AAA Lucha Capital: 2018-12-19

Recapped: 12/19/2018

Matches:

Golden Magic beat Máximo
(4:51, 450 splash, ok, 00:09:54)

Killer Kross beat Murder Clown
(5:01, Kross back suplex, ok, 00:21:40)

Laredo Kid beat Hijo Del Vikingo
(7:49, Laredo Fly, good, 00:38:05)

Psycho Clown beat Pagano
(7:29, casita, ok, 00:51:15)

Pentagón Jr. beat Australian Suicide
(5:57, package piledriver, great, 01:07:40)

Laredo Kid won a five-man ruleta rusa for the Lucha Capital men’s championship
(8:07, good, 01:29:40)

• Pentagon Jr. & Golden Magic started
• Laredo Kid entered (1:18)
• Psycho Clown entered (2:29)
• Psycho Clown threw Golden Magic out (3:11)
• Killer Kross entered (3:46)
• Killer Kross threw Psycho Clown Pentagon Jr. out (5:09)
• Killer Kross threw Pentagon Jr. out (5:54)
• Laredo Kid threw Killer Kross out (8:07)

What happened:

Laredo Kid won the Lucha Capital tournament. The final was a five-man royal rumble. It appeared to be a four-man royal rumble for a bit; Killer Kross was announced as not being able to participate in the final due to a knee injury, but then came out as the final entrant anyway.

(As best as can be determined, Kross did have a knee injury but may have decided to wrestle after all since he was to be the last person out before the finish. Kross was grabbing his right knee after getting hit by Murder Clown’s dive in their match. Máximo and Golden Magic also appeared to be injured during the course of the show.)

The final came down to Laredo and Kross. Scarlett, a weapon, and Pentagon all got involved for a long moment, but none directly figured into the finish. Laredo eventually threw out Kross for the win. His post-match promo including throwing out a challenge to Fenix for the megachampionship again.

Fenix appeared earlier on the show to present the most popular luchador award to Pagano. La Parka handled the arm wrestling.

Thoughts:

The main event had the most AAA feel of the show so far, with run-ins that didn’t go anywhere and inexplicably injury situation. The result actually made sense as far as setting someone up for a title program instead of just giving a top guy a win to have a win. (It seemed like Konnan booking.) Like most every other match in this tournament, there was more craziness than you’d expect – I don’t know what Golden Magic was thinking – and it was probably the best five man royal rumble you’ll ever see. I didn’t really like the end of ending a tournament built around singles matches with a royal rumble and over the top eliminations. It also might have worked out for the benefit if turned out Kross couldn’t do a real match.

Suicide is supposed to be nuts but now also his matches are also nuts. They decided to go for big spots from the get out, Suicide nailing the Dragon rana and a cool dive quick, wonderfully teasing the shock upset. They kept it exciting throughout. Suicide was trying everything and paying for half of it. Like the Laredo/Vikingo match, they tried a lot, but it came off better here. The shooting star press counter superkick spots didn’t quite have great timing, but they were close enough to look cool and this match was just about cool looking moves.

I didn’t care much for Pagano/Psycho Clown. Pagano is really slow and prone to weird and bad looking spots, and the flashy move he tries to do to make up for it really don’t. Psycho Clown was fine but not as interesting as other matches. This was the match where it finally clicked Psycho is using the casita because his wife’s family taught him the secrets to make that cradle unbeatable, a fantastic story.

Vikingo/Laredo was only disappointing in there were really high expectations. A few things didn’t work well in the first half of the match. They never lost the crowd and the ring was filled with coins after, but I think the missed headscissors and the shakiness leading to the shooting star press to the floor spot really stood out. The match was put together with more drama than usual, Vikingo’s missed corner knees coming out as a surprise. The counter before the finish was also shot really well. I think they could have a better match with another try but this was still pretty good.

The Kross/Murder match was the weakest Murder Clown match of the series. He and Kross didn’t have any chemistry. Whatever that wanted that forearm battle to be, it was definitely not, and didn’t otherwise take advantage of having two big guys. The sequence where Murder Clown hit a 619 and it caused Kross to go out of the ring to (sort of) catch a dive didn’t look so great. Perhaps Kross came into the match with the knee injury and that’d explain the performance. It was nice of them to try and protect Murder by having him kick out of Kross’ suplex, but it didn’t seem to amount to much when Kross just beat him as soon as he was done acting really shocked. This is not a promotion built about people taking finishing moves that seriously.

Máximo got hurt on his own dive a few minutes into the opener. The match wasn’t super before it and was pretty much done after it. Máximo was nice enough to let Golden Magic kick out of the kiss cradle and let Golden Magic hit a 450 splash to what appeared to an injury. That can’t be a fun issue with a rib injury.