Which video sent from MTV should I use here? Let’s go with History of Lucha Libre, that’s always going to be entertaining:
Decent amount of press for Masked Warriors going into tonight’s show. A Marco Corleone interview in the Miami Herald includes this money quote:
take Jeff Hardy for instance, a great wrestler, a good friend of mine, everyone considers him to be a great high-flyer, but honestly, we have three, four guys who make him look very unathletic.
Mascarita Sagrada, Super Nova, probably the PR Flyers, other people I’m forgetting. That sounds right. There’s another interview with Alex Marvez of Scripps News, including the story of how Mark Jindrak became Marco Corleone (though omitting that month where Mark Jindrak did not know he was Marco Corleone). On the differences between this group and the two he worked for previously:
“CMLL is a little more traditional so you’re not going to see as much WWE-type stuff. AAA has a little too much of that. It’s like a bad copy of WWE. I believe we’re going to be giving people a very happy medium.”
Group mind think of the luchablog comment section at work! If he’s quoted talking about Billy Boy or Super Fly, we may have to teach him the secret handshake.
Diva Dirt interviews backstage interviewer/color commentator Reby Sky on her work for the show. I mostly include this link so I can award her profile page on the wiki the most obviously self or friend edited page of the month. (Or maybe just taken from a bio from her radio show?)
Trios match was OK, tag match tore the house down and the ME was a sleeper.
Who are the PR Powers? On luchawiki it says that they’re Los Luchas (Phoenix Star/Zokre, SoCal indy guys) but I’m hearing conflicting reports. Some people say they’re Los Luchas, some people say that they’re Aeroform (Flip Kendrick & Louis Lyndon, some flippy east coast dudes from EVOLVE)
Probably should’ve checked for comments before reading your tweet. I have not got to the show yet, but I’ve seen those flippy dudes and I’ll see if I can figure it out.
Was that TJ Perkins who ran in with Lizmark Jr.? Sure looked like him.
@Kyle: He’s got the abs of TJP, but not enough hair styling. I believe it’s our old friend Mentallo.
That was in fact TJP. Not sure who they’ll place into the gimmick now that he has quit.
I thought that show was pretty good.
Was the lady with Chi Chi, Kurt Angle’s ex-girlfriend? Alan Funk was probably my favorite Power Plant guy. I always thought he could have been a solid mid-card guy for WWE or TNA.
Yeah that is Raka Kahn, the former Angle girlfriend. And the PR dudes are Aeroform. I’m sure these posts will get me even more heat with LLUSA since a certain employee of theirs was told I was not liked by the office because I’m “always leaking stuff to the internet and talking to websites.” They are so petty, in fact, they originally told TJP he could not have his gear made by Masked Republic anymore. They ended up giving in on that. This will probably be their “See, we told you so!”
@Kevin K: They complained about where someone was getting their gear? Typical elitist Manhattan garbage. If that’s true, I really hope they fail.
The RJ Brewer gimmick is stupid, unless you are really into politics. Hispanics outside Arizona don’t know or care who Jan Brewer is, and the gimmick won’t work unless you really let the character say what really needs to be said. And in that case, he would be managed by an older guy with the last name Arpaio.
As for Santo in Dallas, for a little extra cash, he’ll go wherever.
WON mentioned you in relation to the Florida group starting up. Good luck.
@LLL There is stupid heat on Masked Republic from the LLUSA front office for various reasons. This isn’t the place to get into it. But it pretty much stems from the management/ownership there purposely calling their company Lucha Libre USA (a smart move I’ll give them) and then selling themselves to places as if Lucha Libre is a brand and not a sport/industry and as if they own the rights to it for the US and not liking the fact that others are trying to make an honest go and doing lucha, and doing lucha right, in the States. If someone went into a meeting and said, “I own football in the United States.” they would get laughed out of the room. But because people don’t get that Lucha Libre isn’t a brand, they get away with it. But what do you expect from a company who’s head one said in an interview that there are three ways to win a match in lucha libre: pinfall, submission, or ripping someone’s mask off. I’m sure they’re much more advanced in getting the sport now than when that comment was made a few years ago, but to me, I knew at that moment it was going to be a different beast. But honestly, you friggin nailed the issue right on the head with my overall problem. Their elitist attitude toward anyone and anything for years now has been insane. Yet, I haven’t run a show that has drawn less than 300 people since 1997, with our without lucha. But what do I know, I’m not from New York.
And thanks. The Florida project, which does not change anything Masked Republic related at all, looks to be interesting, but isn’t even supposed to get off the ground for a number of months more. The rumor mill has been quite wild on this one, not denying everything out there, but I’ve read a few things that have made me laugh. I think the names and style of the bulk of the roster will please the board members here.
@Kevin K: They ran a credit roll with all their names, like people who want to see their names on television. Steven Ship. Mazza. Even the interns were mentioned. That was funny.
MTVtr3 aired in English, as I said in another topic, unless my SAP settings are messed up.
@LLL, well don’t hate on me, but when we did WSX, my name got credit rolled too – it’s an MTV call, not a LLUSA call – though I’m sure they enjoyed it.
Also, it doesn’t really surprise me that MTV Tr3s aired it in English. Well, a little.
When we did WSX MTV Tr3s wanted it in Spanish but doing it “Hollywood TV budget” way it was going to be about $10,000 an episode, including using the Latino hip hop star they wanted to have be one of the commentators, to do each episode in Spanish. That was too rich for their blood (mind you MTV itself was spending $350,000 and episode – and yes, I realize how insane that is for a 30 minute wrestling show), so they just ran it in English.
It was always curious to me that MTV Mexico (or whatever it’s specifically called down there) aired it in Spanish and they couldn’t figure out how to just air those tapes here. Sometimes network politics are odd.
@Kevin K: Their budget must be tight. They seem to be doing the scam where local venues buy or co-promote a show.
They’ll get some suckers, and since LLUSA was involved in the AAA shows that did a few thousand paid, I bet they’ll use those numbers to say, “see, we did 5,000 in Vegas, 5,000 in San Jose, 5,000 in LA Sports Arena” and desperate venues, looking for dates, will be lured. TNA does the same scam.
Why else would Thomas and Mack run a date with LLUSA? Probably because they think they’ll get a great turnout like AAA/LLUSA did at The Orleans.
@LLL doing “sold shows” isn’t always a scam. Some of us honest promoters like the sold show model. You just have to deliver a good show that will hopefully draw. I can tell you the reason AAA didn’t do more US shows under LLUSA was because of the $ amount LLUSA was charging for shows, which, ironically, is the same $ amount I hear these shows are being sold for with not nearly the star power.
I don’t think I’m the greatest promoter of all time by any stretch, BUT, there are key elements to promoting a successful show, especially lucha, that LLUSA is beyond missing the boat on.
Hopefully in 2011, Masked Republic will prove my theories correct. :-)
@Kevin K: How the hell do venue managers and promoters let themselves get scammed by LLUSA? I can see falling for TNA, but LLUSA?
Well, I understood the casino. It was going to be PR for the casino. I’m actually surprised at the lack of plugs they gave the casino, but that was probably nixed by MTV since they were probably not receiving any of the money.
I am not privy to what the structure of the deal for the show is. I also have no idea if when MTV 2 decided to go with an original show instead of AAA tapes, they added to the budget or if LLUSA had to agree to “deficit finance” some of the tapings.
When I did my Viva La Lucha pilot for the G4 network, the show had a $125,000 budget but G4 put in $75,000 and Big Vision put in $50,000. Under that structure, we were able to control international rights, DVD rights, etc. It was a worthwhile deal. When we did WSX for MTV, MTV paid 100% of the $350,000/ep (and over $600,000 for the pilot, and they controlled EVERYTHING.
My gut is that since there was no taping in July, MTV is not footing the entire bill that LLUSA needs to pull off the live events. We all know they could have found a venue if they needed to.
When AAA did the shows in the states that LLUSA promoted, they found sponsors who paid that $. Big corporations sometimes will take the risk. I would venture to say not one has received their money’s worth. At least this time around Marquez Cheese is getting their logo on the canvas.