AAA on Televisa: 2017-04-08 

Recapped: 04/11/2017

Matches: 

All matches were taped at Arena Neza on 03/31/2017.

• Súper Fly beat Niño Hamburguesa (powerbomb 2:46, OK)

• Dalton Bragg, Dave The Clown, La Hiedra, Mini Abismo Negro beat Bengala, Dinastía, Joe Lider, Lady Shani (Shani backcracker La Hiedra, 11:30, ok)

• Argenis & Hijo del Fantasma beat Averno & Chessman (Hijo del Fantasma Thrill of The Hunt Averno, 8:48, ok)

What happened: 

Ricky Marvin seconded his OGT teammates, but was more of a hindrance than a help. He pulled out the referee when Chessman & Fantasma had pins; Chessman didn’t see the other and blamed Marvin for costing him a chance to win. Averno also had a chance to win after a Devil’s Wings, but Ricky came in the ring (in theory to cut off Argenis, but the timing looked way off) and Argenis dropkicked Marvin into the pin. The técnicos won directly after.

Averno screamed and shoved Ricky post match. Ricky attacked Averno, and then Chessman, getting the best of both. Super Fly came out of the crowd, took out Marvin, then unzipped his jacket to reveal an OGT shirt. He’s replacing Marvin in the group.

Earlier, Super Fly complained about his match being restarted at Rey de Reyes, declared he wasn’t done with Vampiro, and said he was too much of a star to face a Nino Hamburguesa. He did reluctantly, and won easily.

Argenis got a pre-match vignette with his newly won sword, sort of positioning as a hero for kids who dream of being luchadors.

Dalton Bragg was introduced as a Vampiro find – and introduced as by Jesus Zuniga as “hipster Alton”. The other announcers corrected him on the name.

Texano, in a neck brace, started the show by announcing he had a second degree neck strain, and a third degree neck strain could end his career. Everyone weirdly treats this as if he could be ending his career right now, even though he just said he didn’t have that neck sprain. Texano asks everyone to support AAA in his absence. In NotiAAA, Fantasma’s Thrill of the Hunt is specifically blamed for this injury.

Noti AAA featured Twitter comments on Vampiro’s new era, all praising him for doing a great job.

Hijo del Tirantes now has a man bun, so he may still be a rudo.

Thoughts: 

A weak show after last week’s manic behavior. None of the matches were particularly good. The first two had no hope. They tried to get there in the third and it just didn’t really come together. They came off really short on names on this one, with two matches featuring a lot of people who wouldn’t be on TV if they were so short on depth. You can see AAA trying to do something to fix that perception – Argenis getting the Rey de Reyes win and the vignette to boost him up – but it’s going to take some time.

It was also hurt by the Ricky Marvin stuff. The bit where he got in the ring to stand in front of the pin and get kicked into it looked so bad. The entire angle came off more like Ricky was betraying the OGT rather than Averno & Chessman booting him out. And if you stop to think about it any of it, it didn’t really make sense for Super Fly to be hanging in the crowd waiting for a breakup that was supposed to be unexpected to do a dramatic reveal. (If Super Fly really wanted to help, he probably should’ve shown up when the match was still going.)

They could’ve used some skit, no more than a minute, setting up the context of that story before it happened: Averno & Chessman mistreating Ricky in a way to justify him maybe turning later, and teasing a new member. They could’ve used a vignette for other reasons. It was an 18 minute break (plus commercials) from when the squash opener ended and the next match started. There wasn’t anything much of value the whole time. We got the same upcoming events bit shown many times, the Panini segment we see every week, the new staple of repeating what we’ve seen in case you tune in late, and eight long pointless entrances for the match. Sending them all out at once seemed to last one taping. There has to be a more entertaining way of handling that, or at least keeping people from turning away.

The opener wasn’t much but wasn’t meant to be much. I’m not sure it did much for Super Fly, who got a win but can’t look that impressive with Nino Hamburguesa involved, and Hamburguesa didn’t have time to do anything himself.

The atomicos wasn’t much either. They tried to hide Dalton Bragg’s weaknesses by having him only work with Joe Lider, but it kind of only exposed how limited he was. The moment where he walked out of the way of Dinastia handspring move because he’s been told to just pay attention to Joe is not good at all. Bragg passed the audition of taking a very dumb move for no particular purpose, but his offense was just there and he didn’t have much of a presence. Bragg has a unique look, which I’d guess is what made him stand out to Vampiro, but TV is a hard place to get better.

The match seemed laid out weird, like they were going back to the usual AAA tag style (brief tecnico open, rudo beatdown, tecnico showcase) but then had Bragg wait to do anything until it was supposed to be the técnico’s turn, because that was the only way they make sure everyone but Lider would stay out of the way. The last section all kind of felt disjointed, and there was no strong attempt to explain why Shani was on the tecnico side for this night. Dinasita looked like a star, got little to do, no change there.

AAA really wanted to keep the Perros del Mal faction and name apart of their group, but we’re now a couple months out and they’re doing nothing with it. It’s not even clear if Lider is a tecnico or a rudo at this point – he cost La Parka the Rey de Reyes match, but was a tecnico tonight. Maybe that’s just got lost in the changes, but outside Ayako’s nod to the faction, there’s nothing there.