SquaredCircle

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AEW

Airing on Saturday on Collision

Stephanie Vaquer versus Lady Frost Hechicero versus Kevin Blackwood Kevin Blackwood is an name on the indies and a big match between him and Hechicero would likely be interesting. This is not the big match.

Airing on Sunday’s Forbidden Door

Titan, Hiromu Takahashi and Yota Tsuji versus Fenix, Penta and Mistico – Zero Hour pre-show, so this will stream for free Hechicero versus MJF Stephanie Vaquer versus Mercedes Mone for both the AEW TBS championship and the NJPW Strong Championship

There are fans who understandably want the trios match to be on the more important PPV than the pre-show. I think having it on the pre-show is a potential great marketing opportunity for AEW to expose their Mexican and Spanish speaking fans who don’t often see them. AEW should be asking CMLL if they’ll stream the Spanish language version pre-show on their YouTube channel and if they’ll push that fact out to their fans. Maybe they hook a few people for the effort of putting their show in front of different people. I don’t know if AEW (or CMLL) will take advantage of that opportunity.

Fenix & Penta landing on the AEW/NJPW Forbidden Door show seems to be the answer to Penta’s mysterious reason he wouldn’t work AAA this year. Hopefully it turns into more than that (but that now may be more determined by Penta’s contract status than anyway barrier.) CMLL’s social media avoiding mentioning the Lucha Brothers by name hints not every problem has been solved, but the Lucha Brothers being booked at all means CMLL’s adequately confident they’re freelancers and not under contract to AAA.

This is really straight forward for Fenix. He lost to Vikingo on the 2022 TripleMania Mexico City show, AAA thought Fenix was coming back, and Fenix just never came back. Penta’s more complicated, I feel like I have to give three different explanations for three groups of fans:

people who watch one AAA in show a year: no, really, Penta’s been gone all year, and he did an interview saying he wouldn’t work in AAA this year, it was quite a thing when it happened

people who consume Vampiro’s podcast: yes, Vampiro and Penta agreed for Penta to be Vampiro’s last opponent on his podcast but no that was never going to happen. Vampiro shot his own angle, I don’t believe Penta even knew the bit was happening, and he never had an intention of doing that match. Also, I need you to understand that wrestlers lie on podcasts all the time now or it’s going to hurt later when you find out. It’s just another version of kayfabe or character building or storytelling, whatever you want to call it.

people who actually go to shows or plan to go to shows and see Penta on posters with an AAA logo: these are independent promoters who are using AAA wrestler and independently hiring additional wrestlers. AAA is not promoting these shows, has no part in it outside (possibly) making sure their wrestlers get there on that date and then taking a previously agreed upon amount of money from the promoter. It is confusing, and it is intentionally so. (Only the TV tapings and a few odds and ends – like the Showcenter events – are actually AAA promoted.) Penta would have a stronger argument that he’s not in AAA if he wasn’t working those extra shows every other weekend, but as long as he gets paid and doesn’t get in trouble for it, he’s going to take the money.

This is also the best case for why Penta might take the a WWE deal. Penta works more outside dates than anyone featured as his level in AEW, because he’s down to show up, do a few hand signals, and collect a healthy payout. Penta’s usage matters to him, and I’m sure he’d be frustrated if/when WWE has no real ideas for him after three, but the money matters first and foremost – he’s taking a WWE deal if they come decently above what AEW will offer.

I remain unconvinced WWE will be making that level of offer.

Random aside 1: No one but me seems to notice these things, and it’s not too important, but Tony Khan is now regularly referring to CMLL as “the #1 promotion in Mexico.” There’s ways to praise CMLL without hurting AAA’s feelings if that was a thing you were concerned about; he is clearly not concerned about that.

Random aside 2: The people who knows things seem to be hinting WBD’s exclusive window to sign a new AEW deal is expiring soon, maybe this Monday. That means the most likely time for a WBD/AEW deal to get done is this weekend, before AEW hits the open market. I have no ino if that’s going to happen, just that that news would obviously override everything in the wrestling discourse for a week if it does. Vibes are not great about AEW right now, but they could also have their typically strong PPV and a new media deal and I don’t know how people are going to process that combination. An AEW flush with new money could change how they operate and who they go after.

Let’s talk about Rush, AEW and CMLL

AEW has not said “Rush isn’t on Forbidden Door because CMLL didn’t want him there” and Rush is also a guy who typically hasn’t made AEW PPVs. The latter point gets ignored in the yearly conversation about who can and can not work Forbidden Door. I like Komander, Komander’s not missing Forbidden Door because AAA or AEW or CMLL, he’s missing it for the same reason he misses pretty all the shows – they don’t think of him as that important right now. Rush is a guy who’s been, at best, on the fringes of PPV programs when he has been around in AEW. He’s not making any AEW PPV right now unless a much bigger star specifically wants to work with him, and that’s a bigger factor than what other promotion gets involved. There’s a much longer discussion about AEW and where they slot Mexican wrestlers but this post is already going to go off in some long and fruitless tangents, I’m going to table that one for another day.

There seemed a definite possibility MJF was that bigger star that wanted to work Rush on this PPV. MJF ended up wrestling Hechicero instead. CMLL may have got involved; in fact, I’d guess they probably were involved on this one. CMLL does not like Rush. It was a big step this year for CMLL to even allow their wrestlers around him, but wrestling on the same PPV may just be too far this soon.

CMLL has it’s reasons for not liking Rush. These are the ones I know; there may be others.

Rush quit CMLL directly after winning the ROH World champion in a Twitter video to promote his YouTube channel.. CMLL responded by firing Rush & Dragon Lee in a press release. Rush stopped appearing on CMLL shows four weeks earlier and both sides knew they were headed to a breakup. Rush admitted he was breaking just about every rule CMLL had and wasn’t happy there. There were ways where they could’ve parted ways amiably, but Rush instead quit in a manner trying to maximum attention at the cost of his relationship with CMLL. It’s likely CMLL still holds a grudge about all of that.

The Rush split happened shortly after Salvador Lutteroth III replaced Sofia Alonso as the most powerful executive in CMLL. Rush claimed in CMLL he would’ve stayed if Paco Alonso had still been alive and likely if Sofia Alonso had still be there. Rush also mentioned he discussed a new contract with Salvador Lutteroth twice without coming to an agreement. I think CMLL wouldn’t give Rush what he wanted out of a new deal, but Rush publicly questioning the new leader and saying the old ones were better may have made it personal.

Rush attempted to start a new promotion, Federation Wrestling in 2021. The promotion imploded without running a single show, but still left a scar. Rush bringing in ROH wrestlers ended CMLL’s working relationship with that promotion. (I guess it’s back tonight.) Rush and his allies also quietly worked to convince CMLL wrestlers of note to leave that promotion and join his. Rush has since denied any involvement with Federation Wrestling beyond appearing as a talent, but no one really believes him on this one. Even though no CMLL wrestler actually ended up leaving, CMLL said this as an attempted talent raid of their roster, and that makes Rush a forever enemy of the state. Reasonably, they figure the only thing stopping Rush from trying to steal talent again is finding another weird money guy to pay for it. Rush is considered a bad influence and CMLL doesn’t want bad influences around their wrestlers.

Latin Lover may not realize it yet, and likely doesn’t even care, but saying he’s talking to CMLL people about jumping to AAA probably means he’s forever vetoed by CMLL

To a lesser extent, I still think this plays into why Metalik was excommunicated from CMLL; telling CMLL wrestlers “this is how you have to wrestle if you want to make it to WWE like me” is filling brains with lots of ideas CMLL simply doesn’t want to be there for a variety of reasons

There’s probably a lesson in here in how careful AEW needs to be about CMLL talent and offering contracts going forward. AEW appears to have figured this out with NJPW.

(Disclaimer: Federation Wrestling still owns me about 25 USD.)

The one big talking point on social media that I think is a little bit overblown is “CMLL doesn’t want Rush around because Stephanie Vaquer works there and he’s made pro-Cuatrero statements.” I’m not going to go on a witch hunt nor do I recommend you doing so, but I have no doubt there are people who Stephanie Vaquer works with on every CMLL show who believe Cuatrero’s right and she’s wrong. CMLL the promotion made a statement backing Vaquer, but I’m 100% certain there are individuals without that organization who disagree. There’s people in CMLL who’ve known Cuatrero since he was a child, who worked with him daily for years, and who will not or can not believe he could’ve done what accused off. When (if???) there’s ever a resolution to that case, that’s going to be a sad day where people learn things about their favorite Mexican wrestlers that they really didn’t want to know. I’m sure Vaquer would prefer not to be around people who voiced support for her accused attacker like Rush, but I think it’s unfortunately a thing she accustomed to at this point and I don’t think CMLL is blocking one person away from fixing it. (It would probably make her life even more annoying if this talking point ever jumped from the English to the Spanish wrestling discourse; she already gets constant harassing messages without people believing she’s blocking someone from working a wrestling show.)

Rush can talk about wanting to work with CMLL guys if AEW lets him, but it’s a lot more to repair that trust. CMLL eventually took Octagon back, so nothing is impossible. Octagon’s choices were to sue AAA (which it doesn’t seem like Rush can do) and to publicly apologize repeatedly for ever leaving CMLL. It also helped that Octagon had been gone a long time, any bad memories were faded, and he was a beloved children’s figure from the past. Rush’s path back probably would involve some public admission and apologies he may not want to make, and even then the wounds may still be too fresh.

I’m sure Rush would like to be on a PPV fighting MJF, but I’m not sure if appearing on this particular PPV is important to him. His bigger focus should be on positioning himself best for the 46 weeks a year AEW is doing their own thing, rather than 6 they’re doing Forbidden Door stuff. The match with MJF seemed to go very well, and Rush has shown he’ll deliver when AEW calls his number against a big name. He’s just going to find ways to stay relevant in AEW’s system in between those big matches.