Editor’s note: This orginally appeared in this week’s edition of Figure Four Weekly.
By “Dr. Lucha” Steve Sims
As of late, the latter part of the summer has been one of the busiest times for year in Mexican wrestling. 2016 won’t be an exception as we’re nearing a 17-day window starting in just two weeks in which things will be coming at us all fast and furiously.
AAA —
AAA will kick things off on Friday, August 19th, with their final taping before Triplemania.
They’ll be back in Veracruz, the location of their first-ever show in May 1992, with another Pagano vs. Psycho Clown main event. On Friday, July 29th, Pagano again defeated Clown, this time in a bull terrier (chain) match, meaning Clown has now lost basically every TV match he’s been in since the World Cup, as well as all three singles matches to Pagano in that span.
On the August 19th taping, the stip is that the winner gets to choose the referee for their TripleMania mask vs. hair match — one you would figure heel Pagano is almost certain to win.
August 28th will be AAA’s Triplemania show from La Arena Ciudad de Mexico with Wagner-Cage-Texano Jr. in a triangular, Pentagon Jr. vs. Johnny Mundo, a Lucha Underground trios, a triangular tag team title match, the Apache Sisters vs. Hell Brothers, and an 11-man opener for a cup. All of that is in addition to Clown vs. Pagano.
Fun fact: 19 of the 26 names announced so far are wrestlers who have worked a match on Lucha Underground, so it’s almost really more of an LU card than an AAA card.
CMLL —
Also on the 19th, CMLL will tape its penultimate TV before the 83rd Anniversary show, announced last week for September 2nd. It is not certain, but is quite possible, that this card will include Block A of the annual CMLL Universal (Champion of Champions) tournament. Block B would then be on August 26th, and the two Block winners would meet in the final on September 2nd.
The fact the promotion has signaled that they will be airing the August 19th and 26th shows live from Arena Mexico would indicate that those two are likely “bigger” shows. Additionally, over the previous few tournaments, the time of year they have usually been held has been the weeks right before the Anniversary show.
The CMLL 83rd anniversary show is set for September 2nd. Five weeks out, lots of feuds are still up in the air for the main event or at least for the second stipulation match that would seem to be now a general part of CMLL Anniversary shows:
La Mascara vs. either Rush, Mistico II, Dragon Lee II, or Pierroth II; Ultimo Guerrero vs. Volador Jr., Rey Bucanero vs. Super Crazy; Guerrero Maya Jr. vs. Dragon Rojo Jr., Zeuxis vs. Princesa Sugehit, or, to a much lesser possibility, Caristico vs. Mephisto, Caristico vs. Mistico II.
Of all these noted here, the one they are least likely to run but the one that would easily generate the biggest gate if they did run it is Rush vs. L. A. Park.
Some times in the past 10 years when CMLL has had this many eligible feuds concurrently, they just throw them all in a pot and generate a stew for dinner, that is, a multi-man cage match with everyone’s gimmick on the line. I’d guess that’s not the direction they are heading.
One note on the above scenarios: Caristico is currently out with an injury and his returning by the Anniversary show is iffy at best. If there is a major apuestas match with him in the plans for 2016, my guess is that such a match will be in the fall for Elite rather than in the summer for CMLL.
WWE —
WWE will be coming to Mexico the last full week of August 2016 with an August 26th date in Leon, and an August 27th date in Puebla. They are currently listing Roman Reigns vs. Seth Rollins, Kevin Owens vs. Sami Zayn, and New Day vs. Anderson/Gallows on top.
They also come back in December 2016, which will include a visit to Mexico City. It will be interesting to see who comes in from WWE/NXT to work that show, as, among other reasons, several NXT guys will have been called up to the main roster and who knows how many Mexican luchadores, if any, will have been signed to NXT to help fill out its roster.
On the weekends of August 20-21, August 17-28, and September 3-4, the smaller/independent Mexican promotions will hold tons and tons of shows, including for some of the really good smaller promotions their biggest show of the year, or one of their biggest. Many of them have had very solid years in ring and at the gate for the scale they are running.