AAA on UTDN: 2015-01-31

recap
taped 2015-01-23 @ Arena Naucalpan

Arez, Dinastía, Ludxor, Venum vs Carta Brava Jr., Cíclope, El Apache, Mini Psycho Clown: [good] fun opener with everyone looking good. It’s hard to stand out with this many people in a tag match but everyone seemed to do well when their moment came up. Arez and Ciclope fit in well with the guys who’ve been doing these matches, and Arez flying elbow to the floor was a nice end of the match spot. I’ve never seen someone sunset flip their partner to set up a headscissors before but Dinastía & Ludxor pulled that off. Nice for Apache & Carta Brava to finally get one back against the Space Cadets as their never ending battle continues.

Australian Suicide & Bengala vs Joe Lider & Pentagón Jr.: [OK] some good spots but absolutely no flow to the match, almost feeling like a collection of random occurrences than any story being told. The técnicos got bursts of 30-60 seconds of offense and then the rudos would just be in charge again for no reason. Pentagon and Lider hit Suicide very hard but their team work wasn’t much otherwise. This just seemed like it should’ve been something more than how it came together here. Lider getting in the ring early, hesitating to break up a pin, and then only breaking it up when it got to two was a very Joe Lider moment. You can break it up at one, it’s okay, it looks less dumb.

Aerostar vs Monsther Clown, Súper Fly, Hijo de Pirata Morgan in a AAA’s Rey de Reyes Tournament match and in a tournament semifinal match: [OK] Not a much of a match, because it quickly became a backdrop for the Hijo del Pirata/Electroshock angle. The crowd was still way more into paying attention to them even after they’d be eliminated from the match (so they probably just needed to leave a lot quicker.) Super Fly and Aerostar only got a couple minutes at the end to do their match, which meant a dive and quick exchange of near falls. Crowd was into the characters but the logic didn’t work for me – they’re back to doing elimination matches with pin break ups for false excitement. Elimination rules made even less sense than usual here, because they only wanted to do one pinfall anyway.

Drago, Jack Evans, La Parka vs Averno, Chessman, Cibernético: [OK] A regular trios match with a surprisingly clean ending given all who’s involved. Drago and Jack were helpful here in being people the rudos could throw around, and got just a little time themselves to show off. Chessman & Averno continue to improve as a team. My expectations for Cibernetico are so low that I’m impressed when he does anything at all, and taking that armdrag from Parka was one of those things. The crowd shots to hide stuff – blown spots and comedy bits which are apparently no longer Televisa friendly – were really distracting in this match.

Myzteziz & Psycho Clown vs el Hijo del Perro Aguayo & Texano Jr.: [good] It’s Naucalpan and it’s Perro Aguayo, so of course it’s a long crowd brawl to start and it works well. The crowd was way into all of it, and it played out better in this building than it would’ve done elsewhere. Match went very long – not many near 20 minute matches on this show nowadays – but they were soaking in the crowd reaction. It’s kind of amazing Místico I looks in much better health than Místico II in 2015. Myzteziz’s opponents are doing a lot of the work finish off his moves still, but he looked athletic on his big dives. A lot of this match was an intentional timewrap to times gone by – Maya as the referee was probably not an accident – and it did feel like something from the peak of CMLL rther than a much different AAA nearly a decade later. Psycho & Texano handled their roles fine but this was mostly the Perro/Myzteziz show.