MAD in invades AAA in Tijuana, Dragon Lee injury, Crash next TJ lineup

CMLL (FRI) 04/20/2018 Arena México [CMLL, ESTO, MedioTiempo, Ovaciones]
1) Espanto Jr. & Yago b Astral & Oro Jr. 
11:44. Rudos took 1/3.
2) Puma, Templario, Tiger b Blue Panther Jr., Pegasso, The Panther 
16:00. Rudos took 1/3.
3) Amapola, Dalys, La Seductora b Kaho Kobayashi, Marcela, Princesa Sugehit 
13:07. Rudas took 1/3, Seductora defeating Sugehit before their hair match next week.
4) Carístico b Dragón Lee [lightning] 
2:45, though action had stopped a minute earlier when Dragon Lee suffered a non contact injury. Referee waved off the match and gave it to Carsitico. Dragon Lee could not stand and had to be strechered to the back.
5) Cavernario, Negro Casas, Último Guerrero b Ángel de Oro, Niebla Roja, Volador Jr. 
10:25. Rudos took 1/3
6) Atlantis, Diamante Azul, Kráneo b La Bestia Del Ring, Rush, Terrible 
4:43, straight falls, both by DQ. Rush fouled Kraneo, setting up a singles match next week.

A disappointing show. You really only need to see the second match, with everything else being not as good as you might hope. The Seductora/Sugehit feud was more over than Kraneo/Rush, though I’m not particularly interested in either one.

CMLL has post match interviews with Kraneo, Rush, Princesa Sugehit, La Seductora and Yago & Espanto. In the general press interview room, Rush also went back to building up a match with LA Park, which doesn’t appear to be happening.

Dragon Lee’s injury was the biggest news of the night. Ovaciones has quotes from CMLL’s doctor, who also briefly appears in a video explaining the same thing: Dragon Lee felt a tear in his leg, should rest for a few days, and then they’ll do a further exam to see severity. A tear sounds bad, but the doctor also says he expects a full recovery so maybe not. No one exactly says where the tear is; the closet they say is it’s a muscle tear, which seems better than a ligament tear, but there’s no mention of what muscle it is.

It would be disappointing to see Dragon Lee out hurt for an extended period of time. CMLL’s not done much with him, but an injury of any length would threaten his involvement in next month’s New Japan Best of Super Juniors. The field for that tournament is usually announced during NJPW’s last big show before the tournament, scheduled for May 3rd and 4th. I’d write about how this affects CMLL, but CMLL doesn’t seem to have big plans for him (and so I wish he was taking it easy instead of wrestling with so much tape on.)

AAA TV (FRI) 04/20/2018 Auditorio de Tijuana, Tijuana, Baja California [AAA, thecubsfan]
1) Arcángel Divino, Black Destiny, Genio del Aire b Black Danger, Mirage, Último Maldito 
9:01. Divino beat Maldito with the high speed mistica.
2) Ashley, Estrella Divina, Faby Apache b Big Mami, Mamba, Pimpinela Escarlata 
8:09. Faby beat Mamba with a German suplex, but Ashley stood up to her and walked out her after Faby hit her during the match.
3) Lanzelot b Hijo Del Vikingo, Máscara de Bronce, Dinastía [#1 Contenders, AAA CRUISER] 
6:32. Lanzelot beat Bronce with a top rope double stomp to get a rematch with Australian Suicide.
4) Aerostar & Drago b Rey Escorpión & Texano Jr. © [AAA TAG] 
1st defense. Escorpion won via mask pull.
5) Pagano b La Parka, Dark Cuervo, Joe Lider, Hijo del Fantasma, Parka Negra, Dark Scoria, Histeria, Psicosis, Teddy Hart [TLC] 
13:46. Teddy Hart was announced as the surprise wrestler, but did not appear until the end of the match, helping Pagano beat Joe Lider. Teddy then attacked Pagano as well. Teddy was wearing an ELITE shirt.
6) Averno, Chessman, Súper Fly b La Máscara, Máximo, Psycho Clown 
9:00. Moved down a spot. OGT won via fousl and mask pull.
7) Dr. Wagner Jr. © b Hernandez [AAA HEAVY] 
7:08. Originally a tag match with Hijo del Wagner & Vampiro, changed by Vampiro when he said he was busy with an attack in the back. Vampiro still showed up about 3 minutes into the match to count Hijo del Wagner and Rey Wagner won clean with the Wagner Driver. The lights went out post match, and a video teasing Konnan’s return aired. MAD masked wrestlers were in the ring when the lights went out, attacking the tecnicos and then the rudos. They revealed themselves to be Teddy Hart, Kevin Kross and Juventud Guerrera, who said they were going to win all the titles.

I have nits to pick about this show, but that shouldn’t overshadow that it still was AAA’s best show of the year. The best stuff was better than the Guerra de Titanes show, and it didn’t completely fall off the cliff. The opener Tijuana match is the best AAA match of the year and would get worldwide match of the year consideration if it had more visibility. Both the tag title match and the four way match would be the best match on many of the AAA Twitch shows this year. Even the TLC match, which I was predisposed to not like going in, included some remarkable spots. The show has it’s flaws, but it’s definitely worth the $5/month fee to watch it on Twitch (or the $0/month if you’re an Amazon prime subscriber.) It’s a Tijuana show, so there’s handhelds floating out there in YouTube land. Just find a way to watch that opener.

The MAD angle was good though something less than a full success. They definitely created an environment of chaos, of no one knowing what was going on. It didn’t get quite get their in menace. The only people really beat up were opening card people, and Wagner wasn’t selling much of a beating after the main event. Kross, Teddy and Juventud against an entire promotion doesn’t add up, but we probably should’ve actually seen them take out more people to get them over. This was a fair start but they need more.

The Konnan stuff was peculiar. The most effective way to get the angle over would’ve been to have Konnan on screen. AAA both when out of their way to not say his name but to make sure everyone saw a clip of what appeared to be Konnan walking thru the tunnel to the ring. Konnan hasn’t said anything about the angle, which is not like Konnan with a big angle. Even that clip was a little strange; I don’t know what his recovery is like from hip surgery, but I would guess he might still be needing a cane to get around at this point and he didn’t have one in that video. I’m a little suspicious Konnan didn’t make it to the show for whatever reason and they used some old video cover up for it. But I have no idea for sure, and AAA making sure to draw attention to the idea of Konnan being there suggests everything is all right.

Assuming everything is OK, AAA might as well keep teasing Konnan coming for now, and just make it obvious the big reveal is going to be in Monterrey. That’s the big show and Konnan with a microphone is the biggest thing they have to sell right now. The MAD group should definitely make some noise even before the next taping – they have social media, there’s a Twitch channel they could takeover for an hour – but if they didn’t do the Konnan reveal right away, then they migth as well save it for the big moment.

I’m most curious about how MDA feels all about this; no doubt The Crash is unhappy with how things have gone, but this “MAD” stable was created for the MDA promotion. They’ve used the same sort of surprise invasion bit here in AAA that they used in MDA, only now it’s part of a promotion that’ll be running against MDA in Monterrey. (AAA usually partners with KDNA promotion in that city.) Zorro & Sexy Dulce were part of the MAD group in Monterrey, and I’m not sure who they’ll end up with. MDA also recently added local El Divo to the group, something Konnan seemed strangely annoyed with on Twitter when it happened – he must’ve been planning this storyline then and didn’t want any one to mess with it.

AAA’s recap retells the main event angle as Vampiro appearing after the match to award Wagner his title. That’s not what happened, but perhaps it was what was supposed to have happened. (Vampiro was otherwise presented like nothing had changed with his job, and I have no idea what’s going on there.) Likewise, there’s probably a way for the “live” segments backstage to work, but they came off as very incongruousness with the rest of the show the way they were presented. maybe Joe Lider wasn’t originally supposed to be taken out at the end of his match, then the planned changed for him to do so, and they moved some skits that were supposed to air later in the show to earlier where they didn’t fit.

This was strangely produced shows they’ve had all year. The second and third match had the wrong entrance video playing for people. It made the Teddy Hart bit for the TLC match even weirder, because it was impossible to tell if someone had hit the wrong button again and Teddy wasn’t actually supposed to be there, or if it was part of a storyline, or if Teddy had just disappeared. Teddy’s music starting with Jack Evans’ old theme further confused things. Later, during the main event, Teddy’s music played again for a few seconds for no reason. The stream itself seemed to have transmission problems, declining in quality as the show went on and especially noticeable during the tag team title match. I expect it’ll look smoother when it airs on Space and then YouTube – but it won’t turn there until the end of next month.

Nothing was said about Verano de Escandalo the whole night. You can figure some of it – Lanzelot gets his title shot, more Alvarados/OGT – but they’re not really close to a card so far and it’ll probably end up MAD centric when it does happen.

AAA TV today listed a slightly different upcoming lineup than they’ve advertised before

• 05/18 FRI Tehuacan, Puebla (was 05/21)
• 05/28 MON Contla, Tlaxcala (new!)
• 05/31 THU Pachuca, Hidalgo
• 06/03 SUN Monterrey – Verano de Escandalo

That 05/28 week will have 3 tapings in seven days. They’re still taping too much for a normal schedule; if you don’t want Verano de Escandalo live, it’s not going up on YouTube until mid-July. Everyone’s probably figured this out by now, but you pretty need to subscribe to the AAA Twitch channel to be able to watch theses shows anything close to current.

We don’t have lineups for any of these shows, and might be able to fit in the missing pieces when we do. For what it’s worth, if you do subscribe to AAA Twitch channel to see last night show, you’ll also get see that Tehuacan show too after the fact. That’ll be a 9pm start, so you may want to watch it later instead.

Prior to the TLC match, the AAA announcers said we’d soon be hearing news about AAA going to Colombia. A tour for that country was announced earlier this year, scheduled for August/September, but we haven’t heard any more details.

The Crash put out cards for upcoming shows. We’ll probably never see this Aguascalientes lineup, but it’s notable Arcangel Divino & Ultimo Maldito aren’t working a rare show in their home state. They’re not on the next TJ show either, which certainly suggest they, Black (Boy) Destiny and Black Danger are done with The Crash for now.

Aerostar was on this week’s Zona Ruda.

Lucha Memes put up the Kawato/Ricky Marvin match.

Segunda Caida reviews LA Park vs Fenix.

Lineup

CMLL (FRI) 04/27/2018 Arena México
62nd Arena Mexico Anniversary
1) El Audaz, Titán, Tritón vs Okumura, Tiger, Virus
2) Dragón Lee, Soberano Jr., Stuka Jr. vs Cuatrero, Forastero, Sansón
3) Princesa Sugehit vs La Seductora [hair]
4) Ángel de Oro, Diamante Azul, Niebla Roja vs Hechicero, Rey Bucanero, Terrible
5) Rush vs Kráneo
6) Atlantis, Mistico, Volador Jr. vs Cavernario, Negro Casas, Último Guerrero

The women’s hair match is a little lower than usual, but La Seductora hasn’t been treated seriously as a threat before this feud and there’s no reason to accept her in a higher position than this. I thought Rush/Kraneo would end up on the Kid’s Day show because I assumed they were planning for the Kid’s Day show, my mistake.

The non-built match seem like more fun then the ones they’ve set up. Someone will have to fill in for Dragon Lee, but that should still be pretty good.

The Crash (SAT) 05/19/2018 Auditorio de Tijuana, Tijuana, Baja California
1) El Bandido vs Laredo Kid vs Dezmond Xavier [The Crash CRUISER]
vacant title
2) Lacey Lane © vs Tessa Blanchard [The Crash WOMEN]
first defense
3) Flamita vs Hijo de Pirata Morgan, Último Ninja, Búfalo Ayala, Scorpió Sky, Jonathan, Douglas James [Copa Hector Garza]
4) Rey Horus & The King (Rey Fenix) vs El Mesías & PJ Black
5) Daga & Masada vs Bestia 666 & Garza Jr. and Brody King & Joey Janela
6) Penta Zero M vs Carístico

Not sure why they vacated the Cruiserweight title to have in an opener. That is the entire problem with that title, and most of the titles in The Crash: people win titles, The Crash sees title matches as not important things so the champions are slotted lower on the card than the non-title matches, and so the champions want to do whatever it is to get rid of them. It’s happened with Rey Horuz, it’s happened with Rey Fenix, and it’ll probably happen with Bandido if he wins the title next – his strong performances in PWG are probably going to get him booked higher everywhere else. It probably doesn’t matter for The Crash at this point.