Lucha Libre in London

[pantherwagner]

Oddly enough during early July we will have two lucha libre shows in central London - two of them head to head.

 

Show #1: July 11 - Lucha Libre in the Royal Albert Hall.

I saw an ad for this at a Mexican restaurant and seeing that they were billing Blue Demon Jr. in the main event as well as the price (it's the Royal Albert Hall... I imagined not cheap) I was going to skip it, however it looks like it may be a tremendous show.

 

Copied from the press release:

Fifteen of the sixteen luchadores are announced: Blue Demon Jr., La Parka , Psyco Clown, Villano 4, Hijo Del Fantasma, Pentagon, Fenix, Texano Jr., Blue Demoncito Jr., Mini Histeria, Octagoncito, Mini Abismo Negro, Magno, Sexy Star, Faby Apache. The sixteenth big star mystery luchador is to be named nearer the time.

 

So we have the minis and women (pretty much a requirement in a lucha show for foreigners) but also several great workers. I imagine Villano IV is there to fight vs Demon and I'm alright with that. I guess that the "surprise luchador" may be Rey or Alberto. Mistico would be the third option and wouldn't mean that much here. This looks like a great workrate show.

 

22 GBP GA tickets are either sold out or not available and the next tier is at 50 GBP and the rest are 70 and 105 quid. I will have to think about it because that's some decent coin. We have enough hipsters in London to fill out five or six lucha libre shows at the same time but I can't really see them doing well at those prices. I may wait until the last minute discounts kick in.

 

Show #2 or rather second set of shows: 9 to 11 July (four shows, including two on Saturday) @ York Hall, Bethnal Green

These are run by Lucha Britannia, apparently a group that runs indy shows 5 mins away from my house and they are doing the whole arthouse/Santo movie/cabaret Lucha VaVoom gimmick.

http://www.luchalibreworld.co.uk/#!tickets/c273

 

Notable wrestlers scheduled are Hijo del Santo, Dr. Wagner Jr., several minis, Cassandro and the ones I'm excited the most about: the Cholitas (the Peruvian or Bolivian indigenious lady wrestlers that do crazy high flying moves dressed in traditional clothes).

 

Several question marks (Santo is supposed to be done and Cassandro had a stroke recently) but the prices for these shows are pretty decent, it's right in my neighbourhood and outside the building there's a great craft beer bar.... most likely going to this one.

 

Is anybody attending any of these?

[thecubsfan]

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.

[RocketCrypt]

I was considering the Royal Albert Hall show but was put off by the price. Turns out I'm not available that day anyway. They're off their rocker if they believe more than a handful of people are willing to pay those prices. Even if Rey gets added, I can't see them selling out as it stands.

[pantherwagner]

The good thing about London is that the 50% percent discounts and 2x1 promotions will eventually pop up...

[conker8]

I heard about that Santo show but I didn't know about all the specifities.

With my working schedule, i ll try to go to the Saturday show.

[Parties]

The good thing about London is that the 50% percent discounts and 2x1 promotions will eventually pop up...

 

Out of curiosity: is this a common thing for events in London? Where the ticket price is advertised as too high, and then the price is slashed in the days leading up to the event? If this is common, what's the thinking behind it? Why wouldn't you price tickets at a happy medium and try to sell out ASAP?

[pantherwagner]

I don't know about wrestling because I have never been to a wrestling show here (things like Raw tend to do well at the gate) but it's definitely the case for theatre and any other performance tickets. I couldn't tell you what's the logic behind this technique, but I guess they are confident that they are going to do well enough with the cheap or fairly priced tickets at face value and they will try to get as much money as they can of the people willing to pay a hundred bucks for the premium seats.

[ButchReedMark]

London, London, always bloody London. Lucha, PROGRESS, always in London, well far away from North Wales. And even more frustratingly, Jim Smallman who runs PROGRESS lives near me in North Wales, I've been led to believe. WHY LONDON? FUCK LONDON.

[pantherwagner]

I didn't know about PROGRESS and I live here. Interesting that they run shows in Camden and Islington, they seem to be doing well too.

 

Is anybody going to the show (also in Bethal Green) next month with Nakamura vs Ricochet? Ishii from New Japan and AJ Styles also on the card.

[ButchReedMark]

Yeah, PROGRESS is London. I have to keep my ear to the ground with what's going on with British Wrestling and where everything is as I work in it and if I'm out of the loop I can't join in all the bitching backstage at shows about everyone else and what they're doing so I'm pretty much a walking almanac of who's running where these days. It takes brain space would would be better used on trying to move out of my parents house, or getting a new missus.

[pantherwagner]

Lucha Libre World (the Santo/Wagner one running four shows from Thursday to Saturday) has not released a line up yet but we have one for the Lucha Libre UK (Demon/Parka) courtesy of KrisZ's daily update.

 

Royal Albert Hall in London, England
1. Blue Demoncito & Octagoncito vs. Mini Abismo Negro & Mini Histeria
2. Fenix vs. Pentagon Jr.
3. Bengala & Fabi Apache vs. Drago & Sexy Star
4. Blue Demon Jr./La Parka Jr./Psycho Clown vs. Hijo del Fantasma/Villano IV/Texano Jr.

 

It may be a pretty good show. I will decide mid week if I go to this one or not. There are 30% discount tickets available via Time Out UK if anybody is interested.

 

I'll go to the Santo show for sure, probably on Thursday night (opening night).

[pantherwagner]

I went to the Santo/Wagner show yesterday. I'm guessing about 250-300 people were there. A good 40% were women, not only wives and girlfriends but many groups of 2-3 girls coming to the matches. Maybe 1/3 Mexicans, 2/3 mostly urban white Londoners but not nearly as much of a hipster audience as I would have expected.

 

Two weeks ago there was an announcement of a 1200 sellout of the show that had Nakamura, AJ Styles and others (which I missed because I was not in London). No way 1200 people can fit in there.

 

1.- Local Lucha Britannia trios mixed match. One guy had a Freddie Mercury gimmick and the tecnico valet had some sort of weird S&M gimmick. First time I see fake UK lucha. They worked very hard but it was spot spot spot spot. They were quite over though (many friends, family and regulars in attendance) and all of them looked like wrestlers (the only one not in great cosmetic shape was Freddie but he was athletic). One of the wrestlers milky white thighs was bruised by the end from slapping himself so often to do the fake hard kick noise. Freddie in London is a great opening match gimmick. Good guys won. Later on during the break they were taking pictures with tons of fans and the wrestlers seemed to be having the time of their lives.

2.- Carmen Rosa b Elisabet la Roba Corazones. These were the cholitas from Bolivia. If you have never seen them... 5 foot chunky compact middle aged looking ladies in traditional dresses. These were not the super high flying ones that I saw on CNN and BBC a long time ago, highest spot was a monkey flip and a not so graceful plancha. Great intros and tons of charisma displayed by both ladies. Very basic match but a good change.

3.- Octagoncito beat Mascarita Sagrada for the WWA Minis title (I'm guessing that was it). Mascarita is shot. Several missed spots and none of the crazy flying stuff from back in the day. Octagoncito still looked good and did a pretty cool 2nd rope moonsault. At points Octagon was getting more cheers than Mascarita.

4.- Angel Blanco Jr. and Ray Man b. Heddi Karaoui and Zumbi. Decent match, lots of schtick and comedy with some good spots. Basic Mexico vs foreigners match. Karaoui is from France and a good hand. Ray Man is fat. Angel Blanco Jr. did a pretty cool Silver King dive.

5.- Cassandro and Hijo del Santo b. Dr. Wagner Jr. and Magnifico. Here's the good news. Santo looked like normal 2010's Santo (a slower version of him 20 years ago basically) and Cassandro didn't look like somebody who had recently had health issues. Cassandro was the most over and carried the entire match by himself. Santo did a lot of his trademark spots but not all of them (no la de a caballo and no bullet tope, but he did a pretty nice plancha). Magnifico did most of the bumping but Wagner also showed up to work.