AAA on Twitch: 2018-02-09 

Recapped: 02/09/2018

All matches aired live from Palenque de la Feria Nacional De San Marcos, Aguascalientes, Aguascalientes (and I was busy streaming CMLL to watch it live.)

Matches:

Ashley & Faby Apache beat Estrella Divina & Lady Shani 
(8:58, Faby Apache pin Lady Shani, ok, via Lucha Libre AAA (Twitch))

Australian Suicide beat Hijo Del Vikingo for the AAA World Cruiserweight Championship
(8:46, Australian Suicide Fetus Milkshake, good, via Lucha Libre AAA (Twitch))

La Máscara & Máximo beat six local wrestlers, including Corazón Forajido, Discovery, Príncipe Seir, and Xtrem X
(4:29, though it’s unclear when this started and stopped and it barely was a real match, n/r, Lucha Libre AAA (Twitch))

Dark Cuervo & Dark Scoria © beat Joe Lider & Parka Negra for the AAA World Tag Team Championship
(11:35, Escoria legdrop Parka Negra, ok, via Lucha Libre AAA (Twitch))

Averno, Chessman, Súper Fly went to a double pin draw Carta Brava Jr., Mocho Cota Jr., Tito Santana
(14:12, Averno pinned Mocho & Carta Brava pin Super Fly, ok, via Lucha Libre AAA (Twitch))

Dave The Clown & Texano Jr. beat Angelikal & Hijo del Fantasma 
(14:58, DQ, ok, via Lucha Libre AAA (Twitch))

Dr. Wagner Jr. © beat La Parka for the AAA World Heavyweight Championship
(19:18, DQ, below average, via Lucha Libre AAA (Twitch))

What happened: 

Rey Wagner throws his shirt to the crowd. The fans throw it back on the first try. He finds someone to throw it to later, but the crowd is mostly pro Parka. This kills some time. First action comes 4:06 into the match.

Nineteen minutes into the match, Blue Demon, Wagner and Hernandez walk to the ring. Parka immediately gives Wagner the urange, the move he won with in Mexico City. Parka covers, and Demon walks in the ring and kicks him in the face. Parka should win the match by DQ, which means he’s champion since titles change here on DQ. Instead, they rule as Wagner winning by DQ. The rudo trio beat up Parka, and Wagner celebrates a if they’re with him. Wagner goes for the Wagner touch with them, with Demon saying no and Hernandez saying yes. Demon says something to the younger Wagner, and the young Wagner attacks his father. Hernandez roots him on. Cuervo, Lady Shani and Vikingo materialize out of nowhere, in theory be saves, but in reality to be cannon fodder to be destroyed by the new rudos. (They do get in some offense, which is more than usual in these situations, but they’re also clearly there to take power moves from the rudos.) Mascara and Maximo also try to make the save and are beat up. Psycho Clown does better, taking out Wagner & Hernandez. The Alvarados and the tecnicos pose, only for Demon to come back in, hit Psych with a chair and take off his mask. Hijo de Wagner & Hernandez come back in and all the técnicos are taken out. (Vikingo disappears after getting thrown out of the ring by Hernandez.) Wagner is spared from the beating so he can cut a promo on the rudos, who just continue beating up the other tecnicos afterwards.

Vampiro attempts to eject Hijo del Tirantes before the semimain, but is apparently overruled by the local commissioner. Tirantes refuses to count a técnico pinfall a minute in, so that local commissioner is some kind of moron. Tirantes attacks a security officer, who just happens to have handcuffs and the key on a chain. Texano & Tirantes handcuff Fantasma to the bottom rope, while occasionally being hit by coins. Angelikal bleeds heavily after Texano works over his forehead. Angelikal is taken out on a stretcher after two piledrivers, but the rudos dump him off the stretcher and beat him up some more. Only after Angelikal is taken to the back, Bengala appears to take out the rudos. Bengala gets the key to Fantasma, but gets powerbombed into a wood plank before Fantasma can help out. Fantasma cleans house, giving Dave the Clown the Thrill of the Hunt on the stage. Tirantes calls a DQ at Fantasma at that point to end the match. Tirantes dumbly stood in the ring to taunt Fantamsa while Texano left, and Texano made no real attempt to get involved as Fatnasma beat him up – Texano just eventually pulled him out. Fantasma tells the crowd that Texano’s gone too far and he’s winning Texano’s hair for all of the fans.

Mocho & Super Fly were both fouled in their match, then pinned at the same time to cause the draw finish. Vampiro walks out and makes a TLC match between them for the trios titles at Rey de Reyes, which will be the end of their feud. Vampiro weirdly demands they accept or they’ll be forever banned from AAA, which seemed odd when both sides seemed ok with the match until then.

This is the debut of Angel Mortal Jr. as the latest version of Parka Negra and as a member of Perros del Mal. (Mr. Aguila’s video plays, but he is not present.) Parka Negra is wearing a Parka Negra mask and Angel Mortal Jr.’s gear, which is a slight clue of his previous identity and maybe a sign this was a last minute decision. The +LuchaTV guys actually acknowledge Mr. Aguila is not here, which breaks with lucha tradition (but is Good.) The match is announced as a title match right before it happens, and was not advertised as one.

La Mascara and Máximo, wearing his AroLucha shirt, thank AAA & the fans for the chance to wrestle in AAA. They’re so hyped to wrestle that they challenge anyone to come out to face them. Two unidentified locals walk out with AAA Aguascalientes belts and a local referee. Máximo is not impressed and asked for two others ones. Mascara up it to four, and they get four more luchadors. Máximo realizes there’s now six people out there and says no, but the Aguascalientes guys attack.

The local luchadors are never named (so I’m guessing names from looking around Facebook profiles and past Aguascalientes lineups.) They beat up the Alvarados for about three minutes before chair shots go awry. Máximo pins three on a rope walk splash, La Mascara beats another with a cradle, and another guy just leaves the ring instead of fighting. No one really understand what’s going on for the duration of the segment.

After Suicide retained his title, he decided to hit Vikingo with it. Angelikal made the save in no seconds flat. It comes off as if Angelikal is going for the title next, but it might have simply been to get the fans used to seeing him before he’s destroyed later.

Faby continues to bully Ashley in the opening women’s match, though she also seems to get in most of the offense for her team, throwing Ashley on pins she created. About six minutes in, Estrella Divina realizes she’s a ruda and suddenly stops getting along with Lady Shani. There doesn’t seem to be any reason in the match for the sudden shift. Dvina keeps on fighting Ashley, but later hits Shani with a chair, kicks Ashley away, and allows Faby to pick up the pin. Both Apache and Divina are mean to Ashley after the match. She shares a look with Shani before walking back with them.

Thoughts:

The main event was a boring match with no finish. This wasn’t as blatantly an angle under the pretense of a match like other ones on the show, the match that led into it was just no good. It was mostly Wagner beating up Parka slowly for a long time. Parka can only sell things by being completely dead, so it’s not the most exciting action. This was the right crowd to do this match, because the kids were so into Parka that they stuck with this and cheered his big near falls. It came across as too slow and too little action thru a monitor. I don’t know about making 51 year old Blue Demon Jr. your lead rudo in 2018, but I wish he came out about 10 minutes earlier.

The semimain was just a really long angle disguised as match. They wanted Fantasma and Texano to destroy people without really fighting each other. I’m not sure it worked to build up their issue because the amount of other people distracted from it – even though that’s clearly the way the apuesta match is going, they might be want to at least hint it’s not.

The fourth match was a fun brawl, with both rudo teams playing it up totally rudo, both teams playing up their character. The trips thru the crowd were fun. Carta Brava seemed to be handed a half dozen drinks to throw. They kept up the same intensity when they were in the ring. Many shirts were murdered to make the match work and it did. Even the draw finish didn’t come off as too forced, although they play it off as a messed up finish.

The tag match was useful if not all that interesting. Cuervo & Scoria could use a tag win by themselves, defense or not, and they got the clean win over a team they should beat clean. The Perros del Mal weren’t interesting when they were in control, and the ex-Secta aren’t so great on offense to make a match by themselves. It was still alright, but would’ve been better even a little shorter. The yellow staple gun didn’t appear to actually be loaded, which made for good comedy in watching it.

The Mascara/Maximo segment was really just an angle to continue to introduce them. AAA definitely believes their fans do not follow CMLL and I’m not sure they’re wrong. The bit could’ve been faster, the locals got a lot more offense than you’d see from when WWE does this same bit, though that’s probably more with trying to keep the local promoter happy. They probably should’ve worked out the ending of the match a little better.

The cruiserweight title match was a really strong match, and a successful one at that. This would’ve been too quick for Vikingo to win the title for it to mean anything, but he put up so much of a challenge that he seems like a guy who will win it in the future and Suicide looks even strong for having beat him. There were some nicely done sequences here, especially from the Spanish Fly spot thru the reverse 450 splash. This title match felt like distinct from the rest of the show, which is only going to build if they keep stacking these matches on top of each other. Vikingo landing on his head looked scary as heck. Vikingo was supposed to take a dramatic bump and it just became more dramatic, but Suicide did a smart bit of keeping it simple while Vikingo was probably trying to remember what century it was.

There were too many things going on in the women’s match this time; the Faby/Shani issue seemed to be in third place behind Estrella being a random ruda and Faby/Ashley. Estrella Divina seems to turn up for a week, be put in an angle, and then disappear for four months, so it’s hard to believe that’s going to pay off in anyway. The match itself didn’t have great action in part because of the storylines, and part because Divina and Ashley didn’t wrestle especially well. Faby’s so over the top as a ruda that she’s going to get herself back over as a face if she doesn’t keep being mean to Ashley.