AAA Mini Line - 12/13/08 (#863)
Recap: 12/20/08

I missed all the recap stuff here. You really didn't. Just so it gets noted someplace easy to find - Galavision skipped an episode between this and the Pena Memorial show. I'm pretty sure Televisa skipped it as well, and none of the vignettes never really reference the previous week.  

Vignette: Hey, Tiffany's back.

Match 1: Cinthia Moreno, Tiffany vs Fabi Apache, Estrellita 
Plaza de Toros El Relicario, Puebla, 10/05/08

Winner: Rudas
Match Time: 7:48
Notes: In-ring introductions. Piero is ref.

Okay match, usual clipped up parts. Tiffany doesn't look far off where she was before. Start of the beatdown is clipped out, and Fabi just randomly runs and starts kicking people start the comeback. Tiffany has a great reaction to a Fabi fan at ringside. The best parts are those without Estrellita, and the last third of the match is Fabi doing a big move (including the rolling armbar!) on one ruda, and the other ruda breaking it up. Tiffany actually powers out of the rolling armbar on her own, which gets the crowd chanting for Fabi louder than they have all match. Tiffany doesn't look so good trying do the spear the post spot. A lot of near falls, and Cinthia gets Estrellita with the farmer's roll for the win.  More time than I expected them to get.

Fabi and Estrellita argue after the match, Fabi angry at Estrellita for losing. You probably should've seen that coming, Fabi.

In-Ring: Konnan and company (Jack, Teddy, Rellik) are already in the ring, all in suits, Konnan in promo. (Or what passes for a suit for Rellik.) Jack Evans wearing his Yankee cap crooked predicted the CC signing weeks ahead of time. Konnan calls Roldan to the ring to hand over the urn. Is that Zorro in the back hanging out with a kid? I guess it is. Roldan gets the run back, and Konnan pulls the Rock "it doesn't matter what you say" bit, sending him out of the ring. Roldan goes back to the stage, and say Konnan hasn't seen the last of him. I don't know who the kid is, but he's slightly freaked out to be in this ring. Zorro is wearing a suit jacket over a t-shirt, making him cooler than everyone else here.  Moving on to other matters, Konnan bans dancing in his ring. Konnan points out Mesias is a Boricua, so maybe they forget and forgive and have him join the Legion. Konnan tries to give Zorro the title. Zorro says it's true he's the best wrestler in AAA, but he insists on beating someone for it. Konnan is surprised by this and they argue a bit. Konnan asks Zorro what he wants, and Zorro says he wants Cibernetico. Well, you certainly tease that match when Cibernetico's supposed to be leaving the company. (Riiiiight.) Zorro walks out. Konnan moves on to talking about it being the night of the Legion, but is interrupted by DM's music. Only Alex Koslov, though., with his hammer and cycle shirt. And hat. Alex just wants peace. He wants to make an impact, he wants to make a scandal, and he now realizes he could do that better with Legion. After all, he's a foreigner too. Teddy's all "didn't you piledrive me? "While the Legion is all looking at Alex in one corner of the ring, Rocky and X-Pac slip in the other side with buckets, and throw brown liquids at the rudos as they turn around. Jack is so awesome slipping around and flopping here. DGM head out thru the crowd. Everyone takes a slip bump, including Konnan and Rellik. Good thing they just happened to have a trap on mat so it didn't get wet!

Vignette: DGM celebrate what we just saw. I like how Rocky and Alex are talking in Spanish, as if they normally do,  and X-Pac completely understands it. Of course he does. Anyway, what we're supposed to get out of it is a plot point - these guys got immunity from Roldan before he lost control of the company, so Konnan can't just fire them. They used immunity in WWE, in case you're wonder why they're using an odd term here. They really shouldn't said "no veto!" Roldan has a big surprise later, and DM is going to beat the MPs.

Guerra de Titanes video package. They still think it'll be a night of champions at this point.

Vignette: Hermandad meet up with Konnan. He pays off the tag team champs to beat up the Legion tonight. This is shot with one camera which is focused correctly, and one camera which has much lesser video quality. Very distracting. I also don't know why they needed two cameras for a bit of three people standing right next to each and just talking, but there you go. All we learn here is AAA wrestlers get paid in yellow envelopes. I hope that was their actual payoffs and gotta figure there's at least a 33% chance it was.

Match 2: Joe Lider, Nicho vs Alan Stone, Chris Stone in a non-title match
Plaza de Toros El Relicario, Puebla, 10/05/08

Winner: eventually, Joe Lider & Nicho
Match Time: 6:36
Notes: I guess the rudos wouldn't have tried to beat up the tecnicos if they didn't get paid? No, I don't think that' show it's supposed to work. Huh. In-ring intros, Pepe Casas is your ref. Stones jump the champs during introductions, and Chris sets him up for Alan's springboard plancha.

Stones run lasts a good forty seconds, until Chris planchas Lider's knees. They've got matching gear now, that's nice. Alan holds his own facing the rudos for a bit, but it's more wacky double team time. Boston Crab/Crossface combo, so I guess they've been watching Jericho & Benoit's tag matches lately. Nicho misses a top rope legdrop with chair to start the comeback, with lots of chair violence going the other way. stones offense is again short lived, but Alan does better 1 on 2 time, thanks to rudo bumping. Chris gets Lider with a moonsault, Alan gets a headscissors roll on Nicho and that's the finish. Music guy is last guy to realize the match is over. 

After a break, Chris and Alan finally get around to dancing - they didn't do so during the match. Nicho is sure that pinfall was two, but no. Konnan is back out, with Rellik. Hey, even though she doesn't own the company, Marcela Pena has the same seats. She must have a good scalper. Konnan gives Nicho & Lider the win via disqualification (dancing), though no one raises their hands. Alan and Chris are also fired. Why does Konnan give them HX checks again? Didn't he just do that 10 minutes ago? Are they being paid off for tricking Alan and Chris into dancing by losing? Let's go with that.

Vignette: Alan and Chris are leaving, dejected, but Roldan meets them in the parking lot and tells them not go yet - he's got a surprise, they're not going anywhere. 

Noti AAA
- Guerra de Titanes is the last major show of 2008.
* match for the vacant title - will it be Zorro, Chessman, Mesias, La Parka, or someone else (Silver King pictured)
* also, many surprises     

Vignette: so, before the Antonio Pena memorial show, X-Pac had a meeting, promising full support to AAA if the worst should happen, as long as Roldan promised immunity from firing. Roldan said OK. This leads into a DGM video package. This seems like the DX remix from one of the WWE albums (though they go back to the normal music for the entrance. Insert random footage of people playing Guitar Hero

Match 3: Alex Koslov, Rocky Romero, X-Pac (c) vs Billy Boy, Crazy Boy (c), Ultimo Gladiador
Plaza de Toros El Relicario, Puebla, 10/05/08

Winner: Degeneration Mex
Match Time: 3:42+5:15
Other Match Notes: Billy has a separate entrance from the MPs. DM actually enter thru the entrance way. How odd. No fancy video effect for the entrance. They do have fireworks for the chops. 

While the MP/Billy team is constantly asking the crowd to cheer for Mexico, they also work this as the rudos, jumping DM for a beatdown early until X-Pac makes the comeback. One one ones include Alex selling a lot at the return of the wavy transition.  Everything after Alex's stop sign is clipped out, which is hilarious given it was completely legal for him to do it when in CMLL and AAA lets far worse things thru. And getting away with "dancing" in violation of the no dancing policy would strength the immunity stuff. This is less a match and more an exhibitions of moves with little crowd noise. Rocky is doing the hang in the ropes and convince someone to charge at me bit. His tope is good, as is Alex's tope con giro. When the neutering of the Air Force, it's refreshing to see actual good dives on this show. Billy Boy slams X-Pac but misses the quebrada, and X-Pac gives him the X-Factor for the win. Billy sells it like he's been shot. Arturo is happy that the rudos won, because he also has no idea they're supposed to be the tecnicos. Or whoever laid out the match didn't know the they were supposed to be rudos. 

Jack and Teddy run out to get them some of DM. Alex and X-Pac get out of the way, walk away from the ring, then realize Rocky got stripped up and stomped up. Konnan is out too. DM hurry out thru the crowd and the legion of course can't just follow them there. CLIP. Replays.

Konnan even ran in when the valets were dancing to ban them from dancing, and to replace them with his women (Nikki and some Colombian girl.) 

Vignette: Jack relates his meeting to Teddy far outside the locker room. "Everything Konnan has done in his career has been for himself." Teddy's not taking X-Pac's word on this, after he hit him with a chair twice and threw sh[mute] on them, not to mention what he did Nikki. Loyalty is number one, between them and Konnan. Jack: "I'm a smart guy, I know when I'm wrong, I know when someone else is right - you're right, Foreign Legion." I'm glad that was peacefully resolved, except for the time wasted.

Match 4: Jack Evans, Teddy Hart, Mesias (c) vs Espiritu, Scoria, Ozz (c)
Plaza de Toros El Relicario, Puebla, 10/05/08

Winner: Mesias
Match Time: 9:28
Other Match Notes: No entrances. You know, back in the day, we used to have matches where one side was rudos and one side was tecnicos. Things were so much better. Nikki and Mystery Colombian are at ringside. I'm fairly certain she's not Shakira. Announcers are sure we're supposed to be cheering the evil Dark Family, who jump the other team. Piero is ref.

Surprisingly, the Dark Family do not immediately get killed by Mesias as he's brought in at last for beatdown. It takes a corner whip to do it, and then he knocks everyone around with clothesline and spears. Crowd chanted Cibernetico before hand, and do not chant for Mesias. Legion team gets the beatdown the other way. They set up Jack double stomp into a moonsault bit again, and then show us how it's not good enough to actually pin someone. Crowd chanting for Porky? Clip to the Family having Mesias three on one, just so he can toss them all to the floor one by one, and do a dive on them. A horrible dive, surely, since they clip it out and he's down and hurting in the ring as they come back. Teddy got muted earlier, but he sweats very loudly as the Dark Family's aimless beatdown goes on. These matches are awful and heatless because there's no flow or story at all, there's just  an event, another event, maybe a third event and a pinfall.  There's people who can do the moves well (occasionally), there's not much of a story. Teddy saves Nikki, but I think he was more concerned with checking off moves form the list. He seem to hurt his knee on the powerbomb double knee backbreaker, but of course he's doing a move where he drops a guy on his own knees, so that was bound to happen. Moonsault to the floor there, tornillo from Jack. Ozz and Mesias are left, Ozz lands a standing moonsault for two and a big kickout. Mesias stops yelling for Ozz - remember those five seconds where it looked like they were doing something with him? good times! - gives him a big backdrop, clotheslines him, and (awkwardly) gives him the facebuster for the pin. No reaction to the move - the move they've been working so hard to get over - and little reaction to the pin.  

Promo: Silver King cuts his Wagner promo. Parka gets muted! Such language from a children idol. Anyway, they're not giving up on AAA. This promo goes on about 15 seconds more than they have anything to say. Cibernetico does not appear.

Vignette: Zorro has a conversation with Konnan and the Legion. Some may feel differently, It helps that they're not actually there. He still wants that singles match.

Match 5: Rellik, Konnan (c), Zorro vs Cibernetico, La Parka Jr. (c), Silver King
Plaza de Toros El Relicario, Puebla, 10/05/08

Winner: Rudos
Match Time: 5:37
Other Match Notes: No entrances, and barely any of the introductions. Rudos jump the tecnicos. Pepe Casas is ref.

Pepe Casas stays out of the way, except for warning Zorro about using his cane to choke out Cibernetico. While the beatdown is going around, Zorro wanders around the ring, fixes his shirt, asks for a microphone, eventually gets one, walk back over to Pepe Casas, and fires him from AAA, calling out Hijo de Tirantes to replace him. If he's supposed to be firing at him for warning Zorro, it took so long it didn't seem like it, and if he didn't, it's a pretty underwhelming story. Pepe Casas is upset, Hijo de Tirantes is upset, and the match just continues to be the same beatdown is was before hand. That just came off as random. Cibernetico's been pretty much ignored all show, but this match is still laid out for him - not Parka or King, guys who are sticking here - to get the big comeback on everyone, everyone feeding to his offense first. Silver and Parka get their own offense after as announcers take turns saying "I can't believe" for no apparent reason. After Zorro stops the run with a cane flurry on parka, Hijo de Tirantes takes away the cane. So I suppose he's fired now, right? Nope? He throw sit to Parka, even. King and Rellik battle into the crowd. Parka goes for the big shot to Zorro's head, Zorro fouls him, and we see Hijo de Tirantes counting like normal. He saw the foul, but there's obviously an edit in here. Cibernetico can't believe that's not a DQ. Hijo de Tirantes goes to raise Parka's arm instead, but Konnan yells at him to raise Zorro's arm. So he does. I guess that's his turn?       

Roldan appears to say there's been appointed a Guardian of AAA, starting today - Vampiro shows up, in his Guardian Angel gear. I thought he wasn't going to wear that on TV, because it'd look like he was trivializing it as a gimmick? Things change. Vampiro and Konnan go face to face, and Konnan has a fit. Legion leaves, and that's it. No shot of Cibernetico after the match.