Pena and AAA

Antonio Pena, the owner, booker, and financer of Mexico’s AAA promotion, passed away Thursday night at the age of 53. Initial reports say his death was caused by a massive heart attack, though that might have simply been the final stage of an undisclosed illness that had kept him away from the promotion for months. AAA had steadfastly maintained Pena was never seriously ill, likely because Pena is such a central figure to the promotion, any instability in his condition meant the same for the promotion. Now that Pena has passed on, AAA’s future is in grave doubt.

In the coming weeks, you’ll be able to find deeper obituaries than any I could provide, so here’s a concise version instead: Antonio Pena was the nephew of luchador/traineer Espectro I, and wrestled most under the names of Espectro Jr and Kahoz. Pena didn’t have much of a in-ring career, but he knew the business, and was brought into EMLL’s front office. He ascended to a booking position, disagreed with the direction (or lack thereof) with EMLL, and split from EMLL, taking wrestlers, local promoters, and a TV contract with him. In the US, AAA’s most well know for it’s stretch between ’93-’95, featuring great matches with the likes of Rey Misterio Jr., Juventued Guerrera, Psicosis, La Parka, and many others who’d later go on to ECW and WCW, and the Gringos Locos vs El Santo feud, culminating on the tape-trading famous When World’s Collide PPV. After Konnan and the others split from AAA to a separate promotion and WCW full time, AAA suffered many leans years while trying to rebuild. It’d become a success – finically, if not aesthetically – in recent years, based on Pena created wrestlers and angles (with some obvious US influences.) AAA’s last major show drew around 20,000 (as do most of their recent major shows), with nothing particularly special on top, and their weekly 3 hour TV show draws better numbers than CMLL’s. This is a promotion that appears to be profitable, but it was making money because of Antonio Pena.

It’s not easy to sum up one definite opinion on Antonio Pena. Pena took far more chances and was far more progressive in presenting lucha libre than EMLL/CMLL was (or is), and forced the rest of Mexico to start to modernize if they wanted to keep up. Antonio Pena’s a big reason Rey Misterio Jr. was WWE Heavyweight Champion – Pena was the first guy to put him on national television and feature him as a star. CMLL thought Eddie Guerrero was better of being a generic man in a generic mask – Antonio Pena brought him to AAA as the latest in the line of the Guerrero family. Pena’s also pushed tons of all-body, no-talent wrestlers (often for personal reasons), badly copied late 90s US wrestling angles (which still often got over to those who hadn’t seen the originals), and made sure he was a central figure in AAA’s storylines and credited with success. Antonio Pena’s going to be ultimately compared to Vince McMahon, but in one way, he was able to even out do the billionaire – AAA not only presented new guys in the identities (and full body costumes) of wrestlers who’d left, but he even got the people to believe they were still the original wrestlers! Like many wrestling promoters, he appeared to be a vindictive, egocentric guy (but if you were with him, he’d take care of you and keep you out of trouble) with the inability to identify and fix his blind spots, but like the few successful promoters, he had the entrepreneurial and creative skills to make it all work. It’s impossible to image the last 15 years of lucha libre without Antonio Pena’s influence.

And now, Pena’s gone, and most of the identity of AAA goes with him. AAA isn’t modern day WWE or even CMLL, where the structure is in place to keep things going if the owner passes away, becuase duties are delegated and there’s some order – Pena controlled everything in AAA, and pretty much was the office himself. Even at the end, when he was unable to come to AAA’s version of Summer Slam, he was reportedly calling in instructions on how to run the show from his sick bed. Pena was unable to make up the lineups for upcoming TV Tapings, but it’s clear whoever did was ordered to the status quo while he was gone – Antonio Pena was the only one Antonio Pena trusted to run the promotion, and their were no plans for what would happen if he was gone.

The early assumption is AAA will mostly like cease to exist as a promotion – it could be as soon as as week from now (when their next TV taping is schedule), it could keep going thru the dates already signed and then just vanish like ECW did, but it’s hard to believe there still will be AAA shows in 2007, unless it’s vastly different AAA. As Antonio Pena’s AAA, it’s forever gone, and there’s no sure thing about someone else picking up the pieces. The problem may be the other way – there’s an obvious power struggle ahead, between Pena’s relatives (both his sister and his nephew are thought to have been close to Pena and the promotion), and Konnan, the prodigal son who was finally allowed back in late 2004, and may have the support of some of the wrestlers – but certainly not by those who still feel betrayed by his split. Even if they’re able to work out who’s in charge, there’s still the matter of convincing the wrestlers that the new management will be able to keep things running (and that it’s not a better idea to abandon ship before everyone else does) and convincing the local promoters that they’ll still have wrestlers to put on events with (and that it’s not a better idea to switch to a CMLL affiliation before everyone else does.) The only safety net is keeping their television coverage on Televisa, and that’s because Televisa owns (or owned) part of the promotion – will they use that stake to try and take control of the situation? For anyone, this would be a huge task, and for a guy with one failed promotion to his name (Konnan’s Promo Azteca) and some complete unknowns, the odds seem greatly against them.

There’s lots of ripple effects from Pena’s death, affected far more than his promotion. TNA’s been putting it toe in the Mexican market, cross promoting with AAA – will they still be able to run their show next month in Monterrey without AAA’s help? If CMLL becomes the only (top) game in the country, will they still feel the imitative to push new faces or go back to exerting little effort? Will Vampiro attempt to relaunch his failed promotion (from debut to chaotic failure in five weeks) now that well known Mexican talent is more available to him? Will TV Azteca, who’ve seemed to want lucha libre of their own, swoop in and start it’s own promotion? Will AAA talent flood CMLL offices looking for work, and which will be taken? And if that does happen, will we see a repeat of ’92 (as often suggested when theorizing AAA’s collapse), where a bloated roster of displaced and underutilized talent leads to a fracture in CMLL, and a group of wrestlers and front office people striking out on their own, just as Antonio Pena did to start AAA?

Questions about what the future holds will start being answered Friday. Pena will be buried during the day, and CMLL’s reaction to it later that night at it’s weekly Arena Mexico show will be watched at all – will they acknowledge the death of their former booker and rival? (Highly unlikely.) Will individual wrestlers make note of Pena’s passing? (Possibly.) Will a top AAA wrestler make a surprise appearance as a mad dash for spots in a secure promotion breaks out? (Seems probable.) Whatever the case, the entire landscape of Mexican wrestling is about to shift multiple ways over the next few weeks.

As others have pointed out, Antonio Pena changed lucha libre in his life, and he’s going to change it again by his death.