PWInsider has the details. As I do not hate you or your computers, I suggest you actually DO NOT click on that link unless you’ve got some strong ad blocking software going on. The actual details are just below. Thanks to Masked Republic for the tip on twitter.
Tryouts are Tuesday at noon at the Fit Pit Pro Wrestling School (6628 Van Nuys Blvd, Van Nuys, CA 91603.) That’s the same address as Slam City Pro Wrestling, so maybe it’s the same thing? Not sure.
Announcing a tryout with four days warning, at noon, is probably not going to give you the best and most complete selection of talent possible, but there’s so much that’s wrong here that I feel like even that’s not worth pointing out. At some point, you’ve got to wonder why AAA just doesn’t cease promoting in Mexico and restart as a southern California indy. Sure, they would be broke, but they’d be happier and I’m all for happy people.
To make this very clear: it makes absolutely no sense for a Mexico based promotion to be holding open tryouts in Mexico. It makes no sense to fly/house an American in Mexico to be roster filler when there are dozens of guys who’d kill for that chance, and one who would’ve made a difference (if such a thing exists) could probably be found without a tryout. Much less one at a weird time with little warning. The only way this makes sense is if they’re planning on running shows in southern California and need guys to fill out the opening matches because they’re going to save money by not flying Poder del Norte and the Dark Family out, and even then, not even sure why you bother with the tryouts. Just have the local indy find people for the opening matches, like they do with every spot show they run in Mexico.
Something doesn’t quite add up. Unfortunately, with AAA’s decisions of late, this seems to indicate something dumb is going on, not that a piece is missing.
At the same time, if anyone reading this is tempting into going, please email and let me know how it goes. I’m dying for a report on this one, I might find some DVD or something else to give to you.
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I *think* I’m going to be using that tag a lot in TwentyTen
Cubs- Was one of the guys from Masked Republic the guy on the podcast with Teddy Hart?
Too bad they missed out on the Young Bucks.
Four days until that tryout and I’m pretty sure this being SoCal there will be a large eclectic group of wrestlers going to this especially IF it gets mentioned on socaluncensored.com.
How about…
#things leading to AAA’s painful death
#things Konnan denies being a part of after it fails
#pointless news
#Marco Corleone needs opponents
#things that keep making Antonio Pena roll over
#things that make you actually miss the days of Tiger Steele, fake Razor Ramon and evil Doink
@Rob: You are gonna change your mind if AAA signs Omar “Slam” Duncan to feud with Marco Corleone!
http://www.empirewrestlingfederation.com/Video/2009/12-Omar.htm
I have to say, I like the decision to hold tryouts in the US. My guess is that Roldan is simply apartment hunting or doing something else in LA, agreed to look at the talent at this school, and invite others to come. I’ll also guess that it’s female talent they are after. Really no different than Johnny Ace making the rounds in OVW, etc…
CMLL has a monopoly on the best talent in Mexico in terms of workrate, so AAA must look elsewhere. The US will figure prominently in AAA’s future. Mexico is dead. They only draw for the tv tapings. Roldan can fly down for tv and come home.
If only AAA had their own Ras de Lona show, they could cover the tryouts and we’d see some of it.
hi everybody!
having so much talent in mexico they have to come here?
@CM93: Welcome to the Age Of Obama. We’re supposed to embrace diversity. So why does everyone have the racial scorecard out here?
AAA’s best years were built around foreigners like Love Machine, Eddy Guerrero, and Konnan. Mesias is also a foreigner. The last time they had a strong feud with “locals” was the four-way with Lover/Perro Jr.,/Metal/Garza. That feud sold out everywhere.
I hope Metal comes back.
@LLL: Love Machine, Eddy Guerrero and Konnan.
Teddy Hart, Kenzo Suzuki and Rain.
Does not compute.
@LLL: the last great feud between mexicans in my opinion was charly manson vs zorro or zorro vs mr aguila
There are useful foreigners and not so useful foreigners. I’m not sure that an random tryouts in the US are the best way to find the next Love Machine. Particularly when it seems that IWRG has already found him and his name is Gringo Loco.
@Rob: Teddy Hart, Kenzo Suzuki, and Konnan would have been the best response. Even though I kind of think Kenzo is great, and can enjoy Teddy on occasion.
@Rob: A lot of people think AAA does not want Mexicans on their roster. I think AAA can’t even get most of CMLL’s midcard to jump if they tried. No one wants to work there. So if AAA wants Mexicans, they have to recruit from the indies. That’s not good.
They did get Wagner, which was a major coup. LA Park refused. Santo worked there too, but he’s such a nut case, no one can handle him these days. Not much else out there.
Who can AAA get in Mexico that can change things?
My guess is that Dorian Roldan is in LA looking for an apartment, or conducting AAA business, and agreed to look at talent at a wrestling school, and now it’s all being blown out of proportion.
Teddy Hart is one of the top workers in the world. He has a good look too. I can’t question the decision to bring him in. Suzuki was brought to Mexico by CMLL.
Rain? Why not? Faby needs to be fed new opponents. I’m sure Rain is working cheap.
My real beef with AAA, especially people like Teddy and Suzuki, is that both should’ve lost their hair last year. But today’s top stars are all marks for their looks and don’t want to do it.
@LLL: teddy could be a good worker but his terrible attitude doesnt allow him on occasion.
kenzo is awesome!
@Alfredo: Wow!!! I’ll fully support Slam Duncan showing up anywhere I can see him. Anyone who can make that into a 2:30 promo is worthy of a spot on a roster.
@CM93: how bad can his attitude be if he survived in mexico for over 2 years already? no reports of him injuring people, or missing shows. look at Randy Orton. now there’s someone with an attitude.
Oh, I ran into Batista at Whole Foods Tampa last night. Nice guy.
I think that the amount of foreigners in AAA is not entirely the problem,it’s the product AAA is producing. Take Chikara for example, they bring in foreigners & wrestlers from other companies all the time, yet they have a good product, & in my opinion is the best promotion in the states. If AAA’s product is bad (which it is, fucking sucks, absolutely horrrible. But that’s just my opinion.) anyone AAA brings in isn’t going to help much,if any at all.
I dunno guys… maybe I’m completely wrong here but when I read articles in USA today where Joaquin Roldan is crying about his attendance going down, I might think to focus first and foremost on the 70 or so natives on my roster who never get on TV and then work tiny spot shows in front of 100 fans where Hijo De Tirantes is the main draw. Perhaps get some of the guys on TV who actually work spot shows? Perhaps put some thought into their gimmicks and storylines so people will want to see them live?
Nah.
Let’s hire some random American who can work occasional TV tapings but never appears on any spot shows.
Sure, Rain makes for a nice visual on TV, the boys probably love having her around backstage and she makes a new enemy for Fabi to feud with. But how exactly does that help draw a crowd to see Cynthia Moreno and Estrellita vs Tiffany and La Hechicera?
Dude, I would be all over going to this and covering the event if it wasn’t on a fucking TUESDAY AFTERNOON. What the fuck are they thinking? I live like 20 min away from Van Nuys.
@Rob: yeah youre right we watch MEXICAN luchalibre because we want to see the foreigners not the mexicans.
@Rob: EVIL DOINK WAS THE FUCKING MAN.
Man, I don’t care if they’re fucking Mongolians as long as they wrestle in a style that appeals to me(lucha).
@LLL you said that the US will fit prominantly into AAA’s future, but I say it won’t because AAA doesn’t have much of a future the way it’s going.
You also said that AAA’s best years were built around foreigners like Love Machine, Eddy Guerrero, and Konnan????? OK that sounds like you’re just repeating what you’ve read in Newsletter editorials. Would you even be talking about Love Machine right now had it not been for his assosiation with Eddy Guerrero?
You also wanted to point our how Messias is a foereigner. Yes we know that and he is part of the problem. The problem is that crappy guys like him are being put in these top positions for no other reason other than the fact that they are foreign.
You can’t expect us to beleive that in all of Mexico there isn’t one talented wrestler who can be brought in. Don’t forget that Konnan has told guys to watch videos of US wrestlers and learn from them. So there is clearly a movement to Americanize AAA.
I have nothing against Americans or American wrestling but when I tune in to watch Mexican Lucha I want to see Mexican Lucha. when there’s no variety things get boring.
@Daniel: What do you mean AAA does not have much of a future? They have international television via Televisa/Galavision. Behind WWE, they may be the most watched wrestling show in North America. They have movie, video game, and toy deals. Hardly a wounded puppy.
Love Machine was a draw before teaming with Eddy. I gave credit to the Perro, Metal, Lover, Garza feud for being a huge draw too.
Mesias is not part of the problem. He has a strong presence, good promo, and he’s not a bad worker.
Yes, Konnan tells guys to watch American wrestling. Big deal. Look at the CMLL roster. It’s obvious from the way those guys act during intros that they watch American wrestling.
What is “Mexican Lucha”. AAA has been doing one fall since 2004. Was “The Monsther” lucha? Luzbel?
CMLL has AAA beat in the category of traditional high-flying fast-paced Lucha. It’s not even close.
@LLL
So you think AAA is doing just great because they have international television and behind WWE, they may be the most watched wrestling show in North America, and they have movie, video game, and toy deals……….Don’t forget that WCW had ALL of the things you just mentioned going for them too. They too were on national and international TV, they had video games come out every year for every major platform, they had a movie (Ready to Rumble), at one time they were beating WWF/E in the ratings, and they too had action figures, T-shirts and many other peices of merchendise. and look what happened to them. They’re making too many stupid mistakes, and no business can afford to make too many big mistakes. It’s like Hulk Hogan said, once that plain starts going down it’s very hard to get it back up.
So you think Messias is a strong presence, a good promos and not a bad worker. OK, so why is it that no matter how hard they try to make him the good guy, he get’s booed when he faces Wagner who is supposed to be the bad guy?
@Daniel: Yes. AAA is making stupid mistakes. For the most part, talent is not one of them. The mistakes are things like terrible editing, and running 4 1/2 hour shows that end at 1:20 local time in Madero. That’s stupid. A long Mesias vs. Wagner match in a cage was stupid. Cutting to a commercial with no warning is stupid, as they do weekly.
They boo Mesias b/c he’s often booked against guys like Wagner who fans will side with b/c he’s Mexican. But he’s a star in Mexico. Nothing wrong with Mesias.
@LLL: Forget to mention, the top Mexican stars have become increasingly difficult to deal with in recent years. Perro Jr, Santo, Blue Demon, LA Park, and even Cibernetico, have all been problematic. Ciber is back, AAA tried to deal with Santo, Demon is indie, and LA Park was offered a chance to return.
It’s not AAA’s fault these guys are so hard to deal with.
@LLL
They didn’t boo Messias because Wagner was Mexican they booed becasue they’re not going to love a guy just because the booker wants them to love him. Mesias is not the star that AAA is trying to promote him as.
Talent IS one of the major problems with AAA. They’re building their shows around guys who people don’t care about. I it doesn’t matter what kinds of moves these guys can do in the ring if they can’t connect with the audience then the best in ring work counts for nothing.
@LLL
Those guys may be hard to deal with but remember that we don’t know their side of the story. AAA may be hard to deal with also.
@Daniel: Mesias was turned to fill the void left by Ciber. Mesias is a great heel for sure. I don’t think his face turn was the best, but I would not say “people don’t care about him”.
Again. If the Mexican stars were not so hard to deal with, they’d probably be on top in AAA. But they want too much money, so they continue to be indie.
To the editor of this website:
my eyes cry trying to understand what you are trying to articulate, specially in this article. Take good writing classes or something.
“Announcing a tryout with four days warning, at noon, is probably not going to give you the best and most complete selection of talent possible, but there’s so much that’s wrong here that I feel like even that’s not worth pointing out.”
WTF are you trying to say?
“It makes no sense to fly/house an American in Mexico to be roster filler when there are dozens of guys who’d kill for that chance, and one who would’ve made a difference (if such a thing exists) could probably be found without a tryout.”
WHAT???????
@lennon: oh. GOOD writing classes. That’s been my problem. Thanks for the suggestion.
Hopefully I can be clearer here.
– if AAA wants to recruit wrestlers from the US, I think they should give them more than four days warning. I think they also should not schedule the tryout during the day on a weekday, when many good candidates are probably working.
– I do not think a recruit is necessary to find top level US indy workers. They can be found in the same sort of DVDs and YouTube clips Romero, Hart, and Evans were found.
If AAA is not looking for top level indy workers, and just needs people to fill out their cards (“roster filler”), it is probably not worth their time to recruit from the US.
AAA either pays for housing for most of it’s foreign wrestlers, or flies them in for TV tapings. Neither option makes sense for a guy who’s just going to work in the opening matches, since there are plenty of equivalent and near equivalent wrestlers available at without that sort of cost.