SoCal News & Notes makes its return with notes on this week’s BTE, The Young Bucks, the last time there was a month with no pro-wrestling in the area, Spirit of the Independents, Lucha VaVoom, SoCal Pro, and more. Click for today’s update.
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In this week’s episode of Being the Elite on YouTube, they showed a couple of matches that were filmed on a tennis court at a wrestler’s residence in Rancho Cucamonga, CA. The matches were Frankie Kazarian and Chris Daniels versus Brandon Cutler and Peter Avalon and The Young Bucks versus Team High Risk (Simon Lotto and Steven Andrews).
The matches for BTE were filmed on March 31, 2020, and the Young Bucks match was the first official match in Southern California for either Matt or Nick Jackson since September 30, 2018, when they were defeated by Guerrillas of Destiny at New Japan Pro Wrestling’s Fighting Spirit Unleashed in Long Beach, CA, a total of 548 days.
It was also the first time the Young Bucks won a match in Southern California since October 21, 2017.
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Unless a promotion decides to risk legal trouble and fines, April 2020 will likely be the first month without a pro-wrestling event in Southern California since at least May 1925, nearly 95 years. Of course, in June 1925 when pro-wrestling returned after several months of no events, two events ran against each other.
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While most promotions have been taking a wait and see approach to announcing new events, the one major event that has been announced coming up this summer, the Progress/PCW Ultra/Defy Spirit of the Independents tour, has tickets going on sale this Friday, April 10 at 10:00 a.m. PDT. If the tour ends up having to be rescheduled due to the current pandemic, any tickets purchased will be valid for the new dates. They are also offering no-hassle refunds if the show is rescheduled.
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Lucha VaVoom has canceled its annual Cinco de Mayo shows due to the pandemic. This will be the first time since I believe 2004 that Lucha VaVoom has not held a Cinco de Mayo event.
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While they had several event dates previously announced, when SoCal Pro is able to run again their next event will be their postponed thirteenth-anniversary show that was originally scheduled for this upcoming Saturday.
SoCal Pro currently is the sixth-longest active streak of continuous operation among all Southern California promotions (behind EWF, FMLL, Lucha VaVoom, PWG, and MWF).
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The 2020 Southern California Pro-Wrestling Hall of Fame inductees will be announced Thursday or Friday this week.
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Our friends at FITE started a new service called FITE+ that is said to provide a special selection of premium events from boxing, MMA, pro-wrestling and other combat sports. PPV events from over 25 promotions will be available on the service 30 days after airing, all of FITE will be ad-free for those who have the service, and you get a $2.00 credit each month to order live PPVs on FITE. The service costs $4.99 a month.
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Normally I’d list upcoming events in this section, but there are none for a while. So instead here are six randomly selected wrestler’s online stores to check out and possibly help them in this time with no events going on:
