CMLL
CMLL (FRI) 02/09/2024 Arena México [AS, CMLL, Cronista del Ring, Kaiser Sprots, thecubsfan]
1) Acero & Pierrothito DQ Angelito & Pequeño Olímpico [Relevos Increíbles]
6:52. Rematch. Olimpico unmasked Pierrothito this time. Challenges followed, teasing a 2v2 mask match.
2) Dulce Gardenia, Espíritu Negro, Rey Cometa b Apocalipsis, Cholo, Disturbio
11:56.
3) Reyna Isis & Tessa Blanchard b Marcela & Skadi
16:52.
4) Averno, Euforia, Mephisto b Max Star, Rugido, Volador Jr.
12:36. Max Star, who’d been given the Depredador mask on an Informa and mentioned as being part of the group, got to actually team with the other Depredadores (and wear their colors.)
5) Alom, Astro Boy Jr., Dragón de Fuego, Forneo, Hunter, Legendario b Emperador Jr., Infarto (Laguna), Misterio Blanco, Misterio Negro, Platino Kid (Laguna), Viento Negro [Torneo de Escuelas, semifinal]
34:04 Legendario defeated Emperador Jr. to win in for Team Mexico City over Team Comarca Lagunera
This comparison isn’t going to work for everyone but these Torneo de Escuelas are essentially (much less common than they used to be) IWRG FILL ciberneticos between schools. CMLL wrestlers should be more steady than some of the raw rookies seen in those, but the basic concept of a lot of young guys trying to keep together a match they’ve previously worked out remains the same. Some are going to make the most of their time, others (Hunter) are going to be totally forgettable.
Legendario – the former Ultimo Legendario of Juventud Guerrera’s Super X, the former winner of an Octagon protege search reality show who got the name Dragon Dorado, the former Vengador Celestial who won a Super Crazy NOAH tryout but never made it to NOAH – won for his team and looked like the major league wrestler he’s seemed at other points of his career. Forneo was good too (and his Big Lucha time seemed to fill him with more confidence than the rest of these guys had.) I had concerns about Alom coming in, because someone with as much height seems likely to be pushed somewhere if he’s got any talent at all and he’d never gotten that sort of push. I’m not sure why though, because he looked perfectly fine here and showed some potential when he stuck to the power stuff benefiting his size. Platino Kid, Emperador Jr. and Infarto stood on the other side, though part of that was due to Infarto getting a lot of the match. Viento Negro appeared to be accidentally counted down before he got his big run and now his team is out of the tournament, so he’s got the worst luck. Maybe they’ll run another cibernetico with some of these guys at the Arena Coliseo anniversary show again and he’ll get a second chance then.
Everything else was better than the Tuesday everything else but nothing you need to see. It amazes me how the Indestructibles have gelled as a team. They’re not the old Diabolicos in terms of making people look great, but they’re can help people look good and that’s far more than I would’ve expected out of that crew a year ago. They’ve figured out their roles in a way they never would’ve done without this team. The minis feud is clearly going somewhere – maybe Homenaje a Dos Leyendas – though it’s hard to believe either Pierrothito or Pequeno Olimpico would lose their mask in tag title match after being prominent characters in that division for over thirty years.
Stream worked fine. That’s a relief.
CMLL (SAT) 02/10/2024 Arena Coliseo [CMLL, La Tijera]
1) Eléctrico & Retro DQ Inquisidor & Príncipe Odín Jr.
Retro replaced Leono. Odin unmasked Retro. Challenges followed.
2) Felino Jr., Pólvora, Vegas b Capitán Suicida, Diamond, El Audaz
Polvora replaced Misterioso Jr.
3) Felino b Panterita del Ring [lightning]
Panterita suffered a leg injury (or sold one)
4) Hera, Olympia, Tessa Blanchard b Andrómeda, Marcela, Skadi
5) Fugaz, Star Black, Valiente b Gemelo Diablo I, Gemelo Diablo II, Kráneo
6) Ángel de Oro, Gran Guerrero, Niebla Roja b Atlantis, Blue Panther, Flip Gordon
Tessa is back winning her matches.
Female fans grabbed certain parts of Flip Gordon leaving Arena Coliseo last week (according to his very displeased wife on Instagram.) This week, a female fan tried to grab Flip during the match; security got involved but didn’t completely cut her off.
CMLL (SUN) 02/11/2024 Arena México [CMLL]
1) Dr. Karonte I & Enfermero Jr. b Robin & Valiente Jr.
2) Crixus & Raider b Fuego & Volcano
3) Akuma, Dark Magic, Espanto Jr. b Cancerbero, Luciferno, Virus
Ola Negra cheated to beat Los Cancerberos (again), which annoyed Virus into attacking them (again)
4) Metálica, Stephanie Vaquer, Zeuxis b Amapola, Hera, Tessa Blanchard
5) Hijo del Villano III, Villano III Jr., Zandokan Jr. b Futuro, Hombre Bala Jr., Neón
6) Atlantis, Flip Gordon, Star Jr. b Bárbaro Cavernario, Dragón Rojo Jr., Terrible
This show drew terribly from the photos, the worst attended CMLL show in quite a while. Not sure if it was a star power issue or if the Super Bowl is really starting to have an affect in Mexico City.
Not as sure the Ola Negra/Cancerberos bit is going anywhere, but they should definitely keep doing it.
CMLL keeps calling Zandokan Jr. and Los Villanos variations of El Triangulo. Most CMLL luchadors would go along with the plan. What makes Zandokan and Los Villanos fun is they never seem to go along with anyone else’s plan, and so they continue to call themselves El Escuadra in promos. They also brought chairs into their promo to sit on and threw out a random challenge to the Blackpool Combat Club. That match would be fun and is unlikely to happen. Sometimes these antics can get grating; it did eventually with Los Ingobernables. It’s fun right now.
CMLL (TUE) 02/13/2024 Arena México
1) Fantasy, Kaligua, Pequeño Magía vs Full Metal, Minos, Pequeño Polvora
2) Capitán Suicida, Fuego, Valiente Jr. vs Dr. Karonte I, Enfermero Jr., Inquisidor
3) El Audaz vs El Coyote [lightning]
4) Blue Panther, Blue Panther Jr., El Hijo De Blue Panther vs Gemelo Diablo I, Gemelo Diablo II, Kráneo
5) Bárbaro Cavernario, Dragón Rojo Jr., Terrible vs Averno, Euforia, Mephisto
6) La Catalina, Lady Frost, Tessa Blanchard vs Dark Silueta, Stephanie Vaquer, Zeuxis
That’s a statement main event. CMLL could just as easily flipped the two matches, and they’re instead pointedly putting the women in a main event. That doesn’t happen in Arena Mexico outside the one month they celebrate women’s wrestling. (The August 5, 2012 Marcela/Tiffany hair match that went up against a TripleMania is always my go to ‘this is the last time it happened’ for this bits but I guess it’s now officially retired.) It really doesn’t matter what main events, these Tuesday shows usually draw the same, but it’s definitely an interesting choice.
FantasticaMania season means a lot of acts who haven’t been on streaming much lately (Gemelos Diablos and Enfermero Jr. come to mind) get a chance.
CMLL (FRI) 02/16/2024 Arena México
1) Hombre Bala Jr. vs Felino Jr. [lightning]
2) Dulce Gardenia, Espíritu Negro, Rey Cometa vs Cancerbero, Luciferno, Virus
3) Flip Gordon & Star Jr. vs Ángel de Oro & Niebla Roja
4) Stephanie Vaquer & Zeuxis © vs Lady Frost & Tessa Blanchard [CMLL WOMEN]
second defense
5) Adrenalina, Barboza (Jalisco), Calavera Jr. I (Jalisco), Calavera Jr. II (Jalisco), Fantástico, Persa (Jalisco) vs El Hijo De Centella Roja, El Malayo, El Novato (Puebla), Rayo Metálico (Guanajuato), Rey Apocalipsis, Xelhua
Puebla versus Guadalajara this time around. Guadalajara won last year over Mexico City and that looks like the final match up again (though maybe a different outcome.) Rayo Metalico is very thin, Novato is very much a novato. Centella Roja & El Malayo never stood out when Puebla was being streamed. Rey Apocalipsis has his moments and Xelhua gets good reviews. The Guadalajara team is a mix of the guys who’ve taken over El Gallo’s role as the heroic local tecnicos (Adrenalina & Fantastico) and a bunch of a guys who rarely make it out of the openers.
It seems notable the team was Blancard/Isis last week and now it’s Blanchard/Frost this week. However, whenever CMLL brings in a foreigner, they’re going to book them as many times as possible and that was just the spot to use both of them here.
CMLL keeps programming Flip Gordon and Angel de Oro together. I don’t think they can do another hair match with Angel de Oro this soon so it may not be leading anywhere, but CMLL may have decided Angel de Oro was the guy to get Gordon used to wrestling in CMLL.
CMLL put up the first Saturday matches on the higher tier. They’re from the week prior (02/03). It was the opener (minis tag) and the third match (Dulce Gardenia/Disturbio.) CMLL tapes this Arena Coliseo show to air on Heraldo TV. I never get to see the show – the channel has a live stream, but only streams programming it owns – but others who’ve watched say it has the same three match format as all CMLL’s one hour shows. It looks like the CMLL strategy, at least for week one, is that they’ll put a couple of the matches that don’t make the El Heraldo TV cut on YouTube. We’ll give it a few weeks (and at least one title match) to see how it goes, but it’s a very tiny offering. The two matches they aired this week are nothing worth going out of your way to see.
CMLL also put up the 02/05 Puebla show. It was not much better. The undercard was forgettable or worse. The title match was Good in that they kept going longer than a normal trios between these two random teams, but it never felt like they put more thought in than that. They just did a lot of stuff until they got the finish.
Futuro, in an interview with La Razon, said there was a moment two years ago where he thought about quitting wrestling and focusing on school entirely. He just didn’t think he’d ever get a chance to debut in CMLL. Even after he did, when he appeared in the schools tournament last year and had something go wrong, he thought he was doomed. He feels those moments helped him build character and toughness.
Arena Coliseo Guadalajara congratulated indie arena Arena Jalisco on turning 50 years old. That’s another “things are different in Guadalajara” moment; Mexico City wouldn’t acknowledge the existence of other buildings if possible. The Guadalajara scene is a bit closer; there’s been an irregular amount of government sponsored free shows over the last year in small venues where various promotions contribute one match, so I’d guess everyone’s gotten to know each other better.
While I’m at it, that Arena Jalisco 50th Anniverasry show saw Reycko defeat Marvailla Azteca for his mask in the final of a four way. (You may remember Reycko as Chik Tormenta’s husband, who made some AAA cameos the last couple of years.) Reycko Maravilla Azteca is Francisco Javier Ramelero Ramírez, 37 years old, 15 years a wrestler. Metalik & Rey Triton defeated Penta & Makabre in the semi-main. Penta left with a shoulder injury, though others pointed out Penta sometimes works an injury to get away from crowds after matches. This show sold out that building, which looks around a 1000 person capacity.
MLW announced Star Jr. versus Magnus for their 02/29 show. That’s in addition to the Mistico/Rocky Romero match already announced.
FantasticaMania
The first show took place Monday morning Mexico City time.
CMLL, NJPW (MON) 02/12/2024 Osaka Prefectural Gym 2, Osaka, Japan [CMLL, Fuego ene l Ring, NJPW (English), NJPW (Japanese)]
1) Difunto & Douki b Bone Solider Jr. & Gedo
6:14. Bone Solider Jr. is Taiji Ishimori under a mask claiming to be a distant relative.
2) Tiger Mask TLDRAW Magnus [lightning]
Magnus wore a Black Tiger mask and unmasked Tiger Mask after the draw.
3) Bushi, Kamaitachi, Tetsuya Naito, Titán b Brillante Jr., Desperado, Ryusuke Taguchi, Stigma
12:50. Kamaitachi claims to be a second Kamaitachi, with a “Mr. Takahasha” doing his post-match interviews. He pinned Taguchi.
4) Okumura, Strong Machine J, YOH b Dark Panther, Pegasso, Súper Kokeshi Machine [Relevos Increíbles]
10:57. Okumura beat Pegasso. Strong Machine J replaced Master Wato (knee injury) on 01/25. Tomoaki Honma replaced Satoshi Kojima on 02/08 (knee injury). Honma wrestled as the second Super Kokeshi Machine. His mask came off the match and Strong Machine J pointed it was Honma under the mask (a likely reference to the original Strong Machine’s identity being revealed by another wrestler while he was still masked.)
5) Hechicero, Rocky Romero, Soberano Jr. b Atlantis Jr., Templario, Volador Jr.
14:36. Rocky Romero beat Volador Jr. with a Dude Buster to build to their title match. Soberano gifted Rocky Romero with a new Black Tiger mask.
6) Hiroshi Tanahashi, Máscara Dorada, Místico b Francesco Akira, Stuka Jr., Último Guerrero
14:53. Mascara Dorada beat Stuka Jr. via shooting star press, then thanked the fans (briefly in Japanese.)
I haven’t seen this, but it sounds like it what you’d expect from the first night of the tournament. The second and third shows are not taped for TV. They’re back early Friday morning.
Okumura took fellow CMLL wrestlers on a tour through his hometown of Osaka on Sunday. It is sad how much I could recognized solely through a series of video games. “I’ve thrown many people off that bridge” was a real thought I’ll leave with no further explanation.
La Jarochita & Lluvia won their first match in Japan.
The 02/25 Lady’s Ring Lucha Festival will have a five way match of young wrestlers where the winner “will get a chance to study wrestling in Mexico.” I assume that means they’ll end up in CMLL for a bit. The names are Zones, Sumika Yanagawa, Misa Kagura, Honoka and Kizuna Tanaka. I will look up information on the winner and only on the winner after there is a winner.
CMLL/AEW
Mistico beat Matt Sydal on AEW Rampage, and CMLL wrestlers again challenged the BCC to come to Arena Mexico. Jon Moxley and Claudio Castagnoli defeated Star Jr. & Esfinge on AEW Collision on Saturday. I watched part of that one on my phone while at another wrestling show, normal person behavior, and it seemed to alright on the sliding scale of putting Star Jr. and Esfinge on live TV with unfamiliar opponents. Moxley & Castagnoli did another post match interview talking about that challenge. Castagnoli mentioned studying to CMLL, coming to CMLL, getting rejected, and turning himself into the best luchador possible. Castagnoli and Chris Hero did come to Mexico in 2006 in hopes of wrestling in CMLL, had meeting, but never got anywhere with them.
There is an unusual opening in AEW’s schedule this week – there is no Collision on Saturday due to the NBA All Star game – but it wouldn’t make a lot of sense to do the AEW invasion when the top guys aren’t around. Friday the 23rd still is the better fit as an appearance. Homenaje a Dos Leyendas remains the most likely place for a big match.
CMLL is back at vague emoji tweets. It is probably a hint CMLL will be part of Forbidden Door 3, given the last time they were teasing things with those same emojis it was the AEW deal. I’m so unexcited for it. It’ll probably be a good show and a good opportunity. It’s also probably in June, there are exciting things happening now that I’d rather talk about.
I think it’s the repetitive of it; I can explain to one person why AEW is not running a PPV in Arena Mexico (they’d be forfeiting literal millions of dollars), have that person tell me thanks but they don’t care they still believe it’s absolutely happening, and then have another person roll up to ask the same question and this dismiss the answers a few hours later. It’s the never ending “explain to me how to watch CMLL because I can’t be bothered to find out on my own” tweets but for something I don’t even care that much about. This is one of those times where I just need to close up the Twitter window a little bit more because it’s really only a few people who are driving me mad and they only exist to me when that window is open.
Sussy Love did end up wrestling on Saturday’s ROH taping as part of their TV tapings, wrestling Taya in the first round of a tournament for a Women’s TV championship. The match sounded like it went well.
AAA
Luchatitlan is no more. The website is still active but the links to book tickets no longer work. People who’ve bought tickets for upcoming dates have received cancellation notices. Luchadors were told Friday that the show would not continue (and so they needed to move out of their company-provided Acapulco living arrangements ASAP.) Mexico City luchadora Miss Delicious, who had been playing the character Adelita in Luchatitlan, posted a farewell to the character on Instagram. El Fiscal, the son of Abismo Negro who wrestled as el Bastardo, did the same on Facebook. I assume there’s more of those around social media. There’s no official word from Luchatitlan or AAA, but every other indication is Luchatitlan is done.
Luchatitlan was a project funded by AAA and other investors: Puno (who own the mall it took place in), Cocolab (production company) and Ventura Entertainment (operated the show). AAA started work on the project as early as Fall of 2020. AAA’s role was to provide the wrestling knowledge; they scouted and selected the wrestlers, who acted out the same show every night. Luchatitlan had a lot of hype before it opened, with other partners discussing franchising out the idea immediately – their debate wasn’t about success or failure, but which US/European tourism destination in Mexico should get the next one. (Dorian Roldan said it was those outside investors who convinced him to place it in Cancun instead of his original plan for Mexico City, which may have been a pivotal decision.) The show launched on April 3rd (after being pushed back a month), and appeared to do well at first. By summer, attendees posting social media clips from Luchatitlan showed they were playing to some very small audiences. Luchatitlan tried to boost attendance – there was a sellout that just happened to take place the same weekend as a tourist expo, AAA wrestlers started to pop in more frequently – but it doesn’t appear the idea ever caught in. My guess is that annual contracts renewals and leases started to get close and that cause one or more of the parties to give up rather than commit any more money to the project. Luchador Alkymia says he wrestled on 256 shows, and that’s probably close to the total number of events before shutting down.
I didn’t even attend Luchatitlan, so it’s hard for me to put completely sure why it failed. I’ve had a guess though. Those who went said the show was good. It just didn’t appear enough people were persuaded to go. I don’t believe AAA did a good job of using their outlets to promote the show, but I’m not sure if that would’ve made the difference. The thing that stuck out about Luchatitlan from the start was the high prices to attend. CMLL does well with tourists at Arena Mexico, but those tickets are cheap for a foreigner to impulse buy while in Mexico City. Luchatitlan was a pricey upscale ticket. It was a upscale event, you can see the money being used on the staging and the production, but they couldn’t get tourists to take a chance on it at those prices they needed to maintain the business.
Luchatitlan being shut down short of a year is a big issue for the business of AAA, bigger than booking or TV or whatever complaints people have with the product. Dorian Roldan, in previous interviews, said this was ten million project and AAA put down 50% of amount. It’s extremely painful for a company AAA’s size to blow five million dollars in a year. It sure seems like something that would have major consequences for the promotion going forward, economically and otherwise. It’s also AAA getting into bed with another big name partner and coming out scarred with little to show for it. In a big picture, Luchatitlan was supposed to be a possible future for AAA – an authentic lucha libre experience they could provide in a form and on a level that was WWE-proof. Luchatitlan is now clearly not the future – so what does AAA’s future look like now? There’s not a lot of great answers to that question.
AAA’s present is AAA’s Rey de Reyes TV, which continued this Saturday. I should’ve put this together earlier: five unaired matches meant AAA is going to stretch this taping out over three weeks. Every decision AAA makes this year has to now be seen through the lens of AAA losing a bunch of money and has to be risk-adverse. Ideally, the normal wrestling business would be hot enough to make up for the issues elsewhere. AAA’s limited schedule suggests they don’t believe the wrestling is that hot, and “stretching out tapings over more weeks” is the go to strategy of wrestling promotions who are just trying to get through. AAA ran 33 tapings in 2019. They could cut that down to 20 tapings this year if they stretch out all the major shows to three weeks.
The matches, those happened too. The Texano, Cibernetico, Electroshock match was bad. Cibernetico looked terrible, even by Cibernetico standards. He’s worse than Vampiro. Naturally, AAA ran an angle teasing them teaming up against Sam Adonis and whomever. (Adonis still had his sponsored Sexmex shirt, so at least one person is getting value out of his TV time.) Cibernetico was unconvinced of this idea and I’m unsure if he’s a tecnico or face at this point.
The other two three way matches – Laredo/Argenis/Aerostar and Vikingo/Adonis/Psycho – were fine and probably good if watching live. Psycho’s broomstick broke Adonis’ hand in their match – it happened when Psycho was hitting Vikingo to break up a pin on Adonis, a freak thing – and then either that or a knee injury caused a Spanish Fly spot to go badly. Adonis got stretchered out of the match after that, which meant both Vikingo matches included one of the participants being taken away early. They got home fine both times, though I suspect the original finish wasn’t Vikingo beating Psycho clean. Aerostar’s injury was not his fault; Laredo’s stacked up 450 splash ended up being 360 double stomp to Aerostar’s ribs. Aerostar was in visible discomfort but did finish the match.
AAA will presumably air a third week of TV with nothing more than the two women’s qualifying matches. They’ll tape more TV this weekend (though they have at least three unaired episodes.)
IWRG
IWRG (SUN) 02/11/2024 Arena Naucalpan [IWRG]
1) Histeriosis b Ajolotl
2) Kali & Lolita b Bengalee & Zuzu Divine
Kali replaced Dehynna
3) Águila Roja, Rey Halcón, Sádika b Fussion, Keira, Tornado
Sadika challenged Keira to a IWRG WOMEN title match
4) Asterboy, Noisy Boy, Spider Fly b Abigor, Puma de Oro, Yorvak
Puma and Aster talked about a title match, while the Vipers (Arez included) showed up to challenge the Mexaboys again
5) Hijo de Canis Lupus, Jessy Queen, Mamba, Tonalli b Cerebro Negro, Hijo del Fishman, Hijo del Pirata Morgan, Wesley Pipes
Wesley Pipes was a special invitee
6) Ivan Rokov b Hell Boy © [AIWF CHAMP]
was a special invitee. The masked fake DMT Azul helped Rokov and revealed himself to be Vangellys (though no one seemed to recognize him)
The only thing I saw from this show is the clip of the announcers not being able to recognize Vangellys. The fans didn’t. I didn’t either! He had a very set look for many years with the dyed hair and has given up trying. Some of these matches make me think this promotion has also given up trying. On the other hand, there’s a much better chance of seeing a good Vipers match in IWRG than AAA nowadays.
Something is up here with foreign wrestlers. Saturday, IWRG posted a note to Instagram stating they would not use Shocko (who is from Chile) going forward until his immigration and visa paperwork is completed. (Shocko worked in IWRG in January.) They stated they would be happy to consider using Shocko once he’s legally allowed to work in Mexico, but it had been up to him to take care of that part. IWRG also quietly updated their poster for this week to list Ivan Rokov and Wesley Pipes as “special invitees”, and were careful to use that term in the results as well.
I suspect that almost foreign wrestlers who wrestle outside of AAA/CMLL are doing so without getting formal permission from a work visa or similar. They’re probably getting paid less the than cost of getting one and hoping they’re underneath the radar. I’d assume instead that anyone coming in for a weekend or a week is doing it on a tourist visa and skirting the laws that way. It may be for people longer than that; IWRG listing Rokov and Pipes as “special invitees” certainly suggest they’re trying to get around those guys ‘working’ for them by treating them as guests. Shocko hasn’t said anything on Facebook (and his IG is private) so it’s hard to know if this is an issue that started with him and spread to IWRG, or if someone noticed IWRG was running a contest last year to bring in wrestlers from around the world and started to ask questions. If I had to guess, this probably is a Shocko issue – he’s seemingly been living in Mexico for years, and doing so without a valid work visa is going to eventually catch up to him. I don’t know of any current bookings Shocko has, but I’m about a week behind on posters. Still, if this leads to a better crackdown on foreign wrestlers coming to Mexico, it’s going to cause headaches for lots of people.
No lineup for Sunday yet, but there is one a Thursday Lucha Libre Boom show coming up.
IWRG , LLB (THU) 02/29/2024 Arena Naucalpan
1) Basurologo I & Basurologo II vs ? & Demencia
2) Cometa & Príncipe Centauro vs Hijo De Sparta & Papaleito and Argus & Gaius
3) Noisy Boy, Sol, Spider Fly vs Águila Oriental Jr., Visionario, X-Devil
4) Puma vs Tonalli, Hell Boy, Carta Brava, Hijo de Canis Lupus, ?
5) Carnicero, Granjero, Lendaor vs Rhino Ciborg, Rhino Extreme, Rhino Killer
6) Desalmado Ibarra, Hijo de LA Park, LA Park vs Pig Destroyer, Pig Destructor, Pig Pool
The LA Park kids (but not the dad), the Pigs and the other gimmick teams (the Rhinos and the horror characters) seems like one of the weaker Lucha Libre Boom lineups.
Big Lucha
Big Lucha World (FRI) 02/09/2024 Arena Big Lucha, Iztapalapa, Distrito Federal [thecubsfan]
1) Nordico b Sangre Nueva, Shere Khan 
No Demon Boy, so a 2v2 changed to a three way
2) Bendito b Atómico Jr.
3) Elipse, Iku, Orbita b Hijo De Thor (Costa Rica), Pegaso (Costa Rica), Quimera Jr. (Costa Rica)
4) Limbo b Emperador Azteca, Vengador
5) El Potro de Oro & Flamita b Hijo del Pirata Morgan & Jack Evans
Potro beat Pirata with a spear. All three challenged Pirata after the match, setting up a #1 contender three way for next week.
This was one of the better Big Lucha shows n this run. Bendito/Atomico Jr. had some iffy moments but it was great when it was going great. The opener was fun for the people involved. The last two matches were technically OK if too long. Still no sign of when they might be running a normal show again. The Costa Rica matches continue to be a struggle.
Other
I went to Dreamwave Wrestling on Saturday. It was OK. The one lucah libre related match was a Penta, Mustafa Ali, Gringo Loco and Hijo del Vikingo for the Alternativa title. Ali has lots of history with the promotion so it made sense the promotion wanted to put a title on him now that he’s available again. No one can beat Vikingo, so they did a fourway where Penta took out Vikingo (and himself) with a package piledriver on the apron and Ali went onto beat Gringo. That match was good. It was a hot crowd and a very packed building; not all the stuff interested me but Dreamwave have clearly figured something out. Those guys and some of the indie names were over, but also people I was totally unfamiliar with. The semi-main was a woman’s title match between Brittnie Brooks and Maggie Lee. It’s a very small world: Brooks appears to be the same person who faced Zeuxis in a dark match at least week’s AEW Collision. This was a better match than that and that crowd (with lots of women and young fans) was very into supporting Brooks; there was a much different level of reaction to that match than to the two other women’s matches on that show.
ESTO interviews Golden Power, who talks about his young career and doing both the IWRG and AAA tryouts. (He felt the AAA guys had their favorites going into the competition.)