Recapped: 07/18/2019
All matches were aired live from Palenque de la Feria, Aguascalientes, Aguascalientes.
Matches:
Freelance, Astrolux beat Impulso, Low Rider
(9:07, Astrolux 450 splash Low Rider, ok, 00:28:02)
Latigo, Último Maldito, Lady Maravilla, Parka Negra beat Dinastia, Arkangel Divino, Eclipse Jr., Big Mami
(14:08, Lady Maravilla chair shot Big Mami, good, 00:55:11)
Golden Magic & Lady Shani beat La Hiedra & Villano III Jr.
(10:10, Lady Shani jumping spinning DDT Villano III Jr., great, 01:22:23)
Dave The Clown, Chik Tormenta, Tessa Blanchard beat Faby Apache, Niño Hamburguesa, Taya
(9:21, Tessa hammerlock DDT, ok, 01:40:26)
Aerostar, Laredo Kid, Puma King beat Averno, Chessman, Eterno
(12:41, Puma King code red Eterno, good, 02:00:02)
Daga & Taurus beat Cody Rhodes & MJF
(14:00, Daga & Taurus pin MJF, ok, 02:30:23)
Dr. Wagner Jr., Pentagón Jr., Psycho Clown beat Blue Demon Jr., Rey Escorpión, Texano Jr.
(15:39, Wagner Driver on Blue Demon, ok, 02:54:52)
What happened:
Dr. Wagner cleanly defeated Blue Demon in the main event. The show actually opened with Demon declaring Wagner had made it personal and he’d beat him at TripleMania. Wagner ended the show saying the support of the Wagnermaniacos fans would help him get the win.
Taurus spent a lot of his match Cody Rhodes avoiding fighting him. He and Daga did manage to defeat MJF. Cody singlehandedly took Daga & Taurus out post-match until Texano & Escorpion ran in. Cody got revenge by beating up Escorpion & Texano after the main event, with Taurus ducking out on him again.
Monster Clown, not otherwise on the show, destroyed Aerostar after his match. Aerostar had about destroyed himself on a dive moments earlier and seemed a bit out of it.
Tessa, through the benefit of some questionable counting skills by Hijo del Tirantes, beat Taya in their trios match.
Villano III Jr. was clearly in the ropes for the finish of his match with Lady Shani, but that was also obviously the planned finish. The announcers didn’t ignore it, but it did not appear to be an angle.
Lady Maravilla won her match with a blatant chairshot to the head of Big Mami. An upset Nino Hamburguesa blew off Maravilla’s advances to check on Mami, then stormed off.
The announced Cage versus Kross match did not happen. Neither man was mentioned.
Thoughts:
The last show before TripleMania was a lot like many of them leading up to this point. The early matches were full of energy, some of it producing great results. The late matches were heavy on brawling and the crowd emotion even if the work itself wasn’t that impressive. Those last couple of matches suffered from the show being long and starting at a late hour, though the live crowd seemed to enjoy it. The audience generally seemed more into the show than previous Aguascalientes shows, with one noticeable extension.
The main event wasn’t quite as maniac as the previous matches. There was blood and punches, but it wasn’t as over the top as it had been in Zapopan. Wagner & Escorpion brawling over to the announce booth was fun, there just wasn’t as much fun moments in this one. The crowd loved Penta, he just had basically nothing to do here. I hope they got him to tape vignettes or something while he was there because otherwise this seemed like an under-utilization of finally having him in. The Cody/Mercenarios fight during the post-match felt artificially forced in and was rightly swiftly ignored to get back to the final Demon/Wagner match. Demon & AAA managed to turn the crowd against Demon and for Wagner, which was a good sign. Wagner works better as the tecnico and Demon as the rudo right now, so hopefully, they can get the same reactions at TripleMania.
The AEW/AAA match didn’t work at all. It was a repeat of the Young Bucks match at Rey de Reyes, where it came off as an AEW issue dropped into an AAA show. That’s despite this actually being something that was built up on an AAA show and Konnan trying to make it clear that Cody was the face in this feud. It didn’t work. Cody spending the first few minutes trying to get the crowd to chant for him also didn’t work. I enjoy MJF’s act generally and he did a good job of playing his character on this show, but the cute AEW bit of MJF being a heel while Cody is unaware actively harmed the chances of this match getting over. The crowd already didn’t know what to make of this match and they were even more confused with people on both teams playing heel and the only face being the foreigner. Taurus playing chicken from Cody seemed totally out of character too; that’s how Rey Escorpion might play it, but Taurus has always been a killer monster with a weakness of over aggression, not a chicken. Daga was fine, Daga didn’t use any knucks so I have no problem with Daga (except he probably shouldn’t have been involved with the pinfall.) The only good news here is none of this likely matters; Cody will be teaming with Psycho Clown at TripleMania and so the crowd will know what the story of the match is supposed to be. But they could’ve used Psycho Clown or someone like him in this match in MJF’s spot.
The Aerostar match was good solid fun until his dive went very wrong at the end. It’s one he never has an issue with and seemed pretty shook up. Eterno probably needs a bigger win to have his credibility at this level, but he worked well enough to be that high up on the card. (And they’ve had Dave this high too, without ever giving him a win.) Laredo Kid was more in the background than usual this year.
The Tessa/Taya trios barely had any Tessa. She seemed to disappear for a long stretch in the middle and wasn’t getting in the ring for much of anything besides interacting with Taya. That doesn’t suggest much for the TLC match. Faby & Hamburguesa got over as much as usual and Tormenta had a lot of work bumping for them. The biggest problem with the match was it being a normal one after some insanity, but it was fine for the spot on the card.
Villano III had a performance for the ages. He took all the energy he usually uses to take silly bumps to instead make Golden Magic take silly bumps instead. He may have been a bit too rough – everyone seemed more concerned about Lady Shani early on than would be expected for just selling. At least Shani was more willing to fall into the crowd than Cody. Golden Magic still looked good despite being on the wrong side of most of the violence and Shani got a win she needed at the end.
The segunda had about as much action as the opener with a little bit more steadiness. Ultimo Maldito & Arkangel Divino did the same things they always do but, if we’re only seeing them every six months, they’re still pretty impressive. Latigo worked well with the smaller guys and continues to be the glue guy in these matches. Big Mami was super over, easily the most over character in this match. The finish was a bit lame after near 15 minutes, but at least it did serve an immediate purpose.
The opener had great energy, with all four guys trying for something memorable. It sure was memorable when Astrolux about killed himself a few times. It’s a hard match to recommend because there are spots so blown that the crowd laughs at them. That’s balanced out by the effort level; these guys were doing everything they could. And many things they could not. Freelance was the only luchador who looked exciting and didn’t have something go wrong, while everyone else could stand another shot at it.
