thecubsfan

TV shows AAA is the easy one. They have one TV show (sometimes called Sin Limite). It's an 80 minute (+ commercials) show that airs on one of Televisa's cable sports stations (UTDN) on Thursday. A 60 minute version airs on a normal over the air Televisa station the Saturday prior; that's the one I post. The missing 20 minutes is usually filler, but can be an extra match some weeks. AAA used to post the 80 minute version on their YouTube page, stopped, caught all the way up, and then stopped again. CMLL's TV situation is always changing. This is probably wrong info if you're reading this three months from now. CMLL right now has 3 TV tapings. The main show, the closest thing CMLL has to an "A" show, is called "Lucha Azteca" and airs on the Azteca network in the US on Saturday afternoons. (This show does not air in Mexico.) All CMLL shows are one hour and follow the same pattern: they'll air the semimain and main event, and maybe a preliminary match depending on the week. All matches are edited for time - the prelim match is usually hacked to pieces - and the matches for this show are live on the clarosports.com live internet stream mentioned above. (There is no VOD, it's live only.) The matches air on this show 15 days after they take place. CMLL also airs "Guerreros del Ring" on obscure cable channel 52MX on Saturday afternoons. Almost no one in Mexico gets this channel, but Comcast offers a US version of it in some areas as part of it's Latino package of channels. This currently airs matches from Arena Puebla, 12 days after they happen. All the Arena Puebla shows are also airing live on CMLL's free YouTube channel and are archived after the fact, so there's currently no reason to watch this show unless you really hate dealing with YouTube. CMLL's third TV show is "Titanes en el Ring" on obscure cable channel ClaroSports on Saturday afternoons. Almost no one in Mexico gets this channel and this channel isn't carried in the US. However, the same show will air (with different bumpers/graphics/name) in the US on the LATV network as generic "CMLL". The show airs Sunday nights. It's listed as two hours, but it's only one new hour - the first hour is always a repeat of last week's new hour. The only difference is the ClaroSports show airs a new episode every week while LATV either doesn't get all the tapes or doesn't care and episodes will be skipped sometimes. This show, whatever you want to call it, now airs matches from the Tuesday Arena Mexico show. I do not get either network, but Alfredo of LuchaWorld does get LATV and posts matches from that show on his YouTube channel. I know there's also something called Fighting Spirit Wrestling on an extreme sports channel in the UK, where someone's brought the rights to CMLL, AAA & NJPW and is combining matches from different promotions on one show. (This replaces the CMLL/NJPW combo show that airs/aired in Canada.) I'm not sure AAA or CMLL know this exists. PPV AAA has four big shows a year, plus a fifth that has gone on/off the schedule and added a sixth special attraction show this year. Those shows have been offered as iPPVs for the last year or so, always on the same site. You get VOD until they take it down to start pushing the next show. AAA does PPV in Mexico for most of those big shows. Their plan was to expand to US PPVs this year, but their first one (TripleMania) was a complete production/creative failure and all plans were put on hold. They may be back on US PPV next year. CMLL has not done conventional PPVs in years; even during the last boom, it wasn't something they were doing much. They're experimenting with iPPVs - the first one was a disaster in a totally different way than the AAA disaster, but they didn't give up on the concept yet. It's not clear how many or how often they'll be doing them. Myself and others have suggested to CMLL to try offering their content as a subscription service instead of pay per event and I think they've considered it, but I'm not sure if it'll happen or what form it would take or what content would be included.

The AJ re-entry thing is more clearly explained in the podcast. It's not that AJ is automatically going to be put on in two years. If AJ has another two years like the last two years, where he's a major player in a major promotion, then Dave figures that's four good years as a top guy and he'll be worthy of talking about again. (And since that'll almost have to be in NJPW, he'd go in the Japan section.) If AJ gets hurt or gets downgraded or goes off to NXT or ROH full time, then who knows and maybe he won't be worthy of another vote. Dave's making a big assumption AJ will keep that spot, but maybe he got some feedback that it was too soon for him to be back on the ballot.

I FOLLOWED THE HISTORICAL PERFORMERS ERA CANDIDATES ABSTAIN I FOLLOWED THE MODERN PERFORMERS IN U.S/CANADA CANDIDATES ABSTAIN I FOLLOWED WRESTLING IN JAPAN CANDIDATES ABSTAIN I FOLLOWED WRESTLING IN MEXICO CANDIDATES Perro Aguayo Jr. Brazo de Oro & Brazo de Plata & El Brazo Cien Caras Karloff Lagarde Blue Panther Huracan Ramirez El Signo & El Texano & Negro Navarro Villano III I FOLLOWED WRESTLING IN EUROPE CANDIDATES ABSTAIN I FOLLOWED WRESTLING IN AUSTRALIA/PACIFIC ISLANDS/CARIBBEAN/AFRICA CANDIDATES ABSTAIN NON-WRESTLERS ABSTAIN

Yes to Edge Yes to Brock Lesnar Yes to Sgt. Slaughter No to Danile Bryan Yes to Huracan Ramirez No to Brazo de Oro & Brazo de Plata & El Brazo No to Cien Caras No to Ultimo Guerrero No to Blue Panther No to El Signo & El Texano & Negro Navarro No to Dr. Wagner Jr. I've not listened to his podcast explaining this ballot, but I have in previous years. He believes no wrestlers should be eligible into the Hall of Fame during their career and will not vote for anyone he believes is still active to enforce his own rule. That's probably his reason for saying no to Daniel Bryan and possibly a reason for the luchadors. (That would make Brock's inclusion confusing.)

Santo's pretty likely for that show. The story he's telling now is he's gotten the all clear from all his doctors, just need to visit one more in the US, and then he'll be on this show (which he's hyping as Todo x el Todo show so he can talk about his promotion being international.) Casandro's a bit more random. He had the stroke and a car accident, then came back to wrestle that weekend, then wrestled some more while saying these were his last matches for a while before surgery, and is now pushing a gofundme to pay bills so he can afford to come back for a retirement tour (???). Casandro probably the contact for that show, so he'll probably go and probably will end up working. The weird part is Magno was advertised for both groups at one point, and now he's at NXT. Safe bet he's not there. AAA show looks really expensive for guys who aren't well known in UK. Waiting for discounted tickets (or waiting to make sure they don't get cold feet and cancel) sounds smart.

1) as best as I can recall, when video trading sites have suddenly disappeared or closed up, there's usually a spill over flood onto other message boards - this one, DVDVR, the Observer, whatever - with people who were caught by surprise and are trying to figure out what happened. Maybe they lost some money, maybe they just want to know where else they can get to access, but there's always threads started and drama and angst and whatever. if Dreamer's piracy company shut down a site that, for one show, was doing 50K views (or even 5K views), shouldn't we expect to be reading those sort of comments from dissatisfied "customers"? The wrestling interent is a much wider and separated place now than it was even a few years ago, but it seems reasonable people would be talking about something of that size getting shut down even prior to Dreamer's message. Bix wouldn't have to hunt around to see how many downloads the show got because it'd at least as public knowledge as the man who's merchandise was seized. We'd know the name of the site or the uploader. None of that happening seems like this shutdown claim must be at the very least overblown and comes off as fictional. I hope Dreamer is in on the work. 2) I thought the idea of indy promotions banding together for an indy take off on a WWE Network. I think getting promotions to get along is tough, but the tech barrier in getting something like this together is immense for small organization. You noted how long it took WWN Live to get the Roku channel going and figured it was because they didn't realize the value, but I'd guess they probably also had trouble with the learning curve of getting on there and couldn't afford to hire someone who could do it. Ultimately, the best people to handle distribution of video now are probably going to be the best people to handle distribution of video later. A Smart Mark Video's streaming network (or any other middle man video provider) would make the most sense, since they're already bringing different promotions together. It's a dilemma for them though - it risks cannibalizing their main revenue stream without the other streams a promotion would have, but they'd completely lose if someone else was successful in creating the same concept and they were cut out.

I thought that was the deal too but, when I went to the tapings, I realized they were just doing the spanish/english back to back (when they did those things.) Even for Dario's bit - there's was a scene where he had to say something from the office doorway in Spanish, slammed the door shut, then reopened the door to the same speech in English and slam the door again. It's efficient but jarring.

One post before resuming lurk mode, because I was trying to explain this on Twitter and failing due to character limits. If you are concerned about the "should MMA count for Brock Lesnar" question, you should probably listen to Wednesday's Wrestling Observer Radio. Dave doesn't answer it straight forward, as ever, but my understanding after listening is Dave doesn't believe there needs to be an outright declaration because it's so obvious to him that it counts. If someone - Brock or anyone else - draws wrestling fans to an MMA event than it counts towards his drawing power. I know other people heard it different but that seemed as a close to direct statement you're getting out of him on this (which admittedly is still not that direct.) The caveat is you should probably not listen to it if people strongly believing Brock should be in the HOF will annoy you, because they feel as certain as that as some posters here feel the opposite. They might as well be speaking Swahili and you might as well be speaking German, because there's no reasonable conversation of exchange of views to be had on Brock Lesnar at this point, everyone is just talking past each other. on a related note to get it of system: I'll be disappointed if Dylan (and others) stop doing research. I agree what Dylan said on Wrestling Culture, it's probably a futile gesture to change the voting patterns because only a low percentage of voters appear to be paying attention to any of that research unless it's published in the WON. Can't ask you to do what I wouldn't, and there's no way I'm researching a piece on Karloff Lagarde - this fabled lucha bloc y'all keep talking about is actually probably people who aren't much on the internet and aren't reading English language blogs, so it'd be among the most futile of efforts. Still, as a consumer/reader/listener of all the stuff around the HOF voting, I'd hate to see it go away. The HOF list is nice, but I got about five minutes of information out of a list. I got a lot more when people are forced to explain a guy's career and why I should remember them. I hope the people who do them, Dylan included, find some value in doing the research itself and telling those stories about people who may not be as known as they should be, regardless of what the anonymous voters think. I generally wish people saw the HOF as excuse to tell (or read, because I'm lazy) stories about wrestling, not an endpoint in itself.