Jay Cal’s View #119

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PWG’s fantastic tag team tournament DDT4 tickets go on sale Thursday and you know they’re going to sell out.  Rey Horus will miss tonight’s show in El Centro.  Lucha Vavoom invades ESPN’s Sport Nation.  My journey to Lucha Underground’s Temple.  Updates to the United Wrestling Network and this weekend is full of meet and greets and wrestling.

DDT4 tickets go on sale…
Tickets to Pro Wrestling Guerrilla’s DDT4 go on sale Thursday April 23rd at 8PM PDT. The annual Tag Team Tournament takes place on Friday May 22nd from the World Famous American Legion Hall in Reseda. The already announced 8 teams are Drew Gulak and Biff Busick, the Beaver Boys, World’s Cutest Tag Team, Inner City Machine Guns, Monster Maifa, Andrew Everett and Trevor Lee, and Love Gunn. Also that night, “Speedball” Mike Bailey takes on Johnny Gargano and Roderick Strong defends the PWG World Championship against Chris Hero and Brian Cage.

Card Subject to Change
Most times you want to give the benefit of the doubt to the promoters that when a talent doesn’t appear it was a simple misunderstanding and something far less nefarious.  I took no joy in reporting when Super Porky was “injured” and wasn’t going to appear for his date with FCW LA.  I take no joy in reporting that Rey Horus will definitely miss his match in El Centro and could possibly miss his match Sunday in Los Angeles.

After his showing at the King of Indies event during Wrestlemania Weekend, Rey Horus formerly known as Hijo De Rey Misterio was invited to take part of the EVOLVE 42 I-PPV on Saturday April the 18th from Orlando Florida.  Horus is booked to face Andrew Everett.  However, Rey Horus was added to the event a day earlier EVOLVE 41 in Tampa where he is substituting for AR Fox in facing Caleb Knoley.

At the very least his match scheduled against Xtreme Tiger aka TNA’s Tigre Uno will not happen tonight.  I called the number of the flier and when I asked who Rey’s replacement was going to be, I was hung up on.  I hope I didn’t break the news to them.  I’m not sure what Rey’s traveling schedule looks like, but it isn’t unreasonable to think he could miss the Los Angeles Show as well, where he’s scheduled to face Steve Pain.

Lucha Vavoom invades Sports Nation
Those Crazy Chickens and El Presidente were in attendance to give some wrestling instruction to the hosts, two of which were 710 ESPN’s Max and Marcellus. Max, who’s the suit, really didn’t get into it. But Marcellus, a former NFL player seemed to genuinely enjoy the segment. Even donning a lucha mask and using a clothesline on the Chickens. It was a fun little segment to kick off the publicity leading up to the Cinco De Mayan event, coming up May 4th and May 5th (Monday and Tuesday) at the Mayan Theater. In the past the show has featured Willie Mack and Joey Ryan. It’s been confirmed that Puma King will be apart of the show as well as Cassandro, Dr. Maldad, the Crazy Chickens, and more. Click here for tickets.

The First Rule of Lucha Underground is you don’t talk about Lucha Underground
My experience heading into the Temple in Boyle Heights honestly felt inspired by one of my all time favorite movies Fight Club.  The first rule of Lucha Underground is; you do not talk about Lucha Underground.  The second rule of Lucha Underground is… you get my point.  One can not simply pontificate about what happens in the Temple because essentially, you sign a non disclosure statement prior to being welcomed into the marvelous venue, so mums the word.  So I will not talk about how Chavo Guerrero had a serious injury and wasn’t able to compete, or how the wrestler formerly known as Blitzkrieg #2 made his debut, or who even I thought was really under the mask of Blue Demon Jr.  No, I will talk about my experience visiting the temple for the first time.

The Temple itself is majestic; they sure work awfully hard to just make it look like an abandon warehouse.  If you watch the Underground weekly on the El Rey or remember Wrestling Society X’s old venue, there quite comparable, there is a lot of polish to make it appear rough around the edges.

Go ahead, Cornelius, you can cry

Before you can even enter the Temple, you have to get your paperwork in order.  I’ve seen lines at the DMV that were shorter and less confusing.  It took me a few minutes to realize I wasn’t in the line to sign in, but rather at the Food Truck, which looked amazing but my purpose was entry and I couldn’t let a snack delay my indoctrination to the Temple, needless to say the lines were extremely confusing and spilling into the other lines.  It might have been the heat stroke kicking in, but I could have sworn I saw Tylder Durden stop a man waiting in line and tell him “You’re too old, fat man and your tits are too big,” before chasing him out of line with a broom.  It isn’t too rigorous of an exam to be admitted to the show, it just seems they could have done a better job getting people their tickets.  I also felt like there could have been some simple adjustments to make this a more fan friendly environment.  For those who were not lucky enough to have actual seats, the wait is nearly unbearable.  I will proudly admit that I ran a 5K the day prior and was a little soar from the run.  However, arriving before two o’clock as per instructed via the email confirmation, you spend so much time just waiting.  No place to sit, so you’re on your feet.  Our reward for facing this ordeal was the pre-Temple area, where again… there are no seats.  They had a bar and a merchandise area.  I was one of the unlucky ones who didn’t have a seat.  I was in the standing room only pavilion.  As I followed the maze of people to our seats, I realized that there was at least one entire section that was essentially a group of plants.  “I am Jack’s inflamed sense of rejection.”  As I trekked my way around the ring and up the stairs, the set of disappointment kicked in. The view was terrible, the audio was worse.

There were a lot of bright moments of the day.  I can honestly say I have never been closer to El Patron and his AAA World Championship than I was on Saturday.  Seeing that title defended Los Angeles is a treat.  AAA’s history with Los Angeles is long revered and it was great seeing the top prize in AAA in Southern California.  Some of the show was goofy.  Some of the show could pop the snarkiest of wrestling smarks, but at the end of the day I was glad that I at least visited the temple once, not sure if I would go again.  I definitely wouldn’t attend again if it was a standing room only situation.

UWN on Patreon 
Nearly five years ago, I drove from Oceanside with my now wife to Yuma Arizona, to get to the Desert Sun Stadium for NWA Pro Wrestling’s show (Results).  It was a weird, but wonderful weekend where I went to three wrestling shows in three days.  My wife is a good sport.  June 26th the Heritage Tag Team Champions, the RockNES Monsters (Johnny Yuma and Johnny Goodtime) defending their titles against Natural Selection (Shaun Ricker and Brian Cage) w/Percy Pringle III against Los Luchas.  This match has been made available via the United Wrestling Network as a “from the vault exclusive.”  There were so many great matches in that vault; I look forward to more gems being emptied.  This joins all the most recent episodes of CWFH as well as the bonus match of Daniel Bryan vs. Sean Waltman and AJ Styles vs. Trent Baretta (which never aired on KDOC TV or MavTV) episodes start as far back as July and are being updated all the time with the shows before they air on KDOC or YouToo America. If you are a fan of wrestling, I can’t see a better value than $2 a month for that ever growing library and I can’t recommend it enough.

This Weekends Events in SoCal
Lucha Libre in El Centro, TONIGHT @ 6:00 PM
Meet Santino Bros Stars in Huntington Park, Saturday  @ 1:00 PM
Lucha Underground in Boyle Heights, Saturday @ 4:00 PM
Meet Santino Bros in Montebello, Saturday @ 6:00 PM
SoCal Pro in Oceanside, Saturday @ 7:00 PM
Santino Bros in Huntington Park, Sunday @ 3:30 PM
Lucha Underground in Boyle Heights, Sunday @ 4:00 PM
NSPW in Los Angeles, Sunday @ 4:00 PM
UIPW in Los Angeles, Sunday @ 5:00 PM