Stephanie Vaquer b La Vaquerita, Marcela, Skadi 
12:10. Rudas took 1/3.
3) Cavernario, Gran Guerrero, Último Guerrero b Euforia, Hechicero, Mephisto   
14:29. Team UG took 2/3.
4) Templario b Volador Jr., Star Jr., El Coyote, Fugaz, El Audaz, Stigma, Dulce Gardenia [Leyenda de Plata, semifinal]    
Elimination order: Audaz (by Star Jr., 7:43), Stigma (Coyote, 12:16), Dulce Gardenia (Fugaz, 15:04), Coyote (Volador Jr., 18:48), Fugaz (Star Jr., 22:39), Star Jr. (Templario, 23:33), Volador Jr. (Templario, 28:47)

Another good show, with another good cibernetico. That format made a night where it was fairly obvious which two would be the final two a bit more entertaining; we got much more out of the first 23 minutes of this match than a single elimination tournament. Fugaz had a really good night, Dulce got over well as always. Audaz finally got a match with old rival Templario and was doing rudo bumbling spots as partners instead of high spots as opponents.

The bigger picture is CMLL’s now in their highest quality stretch of the year, covering at least the next couple of months. These Leyenda de Plata ciberneticos will start to turn up on CMLL’s YouTube this Sunday, the Gran Prix is coming soon, and Aniversario will be a big deal as always. This is as a good.

Templario/Soberano is the least prestige of the four Aniversario feuds. Atlantis/Fuerza have lots of history. Atlantis Jr./Stuka Jr. has been going for long and more intense. Averno/UG is not clicking as a big deal for me but they’ve got a lot more history. Putting that Soberano/Templario feud in the final of this tournament helps boost it up, makes it look like a more legitimate option. I tend to think fans would still reject that match if it was the mask match over the other possibilities, but CMLL’s at least making a case for it.

I feel like I’ve written about Hechicero’s struggles too much lately, but I still have to point out Hechicero’s depressing post-match interview from Friday. You can have a good debate on the saddest part. My pick was someone asking about Matt Taven challenging for the Heavyweight championship in his Gran Prix video, and Hechicero responding that Taven must’ve assumed the Heavyweight champion would be in the Gran Prix and so did he.

CMLL (SAT) 07/23/2022 Arena Coliseo [Box y Lucha, CMLL, Estrellas del Ring, Mas Lucha, The Gladiatores, The Gladiatores (videos)]
1) Diamond, Magia Blanca, Magnus b Bestia Negra, Difunto, Zandokan Jr. 
referee Bestia Negra officiated GDL wrestler Bestia Negra’s match
2) Dark Silueta, Náutica, Sexy Sol, Valkiria (Jalisco) b Hera, La Jarochita, Lluvia, Olympia 
3) Adrenalina, Explosivo (Jalisco), Fantástico b Akuma, Dark Magic, Espanto Jr. 
4) Dulce Gardenia, Espíritu Negro, Rey Cometa b Furia Roja (Jalisco), Guerrero de la Muerte (Jalisco), Joker (Jalisco) 
5) Soberano Jr., Star Black, Star Jr. b Bárbaro Cavernario, Demonio Maya, Principe Daniel 

The Guadalajara (2 wins ) vs Mexico City (3 wins) idea definitely got more attention this show than usual – it appeared just behind the April Arena Coliseo Anniversary show in attendence and there were more media there than normal. Matches weren’t that impressive but the concept seems like something to repeat periodically.

CMLL (SUN) 07/24/2022 Arena México [CMLL, Cronista del Ring, Kasier Sports, The Gladiatores (Videos)]
1) La Guerrera & La Magnifica b La Seductora & Olympia
2) Kráneo, Nitro, Raider b Astral, Robin, Volcano
3) El Coyote, Okumura, Rey Bucanero b Arkalis, Guerrero Maya Jr., Pegasso
4) Último Dragóncito L Shockercito, Aéreo, Acero, Angelito, Fantasy, Kaligua, Pequeño Magía [cibernetico, cibernetico suicida]
Groups: Ultimo Dragonicto, Aereo, Acero, Angelito and Pequeno Magia, Kaligua, Fantasy, Shockercito. Escapes: Pequeno Magia (beat Angelito), Aereo (Fantasy), Angelito (Shockercito), Kaligua (Acero), Fantasy (Dragoncito), Acero (Shockercito), Shockercito (Dragoncito) leaving Dragoncito. Dragoncito faces Pequeno Olimpico on 07/29.
5) Atlantis, Negro Casas, Titán b Gemelo Diablo I, Gemelo Diablo II, Sagrado

Ultimo Dragoncito, Pequeno Olimpico and Pierrothito have been talking about mask matches with each other for at least a decade – it came up on the long forgotten Ras de Lona CMLL TV show. They’re the longest tenured minis and among the longest tenured wrestlers overall in CMLL, having stuck with the promotion when the rest of the minis left to join Antonio Pena in AAA. (This tournament is part of the 30th anniversary of the Pequeno Estrellas division and they’ve had to slightly dance around the fact that these guys date back to the Minis division that existed prior and is now written out of CMLL’s history.) Like a lot of CMLL challenges, it seemed like Pierrothito, Ultimo Dragoncito and Pequeno Olimpico would be making them forever with nothing happening. It’s finally happening with Pequeno Olimpico vs Ultimo Dragoncito. (And it’s hard not to wonder if this would’ve been Pierrothito vs Ultimo Dragoncito had Pierrothito tested positive for COVID.)

Pequeno Olimpico seems the slight favorite to lose his mask, but it’s a close to a toss up. It could be the final match for whomever loses; both men are well into their 50s. It’s going to be a highly emotional and intense match for them, and it’ll just be a matter of if the crowd sees these guys as the same big deal the promotion sees them at. This also could be read as a hopeful sign for the CMLL Aniversario; there were cheap ways out of doing a match like this (or they could’ve just not booked an apuesta match), and CMLL went for the biggest possible CMLL Pequeno Estrellas match they had to offer. They might do it again in September.

CMLL hasn’t announced a full card yet for Friday, but the Leyenda de Plata final and this mask match make it one of the bigger nights of their year so far. I wonder if they’ll sneak in the other three Aniversario hopefuls in a trios match to bring those threads together.

Negro Casas’ recent appearance in NJPW aired on the most recent edition of NJPW Strong.

AAA

AAA TV (SUN) 07/24/2022 Showcenter Complex, San Pedro Garza García, Nuevo Leon [@thekoko666, AAA]
1) Dulce Canela b Baby Love
Announced as La Hiedra vs Natalia Marakova; Marakova had flight issues for a 2nd show.
2) Arez & Baby Xtreme b Diva Salvaje & Jessy Ventura
Announced as Baby Extreme, Komander, Lady Shani vs Diva Salvaje, Dulce Canela, Jessy Ventura. Good match.
3) Aramis & Jack Cartwheel b Flamita & Parka Negra
good match
4) Látigo b Vasco Jr. [Showcenter Tournament, torneo]
Announced as Dralistico vs Latigo. Still part of the tournament.
5) Dralistico & Laredo Kid DQ Abismo Negro Jr. & Antifaz
Antifaz fouled/unmasked Laredo
6) Hijo Del Vikingo, Mr. Iguana, Niño Hamburguesa b Chessman, Puma King, Toscano
very good match

Half the card changed, including Natalia Markova having flight issues for a second straight show. I have no idea why they changed the men’s tournament match with Latigo and Dralistico both being there; it didn’t make sense for the tournament for them to be wrestlng but this tournament isn’t intended to make any sense.

Vasco Jr. is a Monterrey indie wrestler, the brother of CMLL luchadora Tiffany. He was also, a very long time ago, “Kumbia Kid Jesse” in 2004, then “Jesse of the Night Queens” in 2007-2008.  It’s another name from the AAA past returning, though probably just as a weird fill in. This would be Vasco Jr.’s first televised match in 14 years, if any of this is actually airing. AAA’s social media put up clips of matches from the show, but not of that match.

As always, there’s an photo of a full looking arena. Shots of the building looking not so full if shot the other way.

AAA TV (SAT) 08/20/2022 Lienzo Charro Professor Enrique Gonzalez, Saltillo, Coahuila
1) Komander & Sussy Love vs Chik Tormenta & Látigo and Maravilla & Toxin
2) Aerostar, Drago, Myzteziz Jr. vs Argenis, La Parka Negra, Villano III Jr.
3) Crazy Boy, Mr. Iguana, Niño Hamburguesa vs Bestia 666, Gringo Loco, Mecha Wolf
4) Charly Manson, Pagano, Zorro vs Abismo Negro Jr., Cibernético, Rey Escorpión
5) Dragón Lee & Fénix vs Aramis & Hijo Del Vikingo

A newly announced TV taping, sliding in between Verano de Escandalo and the Hard Rock show. (This means there’s even less of a chance of the Showcenter evnets airing.) The main had MOTYC potenial. Everything else is just marking time. Five matches for an AAA TV taping doesn’t make sense for a promotion that airs three matches a week, but it doesn’t have to make sense.

AAA TV (SUN) 08/21/2022 Showcenter Complex, San Pedro Garza García, Nuevo Leon
1) Dulce Canela vs Artemiz [Showcenter Tournament, torneo]
2) Aramis, Komander, Niño Hamburguesa vs Argenis, Látigo, Parka Negra
3) Chik Tormenta vs Maravilla [Showcenter Tournament, torneo]
4) Aerostar & Drago vs Bestia 666 & Mecha Wolf
5) Dinámico vs Puma King [Showcenter Tournament, torneo]
6) Octagón Jr. & Pagano vs Rey Escorpión & Villano III Jr.

AAA immediately put up the next lineup after the last one happened. It’s rare for them to run two tapings on back to back days, but they’re more tapings in my mind than reality at this point The tournament matches don’t make sense but that’s to be expected; I look forward to retroactively constructing the tournament brackets they actually did when this over. Artemiz is originally a Torreon based luchdora who’s been showing up on indie shows all over Mexico this year, and fits the wide net AAA is using to bring different people in.

AAA TV on Space aired the first three matches from Mazatlan taping. I only saw the opener; the streams I used to record failed miserable. (Even the Twitch stream that used to be going didn’t seem to be running on Saturday.) The show will repeat again next week and I’ll try again. It may turn up on AAA’s YouTube in four weeks.

Space announced Verano de Escandalo will air live on August 5th, at 9:30 pm. Same deal as usual for Space airings: they’re intending to air just half the card live and half the card next week, only AAA runs too slow to make that work perfectly. I’m going to try to stream it as always, but obviously streaming Space is a problem right now. The secondary issue is this is a Friday night show overlapping with CMLL, and I kinda need to record both of them. I have some ideas how I’m going to do this but it’s going to not be a good day for me.

There is still new unseen AAA to watch even if I didn’t capture most of the TV show. AAA put up the missing half of the Puebla taping:

• Baby Extreme, Drago Kid, Komander vs Diva Salvaje, Jessy Ventura, Mamba
• A bit with Octagon Jr. & Villano III Jr.
• Aerostar, Drago, Myzteziz Jr. vs Argenis, Parka Negra, Toxin
• Dave The Clown, Murder Clown, Pagano vs Flamita, Rey Escorpión, Villano III Jr.

This was the show originally scheduled to air on Space prior to TripleMania Tijuana, then Space just decided not to air it and AAA decided not to put it up on YouTube until after they put up all of TripleMania. It’s great that we get to see it, it’s not as great that AAA TV on YouTube slips even later; this is a show taped in May that’s going up in July. This show went up too late for me to watch it, but I’ll try to check it out this week.

Taya kept the Reina de Reinas championship on Saturday on Garden State Pro Wrestlng’s show. Taya defended the title a few times in a tour of Canada too apparently. AAA hasn’t mentioned any of these and they’re probably not meant to be canon, but they eventually sort of referred to them as a bulk amount of when Deonna Purrazzo was doing the same thing (though that may just be the announcers doing their own research and no cohernt plan.)

fiasco in Orizaba

Veltorr (SAT) 07/23/2022 Plaza de Toros La Concordia, Orizaba, Veracruz [La Tijera Lucha Libre]
1) Gato Extremo, Génesis Star, Súper Grillo Jr. b Black Star, Halcón Maligno, Rey Felino
2) Ringo Acosta Jr. & Samuray Jr. b Hermes & Lasserman
3) Anarquía & La Heroína b Mini Psycho Clown & Morgana

The most talked about Mexican wrestling show of the weekend lasted three matches. Latin Lover appeared after the third match to announce the wrestlers had decided they would not perform, because many of them weren’t going to get paid. The local commission followed with a statement saying they’d try to work something out between the wrestlers and the promotion, but nothing more happened. Fans weren’t given refunds, the promotion claiming they had no money. A few fans instead took the plastic chairs or tables with them instead, and some threw those chairs around. The local police eventually got involved – not really to help the fans, but to get the chairs back. Everyone was left unhappy.

The show was built around the LA Park family versus LFI. Rush had earlier in the day said he wouldn’t be there – not because he was actually wrestling on the ROH PPV instead, but because of issues with the promotion. Bestia 666 posted a video on Facebook, saying he and MechaWolf would not be coming because their flights were canceled and said he’d heard 11 other people were off the show as well. Some wrestlers still made it to the show; many weren’t paid when they got there and were left to find their own way home. (La Tijera’s YouTube channel has a bunch of interviews with disappointed/angry wrestlers, because they were all stuck on the same bus road home.) The show seemed to exist on the idea that just putting LA Park (with a bunch of his family) and Rush (with a bunch of his family) would guarantee a big turnout and that did not happen; it was a small crowd in a big building which left angirily. El Sol de Orizaba has it as 40% full; it looked closer than 20% than that. The promoter, a local radio host, didn’t appear to have enough money to cover the show if he didn’t sell tickets, and they didn’t sell tickets. In a private Facebook page, he blamed the wrestlers for not attending, implying the show tanked becase people (Rush) didn’t show up, but he seemed to be canceling flights earlier than that.

Orizaba is a AAA TV stop and there are wrestlers who work AAA shows on the card, but this doesn’t appear to be anything to do with their local promoter. That promoter is running the same venue on 08/27, and will probably have to face new regulations due to this failure. Various actions are always proposed to keep underfunded and unprepared promoters like this out of the Mexican wrestling business, but so much of the wrestling business (especially on an indie level) are wrestlers taking bookings from promtoers who are way in over their heads, just hoping they last long enough to pay everyone out. This one could not.

ROH

Rush defeated Dragon Lee on ROH’s Death Before Dishonor match. The match was announced Friday night on AEW’s Rampage show, and it appeared it was a match that was only officially made earlier on Friday. It was the first singles match between the brothers and the story they were trying to tell (to mixed results) was that Rush would pull one over even on his own brother to win a match.

Rush moves onto a AEW interim title match with Jon Moxley on Wednesday’s Dynamite broadcast. Dragon Lee generally wrestled like a mad man trying to earn a contract but appears unsigned for the moment. Tony Khan talked positively about Dragon Lee. I had about 500 words here breaking down  the deeper meaning of that but even I have to edit myself sometimes. Shorter version is I think Dragon Lee is well thought enough of to get hired by ROH, but they’re trying to hire as few as ROH exclusive people as possible until they have TV and Dragon Lee isn’t as important to the project as the Briscoes. There’s a strong chance of Dragon Lee’s getting offered a ROH deal once ROH itself has a good weekly deal, but Dragon Lee is probably limited to per-night appearances until then. And, as Lucha Underground Season 4 might have taught us, sometimes those deals go quick, sometimes it’s a very long wait to get the deal you want, and sometimes you just give up and take whatever’s on the table. Who knows how it’ll go.

This is a Nerd stuff paragraph but what else do you come here for. AEW is pushing the idea that Rush has won 10 straight matches as justification for Rush getting a title shot on Wednesday. I believe someone used Cagematch, where the administators work hard at including every match they can but not every show from Mexico make into their listings. One show that did not was the May 29th, 2022 Robles Promotion show in Monterrey. Box y Lucha 3508 does have results from that show, reporting that Rush and his family lost to LA Park and his family on that show. (It seemed to me that Rush also lost his April 29th Mexico City match, but the finishes of Rush/LA Park matches are open to interruption similiar to ancient texts.) There’s maybe 12 people who are going to watch Dynamite on Wednesday and know the Rush win streak is not accuate and now you are one of them.

IWRG

IWRG (SUN) 07/24/2022 Arena Naucalpan [IWRG, Mas Lucha]
1) Sol & X-Devil b Kenji & Limbo 
2) Baby Star & Garra Mortal Jr. b Pantera Jr. & Vértigo 
3) Tonalli b Imposible 
Tonalli beat Imposible cleanly, Imposible argued for a title match anyway
4) Caballero de Plata, Internacional Pantera, Noisy Boy b Fly Warrior, Paymon, Yorvak 
5) Dick Angelo 3G, Legendario, Travis Banks b Gran Pandemónium, Hijo de Pandemónium, Pandemónium Jr. 
sets up an EDM TRIOS title match
6) Galeno del Mal & Puma de Oro b Asterboy & Rey Espectro 
Rey Escpectro (ex-Hijo del Espectro Jr.) first match here since January. Galeno beat Espectro set up a IWRG HEAVY title match.

Losing to a champion and getting a title match is an IWRG staple, but they set up two other title matches here so maybe that’ll happen first.

Other News

Vince McMahon retired from the WWE, in an announcement strategically planned for Friday afternoon and under the cloud of NDAs over sexual harassment. This is a story you can find covered in much more depth in many other places but seems impossible to not at least nod at here. I have no idea what net effect it’ll have on WWE’s strategy in Latin America and Mexican wrestlers, only that everything they do will probably be status quo at first to make sure investors don’t get nervous with new people in charge, and we’ll only see real changes a year down the line if McMahon’s influence truly does disappear from the promotion.

Hijo del Abismo Negro, the son of the famous Abismo Negro, was scheduled to debut on that Orizaba show. He instead debuted on a show in Puebla on Sunday. He talked publicly about wanting to become a luchador after AAA introduced their Abismo Negro Jr.; the family has made clear their annoyance about anyone else carrying the name. His outfit actually looks a lot more like Winners to me.

The Tepic Box y Lucha commission mentions a recent show expecting to draw 500 people with Los Gemelos Diablos on top instead drew about 40. It was an outdoor show and it rained. They figure the promoter may have lost 20,000 pesos ($~1000 USD), and say that’s why they advise promoters to study carefully before even hiring a wrestler.

Ultimo Dragon faces Hijo del Santo on 07/30 in Dragon Gate. That’ll air live and remain on VOD for a week. Dragon Gate charges for their VOD on the first of the month, so you may want to either watch it live or wait until 08/01 to subscribe.

Reynosa is restarting its local boxing and lucha libre commission.

There was an exhibition of wrestling merchandise and artifacts in Hidalgo, hoping to stir up interest in a local museum.

Box y Lucha #3511 has a lot of CMLL stories on the oger, as usual. Box y Lucha said they’re publishing digitally only, no paper magazines, for the time being.

El Heredero (Tirantes’ grandson) says he’s training to be a wrestler and was invited to train with CMLL.

Septimo Dragon’s hometown paper talked to him about his trip to GLEAT.