Last Friday (May 19), Solo Lucha libre posted a video to their Facebook page of Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre stars and scions of the legendary Alvarado family La Máscara (current CMLL World Light Heavyweight Champion) and Máximo Sexy (current CMLL World Heavyweight Champion) presiding over the destruction of a blue sports car in Arena Mexico’s parking garage, with a caption indicating that the vehicle belonged to Último Guerrero.
La Mascara, Maximo y compañia destruyendo el auto del ultimo guerrero.
Posted by Solo Lucha libre on Friday, May 19, 2017
Último Guerrero, who also happens to be part of CMLL’s booking committee. Uh-oh.
As it turns out, this all goes back to the recent passing of Brazo de Oro. Brazo was head of the wrestler’s union as well as Máscara’s father and Máximo’s uncle. With his passing, they expected the job to stay in the family once a new head is voted in to replace temporary chief Nitro, who was next in the succession order.
Complicating things is that the wrestler’s union in CMLL isn’t really a union in the traditional sense— the wrestlers vote, but the head is ultimately picked by CMLL owner Paco Alonso, and among long-rumored complaints about Brazo’s leadership was the idea that the union favored management to an intolerable degree. As a result, there’s been a groundswell of wrestlers calling for Guerrero to get the job, although his daughter has said that he didn’t want it.
Well, during a meeting on Thursday (May 18) about the future of the union, Guerrero is said to have voiced some negativity about the way Brazo ran the union, and Máscara and Máximo took offense and proceeded to round up a posse and smash up the man’s car.
For the time being, Guerrero has said on Facebook that he is pressing charges, and SuperLuchas has reported that both Máscara and Máximo have been fired from CMLL, although Dave Meltzer said on Wrestling Observer Radio (subscription required but recommended) that Máscara is merely suspended. Two champions potentially vacating their titles doesn’t mean as much as you might think, however, because CMLL has literally no less than sixteen titles floating around and none of them are all that important.
UPDATE: CMLL have confirmed that Nitro is interim head of the wrestler’s union until elections are held in December and that La Máscara and Máximo Sexy, along with Bobby Villa, have in fact been fired.
But here’s where it gets really interesting! Also present in that video are several other members of the Alvarado family, including Robin (their cousin, who works under a mask for CMLL with no word of any repercussions for him just yet), Alimaña (Brazo de Oro’s brother-in-law), and an unmasked Psycho Clown. Clown (Máximo’s brother), who is one of AAA’s top stars and is currently working towards a main event mask vs. mask match against lucha legend Dr. Wagner, Jr. on AAA’s biggest show of the year, Triplemanía.
Double uh-oh.
Assuming they are indeed fired, AAA is a logical destination for both Máscara and Máximo (although WWE has showed some interest in Máscara), given the talent exodus they’ve been undergoing of late, but you have to think if Psycho Clown suffers any pushback from accidentally unmasking himself before the biggest match of his career, that it may affect his brother and his cousin’s attempts to jump aboard.
Another potentially affected by this is Brazo de Plata (who may be more familiar to you as Super Porky), who has been struggling with his health over the last year but was on his way to a comeback and one assumes now it won’t be for CMLL.
As well, Máscara is close with his Los Ingobernables stablemate Rush, who is in turn the brother of both the current Místico and Dragon Lee. With their regular New Japan bookings through CMLL it seems unlikely that they’d be willing to torch that bridge to side with their pals, but who knows? This situation could easily continue to spiral if tempers flare and lead to a real upheaval in the lucha libre landscape.
There you have it, folks
A beat up car and plenty of intrigue to go with it. We’ll just have to wait and see where things end up, Cagesiders.
(As always with lucha news, a hat tip to Fredo Esparza of LuchaWorld and luchablog for providing the facts and making ‘em easy to digest.)