Are We Living In The Darkest Timeline? CMLL Main Eventer Magnus & AAA Top Guy Daga!

No, I'm not here to discuss the darkest timeline. Just enjoying from afar.

Where is the creativity going to come from in lucha libre going forward?

I've never been shy about saying one of the main things that attracted me to lucha was the never ending creativity. You'd say wrestlers will run out of things to do, I'd counter with a clip of a Mexican kid you've never heard of doing things you've never seen before. There will never be an empty well of new stuff to pull out for the simple reason what's old can be new again. But where are these people who will do the new stuff?

Rey Misterio Jr is my baseline for everything. He started in 1990 but let's go with 1992 as a starting point since that's when he showed up in front of anyone's eyes thanks to AAA TV. It's 2026 now & Rey is still going (not so strong). You can debate amongst yourselves when Rey's in-ring creative career started to dip but it's my blog so I get to say definitively when that was. We had peak Rey Jr from 1992 until roughly 2006. That's when he settled into his WWE routine, working with people who couldn't help him do certain things so it was the perfect time to be the 619 guy. What I always admired about Rey is he never stopped trying to think of new ways to set up the 619. The creative juices always kept flowing. So he was never in cruise control completely. I'd say Rey then spiked again from 2011-2018. The Lucha Underground era, working UK/indies against people who idolized him, All In... you got to see a rejuvinated Rey coming up with all these ideas & having the people to pull them off with. Even in 2019 working with Andrade in WWE you saw glimpses of what Rey could do with someone who was game. Post-covid Rey is just the guy there to do the 619, totally understandable at his age & having nothing else left to accomplish beyond making sure his kids still keep getting paid. So let's total it up... we had peak Rey Jr creativity from 92-2006 & 2011-2018. That's 20/21 years going strong for the most creative wrestler of all-time.

Mascara Dorada version Metalik started showing up on CMLL Guadalajara TV in 2007 doing unbelievable stuff you couldn't even imagine. The first time I saw his rope trick moonsault dive I lost my mind thinking we reached peak wrestling creativity. He starts on CMLL TV in late 2008, by 2014 he's off to New Japan for a year where he's not being especially creative as much as just being the high flyer in random 6 and 8 man tags. In 2016 he's on the WWE radar for the Cruiserweight Classic & out the door. He did absolutely nothing in WWE which was no surprise to anyone. Moreso his head was filled with Lince Dorado talk about "working the right way" & he became indoctornated. Meaning once he was stupid enough to ask for his release, we didn't get the old Mascara Dorada released out into the world. We got the WWE Metalik who still called himself "king of the ropes" (which I came up with BTW, you're welcome fucktard) but only used them to do a flying elbowdrop. Find any recent match of his, he stinks. He doesn't do anything any longer. He's as dull of a wrestler as anyone you'll see in the WWE system except he's working in front of crowds who expect more & come away disappointed. I won't even get into how dumb of a human being he actually is for torpedoing his own career since we're just talking creativity here. We had Metalik/Mascara Dorada for 7-8 years.

Fenix first showed up on an AAA screen in 2011. Full of ideas, no fear, emulating his idol Rey. He was still going strong a few years later in LU + on the US indy scene. AEW came along & he was still going strong until roughly 2024 when the combination of injuries & waiting to leave to WWE meant less effort. Since joining WWE he's been neutered. Although I don't really put the blame on WWE, Fenix isn't in an environment where creativity is encouraged or rewarded. He's basically retired now. Even when he exits WWE, the Fenix we knew is gone. He's a cutter, Destroyer, Spanish Fly guy for the rest of his career. We had Fenix for roughly 13 years.

Hijo Del Vikingo was the next shiny toy when it comes to creativity. He appears on our radar in 2017 as part of the AAA future stars gimmick tournament. All these insane rope tricks, all these crazy rotations on dives... some of his older clips still blow me away & have never been replicated. He has the covid handicap where he missed time & then was working in front of nobody but still doing cool shit which doesn't hit as hard in front of no audience. Either way he then hit the US indy scene + AEW in 2023. Eventually he gets hurt, misses a lot of time, returns not doing as much & is quickly swiped up into the land of WWE. Now he does absolutely nothing. One can argue he offers nothing. I would imagine WWE has figured this out & he won't have a prominent role any longer in due time. Post-whatever happens next for him - we're not getting the original Vikingo back. His knees are not what they once were & you need that special kind of mentality - either hunger or love of the game - to want to keep focusing on new things to do. Vikingo has neither of those things. Once you've tasted WWE main roster money & realize there's nowhere to go but down, it's game over for ever having the creative juices flowing. We had Vikingo for 6 years.

The current Mascara Dorada aka ex-Panterita Del Ring Jr started in CMLL in 2021. This guy is special. From day one he was up for anything & in a promotion with all the bases to make the spots happen perfectly. He's still pretty great. Any time he loads up for an exchange against three rudos it's required viewing, especially if it's against the Guerreros. But it's now 2026. Those special exchanges are becoming rarer & rarer. It's more the routine now. Oh, he also has an AEW contract meaning CMLL is the place where you don't bust out your new ideas any longer except maybe once a year on a major show. When I took my 3 month CMLL break, I wasn't seeing any gifs of his incredible innovative spots. Nobody was DM'ing me making sure to alert me I gotta watch this match to see this spot for my year end best spots list. He's had multiple matches against the Guerreros where not a single new thing has been attempted. The book isn't closed on someone this young obviously but the creativity graph is trending down with this kid. His run was barely 5 years.

Zonik seems to be next in line. He's been doing fun stuff for a couple years now & is still a kid. World is his oyster. But he's also starting to work more outside Torreon which means he's becoming another MexaBoy in the sense he's put the creative stuff to the side to focus on being a US indy guy. He can still have those magical performances (like the RIOT match) but he has ceased to be the guy who is entering the ring thinking what cool sequence can I pull off with my bases tonight & more which dives do I want to bust out tonight. The charm for me with Zonik matches was I could never hit that skip forward button because you never knew when he'd bust out some new idea. Again, we aren't closing the book on Zonik, just pointing out the more he works in the dead land known as Mexican indy wrestling, the more he will just fall in line with all the others. The MexaBoys charm was similar in that they would do crazy shit with their personal bases. Now they prefer working against each other doing crucifix drivers all night long. Their run was barely 5 years. The book is still open on them but please show me their creativity these days. I used to run luchagifs on Twitter & could post their shit weekly. Nobody is posting any clips of them these days.

I think the disappearence of creativity in lucha libre goes hand-in-hand with the style losing it's identity. When you had 2/3 falls with captains rules, you had more opportunities to play around with creative finishes using multiple people at the same time. When you had well defined tecnicos/rudos, the wrestlers had purpose in the ring. Misterioso knew he was entering that ring to base for all three tecnicos at some point in the match, not to get his shit in. Today's Misterioso doesn't exist. 95% of all lucha libre (CMLL included) is just my turn, your turn, my turn, your turn stuff. Only in CMLL do you ever see three exchanges in a row where the rudos are shining up the tecnicos. That shit doesn't exist on the indies anywhere. Nobody has time to shine up anyone else when they're so focused on doing their own stuff.

The other issue that would be too deep/inside to go into here is how matches are constructed these days. We can just focus on CMLL for this issue. The talent breaks into pairs to work out the multi-man matches. It's no longer a collective group effort. If you have a trios w/ the pirates against the dragons, Difunto doesn't know what spot Dragon Legendario is about to do with Barboza, he just knows he's coming in next to take the spot they worked on pre-match. When you used to have all six guys working together, you could mix everyone in & come up with some wild ideas which spawned all the creativity I saw throughout my fandom. Why does Mascara Dorada vs Guerreros stick out so much in recent years? Because it's often just him doing spots that involve all three Guerreros to be on the same page. It looks like magic. Nobody else is doing that. Once the Guerreros are gone, those kind of spots will be gone forever. Ultimo Guerrero didn't pass it down to anyone as we can clearly see.

Plus we have the issue of CMLL wrestlers now being told their finishes instead of getting to come up with them on their own. Another US thing that Mexico has adopted because apparently they were doing it all wrong for 90+ years. I have literally been told stories of people in CMLL (Olimpico) vetoing finish ideas & telling them instead to win with Destroyers. There is a new directive about every finish having to be a top rope flying move unless you get special permission. Why? Because the tourists go "wooooooooooow" seeing people jump off the top rope. It's like the mandatory spinning headscissors to start most matches. The matches are being structured around what they've learned the tourists pop for & can understand. See, I know for a fact the tourists would go crazy for the old school lucha triple team comedy spots but alas CMLL has put a soft ban on any comedy & most triple team spots. They want all the eyes inside the ring on 2 people at a time, like in America.

The most creative luchador to me these days is Bandido. He is always thinking of new things to do & studying videos to see what he can bring back. The asterisk with Bandido is he's also cut down on his flying. He's more of a power guy now. Nothing wrong with that, he's my favorite. But my search is for who is gonna keep bringing the flying creativity in Mexico going forward. It certainly won't be him.

I think Aereo is the most creative guy in CMLL currently. Yes, the minis who works maybe 10 times a year if he's lucky. He gets to do 2-3 spots a match & they are almost always super creative. He has the advantage of always being in tags or trios against the same people all the time.

Komander is probably the best flyer these days in terms of still trying to do something new every time out. He has that hunger, the creative juices are still flowing. We're lucky he's trapped in Mexico for the time being, not really sure how that hunger would stick out working hour 6 of ROH mid-week tapings.

That's all I had to vent about for now.

Stay tuned next for the forbidden door of blog posts - pointing out how often Persephone has worked CMLL shows since signing her dual contract & how this will soon become the norm for anyone under an AEW deal.

I Now Understand Fredo Esparza

Fredo used to be part of the lucha libre community. He was the guy with tapes/DVD's, he watched all the same stuff we did. One day he just stopped selling stuff or things just weren't selling any longer. Chicken or egg, whatever. He was still around on social media commenting on certain things going on in AAA or CMLL or elsewhere. He did the CMLL Informa thread before Cubs even realized it was cool to do so. Then one day he wasn't. To this day he hasn't returned. I don't expect to ever see him online discussing lucha libre ever again.

Don't worry, Fredo is doing fine. I still follow him on IG. This isn't about him though.

This is about the lonely place it is now to be a long time lucha libre fan. An actual lucha libre fan. There is almost nobody to discuss actual lucha libre topics with any longer. Example: See my questions on Twitter that go unanswered since the people who can actually provide answers are either gone or run websites where the traffic is fueled by just posting about WWE/AEW. I find myself more & more comfortable just posting my thoughts here to nobody than engaging with anyone on social media.

Current lucha libre viewers can be divided into 3 groups:

1) Those who have been around a while, either going back to 90's CMLL/AAA or even just 5-10 years ago watching Rush & friends do their thing to a largely empty Arena Mexico while Vamp & Konnan were booking AAA into the ground.

2) Those who found out CMLL was getting hot about 2 years ago & jumped on the bandwagon.

3) WWE viewers who found out AAA/Lucha Libre existed in April 2025.

I put myself in the Group #1 of course. The group that is the smallest of all these groups & only shrinking by the week. Even this group I find myself holding back from engaging with because there are still those who are trying harder than I am to stick to following/watching everything & I feel I am coming from such a place of negativity to the current lucha scene that anything I say will either be intentionally disparaging or will be interpreted that way. I find myself trying my best to even talk as little current CMLL as possible with The Cubs Fan of all people. I don't want to be the one responsible for killing his enjoyment of CMLL. If it happens naturally, that's fine. I am guilt free. But I feel even sending him an audio making fun of all the constant redundant 3 way matches is influencing how he looks at them. Maybe he doesn't mind them at all, I don't know. But I feel guilty even bringing the subject up. I'd rather he just respond to me questions/comments about all the 80's/90's lineups I have been digging up.

I don't mind Group #2 that much because if something is good, you should want to search it out & watch it. There is nothing wrong with that. Where I catch myself not wanting to interact with this group are the times they make claims like "(match X) was great! Authentic CMLL lucha libre!" in response to a one fall singles match full of head drops & tropes from American/Japanese wrestling. My immediate thought is to engage but these days I catch myself. I don't. The thought that enters my head is how it will come off to the person I'd be engaging with. I remember back when I got into lucha & was telling people how great some things were, there were people who had watched way more lucha than me - back when it was far less high flying - who would always tell me how it wasn't actually good. It was better when they punched a lot, worked the mat for 20+ minutes, bled buckets in every single match, etc. This kind of response to my enjoyment wasn't a one time occurence, this was a constant occurence. One that tried to take the fun out of what I was enjoying & make me feel like I was enjoying something lesser. I remember that feeling & I don't want to be that guy to someone else.

Take the Villano/Zandokan match from this past Friday. I broke my no CMLL rule & watched it because I saw a couple people on the timeline putting it over big time as a classic (their words). I watched it. It was good. Just good. I wouldn't say classic. I wouldn't say great. But certainly a totally acceptable Dynamite level quality TV match. Didn't really understand the finish, I think Villano fucked something up & they had to improvise. Either way, it's a match that while it was fine - I remember very little of it besides the missed dive 24 hours later. But I don't want to be the one engaging & giving my real thoughts about how it wasn't a lucha match, it was the exact match they'd do if they were put on Dynamite tomorrow or in the BOSJ next year. That feels like an attack. It also makes me feel bad because then I come off as someone who lucha libre has passed by - which I admit it has. It's no longer the lucha libre I knew, it's just Mexicans doing American/Japanese wrestling. So who am I to differ on opinions with those who are watching through a lucha libre post-2023 lens? They don't want to see submissions or a more tecnico/rudo dynamic. That's not the lucha libre they've ever been presented so it's not what they are looking for or questioning why it's missing.

I may not be explaining all that properly but it's my blog so I can do what I want.

Group #3 is the one I just can't handle. For all the obvious reasons you'd imagine but it's not even what you're thinking. I don't care when WWE fans jump into my mentions to explain lucha libre to me. It's funny to me. I laugh & move on. What gets me is the people who fall into this category but aren't trolls. Some of whom are acquaintences I made over the years. People who end up trolling me unintentionally. I had a friend write to me last night about the mask match saying "they did a good job capturing authentic lucha libre." This is someone who had never bothered flipping on an AAA show before April 2025. Let alone watched any CMLL that didn't involve AEW talent. How do I respond to that? It's not someone being purposely mean or trying to poke me. So if I respond like an asshole explaining how that wasn't authentic lucha libre at all, I come off like a total jackass. Instead I'm put in a position where I have to be the nice guy & just reply "yeah, it was great". Even though I'm ignoring the urge to explain - yes it was great BUT... and then explain to them what authentic lucha libre actually is. I would rather these people just not message me about anything lucha related any longer but I can't just say that because then I'm the world's biggest asshole who is trying to gatekeep or whatnot.

So what I'm trying to say is I now understand Fredo Esparza's disappearing act. I aim to be courageous enough to pull a Fredo Esparza sooner rather than later.