AAA 06/06 TripleMania XVII recap

taped 06/06 – out of order, but I wanted to get it done before this aired on US TV. The version I watched ran 4h15m down, with the commercials, the concert, a few promos and an entrance cut out. Over two weeks of normal AAA TV, they get 3h20m of air time. Even cutting out all the entrances, some editor is going to have a heck of a time cutting it down to fit unless they wipe out a match or two.

The recap is 8 pages and it’s quite a triumphant to come in that short.

I used star ratings. I don’t normally use them because people treat either them as a discussion ender instead of a discussion starter, or argue the number of stars rather than the quality of the match, and neither of those discussions are interesting to me. However, they’re data just like anything else, and data can sometimes illustrate larger points more succinctly than words.

TripleMania star ratings, for worst to first (NOT match order)

-*
*
* 1/2
* 1/2
** 1/4
** 1/2
** 3/4
*** 1/2

There was one quite good match, there was one quite poor match and another not very good one, but most of this four+ hours show was boring meh matches. They were OK, they would’ve fit fine on a regular TV show, but were mostly unmemorable. La Parkita hurt his shoulder in a spot most people would not remember by the end of the show (certainly not AAA, since they haven’t ever let us know more about the injury.) Four hours of mostly unmemorable matches is a poor way to spend a Sunday. The underwhelming level of the show dampened the crowd’s enthusiasm. That actually helped Park/Parka, because the fans were so much more excited for it than anything that happened before, but a hot crowd into the action all night would’ve helped definitely helped Wagner/Electro and probably helped the cruiserweight title match.

If you haven’t watched the show, and especially if you’re the kind of person who like the vote in year end awards, I’d tell you to go out of your way to watch La Parka vs LA Park. The rest is completely skippable.

Lots of bonus thoughts:

– Dorian turning on LA Park made little sense. It’s the same Dorian who ordered Vampirio to spike his father through a table, something recalled earlier in the show when Vampiro wanted to get close to Marisela Pena and she wasn’t having it. (Still, Park flopping all over the mat for Dorian’s kicks was five flavors of hilarity.) It was probably just the best finish they could come up while taking care off the bigger issues: keeping both Park’s happy and finding an excuse for the Perros to get involved. It was a finish born out of negotiation, not logic.

However, it was not the finish most obviously designed primarily to keep everyone in the match happy. That was Cibernetico & Zorro vs Vampiro & Abyss, a showcase of three guys who had no particular interest in being there and one poor American stuck in the middle of it. They did the Konnan/Vampiro stuff not because they have any interest in doing more with it, but because it was the only way to get a finish.

– Abyss was fine, but they could’ve stuck Psycho Clown in the same spot and actually built the final spots around someone who is on 100x more shows. Pardon me if I’ve used this comparison already and forgotten, but – who’s the biggest star, Skandalo or Psycho Clown? It really should be crazy to ask that question, but it’s really not.

– The Mega title match was in a tough position, as mentioned. It was 1 normal match surrounded by 7 high spot matches. Even in a better situation, it still was the wrong match for the story. Electro has a pattern of wanting to wrestle as a tecnico in singles matches, despite the story not going so well and Electro’s not being very good in this method. He’s doing it to prove a point, to win an argument, but he ought to be more concerned with having entertaining matches. The story going into the match was disrespect (Electro offended by Wagner think he’s better) and betray (Electro & Maniacos turning on Wagner), but we got a match as if they had still be friends since Rey de Reyes. And a post match that made no sense – Wagner should’ve been offering the handshake of I Doubted You, But You Proved Something To Us All Tonight, but instead Electro offered and bowed in a You Were Right, I Am Not On Your Level.

– The actual stipulation of the women’s trios appears to be losing PERSON is a maid, not losing TEAM. While that explains how Fabi got out of the stipulation this time, it’s something which was not made obvious before the match or after the match. As bad as the cage stipulation.

– The cage match was amusing for having only the rudos do the big tecnico jump off the top of the cage spots, but didn’t really add anything over a normal trios in that spot. (The best decision would’ve been swapping Nosawa & Alex, so there would be a rudo the crowd was into in the Cruiserweight match.)

The Chessman moonsault really was the best and worst of Chessman. He’s great in his willingness to do crazy things, but he’s not so great in his willingness to do crazy things which will cost him in the long term, and his inability to soak the most drama out of them. Everyone loves Fabi for her moves and her willingness to kick Sexi Star directly in the face, but the reason the fans really care about her is the connection she makes to the audience by her facial expressions and gestures. Fabi draws the fans into the match with her, Chessman might as well have done the move in an empty building. It might have been nerves, it might have been total focus on the move, but he should’ve spent a moment visibly deciding whether to leave or jump and spent another letting the fans anticipate what he was about to do. Those touches, bringing the fans along in an overstated fashion, are one of the reasons why guys like Konnan and Vampiro are still over despite all the other reasons against.

– If AAA brings in a bunch of foreigners/unknowns for Verano de Escandalo, I’m going to make a sort of visual lineup of those guys. Get together a head shot, put the name, maybe a phonetic pronunciation of the name and identifying detail. (Go would’ve been “Alto”.) Then, I’m going to send the link to @rudorivera on twitter, and ask him very nicely to print it out and take it with him. I’d do it for the whole announce crew, but he’s the only one on twitter I know.

It’s quite clearly something AAA should be doing themselves already – or maybe not even bringing in the random foreigners if their announce crew can’t even identify – but if I can do a small thing to make AAA a little better. The people who bring in these guys to AAA are doing it to entertain themselves, so I might as well try to make it a little more entertaining for myself too.