AAA is back on Twitch on Sunday with Guerra de Titanes. I think this is a Good card with some cruft. Others may see the main event and the endless Mascara/Maximo feud as a bad match. Most are probably really fascinated with how they’re going to handle the heavyweight title match.
The CMLL legends show on Marca will have some good moments and some not good moments. No offense to Felino but he’s got to be a replacement for Negro Casas, right?
Given who is left on Lucha Capital, I really want a Laredo Kid versus Taurus match. Or maybe Murder Clown versus Australian Suicide. (That would leave Texano versus Psycho Clown in a TripleMania rematch and La Hiedra versus Taya.)
AAA , Capital (WED) 11/28/2018 Pinche Gringo Barbecue, Miguel Hidalgo, Distrito Federal [AAA, Lucha Central, Record, thecubsfan]
1) Averno b Angelikal 10:09. Averno won via Super Devil’s Wings
2) Lady Maravilla b Lady Shani 4:43. Shani used a bridging cradle.
3) Pagano b Aerostar 6:68. Pagano beat Aerostar with a rebound reverse suplex.
4) Máximo b Niño Hamburguesa 7:28. Maximo kissed Nino Hamburgesa three times and craldes him.
5) Pentagón Jr. b Golden Magic 14:29. Pentagon won with a package piledriver. Fenix was on commentary.
Pentagon & Golden Magic is worth seeking out and the opener was really good too. This was the longest show yet and these are still better when you can skip thru the filler, but it was still an overall enjoyable show.
Next week looks like it should have matches with Australian Suicide, Laredo Kid, Psycho Clown, Texano Jr., La Hiedra, Taurus, Taya and Murder Clown unless they change their minds on his match again. That’s an even eight, so they could just eliminate Fenix by not mentioning him again. It might cause an odd number of people for the wild card show but that thing is going to be a mess anyway.
It seemed to me like there were less people participating in the higher men’s levels than past years. (This post about Fugaz’s win mentions there were 44 people.) I think it’ll keep going as long as they have a sponsor for it, but it does not seem to as influence CMLL booking as much as it once did. Astral has won the overall contest multiple times and he’s still about the lowest ranked guy on the CMLL main roster.
Arena (Ciudad) Juarez looks like they’ll be the first people to use Angel o Demonio after his brick attack to Cuervo. They’ve been taling him coming for Sunday’s show all week and announced the lineup with him on it last night. They’re bringing in because of the infamous notirety, picturing him with bricks on the poster. These are the local promoters for AAA TV shows and would think they wouldn’t want to do anything to damage that relationship, but they’re also the same people who wanted to promote a Black Skeller versus Zafiro match after Skeller had his own infamous brutal virual moment earlier this year. (Pagano also may be involved with the promotion; he was introduced as their ‘padrino’ back when the promotion kicked off a few months ago.) Most of the people responding on their Facebook have been negative on bringing in Angel o Demonio.
AAA held a press conference in Xalapa for the 12/08 taping. The minis in the opener were all said to be new characters, outside of Mini Psycho Clown. Hijo del Tirantes challenged (non-present) Vampiro to a singles match on local promoter LG’s first show of the year.
The Wrestling Observer Newsletter explained the Espectro & Kahoz situation as “one side” wanting to put the young wrestlers under characters AAA owns, and “others” not wanting to have wrestlers use Antonio Pena characters. It’s phrased oddly and it’s a WON scoop on AAA, so the reflex is to assume Konnan is one of those two sides. I’m thinking it might actually be Dorian Roldan and Marisela Pena having opposite viewpoints. This paragraph also includes Dave accidently calling Black Danger “Danger Boy”, which really is a better name.
Konnan is mentioned by name about wanting to use the Rascalz (Trey Miguel, Dezmond Xavier, and Zachary Wentz) and LAX from Impact in AAA. I think they all worked for The Crash when Konnan was there; Miguel maybe not, but he did work the Arolucha taping. With their connections, AAA could put on a great all cruiserweight action show one day if they wanted.
Hijo del Octagon says he is still owed money for appearing on the previous season of reality show Exatlon. There had been a rumor that AAA threatened TV Azteca (who air Exatlon) over the use of the Hijo del Octagon name they say they own. Hijo del Octagon is accusing Azteca & Exatlon of taking the money owed to him and sending it to AAA get them to go away. He feels he owns the name and is owed the money.
Lucha Underground’s Chris DeJoseph and Chris Roach were on the TwitWow podcast talking about Lucha Underground Season 4. They’re much more upbeat about the future than Erik Van Wagenen but also note that’s out of their hands. One of the questions people have had elsewhere is wondering how Chelesa Green ended up in NXT before her stint on Lucha Underground as Reklusa even aired. On this show, Roach explained Green was offered a LU deal, was “apprehensive” about signing it, and the LU group decided she was talented enough to use anyway. I think a lesson of the current wrestling landscape is that if you have value, you should make sure to hold out for a favorable deal.
There’s a few storyline details on there. If Dante Fox had been healthy, the start of Aztec Warfare would’ve been Antonio Cueto telling the trios champions that only one of them could be in the match and Killshot taking the spot without asking the other two to start his heel turn. Vibora’s beheading was a spur of the moment thing when he got injured – they had planned on Crane joining the Reptiles trios and thoughts of spinning Vibora out to a feud with Mil Muertes – and that might not be the end of of the character if there is a Season 5. In the most tragic scoop, there was a Vinnie Massaro storyline scheduled for Season 4 that was cut for time. The short length of the season (both in taping time and number of episodes) was one of the struggles they had writing that season’s show.
Máximo beat Niño Hamburguesa (7:28, kiss cradle, ok, 01:13:54)
Pentagón Jr. beat Golden Magic (14:29, package piledriver, great, 01:33:27)
What happened:
pay attention
It was explained at the top of the show that Murder Clown’s win over Samoano was now considered not to have counted. However, since Killer Kross didn’t wrestle, it was considered a loss in the standings for him. (Or, they didn’t want to fly him out again.) That leaves eight healthy people for matches next week if they simply eliminate Fenix due to injury.
Fenix did appear and joined in the main event commentary. He took a wheelchair out to the announcers’ stage but seemed to be moving much better than a wheelchair would indicate. They talked about his injury, but there was no indication of how he’d be replaced in the tournament or what would happen to his title match on Guerra de Titanes.
The first four matches were treated as Konnan & Vampiro picking wrestlers to go against each other, though was forgotten by the main event. It ended up 2-2 in the matches they picked, of course.
Thoughts:
Angelikal is going to be unbeatable when he hits his target
The Fenix/Golden Magic was really good because Fenix had a great one-man performance. Against Penta, Golden Magic held his own. He had to for the story to work: Penta didn’t take him or the match seriously and got taken out with big moves by Golden Magic early and often. If Magic’s offense looked subpar, Penta being unexpectedly in trouble doesn’t work. Penta played not caring but was trying more than he needed to for this goofy show; he doesn’t have to take a headscissors to the floor but he still did. Magic got caught being a little too cocky when things went his way and Penta took it to the next level when he needed to. Golden Magic had a really good tournament for losing both matches and was fortunate to get the matchups he did.
Máximo tried really hard with Aerostar. Niño Hamburguesa is not Aerostar and Máximo didn’t have the same effort. This wasn’t the total comedy match it could’ve been. It might have been a lot better with a lot more comedy. At least that way it might have been fun. The action was slow, not particularly interesting, and dragged without even going eight minutes. It wasn’t a disaster but it’s a very easy skip.
required AAA women’s division shoot dropkick
Pagano & Aerostar was not a good mix. Pagano looked clumsy as always, with the bad aim on the buckle powerbomb seeming pretty dangerous. He had a legdrop earlier that was a mess. Both guys could use someone else to keep the match going between moves. Pagano was just giving Aerostar a move, picking him back up, and giving him another move with no particular hurry. Aerostar did some fancy spots doesn’t have the crowd connection to pull them in when he’s getting beat up a lot, and Pagano was less over than his previous match.
The second Maravilla/Shani match was not much better than the first. I’ve liked both in other matches but they don’t seem to have much chemistry with each other. This was a slow match with neither standing out. The submission counter spots they were doing might have worked in a different crowd, but this one seems to need something with more impact. The finish seemed pretty sudden.
Penta does not believe in Magic
The bonus match was pretty fun. Averno used to wrestle a lot of singles matches in CMLL and has done hardly any since coming to AAA. He’s still good in his role of holding together matches with exciting flippy dudes. Angelikal was definitely exciting with his dives, though his aim probably wasn’t as quite as good as he wanted. Averno gave him most of the match to look impressive before beating him. It worked.
