Sombra & Mistico, new AAA champs, Perros

CMLL (FRI) 07/02 Arena Mexico [@cmllmagazine, SuperLuchas]
1) Metálico & Tigre Blanco b Disturbio & Semental
2) Fabián el Gitano, Molotov, Sensei b Arkangel de la Muerte, Puma King, Tiger Kid
3) Fuego b Cancerbero [lighting]
4) Amapola, Princesa Blanca, Princesa Sujei b Lady Apache, Luna Mágica, Marcela
5) La Máscara, Máximo, Toscano b Jushin Lyger, Shigeo Okumura, Yoshihashi
6) La Sombra, Místico, Shocker DQ Felino, Mr. Niebla, Negro Casas

Shocker & Mistico where wearing matching outfits. At least they were, until Mr. Niebla pulled Sombra’s mask for the DQ. Two straight weeks with those two in the finish, which should indicate next week’s main event. (It doesn’t, different direction.) The Mistico/Sombra best buddies bit is the programming equivalent of Chessman’s moonsault. There’s no teasing it, there’s no letting the fans anticipate the union, they just jumped ahead to being friends in such a way to make it mean less.

Semimain tecnico win is a slight upset.

Second match was a sweep for the tecnicos. Rudos ripped up masks in the first, but got pinned there and the second. This week, they were setting up a Fabian/Sensei vs Puma/Tiger mask match, just days after trying to get a Angel de Oro/Puma King feud over in press release. This feud is the opposite, all tease and no action. It’s like a booking version of Golidlocks and the Three Bears, except we don’t get that bed that’s just right too often.

Masked Warriors: the Lucha Libre USA group on MTV2 will be taping in the 18,000 seat Thomas and Mack Center in Las Vegas on 08/07. Tickets are in the usual range, $20 at the cheapest, $58 for the closest. Since both tapings had everyone move closer to the ring, and neither of those tapings cracked 300 people (1/60th of capacity of this building), I’m thinking you should buy the cheap tickets.

The TV is going to have to be a huge, dramatic success for this show to work. AAA did not do well in similar size buildings, and they were coming in with more recognizable names. The other two tapings proved that just putting lucha libre on the billboard wasn’t enough to draw. This is all reliant on the TV show being something people really want to see live. The promotion and/or the network doesn’t seem that excited about the TV taped so far, or they wouldn’t have shown so little of it and so much of the AAA footage. I’d like to see everyone do well, but this is ridiculousness.

By my count, Masked Warriors doesn’t actually have enough tapings to make it to this 08/07 taping. At 3 episodes a taping, they’re out of footage by 07/27. There’s been no mention of a July taping and it sounds like there won’t be one.

Friday night AAA TV: It looks like neither Dos de Tres or AAA’s website made the trip to Carmen for the taping. When Dorian Roldan wasn’t busy arguing with Rob – I am not making that up – he did mention Alex & Christina won the mixed tag titles. There was talk in a recent Wrestling Observer about AAA being unhappy with Rain and Von Eerie likely getting her spot, and that seems to be the deal there. I’ve thought Blade was the lesser of the two Gringas Locas, but Rain has seemed to slip of late. Also, Halloween & Damian beat Jack & Rocky, as expected. I’ll do a separate post with full results if/when they come in.

I’d like to pretend that Dorian handed his phone off to someone, and actually did have better things to do during an AAA TV taping than to go back and forth with Rob on Aerostar. There’s surely dead time to do to tweet during an AAA show (that’s when I return emails), but you’d hope the guy who supposed to be running the place has his focus elsewhere. Maybe I’ve made a false assumption in this paragraph. I will say, it was a nice change of pace from Dorian’s normally quite boring twitter posts of complaining about travel and chatting back and forth with girls.

Ras de Lona did not have much news. Dragon Rojo’s injury is to his lower back. They played Mistico’s challenge to Lyger for a title match in Guadalajara, so that may actually be happening.

Perros del Mal hyped Heddi Karou (unknown guy from France, presumably a different group than the one Sangre Azteca works with), Naruto (Brazilian, I think, based on the phone number they left on the picture for who knows what reason; tough to research a guy with that name), Ragde and Pesdailla for the Lucha Libre Expo show. That sounds like a tag amtch.

Laredo Kid taught his first class at his wrestling school, with guest instructor Aerostar. Both pitch as something for the kids to do while they’re on summer vacation. Laredo mentions his brothers, also luchadors, will lead the classes when he’s not around. The plural is interesting, since we Oscuridad is the only brother we know of.

Newspaper recap of an AAA show in Durango says the attendance was bad, as was the main event.

LLF canceled their show last night due to Hurricane Alex.

Estrellas del Ring has an interview with returning Morelos area wrestler Starbick.

LuchaWorld has KrisZ’s news update.

Lineup

CMLL hasn’t posted their lineups, but Ras de Lona had Friday’s as

CMLL (FRI) 07/09 Areno Mexico
1) Bengala & Horus vs Artillero & Súper Comando
2) Molotov, Molotov, Sensei vs Durango Kid, Puma King, Tiger Kid
3) Mascarita Dorada vs Pierrothito [lighting]
4) Máximo, Sagrado, Valiente vs Shigeo Okumura, Vangelis, Yoshihashi
5) Felino, Mr. Niebla, Negro Casas vs Averno, Jushin Lyger, Mephisto
6) La Máscara, La Sombra, Volador Jr. vs Héctor Garza, Mr. Águila, Olímpico

Negro vs Lyger, finally. Garza, not with the invaders, teams with the invaders. And Volador is a tecnico unless he’s facing Mistico, unless there’s a turn here.

CMLL (SAT) 08/28 Domo Polideportivo, Zona 13, Guatemala
1) Pegasso & Slayer vs Asesno & Loco Max
2) Ángel de Oro & Ángel de Plata vs Puma King & Tiger Kid
3) Rayo Chapin, Toscano, Voltron vs Cancerbero, Raziel, Virus
4) Hijo del Fantasma & Valiente vs Dragón Rojo Jr. & Sangre Azteca
5) Máscara Dorada, Místico, Shocker vs Héctor Garza, Terrible, Texano

Retry for this show, which was canceled the first time. Lineup is a little shuffled but basically the same guys.

CMLL (FRI) 07/02 Arena Mexico [@cmllmagazine]
1) Metálico & Tigre Blanco b Disturbio & Semental
2) Fabián el Gitano, Molotov, Sensei b Arkangel de la Muerte, Puma King, Tiger Kid
3) Fuego b Cancerbero [lighting]
4) Amapola, Princesa Blanca, Princesa Sujei b Lady Apache, Luna Mágica, Marcela
5) La Máscara, Máximo, Toscano b Jushin Lyger, Shigeo Okumura, Yoshihashi
6) La Sombra, Místico, Shocker DQ Felino, Mr. Niebla, Negro Casas

06/19 Masked Warriors results (Springfield, MA)

MW (SAT) 06/19 Hippodrome, Springfield, MA [Wrestling News World]
1) Hijo del Lizmark, Pequeño Halloween, Sadistico b Máscara Púrpura, Octagoncito, Súper Nova
2) Charly Malice DQ Rellik [MW HEAVY, tournament]
3) Awesome Kong & Mini Park b Chi Che & La Tigersa
4) Magno b RJ Brewer
5) Mascarita Dorada, PR Flyer, San Juan Kid b ?, Hijo del Lizmark, Mini Halloween
6) Oriental & Tinieblas Jr. b ? & Marco Corleone

These should be weeks 4 thru 6, so I might have missed a match. They did a bit where Super Nova came out to challenge someone, so maybe that’ll take up a spot. (The guy didn’t come out, but Nova did catch up with him later.)

The guy who sent in the match report did a pretty good job identifying as many people as he did, because there was no real lineup identifying people or matches, just promising the top guys and promoting the show as a taping. Since this isn’t on TV (and even when it is), the promotion probably should be doing all it can to introduce their luchadors and over play their roles. My theory has always been that people have more fun yelling “You suck [insert name here]” than just “You suck”. Match order isn’t right, but it’d change again before they air it.

Attendance was about 175, which left the building empty up enough that they were moving people around to make it look more full. It’s a shame they’ve gone with $20/$40 tickets, because an actual full building would look better on TV and it’s really the TV show that’s going to make or break this, not the events. On the other hand, they probably can use all the revenue streams they can get while trying to get this started.

Show was said to be a fun time, better than the California show sounded.

Heel RJ Brewer explained they were using a 4 sided ring in his usual anti-immigration bit. The six sided ring is just too Mexican! After a lawn mowing line, a locker room clearing brawl erupted. Magno later beat him in a match.

Rellik was DQed for spitting mist in Charly’s face.

Awesome Kong is indeed the ex-TNA/current indies woman, and pinned the exotico Chi Che. That may be the new weirdest match ever.

Oriental side slammed Mascarita Dorada to pin that match.

Mini Halloween, who I may have on the wrong team, appeared to suffer a lower leg/ankle injury when he was one of a group of people catching a dive. They got his boot off and carried him to the back.  Marco’s friend Solid was handing donuts to front row fans.

No word on when the next taping is, but they’ve got time to work on it.

06/06 Masked Warriors debut taping

MW (SUN) 06/06 Agua Caliente Casino, Palm Springs, CA [Dr. Lucha, 411Mania, Peter Giovanci]
1) Lujo Esquire & Octagoncito b Misteriocito & Rellik [MW TAG, TOURNAMENT]
2) Magno DQ RJ Brewer
3) Hijo del Lizmark & Sadistiko b Charly Malice & Súper Nova
4) Hijo de Pierroth (MR), Neutroncito, Oriental b Máscara Púrpura, PR Flyer, San Juan Kid
5) Chi Chi & Pequeño Halloween b Mascarita Dorada & Mini Park
6) Marco Corleone b Tinieblas Jr. [MW HEAVY, tournament]

Air dates should be 07/17, 07/24 and 07/31. They started off the show by introducing week 2, then introduced week 1 after the intermission (between 3/4), then introduced week 3 at the end of the show. Two matches per show make more sense (as does having actual new footage for week three), but maybe they’re cutting things up.

Crowd is estimated at 800 in 2000 seat venue. While it looked full in the picture, that’s because the promotion waited nearly an hour after bell time to start the show in hopes more people would turn up (all the while, the ticket office was closed) and then moved everyone down so it’d look good for TV.

Show was sponsored by the same company that sponsored the AAA US tour, because this is being produced by the same company. If you recall, that TV taping looked much worse than a usual AAA taping. Same issues here – this looked like an average low budge indy lucha libre show, not something at a TV taping level. People who remember WSX better can correct me here, but I’m thinking they looked better than this sounds. Same lack of merchandise as the AAA US shows.

Looks like they’re doing two title tournaments right away. Marco, who had a man named “Solid” in his corner (and doing a Super Porky gimmick) was laid out by Hijo de Lizmark after his match, so that’s probably where they’re going with that title. Not sure if the tag team division is meant to be an AAA-like regular guy/mini guy title, but it looks that way from the teams.

Dorada worked almost totally with Halloween and didn’t do as much as he does in some matches. Mini Park is the mini LA Park gimmick. Chi Chi is an exotico with a female manager, La Tigersa. A comment a while back said Alan Funk, who worked as exotico Kwee Wee at the end of WCW, was supposed to work these tapings so I’m thinking it might be him. Mini Park was standing on the top rope to finish Chi Chi, but Tigersa slipped in and powerbombed him.

Flyer/Kid were masked men, “the Puerto Rican Powers”, teaming with the ex-CMLL wrestler. This Hijo de Pierroth appears to be Salsero again. I hope he loses his mask here too. Feuding Puerto Ricians is odd way to go.

Charly was active in his match, doing a couple dives. Hijo de Lizmark has his mask back, as shown in all the posters.

DQ in the second match was for Magno tossing his mask, and the referee eventually noticing the rudo had it.

This is the Octagoncito previous to the current Octagoncito in AAA. Rellik is the same ex-Johnny Stamboli as seen in AAA and elsewhere.