Forbidden Door III - 6/30/2024

[Ace]

How are CMLL & AAA guys not only on the same show, but in the same match?! (Mistico & The Lucha Bros vs LiJ)

1 hour ago, mystman said:

OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR TAMU NAKANO RELEGATED TO THE PRE-SHOW?!?! BLASPHEMY!

Tam's not a god. She's just old.

[Kevin Wilson]

8 minutes ago, Ace said:

How are CMLL & AAA guys not only on the same show, but in the same match?! (Mistico & The Lucha Bros vs LiJ)

cubsfan has been talking about it a lot on twitter (probably more than he prefers) but Fenix and Pentagon aren't considered AAA guys anymore. Fenix hasn't wrestled in AAA since 2022 and Pentagon about six months, but he said in an interview lately that he is no longer in AAA (even though he still likes them). So, the bigger point is that CMLL no longer sees them as AAA wrestlers, so they don't mind them interacting with their wrestlers. I think Rush is currently the only non-AAA luchador that CMLL doesn't want interacting with their wrestlers but that's a more complicated situation.

I'm eternally confused on how AAA contracts work but I'm probably not the only one so I don't spend too much time trying to figure it out.

[odessasteps]

I'm vaguely surprised TK hasn't used Sam Adonis yet, but could be part of the cmll/aaa stuff. 

[mystman]

19 minutes ago, Ace said:

How are CMLL & AAA guys not only on the same show, but in the same match?! (Mistico & The Lucha Bros vs LiJ)

Tam's not a god. She's just old.

MORE BLASPHEMY!

[SovietShooter]

3 hours ago, Kevin Wilson said:

I'm eternally confused on how AAA contracts work but I'm probably not the only one so I don't spend too much time trying to figure it out.

Lucha is still kinda old school in that way.  Essentially, the promotions still function as booking offices, where they have a pool of talent, and they book them out on shows in their arenas, or to affiliates and independent promoters. 

Since CMLL owns their own arenas and is affiliated with a network of local promoters they can guarantee their workers a certain number of dates ever week.  As long as the workers make their CMLL dates, they can also book themselves on Indy shows.

AAA is different, because the promotion actually only runs around 20 or so events each year - their TV tapings. Any other AAA branded shows are basically independent promoters paying AAA to use their brand and talent. So, if you are a prelim or mid card guy in AAA, getting booked on these spot shows may increase your bookings, even if AAA takes a cut you come out ahead. But, if youre a more established name, you can probably make more working freelance and working your own schedule.

So, at one point Penta & Fenix were under contract to AAA - during the Lucha Underground era. But when that contract & show ended they wanted to capitalize on their new name value in the US, and control their own schedules, so they worked a bit for Indys like PWG and The Crash, while also working AAA & TNA TV. When AEW started, they went under contract to them, but were still working AAA regularly, since there wasn't a lot of schedule conflict. But over the last couple years, it's kinda become clear that they want to work NJPW, and their appearances for AAA were preventing that from happening.  Additionally, AAA is struggling financially right now, and probably couldn't afford them regularly. 

[Curt McGirt]

NJPW might be the gold standard of payoffs for them, and a lot of wrestlers.

Is The Crash still around? That was Konnan's group, right?

[SovietShooter]

39 minutes ago, Curt McGirt said:

Is The Crash still around? That was Konnan's group, right?

The Crash is pretty much just an Indy that runs Tijuana about once a month. They've been around for probably close to a decade now.  Konnan was working there when he was on the outs with AAA (when he was a regular in TNA), but he hasn't been the one booking it for a few years now. AAA had been working together, but then had a falling out, and AAA told their talent they couldn't work there anymore, so quite a few guys quit AAA. Then they kinda started to work together again in the build up before the Tijuana Triplemania this year.

[Curt McGirt]

Man, they left AAA instead of The Crash when AAA said no Crash? Bwahahahaha... that certainly says a lot.

[odessasteps]

Too bad we didn’t get Volador Jr teaming with the Lucha Brothers just to watch Matt’s head explode, 

[Zakk_Sabbath]

This (great) conversation made me realize that I haven't seen CMLL TV in forever up here, so I went down a YouTube/Wikipedia rabbit hole only to discover Mark Jindrak retired in 2018

[SovietShooter]

Jindrak doesn't wrestle full time anymore, but he just popped up on an Indy show in Arena Neza on June 14th.

Surprised it didn't get more attention, since he was working opposite Marty Scurll.

[SovietShooter]

11 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

Man, they left AAA instead of The Crash when AAA said no Crash? Bwahahahaha... that certainly says a lot.

Not to get too deep in the weeds in it, but basically, if you work for AAA, AAA gets a cut of your booking fee, even if you booked yourself out, and not thru AAA.  So, when AAA is ice cold like they are now, Indy promoters aren't beating down the door to book AAA talent. Additionally, AAA doesn't/can't help their talent get work visas for the US, while groups like Republic (Lucha brothers merchandise store) have started doing that.  So if you're a guy like Toxin, and you're virtually making your own schedule anyway, why would you let AAA dictate where you work *and* get a cut of it?  Instead he can work Crash, GCW, US indies, Mexican indies, and then round out the schedule working IWRG or whatever when they have an opening. And, if they publicly distance themselves from AAA (like they have), then there are usually no roadblocks to them working Indy/spot shows that feature CMLL talent.

This is why AAA has trouble making new stars, and why Triplemania Mexico DF this year is headlined by fucking Vampiro vs a mystery luchador.

[odessasteps]

4 hours ago, SovietShooter said:

Jindrak doesn't wrestle full time anymore, but he just popped up on an Indy show in Arena Neza on June 14th.

Surprised it didn't get more attention, since he was working opposite Marty Scurll.

I wonder if he was in Mexico with his family and took the date. Last Iremember, he lives in upstate NY. 

[SovietShooter]

I went down a small rabbit hole... his wife has Auburn, NY listed on her FB page.  She is a somewhat famous model & actress in Mexico, so that kind of surprised me. So looks like you may be correct...

[odessasteps]

Well, I’m FB friends with him, so I know they moved a few years ago to the States. Didnt remember if it was still NY or not. 

[DreamBroken]

One more for the Zero Hour:

House of Black (Malakai/Brody) vs. Roderick Strong & Gabe Kidd vs. Private Party vs. Tomohiro Ishii & Kyle O'Reilly 

[just drew]

1 hour ago, DreamBroken said:

One more for the Zero Hour:

House of Black (Malakai/Brody) vs. Roderick Strong & Gabe Kidd vs. Private Party vs. Tomohiro Ishii & Kyle O'Reilly 

For the Sickos indeed. This is gonna RULE...

[Log]

I think some of you all are looking at a different card than me. This show looks stacked. 
 

I’m weirdly looking forward to MJF/Hechicero. I think it’s because it’s such an unknown. I just can’t picture how that match will look. 

[just drew]

52 minutes ago, Log said:

I think some of you all are looking at a different card than me. This show looks stacked. 
 

I’m weirdly looking forward to MJF/Hechicero. I think it’s because it’s such an unknown. I just can’t picture how that match will look. 

Same. I’ve been very into Hechicero lately. I like this thing MJF is doing of having some weird, different opponents.

[NoFistsJustFlips]

14 matches is a lot. Probably too many. But in the case of this show where it's basically get as much of the AEW roster on AND the NJPW roster AND the CMLL roster, AND Stardom roster... I can kind of forgive it. You have like triple the amount of performers available to you, so you are going to want to use as many as you can.

I'm looking forward to a bunch of the matches. Even tho we know MJF is up, his match will be an interesting one to see how it plays out. Main, both Women's title matches, all the zero hour matches look fun. Should be a killer show. I hope the crowd is able to stay hot all the way through. I think Swerve & Ospreay is going to exceed expectations.

[Dolfan in NYC]

A recently released wrestler just made the very strong implication that he'll be at this show tonight.

Spoiler

Donovan Dijak just posted a video on Twitter saying he was in Connecticut and was about to "take a 4 hour drive". 

Which is hilarious because driving from Connecticut to Long Island would normally take no less than 4 days.

 

[EVA]

Wrestlers who are actually gonna “surprise” debut never do these glib social media teases. It’s always just clout chasers who can’t get booked. Which is Donovan Dickhead to a “T.”

[odessasteps]

We didn’t see Jacob Fatu tweet about being at SD ahead of tithe show.

[just drew]

50 minutes ago, EVA said:

Wrestlers who are actually gonna “surprise” debut never do these glib social media teases. It’s always just clout chasers who can’t get booked. Which is Donovan Dickhead to a “T.”

Uh oh. Is he problematic?

[Go2Sleep]

This will be a great show if the multi-man tags are in the 5-10 minute range. It had the vibe of a one-match show (though that one match should be a slam-dunk MOTYC), but looking at the card again, there's a lot of good stuff in there. Mone/Vaquer and ZSJ/OC both have some show-stealing potential, Danielson and Takagi seem excited to work together even if the result isn't in question, the ladder match is well placed to add variety, and the multi-mans have potential to be fun sprints to balance the singles epics. Hopefully everyone realizes that and doesn't need to get all their shit in with multiple heat segments.