As expected, CMLL main event level heel Averno, who's reportedly heading to WWE to feud with his old rival Mistico A.K.A. Sin Cara, lost his mask last night to La Mascara at CMLL Jucio Final. Reportedly, they had a 29 minute (including breaks between falls) match of the year candidate with tons of great false finishes. The first two falls were on the short side with Averno winning the first fall by countering a dive with a metal foreign object shot and La Mascara winning the second fall with a small package out of nowhere.
They went all out in the third fall, which La Mascara won by using Averno's own Devil's Wings (essentially Christopher Daniels' Angel's Wings) twice followed by his own finisher La Campana ("rocking horse" submission hold that starts out of an inverted Boston Crab) for the submission to a huge reaction from the fans. Averno unmasked after the match and announced his real name as Renato Ruiz Cortez of Mexico City, 34 years old with 16 years experience as a wrestler. La Mascara celebrated with his family (the Alverados/"Brazo family") while Averno was comforted by Mephisto, who has been his tag team partner for the last decade.
Here's video of the finish from RadioCMLL.com (which has videos of the finishes of all of the matches on the card up right now), which was ripped and uploaded to YouTube by Contracara Deportiva:
There are also some fan-shot clips of the match floating around on YouTube. This one captures some of the downtime between falls while this one has footage of the last five minutes or so of the match and this one covers Averno's unmasking. You can also check out their previous singles match from a few weeks ago.
Full results of the show via The Cubs Fan at LuchaBlog.com and Kris Zellner's Lucha Report:
1. Metro & Stuka Jr. defeated Shigeo Okumura & (Nobuo) Yoshihashi 2 falls to 1 by taking the 1st & 3rd falls.
2. Rey Bucanero, Damien el Terrible, & Hijo del Texano defeated "Super Porky" Brazo de Plata (La Mascara's uncle), Hijo del Fantasma, & Valiente 2 falls to 1 by taking the 1st & 3rd falls, winning the 3rd fall with a superbomb on Porky(!).
3. Forjando un Idolo Tournament: Negro Casas, Diamante, & Hijo del Signo defeated Blue Panther, Fuego, & Polvora 2 falls to 1 by taking the 2nd & 3rd falls.
4. Forjando un Idolo Tournament: Delta, Guerrero Maya Jr., & Atlantis defeated Angel de Oro, Rey Escorpion, & Ultimo Guerrero in 2 straight falls. Ultimo Guerrero's team was disqualified in the 2nd fall when Rey Escorpion hit Atlantis with a foul/low blow.
5. La Sombra, Rush, & Strong Man (Jon Anderson) defeated Mephisto, Mr. Niebla, & Shinsuke Nakamura 2 falls to 1 by taking the 2nd & 3rd falls.
6. Mask vs Mask: La Mascara defeated Averno 2 falls to 1 to win his mask by taking the 2nd & 3rd falls.
Arena Mexico was estimated as being about 80% full, which would mean that attendance was about 14,000.
Meanwhile, a huge controversy came close to keeping the show from happening. I'll try my best to cover all of the important bases, but you should also read the F4WOnline.com article from early afternoon yesterday by Steve "Dr. Lucha" Sims as well as the sort of liveblog of what happened by The Cubs Fan at LuchaBlog.com for all of the details.
Tony Rivera was a CMLL undercard staple for thirteen years before pretty much leaving last year due to a dispute with the company. Yesterday morning at 5:15 AM CDT, he showed up outside Arena Mexico with a fleet of buses to block the main entrance. With support from the normally agriculturally-focused professional economic protest group El Barzon Popular, he formed a picket line protesting the low percentage of the gate that goes to CMLL wrestlers. There is a video of the protest on YouTube, as well as an interview with Rivera and Barzon Popular leader Crescencio Morales that Super Luchas conducted.
In an interview with Super Luchas, Rivera claimed that in spite of all the money coming into CMLL from ticket sales and sponsorships, the wrestlers are only being paid 200 pesos (about $17 US) for each show that's taped for TV. As noted by Cubs, this is similar to how, in the past, American wrestlers were either not paid for TV tapings or only paid a small amount like $25, because the idea was that TV was where they got exposure to sell themselves to the fans who would buy tickets to the house shows that provided much better payoffs. The CMLL wrestlers had previously gotten two payoffs for the televised shows, one for the live event and one from for appearing on TV. Rivera also claimed that he got no kind of severance deal upon his departure from CMLL, which was odd in that he was advertised for shows weeks after it was clear he was gone.
Rivera and his fellow picketers refused to move the buses unless they were able to meet with CMLL boss Paco Alonso, which seemed unlikely for a variety of reasons. Since people generally don't cross picket lines in Mexico, it looked like one of the biggest shows of the year (set for 8:30 PM CDT) might get cancelled.
More after the jump, plus a look at the other huge lucha libre event this weekend, tonight's AAA Triplemania.
As the day went on...
- Rivera claimed that CMLL offered him 9,000 pesos ($756) to go away.
- CMLL issued a statement denying everything and claiming that cleaning staff was trapped inside with no food while wrestlers have been accosted by the protestors (unlikely since only the front entrance was blocked).
- Blue Demon Jr. either revealed he was on the CMLL blacklist or put himself on it when he tweeted in support of Rivera. Speaking of which, Ernesto O'Campo of Super Luchas posted on the Box y Lucha forum that in addition to those who you would expect to be on the list, Pirata Morgan, Cachorro Mendoza, and El Pantera were banned from the promotion as well.
- Morales demanded a meeting with Paco Alonso and 2 million pesos ($160,000 US). Meanwhile, he and Rivera claimed they were doing this to help out old wrestlers who are crippled and broke. Somehow, I doubt that.
- CMLL announced that the buses had left at 2:50 PM CDT and the show would happen as scheduled.
- Super Luchas reported that Rivera talked with CMLL management and will do so again on Monday.
This should be an interesting story to follow and I'll post something if there are any updates.
Meanwhile, tonight, rival promotion AAA has the 19th annual Triplemania, their biggest show of the year, at the Palacio de los Deportes in Mexico City. There will be plenty of name TNA talent on the show, with the most interesting of their matches on paper being a Dr. Wagner Jr. vs Rob Van Dam match to crown the first AAA Latin American Champion. That match will either be really good or really bad, with no middle ground. In addition, Jeff Jarrett will also get a shot at Zorro's AAA Super Mega Heavyweight Championship, Abyss & Ken Anderson will get a shot at Jack Evans & Extreme Tiger's AAA Tag Titles, and the trio of Angelina Love (who worked in AAA previously as Angel Williams), Velvet Sky, and Mickie James will join AAA's Sexy Star in an 8 woman tag match against Lolita, Cinthia Moreno, and sisters Fabi & Mari Apache.
The main event of the show will feature L.A. Par-K (the original La Parka who wrestled in WCW, not to be confused with the current La Parka who will be on the undercard) putting his mask on the line against the hair of Mesias. These two had an incredible match at Guerra de Titanes in December which was my pick for 2010 match of the year and Par-K's been on fire in his big matches in general, so I'd expect another great brawl. When the match airs on Mexican Galavision and we're able to figure out what the airdate will be on U.S. Galavision, I'll post about that, too.