The biggest thing going on right now should be Rey Misterio vs Psicosis on a mask vs mask match. It seems official that such mach will be underway on this months 25th, so there are 2 bad things about that: 1, it's on a Thursday, and 2, is AFTER the PPV in which Rey should drop the hood. In fact, I understand them having this match after the PPV, with the usual way WCW runs its booking, a bunch of things could go on, Luger could turn face, go for Piper's US belt, get sick, fired, arrested, or WCW could simply take the match out of the card to do something else, so the mask vs hair match could be pushed back for a month or two... and I guess Misterio jr wants to keep his mask for as long as possible, so if this Sunday he hasn't lost his mask, I doubt he'll do it at TJ...

I've still interested to know about this show's undercard, this could be this year's 'Revolucion del Norte', where Vampiro, Psicosis, Super Crazzy, Felino, and some other big lucha names, the introduction of 'Aguado y Desviado', a spoof of AAA's Duro y Directo; and Pierroth losing his mask to Parka, all of that turned that night into one of the biggest lucha events ever!! The TJ show should have Konnan, Juve, Venum Black, etc. to achieve that level of success.

Less than two weeks to get there, and the Mexican media (well, Box y Lucha and Super Luchas) have yet to say anything about that match, it looks as if they're still in the dark, who knows, Baja California is like an isolated island from the rest of Mexico (the early Spanish maps had it as an island!!), and news are harder to come from there... On the other hand, Dr Alfonso Morales is taking Rivera's role from last year, as he called that match a 'Mega Fraude' (mega scam) b/c Rey should lose his mask before the 26th, Morales says that he will lose his mask again on 2 other locations...

Of course, what would Morales say if someone asks him about Mr Aguila losing his mask AFTER he worked unmasked as Papi Chulo, or Scorpio jr and Rey Bucanero? BTW, Super Luchas reported some weeks ago that Mini Rey Misterio jr was working unmasked as Max Mini (or is it Mini Max?) at the WWF's Super Astros, but they didn't made a big deal out of that...

But maybe CMLL could, I mean, Mini Rey jr was been dominating CMLL's 'Momentos Estelares' doing some amazing stuff, but no Mini's match have been aired yet (as opposed to AAA broadcasting them semi regularly). They could push a Mini Rey Misterio jr mask match with any rudo, and having him losing his mask (against Mini Psicosis? Nope, he's on AAA! Well, Mini Luger? Don't think so... Mini Goldust? Oh, I give up!), at least they could gather more heat there...

Speaking of AAA's Minis, I would like them to drop the 'minis division' approach and (keeping the mini luchadors gimmicks) push a 'lightweight division' title, so that they could include Cuerno de Chivo, Niņo de la Calle, Oscar Sevilla, etc. with los Mini Vipers and Octagoncito and Parkita... I mean, only Peso seems to be a real midget, but most of them are not that short (save Parkita perhaps). My point is that Oscar Sevilla, Cuerno de Chivo and some others have been around for a while, but apparently, haven't advance anything in the cards... one last thing about the minis: the other day, during the ladies lumberjack match in which the minis were doing the honors with the straps, I saw a guy that looked like El Oriental, I looked up and saw that 'el Mini Oriental' is indeed working at AAA... considering that almost every single mini is much better than their 'full sized' counterpart, Mini Oriental should be awesome!! (Actually, I doubt he could be as good as the original, but you never know).

Go to 1wrestling.com to check out the new message boards!! Mainly the lucha board!! I've checked them out, and at first feel weird, they have a lot of icons so you don't know what to do, but is easy to get used to... The lucha message board is ran by Goyle, from luchaswag.com, I think I'll be adding a link to1wrestling.com from the ED's links page. I should start updating that links page soon, they're a lot of lucha sites I've haven include yet, including some new ones!!

In fact, the biggest thing right now (over Misterio-Psicosis) IS Perro Aguayo retirement. Will he leave AAA? (My guess is that he will). Perro said that he wanted to do a retirement tour going to all the places he've wreslted, that could take another 5 years... considering (that it looks as if ) he can't work on a nightly basis, it would take 10 years at least. I think he could tour all over the country with AAA, and AAA might even put a 50000 crowd at Plaza Mexico again, but it seems Perro wants Arena Mexico. CMLL should be carefull with that, Alfonso Morales keep saying that 'ahi viene el Perro!!' and that Perro will do short work with CMLL's rudos, so then, does that mean that a bunch of tecnicos can't do something that a very old Perro will do easily? Where does that leave Atlantis, Rayo, Negro Casas... Hijo del Santo!!! I would suggest Perro touring with AAA, then 2 or 3 matches at Arena Mexico or/and Coliseo.

Sure, the different prommoters hate each other, which, in the long run, affect all of them. For instance, Mr Niebla from IRWG, the way I see it, Paco Alonso should go to Marco Moreno and buy the rights of the character, either by a big check, or a smaller check but with a deal to have Rey Bucanero, Olimpico, Black Warrior, Tony Rivera, and the original Mr Niebla--among others--, working at the TV tapings from Naucalpan, just as they did some months ago, that could help both of them, CMLL could keep its workers happy by having them in a TV show which is seen in Japan, and IRWG could use those workers to increase its workrate when the Japanese contingent is away... of course, that is a wild dream of mine...

'El Acorazado' Moreno died last Sunday 14th, he was the father of Rossy, Alda, Cynthia(or Flavia ), Esther and masked Luchador el Oriental. On happier events, Box y Lucha and newspaper columnist Laura Lozano and Flying are the proud parents of a baby girl born on Feb/4th.

Juan Manuel Mar, booker (with Paco Alonso, Franco Colombo and Negro Casas) of CMLL, was interviewed by Box Y Lucha magazine (as reported by Mr Sims at Highspots message board). Mr Mar siad that booking ain't easy. He said that on the long run, they want to push some youngsters to carry the company, mainly from 'Grupo Cibernetco', which Negro Casas leads. On the short run, he said that Mascara Aņo 2000 and Pierroth might end up in a hair match, and that they have to consider the return of Vampiro, Dandy and Hector Garza. Well, I'll way this interview was done on Decempber 10th, so the plans have been droped, as Paco Alonso then got mad at WCW (or Konnan, or whoever it was). Now, let me assume that it was done two weeks ago... what does that mean??? Pieroth was at the wcw Fiesta tapings!!!! Will CMLL have the WCW gusys after all?!?!

I got a bunch of old lucha mags the other day, well, only 6, 5 were Arenas from 92/93, and the other an old 'El Halcon Solo Lucha Libre' from 1978!!

It was nice to take a look into that old mag and check out what was the biggest thing in lucha at the time. Dr Wagner/Angel Blanco as 'la Ola Blanca' vs Anibal/Solitario was the biggest, most hyped feud of the time, Wagner had just returned to the rudos and was an big heat machine, Anibal and Solitario were the most popular guys in Mexico, so they dominated the late 70's. It resulted later with Dr Wagner losing his mask to el Solitario, building one of the biggest legend of lucha. Unfortunately, Dr Wagner is the only one who survives to this day, Anibal died a few years ago, victim to a deadly cancer, while Solitario died on (I think) and auto accident on April 6th, 1986, 3 weeks later, Angel Blanco died when the car in which he traveled rolled over the road, that same accident left Dr Wagner on a wheel chair. They were real life good friends, Solitario worked with 'Ola Blanca' in the hottest trio of their time, as a weird fact, Angel Blanco claimed that Solitario('s ghost) showed to him and told him that they're going to be together in short time...

Fishman was also as huge as possible, just the previous year, he had taken Sangre Chicana's and El Cobarde's mask. BTW, this Cobarde is the father of Cobarde jr, who lost his mask to Mano Negra in 1986 and is currently feuding with Latin Lover at AAA, Cobarde jr's son (well, that's supposing they're really related that way, sometimes it's not the case, for instance, Rey Misterio Sr is Rey jr's uncle) is named 'El Hijo del Cobarde' and should be Cobarde III or Cobarde's Grandson, Hijo del Cobarde and Chavo Guerrero are the only to really third generation wrestlers I know of...

Just to see that lucha business never change: Luchador of the year(1977) award went to Melchor Ortiz, who dropped the hood that year, he went by the name of, 'el Halcon'! And not only he was sponsored by the magazine, but the mag owned the gimmick!!! Of course, El Halcon mag was not that happy with Ortiz being named 'luchador del aņo', they also complained about the tag team of the year: Ringo and Cachorro Mendoza!!!!! Those Mendoza brothers are not related to Ray (or at least, I don't think so). Well, maybe it was just that the mag ranted about anything, Perro Aguayo was named 'rudo' of the year!! And Halcon observed that Fishman and Alfonso Dantes had better 1977s then Perro, who was defeated on some big matches.

The not as old Arenas were also good, some facts from there:

In 1993, less than 2 years of working as luchador, Vampiro Casanova had already retired!! Of course, we all know he has retired about 3 dozen of times, but this one was kind of cool (or uncool), I call Vampiro 'the show stopper, the main eventer' sometimes, because I think he is somewhat similar to Shawn Michael's in: one, the impact they've had on the crowds, and two, the series of retirements. This first Vamp retirement came after a show on October 29 1993(now I know the date!), he was fighting Black Magic for the heavyweight title, before the third fall started, he 'had respiratory problems', the ring Doctor and the chanting crowd asked him to quit, but he managed to return to the match and win... only to fall unconscious after that... sounds familiar? They said he had heart problems... Heart Break Vamp? Later, Vampiro retired b/c some problems in the back... I guess HBK might return after all...

Another one who announced her retirement was Xochitl Hamada, why? She became Mrs. Casas!! Unfortunately, it seems that the marriage didn't work. On the other hand, Miss Janeth (at the time she was simply 'Janet') had a good, rich girl gimmick!!! As a tecnica, of course, the story went something like this: She was shy and naive, and bigger girls always bullied her, so after seeing some women wrestle, she considered it a good way to defend herself, so joined the wrestling training... and then went to the White House to teach Ms Lewinsky all she knows!! OK, I made that last line!

Speaking of weird stories, I've always believed that Octagon was a rip-off of the Chuck Norris flick, but now I've found out that it means 'OCTAvo draGON' or eight dragon. Saigon Dragon (Ultimo Dragon) means ninth or last dragon. They printed a full story of how they were trained in a shaolin temple and acquired the third eye, that third eye made Octagon to see that his master was about to be murdered, so he left the temple, the monks ordered Saigon Dragon to punish Octagon killing him. Eventually they met at (of all places) the Popocateptl volcano, they fight for days, Saigon wins, but he can't kill Octagon since they've been friends since childhood... knowing that the monks will want to kill them both now, they start using masks to cover that third eye (tell that to Fuerza Guerrera and Mocho Cota!! They took their masks off too often at the time!!) so that they could go undetected... sure, and THEN STARTED WRESTLING USING THE NAMES THE MONKS HAVE GIVEN THEM!!!!! Very undertakerish... I wonder if Peņa had a comic book in the works...

CMLL Card for Tomorrow:

*** Bracito de Oro and Suky vs Pierrothito and Espectrito.---Where's Mini Rey Misterio jr??
*** Star Man, and Pantera vs Violencia and Rey Bucanero.-- Pantera and Rey Bucanero are working for WWF now, this match should be good, but I don't think it'll make it to tv.
*** Blue Panther, Black Warrior and El Satanico vs Shocker, Felino and Ringo Mendoza. Might be on TV if the semifinal is kept short, this should be OK at least, don't really get why they didn't book Black Warrior in the main event to keep his feuds with Atlantis and Mr Niebla alive...
*** Apolo Dantes, Mascara Aņo 2000 and Carmelo Reyes vs Tinieblas jr and the Head Hunters.- Is this the same thing than last year but with Tinieblitas instead of Rayo jr ?
*** Doctor Wagner jr, Scorpio jr and Bestia Salvaje vs Mister Niebla, Negro Casas and Atlantis.- Bestia Salvaje? Scorpio jr? Santo isn't there... this doesn't even push the title match at Feb/26.

I guess the last three matches will be on TV, besides this one:
***Fuerza Guerrera vs Olimpico for the CMLL World Welter Weight Title.

--- Black Warrior retained his NWA title at Arena Netzahualcoyotl, defeating Atlantis, does the Black Warrior is the best luchador in CMLL or what? He've already done short work of 3 of its main tecnicos, Mr Niebla, Felino and Atlantis... Besides, he's trios champ as well. Mr Sims reported that the match was held last Sunday 14, according to Ovaciones, Super Luchas had it listed for Friday 12.
--- Espectro jr has also defended his new National Middle Weight title twice since taking it from Abismo Negro. He's defeated Hijo del Perro Aguayo and Payaso Coco Azul.
Some Random Lucha Results:

-- Jan/19, Arena Pachuca, two matches aired on AAA
*Octagon, Latin Lover and heavy Metal over Pentagon, Espectro jr and Cibernetico (sub. for Abismo Negro). Tecnicos won 2-0 when the rudo team could't work well at all, my guess is that this match should be the start of the Abismo/Pentagon tag team run.
* Mosco de la Merced AAA, Psicosis AAA, Maniaco and Hysteria AAA lost to Rey Dragon, Blue Demon jr, Parka jr and Ludxor. (shown on TV)
* Hijo del Solitario, Apache and Shiba beat Mascara Sagrada jr, Oscar Sevilla 'el novillero' and el Mexicano.(shown on TV)
* Esther Moreno (first match at AAA), Fugititva and Migala over Alda Moreno, Linda Star y Princesa Sujei, one fall only, it was reported that the ruda team won easily, after Esther performed a series of (3) moonsaults on Princesa Sujei.
* Rata I and Jose Ramona over Lyguila (from los Kamikazis) and Niņo de la Calle.- Rudos took the match 2-0!
-- Jan/27, Carpa Astros
*Negro Casas, Tony Rivera and Emilio Charles over Scorpio jr, Karloff Lagarde jr and Mogur.
* Oriental, Mr Hoy and Mascara Magica over Chicago Express, Virus and Damian el Guerrero (funny thing, Virus was 'Damiancito')
* Alan Stone and Motocross lost to Filoso and Olimpus.
*Tritoncito and Pierrothtito beat Cicloncito and Ultimo Dragoncito.
-- January/28, Nuevo Progreso Tamaulipas:
*Octagon, Latin Lovver and Murcielago over Coco Amarillo (Payaso), Pentagon and Electro Shock.
*Maravilla Azteca and Fidel el Guerrillero beat Dr Muerte and Ruddy Reyna.
*Mini Abismo Negro and Mini Psicosis lost to Octagoncito and Parkita.
* Hechicero beat Titere.

-- Jan/30 Carpa Astros:
*Mr Niebla, Shocker and Brazo De Plata over Black Warrior, Satanico and Ultimo Guerrero.- Black Warrior took off Niebla's mask and, in Warrior's tradition, placed it tied around his neck (he sometimes hang mask to his waist). Mr Niebla asked for a title shot... again.
*Angel Azteca, Atlantico and Kid Guzman beat Valentin Mayo, Rencor Latino and Hijo del Gladiador.
--January 31/Arena Coliseo:
*Arkangel retained his welterweight title vs Astro Rey Jr- So many weeks of build up for this?It was Reported that Arkangel pinned Astro cleanly, so no masks match looms in the horizon...
*Salomon Grundy, Brazo de Plata and Negro Casas defeat Mascara and Universo 2000 with Satanico.
*Fishman, Mano Negra and Mogur beat Brazo de Oro, Mr Hoy and Angel Azteca.

-- Unknown date, from Arena Coliseo de Reynosa, Tamaulipas.
* Astro de Oro, Trueno jr and Golden Panther beat La Mascara, Rostro Salazar and Salvaje.
*Tinieblas, Tinieblas jr and Yuma ovver Scorpio jr, Monje Loco and Asterisco (whoooooo? Just kidding...)
*Dosis and Angel Azul wrestled to a draw in a great battle according to the report.
-- Aired January 31, Niņo de la Calle takes Jose Ramona's hair in TV show 'Al Fin de Semana', the producer of that show was so happy with the public response that said he'll have more lucha matches in the future.

--(unknow date) At Naucalpan:
* Octagoncito, Parkita and Peso over Mini Abismo, Mini Psicosis and Mini the Killer.
* Apache, Ratas I and II and Abeja Africana lost to Oscar Sevvilla, Venum (AAA) and Super Court.
* Vatos Locos beat Vipers by DQ when Ciber and Mosco interfered.
* Octagon, Latin Lover, Heavy Metal and Rey Dragon over Cibernetico, Abismo Negro, Mosco de la Merced and Kick Boxer. At the end, there was a big brawling involving Huicho Dominguez.

Previous pages: 2/15/99