Day: March 20, 2017

AAA TV (SUN) 03/19/2017 Arena Jose Sulaiman, Monterrey, Nuevo Leon [Lucha Libre AAA]
2) Dark Cuervo & Dark Scoria b El Mesías & Pagano [#1 Contenders, AAA TAG]
Moved to the TV opener. Cuervo escaped, then Mesias speared Scoria thru the cage. Fans were confused, thinking the luchadors had to go over the top to get out of that match, but referees ruled that was it and gave the match to La Secta. Mesias & Pagano did not have issues. Cuervo & Scoria are owed a tag title shot now (and face Aerostar & Drago in Neza already.)
3) Ayako Hamada b Faby Apache, La Hiedra, Lady Shani, Goya Kong, Big Mami [Reina De Reinas, #1 Contenders]
Ayako Hamada was the surprise luchador, in her first AAA TV match since 2008. Mary Apache missed the match due to skull fracture and will be out indefinitely. Eliminations: Faby, Goya, Hiedra, Big Mami, Lady Shani, leaving Ayako as the winner. Ayako was wearing her Perros del Mal gear in this match.
4) Johnny Mundo b Hijo del Fantasma, Texano Jr. [AAA HEAVY, AAA CRUISER, AAA LA]
Prior to the match, Dorian Roldan and officials from Impact Wrestling (including Jeff Jarrett) came to the ring to announce a deal between AAA & Impact. They were booed. Before this match started, Vampiro put all three men’s titles on the line. Fantasma got a visual pin with a Thrill of the Hunt on a chair on Texano, but the referee was done. Texano was stretchered away. Mundo beat Fantasma after a run-in by a mystery man (Kevin Kross, but specifically given no name in the recap.0 3rd defense of the Latin American title. Fantasma loses in his eight defense of the cruiserweight title. Mundo is the 9th champion. Texano loses in his heavyweight fourth defense. Mundo is 14th champion.
5) Dr. Wagner Jr. & Psycho Clown b Monsther Clown & Murder Clown
Wagner & Psycho Clown got along enough to win. All four men were attacked and left laying by Soul Rocker, Carta Brava Jr., and Mocho Cota Jr.
6) Ayako Hamada b Taya © [Reina De Reinas]
Ayako becomes the 20th champion. Taya’s title reign ends after 2.5 years, and on her fourth defense.
7) Argenis b Averno, Chessman, Bengala, El Elegido, Pimpinela Escarlata, Niño Hamburguesa, Joe Lider, La Parka [Rey de Reyes]
Unannounced match, apparently added as the real Rey de Reyes match with the announced one becoming a title match instead. Royal rumble rules, though the last two might have gone to a pinfall (and like most AAA rumbles, no one eliminated until everyone gets in.) Eliminations: Pimpinela, Nino Hamburguesa, Elegido, Lider, La Parka, Chessman (by Averno by mistake), Bengala and Argenis defeated Averno to win.
8) Aerostar b Súper Fly [hair]
Super Fly earlier appeared on the show saying he’d hurt his arm wasn’t cleared to wrestle but he was going to do it anyway. Bloody match, with Aerostar doing a big dive off the upper level. Super Fly used knuckles to KO Aerostar for the win. Vampiro restarted the match and Aerostar came back to win.

(AAA & Impact/Anthem also announced an alliance. The recap has no more details on it.)

Air Date: 03/25 & 04/01.

The building looked full. It might have not been capacity – AAA always cuts off some of the seats to fit in the entrance – but they probably sold as many tickets as they could. Arena Coliseo Monterrey with CMLL luchadors did not do nearly as well. (Calling this show Rey de Reyes helped. If there’ anything to take from this weekend, it’s that branding events will help over the course of a few years.)

Like we saw in Apizaco, the card announced and the matches which took place changed. It was a lot more in order than content tonight, though changing how they were doing the Rey de Reyes tournament was pretty noticeable. It’s still going to take time to figure out how much of this is a purposeful attempt to make the shows feel more unpredictable and how much of this is AAA announcing lineups and then changing the creative process behind them. Neza might have been done before the change, but nothing past that has been announced (so there shouldn’t need to be more reshuffling after that, unless reshuffling is just supposed to be part of the feel of the show.)

My first impression was that it’s good to be known to the LU crew. Mundo won, Aerostar won, Argenis won (?!?!), Kevin Kross debuted. Kross is working LU dark matches and is signed so may show up in vignettes, but AAA hasn’t been bringing in many foreigners so someone had go to the back to him, probably off that Lucha Underground experience. (Kross might be getting a new name. I wonder if Vibora is next?) On the other hand, Mundo beat two other people on LU, Aerostar wasn’t losing his mask and Argenis – well, I can’t explain Argenis. And there’s other non-LU people who had a good day: Ayako Hamada isn’t on LU, and I can reveal that Carta Brava, Soul Rocker and Mocho Cota Jr. do not show up in the Temple in Season 3 to cause havoc.

Maybe the LU idea is that everyone gets something to do, and everyone gets a chance to be stars. AAA’s biggest hole is in upper level guys, and they gave big moments to a lot of people. I don’t know if the fans are going to accept Carta Brava, Soul Rocker and Mocho Cota as a faction taking on Dr. Wagner’s mask, but AAA is more interesting with them trying to do instead of just wrestling 40 straight weeks of openers in slightly different combinations. Argenis as Rey de Reyes winner is going to look so strange in the list of winners for quite a while, but there might be a bigger plan here – he’s in that Cruiserweight title match in Neza, assuming that it doesn’t change.

Mundo being both heavyweight and cruiserweight champion at the same time is sorta goofy but, as person who hates pretty much every single title belt in Mexico, I don’t have a problem with having less champions. None of the belts have been treated in a meaningful way, reducing the number of champions might help, Mundo’s the most close to being a big deal of the three right now, and it’d be a big moment if they spent five months building to Fatansma or Texano winning the titles back at TripleMania. They could do Texano/Fantasma vs Kross/Mundo in between as build up. Long term, I’d like to see the Latin American title dumped because there’s not enough TV to make three different singles titles useful, and something changed with the cruiserweight title if there’s not going to be any meaningful difference between it and heavyweight. It’s Mexico so I’m sure we’ll see those belts split apart at some point.

Mary talked about the skull fracture this week on TV. She was out for years before with a head injury, and the recap makes it sound like she might not be back any time soon from this one. The injury appears to have happened before Faby won the trios belts – maybe tehy didn’t realize how bad it was? Maybe something else is going on? Ricky Marvin took the loss to Faby and hasn’t been in AAA since, including not being on this show when AAA was getting everyone on the show. I dunno. Faby was the surprise first person out of the Reina de Reinas match, but Ayako Hamada being champion opens the door for Faby to go back to challenging to that title, which helps if she doesn’t have a healthy family member to team with.

These tapings are now a lot harder to judge just based on results and photos since things are actually happening. It’s going to take actually seeing it to have an idea about how all these things are working.

EDIT: things I thought about too late

1. all the AAA photos show Super Fly with a short hair cut, not bald. Hmmm.
2. main event seemed set up to give Vampiro a hero moment, which is not so great. But he appears to no longer a mysterious person off stage and an actual person who is seen.

Next taping is 03/31 in Neza.