Category: news

Tonight starts a busy weekend in Mexico. CMLL has it’s annual Leyenda de Plata final tonight. Toryumon holds it’s annual DragonMania show in Arena Mexico on Saturday afternoon, and many of those same wrestlers will work the Lucha Fan Fest Saturday evening. Sunday has the Lucha World Cup. TripleMania and CMLL Anniversary weekends will likely be bigger events, but they’re unlikely to match the eclectic group of foreigners coming in for one show or another.

The actual main event tonight is Marco Corleone, Maximo and Volador Jr. vs Euforia, Thunder and Ultimo Guerero, which might continue the slow build to a cage match. The big match is Negro Casas versus Dragon Lee for the Leyenda de Plata trophy. Dragon Lee won the cibernetico last week, Casas is the defending champion (beating Titan last year.) CMLL’s preview of the show notes Casas has a chance to become the first ever three time champion, noting the original Mistico is the only other one. CMLL’s ignored the existence of Mistico in the past. It’s built up as the biggest match in Dragon Lee’s career and it might be; Lee needs to be treated as a top guy going forward if he can win this tournament.

The Lucha World Cup is Sunday, but it looks like most of the wrestlers are going to be in Mexico by today. The TNA & ROH wrestlers were in yesterday (that looks like Reforma 222) and Team NOAH flew in this morning. The first round matchups for the tournament are supposed to be set today, but everyone’s also doing a lot of press building up the events. The sponsors also seem to have a bunch of tickets to give away; I don’t think it’s because they’re having trouble selling the tickets (the building is far from sold out, but the most expensive tickets are pretty much gone) but that Victoria got a large lot of tickets as part of their sponsorship.

Dr. Wagner Jr. is pretty sure his team is winning, because he and Demon are great and Solar knows holds that no one else knows that can instantly win matches. Wagner calls Rey Mysterio & Myzteziz as “jugglers”, and says they’ve proven themselves against US wrestler but never against Mexicans. Dr. Wagner Jr. remains Dr. Wagner Jr.

The Toryumon Mexico show at Arena Mexico is always said to be a free ticket show, but how you actually gets the tickets is always a mystery to me. (Go to Arena Mexico, loiter, and don’t buy them from the scalpers, I’d guess.) The Lucha Fan Fest, isn’t free, but comes with an autograph signing prior to the wrestling event. Main event is Atlantis, Mil Mascaras, Octagon versus Canek, Fuerza Guerrera and Ultimo Guerrero.

The scheduled Koguma vs Sexy Angel title match is off the Lucha Fan Fest show, with the promotion noting Koguma lost the title to Starfire and saying Koguma also decided to retire. (??) They’re doing a women’s trio instead.

KPCC has a story about how the look of the Lucha Underground Temple came about, including talking with the set designer about how they had to carefully make it look a bit run down. It also includes Vampiro explaining how worked pro wrestling came about.

The Gladiatores La Cerveza del Cuberto mentions two CMLL wrestlers were unprofessional in a match in Merida, so much so that the rest of the wrestlers on the show asked the promoter not to pay the CMLL guys and instead give the money to the guys who had to work with them. The item doesn’t name the CMLL headliner but it’s exactly who you’re guessing.

Joker’s excited to debut in Arena Mexico.

RobViper has highlights of 01/23 & 01/30/2015 CMLL.

LuchaWorld has Alfredo with all his thoughts on the news of the week and KrisZ’s news update.

+LuchaTV has Black Terry saying he’d like a singles match with Caifan, but not with Satanico. The best. There’s also highlights of Aero Boy vs Rey Horus.

Germany’s WXW announced the Rotation will be wrestling in DTU sometime this summer. The Rotation is a said to be a crazy high flyer, so he’ll fit right in.

Matt D at Segunda Caida reviews Marco Corleone, Mascara Dorada, Titan vs Cavernario, Rey Bucanero and Terrible.

Guerrero Universal talks about his career.

Lucha Libre in Japan

05/22 NJPW (BOSJ Day 1)
Barbaro Cavernario [2] beat Chase Owens [0]
KUSHIDA [2] beat Mascara Dorada

I watched the Cavernario match this morning, it was fine for two guys who were totally unfamiliar with each other. The NJPW crowd likes Barbaro. Dorada/Kushida was said to be good but too short.

Barbaro Cavernario’s club is said to now be 6000 Yen (~$50 USD)

CMLL (TUE) 05/19/2015 Arena Coliseo Guadalajara [CMLL]
1) El Divino & Linterna Verde Jr. b Évola & Relampago
Relampago replaced Chakal.
2) Flyer, Magnus, Pepe Aguayo b Canelo Casas, Metálico, Sádico
Magnus gave Metalico a backcracker for the win.
3) Kamaitachi, Okumura, Tiger b Blue Panther Jr., The Panther, Tritón
Kamaitachi double knees put down Triton for the loss.
4) Blue Panther, Super Porky, Valiente DQ Kráneo, Morphosis, Rey Escorpión
Porky and Escorpion are feuding again, with Escorpion fouling Porky for the DQ.
5) La Máscara, Marco Corleone, Rush b Ephesto, Euforia, Mephisto
Rush did wrestle, and he and Mascara gave double knees to Euforia and Ephesto for the win.

No update on Rush’s status.

CMLL Informa announced that some Arena Coliseo Guadalajara and Arena Puebla matches would begin to be posted on the CMLL website. The quantity, frequency and delay from taping was not revealed. CMLL Puebla matches were previously aired on TVC Deportes, but the station dropped lucha libre as part of a refocus in December. (CMLL’s continued to record the events, a strange expense for a promotion not making a lot of money.) CMLL Tuesday Guadalajara matches currently air on 52MX as the Guerreros del Ring.

This switch could be part of larger changes. It’s conceivable the 52MX show would shift to airing the Friday night Arena Mexico shows, the ones now only airing in the US on Azteca. 52MX isn’t a strong outlet for major angles, but it’s better than no outlet. The 52MX show, like the old Fox one (and unlike the Cadena3 show) is a total CMLL production, giving them the freedom to continue to use their own announcers.

CMLL also announced the promotion would have a new look to their website starting on June 1st. It would make sense for that to be the moment where the Puebla/Guadalajara matches start to get posted, but it wasn’t explcity said. Ominously, the Terra feed died seconds before this announcement occurred. Doesn’t give the greatest hope for the internet product. They also had Pegasso, Stigma, Canelo Casas and Akuma on to talk about the En Busca de un Idolo cibernetico, while announcing Negro Casas & Virus would return as trainers. Omar Brunetti, late of Arena Coliseo Guadalajara, was saying he’s in this tournament too; maybe there’s some other selections coming?

Global Force Wrestling announced Jeff Jarrett and Karen Jarrett would be invited guests for the Lucha World Cup. The GFW idea is Jarrett is coming to scout talent for his promotion. The press release mentions Jarrett will commentate on select matches, and the idea is it’s the sponsor Victoria who is bringing in the Jarretts.

Jarrett has been rarely mentioned since missing last year’s TripleMania; one of the only references to him was the Christmas special episode, where Konnan took a shot at him for missing the show while setting up the clip of the TripleMania cage match. There were talk of AAA debating between TNA and GFW as a partner for Lucha World Cup. They picked up TNA, but TNA’s viability is in question once again and it’s possible AAA wants to continue to have relationship with Jarrett and GFW. Sending Argos to TNA seemed like a sign AAA’s not that into TNA, and the press release has Joaquin Roldan quoted as saying he plans to exchange talent with GFW in the future.

Here’s a scenario I’m not personally a fan of but may make some business sense: AAA’s never done the big Jeff Jarrett loss, the one where he gets defeated and humiliated. He’s got a lot of wins, he’s protected when he loses and things contrive to cause him to miss other shows when he’s supposed to leave. Perhaps Alberto versus Jarrett in a hair match could work as a TripleMania main event in a year where there’s no obvious one? There are logistical difficulties that would have to be over come, but that’s the same with all the current options.

(Cage has been a regular presence, but he’s still relatively new and it might be a tougher sell. Cage/Alberto in a hair match feels like a solid semimain but not a main event.)

Dark Angel had a cameo on last night’s NXT special, appearing as one of the models in Tyler Breeze’s entrance. She had been mentioned as working in the training center earlier in the week, and the belief is she’s has or will be hired on as a trainer full-time. (She’s replacing the promoted Sara del Rey in that spot; about a decade ago, the then ‘American Angel’ replaced Sarah Stock in Monterrey after she started with CMLL.) The word is Dark Angel is still working the 05/31 Arena Neza show, but it appears to be a Farewell For Now show. Her final CMLL match would be the 04/07 show in Guadalajara.

Speaking of Farewell For Now, Villano III has a press conference for his first in a series of retirement shows. He insists he’s really retiring, that his health has declined that it’s impossible for him to go on any longer. There doesn’t seem to be any specific end date announced yet for his actual retirement.

CMLL Informa mentioned Reyna Isis is headed to Japan for three months; Reina only lists her for the first shows so far, but bringing in luchadoras who’ve barely wrestled with CMLL is what they do.

LuchaWorld has a great interview with Negro Navarro, where he talks about his book of forgotten moves, why he wrestles the way he does, complaints of being repetitive, dummies who stand around waiting for someone to jump off a balcony them, and how to cook a steak right.

Toro Bill Sr. took Blue Center’s hair in Arena Coliseo San Ramon.

Bucanero Infenral took Pegasso de Plata’s mask in Xalapa.

El Pancracio has interviews with Dr. Wagner Jr., Canek and Solar about the Lucha World Cup. Solar says Fantasma got him in the tournament, bringing up his name to Dorian Roldan.

+LuchaTV has a ton of videos from recent ChilangaMask shows, including the Psycho Kid, Asto Rey Jr., Drago vs Fly Star, Toxin Boy and Electroboy match that sets up matches on their next show, and the Fulgors being outcheated. There’s also semifinals of the Cara Lucha Bestiario I tournament: Wasson vs Principe Aereo and Aramis vs Centella Atomica, plus interviews with Rey Jr. about the Lucha World Cup.

Vice has a pictorial of a day in the life in a mini who worked the most recent Lucha Va Voom show.

Voices of Wrestling has a Lucha Underground review of last night’s episode.

Segunda Caida reviews Lucha Underground episode 26.

An interview with 17 year old India Mazahua, who’s wrestling in Arena Mexico on Saturday.

Mistico is rooting for Dragon Lee to win the Leyenda de Plata.

The press conference for the WMC show on 05/30 turned into a fight, as always.

Lineups

FULL (THU) 06/04/2015 Carpa Astros, Tlalpan, Distrito Federal
1) Omega vs Luzbel Jr. vs Marabunta Jr. [Copa Novato]
2) Alfa vs Meiden vs Ángel Del Amor [Copa Novato]
3) Saru vs Pequeño Black Warrior vs Charly Madrid [Copa Novato]
4) Alan Stone & Golden Magic vs Hijo de Pirata Morgan & Sucesor
5) Lady Apache vs Rossy Moreno [FULL WOMEN]
6) Hijo De Dos Caras, LA Park, Tinieblas Jr. vs Cien Caras Jr., El Hijo del Solitario, Toscano

Fulgors and Alfa & Omega were the best guys in the opener, so the Fulgors aren’t book and Sucesor is the one who gets moved up into a real match. I have no idea what Pequeno Black Warrior could possibly be doing a Copa Novato, but perhaps there’s a chance there’s a new one.

Tinieblas also teased new foreign wrestlers so vaguely that you need to use google image search to figure out who they are (and then you still don’t know.)

News post isn’t coming until much later. Some stuff to fill some space

• I’ve changed the matchfinder slightly. My sense it’s mostly used to find videos, so the default setting is to only include wrestlers who have at least one video in the dropdown boxes. You can still choose an option to get every wrestler I have listed (how it used to work).

  There’s roughly 3000 wrestlers tracked in the database. I’d like to add a lot more, mostly guys who wouldn’t have video in the database, but every one every one I’d add would just make that list bigger and more unwieldy. This fixes that problem for now. There’s further refinements I need to make, and I might as well add ‘narrow down by state’ option since the data is in there now, but it should be stable at the moment.

• In related news, I’ve added lineups & results from Lucha Libre Magazine 28 to 61 into the database. That covers a lot of the 1964 Friday night EMLL shows, whatever other shows they happened to mention that week, and a lot of results from earlier years (mostly 30s) which were reprinted in there. If you’ve noticed me adding profiles on the luchawiki, this is the same as that. I did issues 1-27 as I got them, but decided just storing them up and adding them in bulk would be smoother. I’ve done an export of these data in the past, but I’m not sure if anyone’s really that interested – let me know and I’ll work something out.

  I probably should do some analysis but I talked about a lot of the bigger things in other forms. This took many months to do, but mostly because I was drawn away by other projects. The whole process would go a lot quicker if I just did the Friday results (and those are the only ones reliably printed week to week), but it feels mandatory to go thru all the notes section looking for random info. Sometimes you get incredible things like a note about what the gate was for a show, a lot of times it’s vague information about a show where it’s just not enough to enter in the database but temptingly close enough to make me spend an hour trying to deduce the missing piece. It’s not very efficient on my part.

  I guess I’ll go to do another year of Lucha Libre next – I know I have issues of the magazine thru 1969 at least one drive, and maybe more longer elsewhere. The issues were very kindly donated to me by someone who bought them, but I was made aware that someone farther back in the chain got the issues by something close to stealing them, and that makes me less enthusiastic about the whole project. (I’m the same guy who pirates videos every Tuesday, there’s no real great internal logic here.) On the hand, I finally finished that year, I finished off about month’s worth of recaps, and I finished long term location and spell checking projects so it feels good that I’m actually knocking things off my imaginary task list.

• Speaking of videos and the database, videos from my channels are now being added to the database again after YouTube messed it all up.  I’m current 904 videos behind on other channels (mostly because I just added +LuchaTV to the channels my program checks.) I’ll get thru it eventually.
• I’ll have live coverage of the Lucha World Cup on Sunday – results here, too many posts on Twitter. If they announce the complete bracket on Friday, maybe some sort of predictions? (They only announced ‘first round matchups’ for Friday, which gives me this likely unfounded trepidation that they won’t set the semifinals until during the show.) Maybe a preview here or somewhere else? The things I normally do will get done.