AAA announced the field for it’ Poker de Ases TripleMania 26 main event will be Psycho Clown, Hijo del Fantasma, LA Park and Pentagon Junior. The last two were surprise returns to AAA unveiled at a press conference this morning. LA Park was accompanied by his son. Konnan was introduced as returning as well, and he was the one who announced Penta as the fourth man. TripleMania 26 takes places on Saturday August 25th, and will air live and free on AAA’s Twitch channels.
The first question from the press was to LA Park, asking what this meant for his CMLL plans. LA Park said this did not change his planned CMLL dates, and that CMLL has not yet agreed to a mask versus hair match with him and Rush. That’s correct, at least in the storyline sense. LA Park said he’d be willing to still face Rush and put up his hair if he should lose his mask in this match. It appears LA Park vs Rush is still on, or at least as on it’s as it ever has been, and they’re doing a tightrope walk to not spoil the outcome for this TripleMania match or for the yet to come CMLL storyline.
Penta gave a similar explanation to what his brother said Sunday in Monterrey: he’s totally independent, he’s going to continue to work other dates (with CMLL strongly hinted) and he’ll wrestle in AAA & AAA affiliated groups as Pentagon Jr. while continuing to wrestle as Penta el Zero M elsewhere. Park & Penta made points about how they can and do wrestle anywhere while Fantasma & Psycho are AAA-only guys, which led those two to suggest that maybe they’ll go everywhere too.
Konnan was asked about the possibility of AAA & CMLL running a show together. Konnan told the story he’s told elsewhere about sneaking into a CMLL show in a mask because he was banned otherwise, and compared it to the current situation where people are now working in both promotions at the same time. Konnan seemed optimistic that such a combined show could happen if they could just get “one, two, three” more people onboard.
During the press conference, Psycho Clown asked AAA to remove the cage from the four way mask match, saying they wanted the fans to feel close to the action. Psycho & Fantasma had previously asked about making the change on a past conference. The AAA official first seemed to say the stipulations had already been sent, and then allowed that they might poll the fans to see what they want. A four way match works a lot better when two people can disappear on the outside for a moment and there’s much more freedom of movement. On the other hand, a cage match is easier to book finishes, because no one has to actually get pinned or submitted.
There’s not much else of note from the press conference. They wanted the focus to be on the reveals and they were aware nothing else would get talked about after. The Roshfrans sponsor was there, so they talked about more La Llave a La Gloria coming soon. The AAA official (who’s name I’ve forgotten to jot down) tried to show a video of TripleMania 25, then went thru a Powerpoint presentation emphasizing the amount of people who saw the show and it being a global event. There was nothing advanced about ELITE, MAD, Jeff Jarrett as champion or even when the next TV taping would be.
Dorian Roldan was not as the press conference. Photos on Instagram have indicated he and Marisela Pena have been in South Korea for about a week. It’s said to be for business meetings, though it’s no clear what the business is. (Korea wasn’t on the original list of countries AAA wanted to go to this year. This could be setting up something for later.) Vampiro, who’s continuing to write about having possible broken neck on Facebook, also did not appear at the press conference. Dorian was mentioned but Vampiro was not in what I heard.
CMLL announced Rey Fenix will appear on CMLL Informa this Wednesday. That indicates CMLL is still on board with Fenix after he appeared in AAA, and he still will appear in Arena Mexico on Friday. If Penta is coming in soon, they may reveal it on that Informa broadcast too. Penta has no known booking for next Friday.
Fenix coming in to CMLL will be a big deal for people who closely follow lucha libre. Fenix coming in could’ve been an even bigger deal. Yesterday, Arolucha announced Fenix would be on their June 17th show. He was on their previous Nashville show, so that’s not the issue. The issue is Arolucha hypes him as the current AAA Heavyweight Champion. (A day later, that is still up.) If you watched Verano de Escandalo, you are aware Jeff Jarrett is the current AAA Heavyweight champion. Konnan’s the booker for Arolucha, the AAA booker too now, and the person who would’ve known what one promotion was planning to let the other one know what the promote.
My educated hunch is Fenix was at one point scheduled to win the AAA Heavyweight Championship in his return, that he was originally the mystery man in the match, and he would’ve gone to CMLL as champ (and maybe literally with the belt.) Fenix might have known this for a while – the weird The Crash bit where Fenix gave up the cruiserweight title because he was moving up to heavyweight may have had us all assuming the incorrect heavyweight title. How & why that changed to Jeff Jarrett winning the title and Fenix doing a run-in instead is probably a story with a few different viewpoints.
Blue Demon, who at one point seemed destined for this cage match, seems to have been wiped from AAA existence for the moment.
The big news for today, on any other day, is AAA has a hold on a September date on New York City’s Madison Square Garden. AAA has only held the date and not officially said they’re running a show in the arena that’s long been the spiritually home of WWE. This first came up with Dave Meltzer mentioning that someone had a date on the building, Joe Lanza of Voices of Wrestling saying it was an AAA date, and Pro Wrestling Insider saying it was a September date. Mexico Independence Day is September 16th, and there’s no event currently listed as taking place in MSG on that day. This was not talked about the AAA press conference; no one knew to ask a question, this one is still deep in the weeds.
This is a crazy week of crazy things happen, but this is also AAA talking about running a show in the US. They do this in some form most every year, and most every year it doesn’t happen. This would also be a tragically bad investment by AAA or any sponsor footing the bill: AAA currently has no US TV and has done nothing to get it’s name out in the US except for Lucha Underground, a show watched by less than 200K people a week. AAA’s official English language presence is non-existent, limited to commentators dropping 15 seconds of English every hour and reliant on sites like this one and Lucha Central and Lucha World to talk about their shows (hoping we don’t get something like a wrong.)
AAA running a large arena anywhere in the US seems like a bad decision at this moment. AAA running one of the most expensive arenas in the world seems like an poor use of money. Drago, Aerostar and others from AAA where at La Boom in New York just this past week, and didn’t fill out that small building. An full fledged AAA show would have a bigger turnout but still seem like a really bad bet. Even by big building standards, MSG is an expensive building to run, and more expensive to telecast, which is why even WWE doesn’t really do nearly as much as any more. This would be a seriously bad idea if it were to even happen, and it is not going to happen.
It’s so obviously a bad idea that I’ve been trying to think of long shot ways AAA could make it work. AAA does some bizarre things but usually they have at least a plan. How could they make this one work? Maybe it becomes this year’s Lucha World Cup – Victoria and other sponsors help foot the bill so AAA isn’t living or dying just on the show. It also sets up for AAA to call in every favor they can to stack the show – bring in Impact, bring in Lucha Underground, bring in whoever they’re working with in Japan at the moment, bring in whatever ex-WWE stars they can to represent something – in hopes of making it mean something. And maybe, with this AAA & CMLL peace that seem to happen, they even get CMLL to actually send people, something that would mean much more if it was held in Mexico but might not bug CMLL as much if it happens elsewhere. CMLL sending people to an AAA show seemed impossible a month ago, but who knows now – and maybe that even lets ROH & NJPW people get involved. It’s even more of an outlay of money that way, and they’d need all the sponsorship they can get to not lose their shirts, but it’s about the scale they’d need to make the date seem worthwhile.
But I can’t believe it’s actually happening.
CMLL (MON) 06/04/2018 Arena Puebla [CMLL, Lucha Central]
1) Espíritu Maligno & Sombra Diabólika b Centella Roja & Hijo de Centella Roja 
Rudos took 1/3.
2) Espanto Jr., King Jaguar, Policeman b Astral, Eléctrico, Tigre Rojo Jr.
Rudos took 1/3.
3) Estrellita & Marcela b Tiffany & Zeuxis
Tecnicas took 2/3. Zeuxis’ final match in CMLL for the time being.
4) Kawato San, Okumura, Puma b Guerrero Maya Jr., Stigma, Tritón
Rudos took 1/3.
5) Ephesto, Hechicero, Luciferno b Cuatrero, Forastero, Sansón ©
Scheduled as a title match, but Mephisto could not make it back from a show Guatemala in time due to the volcanic eruption there. The title match was pushed back to next week and Hechciero replaced him. That team won in straight falls.
6) Felino, Soberano Jr., Volador Jr. b Cavernario, Mr. Niebla, Titán [Relevos Increíbles]
Team Volador took 2/3 with nothing being set up.
This sounds like an easy show to skip with the title match not happening and the main event not going anywhere. Maybe CMLL calls everything Relevos Increibles because they feel like it helps draw? It doesn’t seem to work.
CMLL posted a farewell video of Zeuxis, who seems to be leaving on the best possible terms. It didn’t seem like she was headed to AAA when she announced her departure and has told people on social media it wasn’t happen, but everything’s changed a lot in the last few weeks. If she can work there without signing a contract like everyone else, she might as well.
Lucha Central has a preview of the Tuesday show. It’s too late I’m not going to write about it, go click the link.
CMLL is holding a contest to give away tickets to the father’s day show..
The upcoming El Santo TV show is said to be at the point where they’re writing scripts, with the idea of production starting in 2018. They’re pitching this as the real story of El Santo (as opposed to the fictionalized Blue Demon show.)
Photos of El Salvardo lucha libre.
UNAM will screen Mil Mascaras films from June 14 to the 17th.
Puma takes us on a small tour of Arena Mexico on his last video.
Segunda Caida watches Cavernario vs Soberano from March.
LuchaWorld has the latest news update and this week’s Poster-Mania.
+LuchaTV has a new edition of their podcast.
Lineups
CMLL (SUN) 06/10/2018 Arena México
1) Angelito & Fantasy vs Mercurio & Pequeño Nitro
2) Arkalis, Magnus, Robin vs Disturbio, Inquisidor, Príncipe Odín Jr.
3) Guerrero Maya Jr., Rey Cometa, Súper Astro Jr. vs Dragón Rojo Jr., Pólvora, Universo 2000 Jr.
4) Ángel de Oro, Dragón Lee, Niebla Roja vs Felino, Hechicero, Negro Casas
5) Carístico, Valiente, Volador Jr. vs Euforia, Gran Guerrero, Último Guerrero
Dragon Lee makes his first CMLL appearance since the scary injury with Caristico. They’re at least giving him most of the week off after returning from Japan. Puebla’s Arkalis gets to come to Arena Mexico to wrestle almost the same guys he’d wrestle in Puebla.