The Crash
Friday, April 6 (12:00 p.m.)
The Sugar Mill
New Orleans

One of the more unique cards of the weekend will be when WrestleCon invites Tijuana’s The Crash to New Orleans.

The Crash is arguably the third largest promotion in Mexico and fills in the void of the largest and most consistent indie after CMLL and Triple A. They run about monthly, sell out, or come close to sell out, Tijuana’s Auditorio Municipal Tijuana with a combination of whomever is not affiliated with Mexico’s two big promotions, and a mix of PWG regulars. In the past, the Young Bucks, CIMA, The Hardys among many others have come down to Tijuana for a weekend. The Crash puts out a solid product that’s more of a combination of lucha libre and modern super indie style, so it is in theory very appealing to irregular lucha watchers: it’s much less formal and more highspots driven than CMLL, and makes loads more sense than your typical Triple A show. The problem is that The Crash is notoriously hard to watch if you aren’t in Tijuana seeing them live. They promise that a TV deal is in the works, but they’ve been saying that for almost two years now, so the most people see of The Crash is random video clips from the lucha libre media or full matches someone in the crowd might upload to YouTube.

So what is The Crash bringing to the table for a bunch of likely first-time viewers? A whole lot, and perhaps the sleeper show of the weekend. It’s a bit less luchador-dependant than their usual shows (which is entirely understandable given the weekend that it’s not in Mexico), but there are a lot of highlights and wrestlers whom you might only be able to see in New Orleans if you watch this show.

The first two matches on the show, an eight man single fall opener, and the four-way mixed tag match are pretty indicative of a typical The Crash show. In the first match, Aero Boy is a talented wrestler from the ultraviolent DTU promotion, as is Draztik Boy, who probably is more known as a friend of Flamita that got tours in Dragon Gate over the last few years. The rest are a bunch of guys from Texas (Palmer), Florida (Cade), and the mid-west (Stallion), among others that got booked. The Crash’s opener usually is flashy with a lot of dives, so this could be a good match to wake up a crowd given the show’s early start time. The four-way mixed tag has The Crash’s Women’s Champion Lacey Lane and her La Rebelión Amarilla team-mate Black Danger, and regulars Christi Jayne and Oraculo (better known as Jay Rios, trying to hide his face). This match feels loaded up on the women’s side with also having former NWA Women’s Champion Barbie Hayden and current Impact star Diamante.

The three-way with Flip Gordon, Rey Horus and Laredo Kid has a bunch of potential. Flip’s done a bunch of stints with The Crash, and all three have wrestled each other one way or another, but this is a first time matchup that could be off the charts. It’s kind of wild to randomly have Flip on this card, and so low, but given how the rest of the card is, it makes sense.

The Crash is doing their own variant of the hot tag team match of this year of Zachary Wentz & Dezmond Xavier vs Flamita & Bandido, but with some changes. For reasons that will be pretty obvious in a paragraph or two, Flamita isn’t teaming with his The Crash Tag Team Champion partner, it’s going to be former The Crash Junior (less on size, more on position on their cards) Champion, Black Boy. Black Boy is someone pretty special. He’s done an MLW show with Black Danger, under a different name, and he could be someone that breaks out from this show. Added to 2018’s trademark match are the Crist brothers. They’ve done some matches in The Crash and aided in training Wentz and Xavier, so it makes sense, but I personally would have rather had just the other two teams.

There is a big hitting lads four-way after that. All of these guys are regulars of the Crash, mainly due to their former booker Konnan. Mack is the number one contender for The Crash’s Heavyweight Title, but Rey Mysterio holds that, so who knows what will happen. This match feels like the let down of the show, looking it over. I’ve enjoyed the Daga I’ve seen, but Cage and Callihan feel kind of overexposed on a show with a bunch of a wrestlers who are underexposed.

The story of the Flamita versus Rey Fenix match has superseded everyone’s excitement for this potentially stellar match. First it was Flamita and Rey Fenix, and everyone thought it was rad. Then, Rich Swann got added, and everyone went “uhhhhhh” for understandable reasons. Since then, Swann has claimed he was retired (and no-showed a date for The Crash), and now we’re left with a giant question mark. Personally, I hope Swann doesn’t show up. There are enough guys with sordid histories on this show, that I’d rather not another sully what could be a match of the weekend.

The semi main event is a trios match of La Familia de Tijuana members Damian 666 and Nicho El Millionario (the original Psicosis) teaming with LA Park versus La Rebelión Amarilla members Garza Jr., Bestia 666 (Damian’s son), and Mr. 450. This match won’t be the high octane style that the rest of the show will be up to this point: the older team mostly is known for brawling nowadays and La Rebelión Amarilla works rudo. It is the best chance to see the brawling mastermind that LA Park has become, and I really wonder how much he cares about Louisiana’s commission rules.

The main event is Penta El Zero M versus Austin Aries. Weirdly, this is the match I’m least psyched about on this show. With Rey Fenix being tied up with Flamita, you had to find the right match with Penta, and I guess this was it? Looking at the bright side, this is a first time match, and no one has preserved their aura like Penta El Zero M has, so at the very least I don’t think this will disappoint.

It’s unknown if this show will be streamed live on Highspots, or just be a VOD on their network. Even with some of the questionable roster decisions, this could have some must watch matches. All in all, this is a reasonable facsimile of The Crash, and it will be exciting to see Mexico’s equivalent of a super indie in New Orleans!

  • Penta El Zero M  vs. Austin Aries
  • LA Park, Nicho El Millonario & Damian 666 vs. Bestia 666, Garza Jr & Mr. 450
  • Rey Fenix vs. Flamita vs. Rich Swann (?)
  • Daga vs. Brian Cage vs. Willie Mack vs. Sami Callihan
  • Bandido & Black Boy vs. Dezmond Xavier & Zachary Wentz vs. Dave & Jake Crist
  • Rey Horus vs. Flip Gordon vs. Laredo Kid
  • Lacey Lane & Black Danger vs. Christi Jaynes & Oraculo vs. Barbie Hayden & Joey Ryan vs. Diamante & Douglas James
  • Aero Boy vs. Draztik Boy vs. J.Space vs. Amarok vs. Matthew Palmer vs. Jason Cade vs. Angel Fashion vs. Curt Stallion