top six stories of the last two weeks

  1. Hijo del Fantasma appeared on Tercera Caida, talking about his move from CMLL to AAA. The on TV interview was more about the circumstances of his move (he tried to talk to Paco Alonso but was not allowed to do more than send an email, the matchmakers made no attempt to keep him), an after the show conversation posted to YouTube focused more on the poor conditions in CMLL: people in charge of shows leave early, those in charge don’t watch the matches, there’s a lot of obvious favoritism and nepotism, and CMLL lets people go the ring drunk or high. Fantasma was also very excited by the people he now gets to work with in AAA. The conversation was talked a lot about on the internet, but doesn’t seem to have gotten mainstream press attention and CMLL predictably has no reaction.
  2. AAA held it’s first post-Heroes Inmortales taping in Tonala, where the match on the show that got the most attention was actually one for TNA. AJ Styles defended his heavyweight title against Mesias, despite the rudos interfering. La Secta were involved all over the card, again, setting up a hair match among the women and challenging the Psycho Circus to a trios title match. (Both matches seem like they’ll take place at Guerra de Titanes, which is weird because half of La Secta were announced to be in going on AJPW tour and would miss that AAA show. AAA hasn’t mentioned the AJPW trip and it doesn’t seem like there’s an angle coming to write them out.) Two new trios – Juvi’s la Anaraquia and Aerostar’s new Cadetes del Espacio – debuted with wins.
  3. Delta & Guerrero Maya won the Arena Coliseo Tag Team titles Sunday in a very good match. Namajague & Okumura had held the titles for the last few months, and Namajague losing means he’s just about done in CMLL. The main event was a Mephisto/Titan title match, which was derailed by a Mephisto injury and ended in a draw.
  4. CMLL TV starts this Saturday on the Azteca America network (local affiliates across the US.) It’s an hour of some lucha libre, but no idea which building or which day will air. CMLL has not mentioned the existence of this show, as usual, and it doesn’t seem like it’ll have much of an impact.
  5. Talented young rudo Alan Xtreme surprisingly lost his mask in IWRG’s annual Castillo del Terror. Golden Magic won the mask, his second win in this cage match in three years.
  6. CMLL’s main Friday night feud continues to be Tama Tonga versus Rush. Tonga defeated Rush in straight falls last Friday to finally set up the much delayed tag team title match this Friday.
  • CMLL had two fan/wrestler fights in two days: Namajague hit a fan on Sunday, and Rush had an incident on Monday. There doesn’t appear to be any fallout.
  • Arena Coliseo Acapulco, formerly a regular CMLL stop, will be torn down.
  • CMLL held it’s annual mass to honor Oro, who died 20 years ago.
  • Nuevo Laredo’s Los Podersos won the IWRG trios titles from the Pirata Morgan family.
  • Fuego won the Occidente (local Guadalajara) Middleweight championship in a bit of a surprise.
  • A bunch of CMLL luchadoras (Zeuxis, La Vaquerita, Dark Angel) all lost Japanese titles in Japan, in what just happened to be all their last matches in Japan for the time being.
  • TxT announced a year end show on 11/30, with a midcard hair/mask tournament.
  • Halcon 2000 lost his mask and Dinamic Black & Fresero won the tag team titles in IWL
  • Ovett won DTU’s main title in Xalapa.
  • Bugambilia lost his hair in IWRG
  • People who kept their titles: Marcela, Traumas