AAA on Televisa: 2016-10-15 

Recapped: 10/31/2016

What happened: Suicide lost his mask. Pimpinela won Copa Antonio Pena. Johnny Mundo is still champ.

What was good: I didn’t like anything, and this generally felt like a time sink. What was good was this wasn’t an iPPV, because I think we would’ve been frustrated/disappointed with the show had we paid for it (even it aired without issue!)

Where can I watch it: It’s on AAA’s channel, including the match which did not air.

Like last week, this week’s show starts with the Antonio Pena tribute. I didn’t notice this last week.

AAA Rewind is Heroes Inmortales 4, which Aerostar won the Copa Antonio Pena and Chris Stone’s hair.

Match 1: Zorro vs El Elegido, Pimpinela Escarlata, Niño Hamburguesa, Bengala, Lady Shani, Dark Scoria, Dark Cuervo, Octagoncito, Big Mami, Hijo de Pirata Morgan, Pirata Morgan for the Copa Antonio Pena
Arena Monterrey, Monterrey, Nuevo León, 10/02/2016
Video: luchalibreaaatv

• 00:00 Niño Hamburguesa, Elegido, Zorro, and Pimpinela start
• 00:56 Bengala enters
• 02:20 Dark Scoria enters
• 03:29 Lady Shani enters
• 04:47 Hijo del Pirata Morgan enters
• 06:02 Elegido tossed (Zorro/Scoria teamwork)
• 06:07 Dark Cuervo enters
• 06:38 Bengala eliminated (self)
• 07:27 Octagoncito enters
• 07:28 Niño Hamburguesa eliminated (Hijo del Pirata Morgan)
• 08:45 Big Mami enters
• 10:13 Pirata Morgan enters
• 11:17 Big Mami out (Pirata Morgan & Hijo del Pirata)
• 11:50 Lady Shani out (Pirata Morgan & Hijo del Pirata)
• 13:10 Dark Escoria out (Pimpinela)
• 13:50 Octagoncito out (Zorro)
• 14:49 Dark Cuero out (Pirata Sr.)
• 16:15 Pirata Morgan out (Hijo del Pirata)
• 16:20 Hijo del Pirata Morgan out (Zorro)
• 22:13 Pimpinela Escarlata cane foul on Zorro

Winner: Pimpinela Escarlata
Match Time: 22:13
Notes: The graphic lists all the participants – only the first four had been announced. Elegido elbows Pimpinela in the head as she gets up on the apron for no obvious reason – Pimpinela has to be in before she can go out. This starts everyone else fighting. Internals are supposed to be a minute apart.

Announcers go crazy about Shani being in the match, as the first woman to be in one of these. They have the same reaction when Octagoncito enters.

Announcers note Hijo del Pirata Morgan was not listed in the match, but do not mention anything about his disappearing act. They react big when Pirata Sr. comes out last, he gets a polite chant from the crowd, and he and his son tease issues before teaming up.

It’s hard to follow what happens to Niño Hamburguesa and Bengala, and it took me a few times to catch it At one point, he takes a backdrop, rolls out, and catches a Bengala tope con giro. That’s a problem – Copetes says Bengala is out for going over the top. Bengala is totally unaware this is a rule, goes back in to continue, and debates it with Copetes from inside and back outside the ring before finally leaving. Announcers, having seen Niño Hamburguesa on the outside, says Hamburguesa is out too. Nino’s only rolled under the bottom rope, so he should be fine. Niño comes back, then is mysterious standing outside about a minute later and eventually walks away. You have to look for it, but appears Hijo del Pirata flips Niño over the top rope and knocks him to the floor just as they’re cutting to Octagoncito. Arturo Rivera briefly notes it as they’re talking about the mini, but the elimination isn’t shown. Niño appears too exhausted to walk to the back and ends up staying at ringside for a few minutes.

When it’s down to four, Zorro hits Pirata Sr. in the back with his cane, tosses it to Hijo del Pirata, and falls down on the ropes as if he’s the one hurt. Pirata Sr. asks the crowd if his son did it. His son blames Zorro. Pirata chooses to punch his son in the face, and they have a fight. Hijo del Pirata tosses his father out, but get s tossed looking at them.

Piero actually takes away the cane from Zorro, but that’s only so Pimpienla can get in a low blow foul with it for the win.

Review: [ok] This was very long and not very interesting. I’m kind of thinking we’re stuck with at least the first part. These AAA matches are usually someone coming in and getting 25 seconds of offense while most people stand around, send in another person, repeat until the ring is full, and only then start to think about eliminating people. The action doesn’t do much because very little of it goes anywhere until it’s over, and the singles match between Pimpinela/Zorro wasn’t any good. Not that was anyone hoping for different. I’d assume they were hoping for the crowd reaction to carry it, but the crowd got into Pimpinela when she entered and then seem to care all that much during the match, especially during the one on one section. The crowd shot after the win over like three people clapping in a section of 30 was kind of sad. (Again, maybe these shouldn’t be that long – or maybe Pimpinela shouldn’t have been one of the first people out.) A waste of time.

Match 2: Hijo del Fantasma, La Parka, Texano Jr. vs El Mesías, Hernandez, Marty Casaus
Arena Monterrey, Monterrey, Nuevo León, 10/02/2016
Video: luchalibreaaatv

Winner: rudos (Marty backcracker, Mesias pin La Parka)
Match Time: 11:33
Notes: No entrances. Fantasma accidentally hits Texano with his tope, , and Marty takes them both out with his own dive. (Announcers can’t decided how to pronounce his last name.) La Parka and Hernandez appear to blows a spot, or La Parka does something he doesn’t explain, and then the rudos just finally beat him – – with Marty’s finish instead of one of the regular guys, for whatever reason. Texano blames the loss on Copetes for allowing three people in at once.

Review: [ok] generic AAA trios match with a lot of comedy. Fantasma and Texano were generic técnicos and not really involved in this match. No one was that into it. La Parka was taking no bumps in this match, even on his own dive. It was impressive in it’s own way. La Parka going down cleaner to Marty Casaus finish than he did to Pentagon at Rey de Reyes is also impressive.

Highlight video of the Copa TripleMania leads into the final.

Match 3: Australian Suicide vs Daga, mask versus hair in a street fight Monterrey, Monterrey, Nuevo León, 10/02/2016
Video: luchalibreaaatv

Winner: Daga (Mataleon submission, ref stoppage)
Match Time: 11:33
Notes: Kahn-Del-Mal and Joe Lider second Daga, who’s wearing Perro scratch bodypaint. Arturo Rivera is given a Perros del Mal shirt. Argenis is Suicide’s second. Suicide dives onto Daga while he’s still being introduced. Lider gets involved behind Piero’s back, and Argenis eventually takes him out with a dive. Lider later returns, and hits Daga with a chair by accident before Argenis gives him a Spanish Fly off the apron and into a table. The seconds vanish after that point, and Daga bleeds the rest of the way from the chair shot.

Late in the match, Suicide lands the twisting 450 and Daga gets his foot on the ropes, but this time Piero notices him. That is actually good. Suicide jumps into the Mataleon soon after, but gets the ropes. Daga doesn’t let go, just rolls Suicide in the middle while holding on, and Suicide passes out.

Lider, Kahn and Argenis return from the back (where they disappeared) for the unmasking. Australian Suicide introduces himself as Broderick Shepard from Melbourne. An onscreen graphic has his age 23 (so he came to Mexico at 20!), debut in 2003 (at 13) – that’s a nice touch.

Review: [ok] We finally get a big match for this guys, and this what we get out of it. Maybe this is generous and an unfair amount of assigning the blame, but the probably didn’t seem to be totally with Daga & Suicide but the match layout and the AAA big match structure. Daga & Australian Suicide essentially did the same main everyone else does: Psycho Clown and Texano wrestled this sort of tables and blood match, Alberto el Patron and Brian Cage fought in this same sort of tables and blood match, so Australian Suicide & Daga do the same thing when they’re in the big match spot. It really didn’t fit their strengths for a Suicide match to have just one dive because they’re doing table spots, or to have to go to their finishes about four minutes in because these are all about the finishes, or to have the random interference (which didn’t even make sense in what was billed as a street fight.) AAA seems to hold them this way because they know the props will get easy reactions and these matches are focused on making sure the crowd stays into than action, but I’m left thinking about how these two probably would’ve had a better match on a random indie show. It’s not because I think they’ve would’ve had some great plan, but I’d hope they would’ve stuck to the stuff they know can do well, instead of building a match around just hitting finishers. Maybe, just be default, there would’ve been some sense of building violence instead of a numbing assortment of nearly unrelated highspots.

(The low point in the match layout was Suicide using a brainbuster for two, then laying on the mat for about 45 seconds as Daga circled the ring look for a chair to use. Daga is supposed to be – and may actually be! – a MMA expert who can hurt you in so many ways, but the match had to stop because he needed to find a chair.)

I would say, in the defense of an Alberto/Cage or Psycho/Texano, there was a sense of anger between the opponents. These two never could pull out that emotion. I wasn’t really sure what were supposed to be feeling through this match. Suicide started out as the face in the feud, Daga did weeks of anti-foreigner promos and was clearly the victimized party at TripleMania (which they made sure to note here), but then wrestled the match as the heel while Suicide heroically passed out. It was very much whatever.

This is another one where I feel like I’m throwing my hands up at the product. Unlike the Copa Antonio Pena, you can at least make a case this one got over in the building and if that’s the goal, than wonderufl. It doesn’t make it any fun to watch on TV, and that’s the case for so many of these matches on AAA and especially this show.

Match 7: Garza Jr. vs Johnny Mundo © for the AAA Latin American Championship
Arena Monterrey, Monterrey, Nuevo León, 10/02/2016
Video: luchalibreaaatv

Winner: Garza Jr. (foul)
Match Time: 15:36
Notes: Ernesto Chavana gets his own entrance with some of the women from his show, the Chica del Noche, who aren’t identified. He does not play to the Roldans at first. The woman dance in the ring, though it isn’t coordinates enough to call it a dance number. Garza wears flag corners. Taya wears her title to the ring while accompanying Mundo. Match finally starts at 10:11 with a sneak attack, and only after Taya has to Johnny from Monterrey are not Chilangos. The micwork itself goes about three minutes.

Taya tries to start something with the Chica del Noche, who mostly ignore her and also the match in general. She’s got better luck with Chavana, causing him to distract Tirantes so he can get in the double knee smash. Taya and Mundo dance in the ring at one point, which is kind of amazing. Again, they do distraction spots for a while, and then Taya just walks in and breaks up a pin late when they feel like it. Mundo accidentally kicks Taya soon after. Taya recovers, and, as Tirantes is shoving Chavana off the apron for no particular reason, Taya fouls Garza, and Mundo covers for the win. Garza blames Chavana for the loss. The announcers seem to portray Garza as the heel but Garza seems to get cheers – you can actually see people clapping, even if you couldn’t hear them.

Review: [ok] this was probably the second best match on this show, and I still didn’t like it all that much. It also seemed to be happening in an empty arena – I could her every individual time Taya clapped her hands. At the end, when Garza was playing to the crowd after his promo, you could see people clapping and slapping thundersticks and you couldn’t hear any of it, which makes me believe this might have just been colossally poor job of audio mixing the whole way, but people weren’t visibly reacting to the finish either way.

The match itself was fine. Garza seemed to trying really hard to make it work, which made the non-reaction (or the occasionally booing that slipped thru) feel like this was even more of a waste of time. Mundo didn’t seem to be going 100%, but he was good enough to have good matches. They did way too many Taya interferences spots, and didn’t really care if they made sense at the end. The idea was Chavana’s distractions costed Garza, but Taya was able to walk in and break up a pin even when he wasn’t distracting, so Garza didn’t seem to have a point when he complained about it. They did build to the finishes better in this match than previous, and this is probably Garza’s overall best performance in AAA, but at no point did I really feel like Garza was about to win or care if he did. It just never felt like an important match, much less a main event.