Alberto El Patron’s experiment, Nacion Lucha Libre, is soon to close down. According to The Planet Lucha: “Among several logistics errors, lack of public acceptance and presumably due to lack of payments were the reasons why this project no longer gave for more. What initially emerged as something promising to give competition to the CMLL and the AAA has ended in oblivion as just a failed promise.”
Back in June, the former Alberto del Rio and Chavo Guerrero announced the creation of Nacion Lucha Libre. Vulture Hound Uk reported the news like the following:
The new promotion will launch on Thursday, July 11 with a show at Sala de Armas in Mexico City, Mexico. La Batalla Inicial (The Initial Battle) and future Nación Lucha Libre events will air on Saturdays from 10:30 pm CST until midnight on the ImageTV network, according to Lucha Central. The first show will air on Saturday, July 13, two days after tapings in Mexico City. A tribute to Dos Caras, El Patron’s father, and Tinieblas is advertised for La Batalla Inicial.
El Patron received the support of Héctor García, head of the National Center for the Development of Sports Talent and High Performance and El Fantasma, president of the Lucha Libre Commission of Mexico City, in his new project.
The show seemed promising, it had many Mexican superstars that now dominate the wrestling scene. The names included in the first show were Pentagon Jr., Rey Fenix, Laredo Kid, and even the notorious Sexy Star. The company needed to find a television deal that could make the company compete against the main promotions in Mexico, AAA, and CMLL. According to Uproxx, the only deal that they landed was the stream service +Lucha in Mexico. This was the first sign that things were tough for the enterprise, in Mexico, television deals are the rule to go big. They would later land a deal with Imagen TV.
The second problem came with payments. Nacion Lucha Libre had the best wrestlers that weren’t held to contracts with the main promotions. This included Puma King, El Mesias, and L.A. Park. But soon, the news started to come out about their problems with payments. Here are the words of their former tv announcer, Pulpomo:
Many of you sent me messages asking me about this subject, so I started to investigate and never thought of finding such a problem.
Well, first I tell you that in fact PULPOMO was not paid for his work, I believed that IMAGEN TV paid NACION for the broadcasting rights, but NACION pays IMAGEN to give it airtime.
And not only the PULPOMO, a fighter who works a lot in La NAUCALPAN, leaked me information that many fighters still have their guarantee from the MONTERREY function and in ECATEPEC.
They also owe the STAFF and they tell me that even ROBERTO FIGUEROA has had to show his face so as not to look bad with the fighters since he is working as a broker.
The company has been waiting for the payment of all the sponsors but this does not arrive and the ALBERTO El PATRON has already put too much money to the degree that the business is no longer profitable and the debts every day grow and grow.
The comments come with a photo featuring Roberto Figueroa, noted Mexican Lucha Libre personality and part of Nacion Lucha Libre, apologizing for their delays.
Adrian Mendoza, who’s a journalist for +Lucha, said this about the issue:
The lack of payments of Nacion Lucha Libre is not exclusive of commentators, according to the info I have. These are the risks of undertaking such an ambitious project. You have to bring money to the account to continue investing.
The last sign that the company is closing is their lack of shows. They barely ran eight shows last year and didn’t run anything on December or January. Those are big months for Lucha Libre in Mexico, which may be a sign that Nacion Lucha Libre is not thinking of running in 2020. These are all speculative situation, and the company hasn’t said anything yet. But everything is a bad sign for the company in general. For now, these are the statements by The Planet Lucha: “As we had talked about in One Fall Podcast, the Mexican promotion Nacion Lucha Libre has come to an end and has no longer been able to perform more functions as well as being broadcast on Imagen TV.”
