Tag: AAA TV Recap

Recapped: 01/25/2018

Matches:

Histeria & Psicosis beat Dave The Clown & La Parka 
(6:04, Psicosis senton Dave, bad, Lucha Libre AAA)

Monsther Clown & Murder Clown beat Dark Cuervo & Dark Scoria © to win the AAA World Tag Team Championship
(11:58, both Clowns beat both Secta, ok, Lucha Libre AAA)

Dr. Wagner Jr., Hijo del Fantasma, Psycho Clown vs Hernandez, Rey Escorpión, Texano Jr.
(10:36, DQ for every rule, ok, via Lucha Libre AAA)

What happened: 

The show starts with Marisela Pena giving a sort of mission statement for the year. 2018 is the year of conquest for AAA, which will apparently including traveling to other countries and making TripleMania 26 the best one ever.

Fantamsa comes out first, poses in the center of the ring, and gets bat up by all three rudos. Psycho and Wagner actually hurry to the ring to help. The técnicos eventually make a comeback, but it doesn’t last long before the rudos to ever DQ offense they can think of, and eventually actually get that DQ. Escorpión hits security with a chair too. Vampiro shows up without music to stand and stare from the stage looking concerned. Wagner grabs the microphone to talk about how great Vampiro is, and then talks about the match between Hernandez versus Hijo de Wagner where the winning side gets to pick a stipulation. Vampiro finally comes to the ring, taunts the rudos and gets them to back off from beating up Psycho Clown. Vampiro gets bleeped a fair bit.

Cuervo & Scoria have new music. We get to hear only a little bit of it before they’re attacked on the way in by the clowns. This match was falls count anywhere, which took me by surprise. It also took Tirantes by surprise, since he had to rapidly scramble over the guardrail to count when they started trying for pins. It wasn’t mentioned in the graphic, and the announcers treat as information Vampiro has just passed on to them right as the pinfall is happening.

Just as it appears Cuervo is about to win, Psicosis & Histeria rush out to attack them. It is no DQ, so this time it’s at least legal. La Parka runs out of the save. The idea seemed to be he would break up the pin after Murder splashed both guys. Parka was slow, and so they kicked out instead. Parka hits all the rudos and Tirantes with a chair (Dave’s chair) and leaves the ring. The tecnicos try to finish off Murder off a second time, but Dave runs in and attacks. Parka beat him up too, before finally being dropkicked out by Parka. Parka lands on his feet fine.) Cuervo and Scoria clear out the Vipers and are immediately beat by the Clowns.

Los Vipers attack and unmask the Clowns after the match. Dave and Parka are too busy having a stare down to care.

Dave the Clown has taken a page from LA Park’s book carrying a personalized folding chair to the ring. There’s no explanation why Dave and Parka are partners and Dave doesn’t seem much bothered with helping Parka, though he does jump in to try to get a pin when he could get an easy win. Histeria’s allowed to use his bat without no problem. The Vipers eventually screw up, Parka does some horrendous offense. Dave tries to steal the pin, and Parka trips while trying to break it off. He gets back up and hits Dave with the chair, then walks out. Psicosis lands the senton right after.

Thoughts: 

The main event was the usual AAA main even brawl, ending super flat with the DQ finish. The DQ happened so suddenly that I assumed Vampiro was going to restart the match to let the técnicos do something. Instead, giving the fans something turned into just talking a lot. The brawl wasn’t so bad, for a promotion which does a lot of them, it just didn’t add up to much.

Skip the one. None of the matches are close to good. The only really notable thing is the Vipers making it a three way tag title feud, and that’s barely notable.

Someone laid out the tag team match with occasional exciting spots, but they match wasn’t smooth. Cuervo doing a leaping over the railing headscissors on Murder looked cool. The way they did it, with Murder going over the railing for no reason, clearing people out of the way, and standing still until Cuervo was ready to do the spot, was not cool. The latter tope spot at least has the plausibility of wrestling sequence. I’m not big fans of Cuervo or Scoria, though this was more the other guys fault. Murder & Monster are slow moving, slow on the uptake, and just kind of stiff – the sequence with Murder Clown getting pulled into an armbar was hard to watch. A good match would’ve been wasted by the overstuff ending, where they made it clear the Dave/Parka stuff is a much bigger deal.

The opener was always intended to be an angle and not a match. It was still a horrendous match! La Parka looked terrible the entire time in. That faceslam or whatever he lazily attempted looked horrendous. La Parka tripping seemingly over his own feet and Dave just staying on the pin to wait for him to come around again was absurd. Really, Dave getting pinned after getting no offense in on the Vipers (who were more than willing to sell 1 on 2 for Parka) make him look like even more of a nonentity than usual. No one cares more about their feud after that mess of a match. They should’ve just repeated something instead of showing this.

 

Recapped: 01/06/2018

This was the third of the annual three recap shows. The 12/23 show had matches from TripleMania (the ladder match, the four way tag match, and Wagner/Psycho.) The second show had matches from the other big shows (Rey de Reyes sword match, the Verano de Escandalo tag mask match, Ayako/Shani, and the Heroes Inmortales care match). This show focused on AAA’s charity efforts. They showed the Gold Guitar match from the Hard Rock show (which was used as charity) and the top three matches from the Luchando del Mexico show, which had not been aired previously.

The new matches were taped from Gimnasio Juan de la Barrera, on December 9^th. The arena had a different stage than usual, and they bathed the arena in a black/purple light.

Matches:

Joe Lider, Parka Negra, Súper Fly beat Aerostar, Drago, Raptor
(9:04, Super Fly springboard splash Raptor, ok, Lucha Libre AAA)

Dark Cuervo, Dark Scoria, La Parka beat Dave The Clown, Monsther Clown, Murder Clown  
(11:17, COR, below average, Lucha Libre AAA)

Hijo del Fantasma, Pagano, Psycho Clown beat Averno, Chessman, Texano Jr.
(18:28, Pagano pin Averno + Psycho pin Chessman, ok, via Lucha Libre AAA)

What happened: 

This is a show in Mexico City, so Fantasma (Sr.) is at ringside, and Texano taunts him while beating up his son, seemingly taking credit for his retirement. After 18 minutes of action, Tirantes slaps Fantasma in the back and grabs him, Texano kicks and gets Tirantes by mistake, Texano recovers and unmasks Fantasma, Fantasma fouls Texano and covers, and the rudos rush into break it up. Psycho and Pagano win with pinfalls on OGT and Averno ten seconds later.

Cuervo & Scoria are wresting in skeleton themed shirts underneath the straight jackets to match Parka, but we never get the big reveal because the rudos attack them first.

About 9 minutes in, with no explanation or provocation, Aerostar climbs a light tower. (He’s wearing a GoPro camera around his head as he climbs, which might be the reason. GoPro is a sponsor of this event.) No one is even outside when he does that. The announcers compare this to TripleMania, and it’s just like that in that they pretty much stop showing the match to shift to shots of Aerostar. The técnicos send the rudos out, send them around the corner teasing a dive, Scoria does dive and gets caught and dropped, and then Aerostar jumps onto everyone. (The camera is gone when we see Aerostar on the floor, he may have quickly pulled it off after he landed.) That feels like that should be a DQ, which Arturo Rivera points out at the announce table. The rudos never make it back in and are counted out.

Noti AAA focuses on the Guerra de Titanes card. All the matches are covered. Mundo/Wagner is hyped like there’s nothing strange going on there. There’s also the announcement that the Luchando de Mexico gate will be donated to charity, and a mention of Pagano’s injury.

Thoughts: 

The main event went forever, included Tirantes turning rudo about 15 seconds, and was not that interesting most of the time. All of these matches felt a bit in house show mode, which is really what this is for all three matches despite the TV cameras, though at least the Fantasma/Texano was a bit more intense. I never think Pagano is much good, but he seemed particularly bad in this match. He’s not good at being a técnico doing a lot of flashy moves and hopefully they take him back in his original direction next time we see him.

This Parka match is a setup to do a Go Pro stunt. We never see the video from the Go Pro angle, and the angle we do see shows Aerostar as a dark blob falling to the floor. There is no replay. It is never mentioned again after this show. It is dumb on every level. Even if Aerostar was totally willing and eager to do this stunt, someone with concern for his safety should’ve said no. The Clowns, once again, put up the best effort they could in catching, but could’ve been hurt in something that wasn’t worth more than 30 seconds of attention on this show. The match itself was nothing, maybe because they knew it wouldn’t matter much, and was overtaken by the stunt in the end anyway.

Nothing much going on in the opener. The rudos do the minimum on offense. They are there to set up the técnicos, but it’s not a big night of them. Nice to see Parka Negra, who’s just doing his Último Gladiador stuff in the gimmick now because who cares. Parka Negra was given a big introduction and build up for one that’s petered out gong nowhere, yet they still keep it around. It’s strange. So is Super Fly winning on a slingshot splash out of nowhere. It was made weirder by Tirantes turning away from the ring before the finish for no reason, as if he needed to avoid seeing a foul, but there was just foul.

Recapped: 12/21/2016

Matches: 

All matches were taped in Arena Xalapa on 12/02

Eslabón Perdido, Poseidón, Rey Infierno beat Cosmos, Kid Lobo, Samuray
(9:28, good, via thecubsfan)

Ángel Mortal Jr., Chicano, Pardux beat Angelikal, Fetiche, Hijo Del Vikingo 
(6:21, Chicano gutwrench powerbomb Angelikal, ok, via Lucha Libre AAA)

Argenis, Estrella Divina, Faby Apache, Lady Shani beat Australian Suicide, Goya Kong, Hahastary, Mamba
(10:19, Argenis Canadian Destroyer Suicide, ok, Lucha Libre AAA)

Bengala & Big Mami beat La Hiedra & Villano III Jr.
(5:21, Big Mami splash Villano III Jr., below average, via Lucha Libre AAA)

What happened:

Early in the show, Big Mami is looking for Niño Hamburguesa when Hernandez stops her. Hernandez hits on Big Mami, wanting her to team with him instead. Big Mami pretends to be interested for a second before turning him down and continuing her search. Checking another room, she’s jumped from behind by Villano III Jr. He suffocates her with a towel while La Hiedra takes Big Mami’s blue mixed title belt. She hands it to Hernandez, who calls someone, implies he or they took out Hamburguesa too, and tells the mystery person that they have the belt. It’s unclear who he’s talking to, though Hernandez’ only known friend in the promotion is Mundo.

The 2v2 match is billed as Hiedra & Villano III Jr. vs Niño Hamburguesa & Big Mami for the mixed tag titles, and Niño Hamburguesa’s music plays for his team. Bengala shows up instead, explaining Niño Hamburguesa is not there and no one can find Big Mami. Bengala proposes a triangle match with him and the rudos. They say no, then attack Bengala anyway, and they blow the whistle to start the match.

After about four minutes, when the rudos finally have their acts together, there’s a split screen to Hernandez finding and waking Big Mami backstage. Mami jolts to life, and Hernandez ushers her towards the ring. Big Mami hurrying to the ring is the first thing to get a reaction. Even thought his was a three way match, she’s allowed to get involved. She quickly takes out the rudos, and most of the time in the match involves her slow climb to the the rope for the finishing splash on Villano III.

Faby remembers she hates Hijo del Tirantes during this match, but it goes nowhere. Late in the match, Goya does her usual dive, but oddly onto Mamba, Hahastary and Divina, which leaves Suicide 1 on 3. He fights off Argenis with a backdrop off the top rope, and somehow moves just in time for Shani to give Faby a backcracker by mistake. Argenis still gets in a Destroy for the win.

Faby gets back up, spins Shani around, and punches in the face for the backcracker She almost goes after Argenis too when he gets involved, but walks out as the announcers remember they have a title match coming up. Shani sells the one punch like she needs medical treatment (while the doctor actually checks on Suicide, who later appeared to be goofing around.)

Fetiche is a masked Llave de la Gloria finalist, but one who was had only been seen in TripleMania matches (and he was in the bad one) to this point. About seven minutes into the opener, Mr. Aguila & Kahn-Del-Mal come to ringside. Fetiche quickly betrays Angelikal, crotching him on the ropes as he goes for a moonsault, and points to the Perros del Mal. They’ve helped Pardux up on the outside, and wave for Fetiche to join them. Angelikal recovers enough to stand up, but is Chicano grabs him from behind and finishes him. Fetiche and Parudx come back in to stomp Angelikal and Vikingo, and Angle Mortal and Chicano join in. It’s unclear who, or if everyone, is supposed to be with the Perros del Mal at this moment- Chicano looks happily surprised in a way where I keep expecting the Perros to attack him too, but the rudos just leave vaguely together.

Vampiro’s interview this week is with Hahastary. Hahastary talks about the significance of her name (she’s a warrior.) Vampiro, who ends up on talking just about as much as the guest does in giving a long pep speech at the end, tells her not to set any limits for how he she can go (not settling for just having made it to AAA) and that she can be a good role model for girls even while being a ruda. This didn’t push anything forward but it did give fans something to know about Hahastary.

While most of the big names do not appear in action on the show, it does start with promos from Texano, Dave, Fantasma and La Parka to talk about what happened with them in Juarez and build to them facing off at Guerra de Titanes. The Texano promo is reused for a Guerra de Titanes promo going into every break.

This is likely Goya Kong’s last TV appearance for the time being; she broke her right leg on a dive out of the ring on the earthqauke benefit show, in a clip shown and then shown again in slow motion as part of Noti AAA. An update with her at home appears to show she’s had four screws put in her legs. She talks about her condition and AAA helping her. A full highlight package of the Luchando del Mexico show is shown afterwards, as well as Marisela Pena announcing the entire ticket proceeds would go to repair schools. There’s also video of the AAA celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Thoughts:

There was no heat for the mixed tag that wasn’t, with everyone just totally confused as what to was going on. The story as currently told on TV doesn’t make much sense: Villano & Hiedra wanted the mixed tag titles before (nearly breaking up over not getting them), want the title match when they get to the ring but in the meantime have taken out Big Mami and given the belts to Hernandez as if they didn’t want them. Their motivations don’t make sense and they look foolish during the action. It feels like half the match is Villano III Jr. hitting la Hiedra by mistake to no reaction. This is a pattern on this show: maybe this will make sense later when we get part two or three of this story, but AAA has dropped too many stories to care about them. The match itself wasn’t much.

The opening trios wasn’t one of the stronger Llave matches Hijo del Vikingo had a bad day, messing up his first big spot and coming down knees first on poor Angel Mortal. Angelikal outshined him here easily. The finish was random and only works if it they go somewhere. I think I’m not as concerned about harming the name of Perros del Mal as most – they had all sort of random people in when they were running their own group – but I think most will feel differently. In the bigger picture, it’d be nice to have any sort of direction for these guys, but I’m not trusting AAA to remember this direction when they next show up on TV two months from now. Pardux, walking around in Strong Style gear, is an amusing pick for a replacement Perros del Mal – they used to have one those strong style guys! He didn’t seem to get to show much strong style in this match, though the rudos were good at throwing the técnicos high up in the air.

The dark match was an unexpected bonus. I almost gave up on uploading it after having problems on the first try, but I’m glad I figured it out. These Xalapa regulars worked well together, with the rudos – especially Poseidon – coming off as really good bases for the técnicos. The técnico showcase match to start is really the highlights, it slows a bit down with the rudos in control, but the dives are fun too. It felt like a more complete match that most regular AAA matches.

The mixed match was a very average match, but – just like the opener – they at least had a direction coming out of it. Australian Suicide stood out more with comedy than the highspots, but there wasn’t much way to work his highspots here. Actually, the ring that stood out most was Suicide wearing “ADIOS” shorts in a year where a lot of people have said ADIOS to AAA. Hahastary doing the Aerostar like springboard reverse tope to the floor was unexpected and cool. I’ve always believed Mamba is a person with good fashion sense but the blue hair going on in this match may cause me to reevaluate everything.

Recapped: 12/16/17

All matches were taped in Gimnasio Municipal Josué Neri Santos, Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua on 11/19/2017.

Matches: 

Dark Cuervo, Dark Scoria, Pagano beat Marty The Moth, Monsther Clown, Murder Clown
(8:16, Pagano Noa Noa Driver, Marty, ok, via Lucha Libre AAA)

Hijo del Fantasma beat Rey Escorpión for the AAA Latin American Championship
(13:09, Phantom Driver, good, via Lucha Libre AAA)

Hernandez & Johnny Mundo vs Dr. Wagner Jr. & Hijo del Dr. Wagner Jr.
(17:33, Mundo Fin de Mundo Dr. Wagner, ok, via Lucha Libre AAA)

What happened:

Announcers talk about Heranndez and Mundo being the new Gringos Locos in their match. End game of the main event has Hernandez puling Wagner out and giving him a shoulderbreaker on the floor. Mundo fouls Hijos, drops him with the moonsault drive, and pretty much whiffs on the Fin de Mundo but that’s the finish anyway.

Fantasma connects on the Flecha Negra about ten minutes in, after going for it earlier but Escorpión moving out of the way before he could. Fantasma gets back up on the apron, only for Texano to run out and hit him in the back of the head with the lasso. (Tirantes watches it, but he’s back to being evil this week.) Texano gives Fantasma the Texano Driver. Escorpión isn’t sure about it, but goes for and connect on the top rope legdrop, only for Fantasma to kick out. Tirantes holds Fantasma for an Escorpión lasso punch. Psycho Clown’s music starts to play and stops, distracting the fans but not the wrestlers, who must know that wasn’t his cue. Escorpion punches Tirantes by mistake. The music starts up again, and now Psycho Clown comes out. Psycho Cleans house, Fantasma gives Escorpión the Thrill of the Kill (called the Phantom Driver here), and Tirantes come back in to count a fair three count.

Security has a slow first step, so Pagano is mobbed by Juarez fans the moments he steps out on the entrance. Cuervo & Scoria have new music and a new look, so they’re not giving up yet. They’re also attacked by the Clowns (which explains why Pagano entered before them.) As always, Marty wears Casaus gear, the graphic lists him as Marty the Moth, and the announcers call him Marty the Shaman. The announcers do finally mention the Monster High nickname Vampiro has been using for this group for months (presented here as an Arturo Rivera idea.)

After about five minutes, Dave the Clown wanders to ringside to help his friends by throwing a chair at Pagano. La Parka hobbles to ringside with music, and goes after Dave. They kind of disappear until the match is over. Pagano kneels in front of Parka and shakes his hands, which causes the announcers to scream “VAMPIRO” because of course.

We last saw Texano with the Latin American belt. Fantasma has it here, with the idea that Vampiro made Texano give it back off screen (and that AAA belatedly decided they couldn’t really have this title match unless Fantasma actually had the belt.)

Thoughts: 

Fantasma/Escorpion was one of the better AAA matches of the year, definitely among the best singles match. AAA still had to spend the last couple minutes of it making it clear that the matches we actually are supposed to want to see are Fantasma/Texano and Escorpión/Psycho and it took away from the finish here. I did like that they gave Fantasma a kickout on his own before Psycho made the save. The music cue being screwed up was amusing, as was Psycho obviously telling Escorpión to roll out of the corner so he could do his dive. Escorpión & Fantamsa built the action well on their own and it would’ve been better if they got to finish it on their own, but this match wasn’t the priority.

The main event was slower paced than a usual AAA match. You can skip the first eight minutes without feeling like you missed anything, and then the next even minutes are the rudos slowly working over Hijo. It does work, in that the crowd gets loud for a moment when Papa tags in, but it’s a long time to get there and it doesn’t get that much interesting when they’re there. Hijo de Wagner was fine in his big chance, but didn’t really come across as a star. Hernandez taking Wagner’s cutter as a back bump was weird, and Mundo probably should’ve redone his finish because they AAA couldn’t hide the miss.

The trios match was a decent encounter to give the Juarez fans the Pagano they had come there to see. It seemed like they might be taking away from his spotlight with the loud La Parka run in, but Pagano still got the moment at the end. I was distracted by AAA seemingly changing camera angles during every move – Scoria’s thru the ropes tornillo is unwatchable, sadly. The match itself was just about the level you’d expect but with a far hotter crowd than usual. They might have waited until the rudos got a win to try to get over the Monster High nickname. Given this crew, it’s possible they’ve been trying to get that name over for months and this just happened to be the week they remembered to do it. They’re not detailed oriented.

Noti AAA includes luchadors singing Christmas songs at a charity event. They also had a meal with make a wish children. The Luchando Por Mexico event is hyped.

Recapped: 12/12/2017

All matches were taped at Gimnasio Municipal Josué Neri Santos, Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua on 11/19/2017 

Matches: 

Lady Shani beat Venus in a mask vs mask match
(7:32, backcracker, ok, via thecubsfan)

Faby Apache beat La Hiedra and Big Mami to earn a shot at AAA’s Reina de Reinas championship
(5:30, Faby German suplex La Hiedra, ok, via Lucha Libre AAA)

Averno & Súper Fly beat Aerostar & Drago and Argenis & Bengala and Carta Brava Jr. & Tito Santana
(10:02, Averno pin Carta Brava, ok, via Lucha Libre AAA)

La Parka beat Dave The Clown
(7:05, fujiwara armbar, bad, via Lucha Libre AAA)

What happened: 

Hijo del Tirantes, who’s been impartial on this show and all of them of late, helps out Dave during the main event. Dave sells the arm as if been ripped from it’s socket after the finish. Marty runs in after the fact to attack Parka. Suddenly, Dave’s arm is fine. They leave Parka laid out and take his boot.

Copetes is busy checking on everyone after some dives, so Chessman runs in and smacks Carta with a chain to give Averno the win. Somehow, Carta needs a stretcher after taking the chain to the face.

Vampiro has a sit down interview with Averno. Averno feels he’s at his best moment in his career and that OGT will be the best in 2018. Averno and Vampiro talk about Averno being part of the search for new talent. Vampiro also talks to Bengala. Vampiro asks about how he interrupts his version of Bengala, which closer than usual in acknowledging this isn’t the original guy. Bengala talks about trying to personalize the character to separate himself from all the other lucha cats. Vampiro asks what he’s needing to stick out, and Bengala is looking for a big rivalary. Vampiro asks if a feud or winning is more important; Bengala seems to note winning is the point of wrestling, but if you have a good rivalry, people are less concerned about you losing. Averno is the better talker of the two, but neither man had a lot relevant to say.

Noti AAA focused on AAA announcing their earthquake victim benefit show.

The mask match appeared only on the long version of the AAA show. Chari shots are apparently legal. Shani is apparently supposed to blade off the chair shot, but has some sort of problem. Venus takes her outside and hits here with the chair again, then Tirantes cuts Shani while supposedly checking on her (with Shani’s legs kicking around as it happens.). Shani doesn’t end up bleeding all that much, even with Venus attacking the cut. They later tease putting Shani on a stretcher for a knee injury and counting her out, but she gets off and comes back in before 20. Venus does give her name, but I can’t actually make it out.

Thoughts:

La Parka/Dave the Clown was as bad as expected. There are matches with more technical faults than this one, but only because they didn’t try anything at all in this match. Dave didn’t do anything. Parka couldn’t do anything. They had Tirantes going back to being a rudo just to help out the match, but what would’ve really helped him out was not doing the match. This felt a lot longer the seven minute it took because nothing much but occasional bad brawling took place. I’m unconvinced anything with Marty is going anywhere; this just felt like they needed a way to get him on the card after flying him in.

The four way tag match was all action and really good action at that, so I had no problem with it at all. It was pretty fast paced, maybe too fast to allow anything to develop and I don’t know that much sunk in with me, but I enjoyed watching it. The format also let them hide people a little better – I don’t think Bengala did all that much here, which makes sense given his one arm. Carta & Tito are really effective team. It’s too bad they have this nice giant crane camera and still couldn’t find a way to get Aerostar’s dive in the frame. (They did use it nicely for his entrance.) They did get Super Fly’s nice moonsault. This as good a match that’s come out of these four teams trios feud in a while.

The women’s match was fine for six minutes of action. Faby looked much better than the other two. The crowd enjoys Big Mami. I don’t know what happened on the Devil’s Wings almost going bad, but it did result in Faby slapping Hiedra in the back of the head. Hiedra got folded up nicely on the finish.

The mask match is the same story as the Lanzeloth/Suicide title match, where Suicide controlled most of the match and then was just suddenly pinned. Lanzeloth looked more impressive in that than this. I don’t think they did either women favors with doing the stretcher spot and the chair stuff; they were working overly hard to sell Venus was going to win, but no was going to buy it and it just made for a less entertaining match. Venus really didn’t come all that close to winning – her closest win is Shani being carried away for a knee injury, not trapping Shani in a knee attacking hold and Shani desperately reaching for the ropes – and I have no idea if this was just the most she could do. Shani could’ve used the help of a wildly seen mask win, but this didn’t feel like a big deal and it’s no loss not to make the big show. Still might have been worth cutting together 20 or 30 seconds as highlight, if only to help fill time on the rest of the show (which seemed to be stretching.)

Recapped: 12/08/2017

All matches were taped in Auditorio Instituto Queretano San Javier, Querétaro, Querétaro on 11/03/2017. There was a dark match I wasn’t interested in watching.

Matches: 

Dr. Wagner Jr. beat Pagano, Hernandez, and Mr. Águila to earn a shot at the AAA World Heavyweight Championship at Guerra de Titanes
(7:31, Wagner flapjack Hernandez, ok, via Lucha Libre AAA)

Averno, Chessman, Súper Fly © defeated Carta Brava Jr., Mocho Cota Jr., Soul Rocker vs  for the AAA World Trios Championship
(10:13, Averno Devi’s Wings Carta Brava, ok, Lucha Libre AAA)

Rey Escorpión beat Texano Jr., Psycho Clown to become #1 contender for the AAA Latin American Championship
(7:23, Rey Escorpión foul Psycho Clown, ok, via Lucha Libre AAA)

What happened: 

Psycho enters last, to make it easier for both rudos to attack him as he’s parading around the ring. As with every two rudos on one técnico match ever, Texano & Escorpión get along until it comes time to decide who wins. Psycho gets the advantage when the bullrope spot goes wrong. The match magically turns into a one on one from there.

Finishes sees Escorpión pull Tirantes away after Texano’s hit his finish on Psycho, then circle around the ring to sneak in and foul Psycho as Tirantes looks outside the ring for no reason. Texano throws Escorpión out and covers Psycho for the win. Arturo Rivera says Escorpión is now the challenger for the cruiserweight title, and at least Jesus Zuniga immediately corrects him on that.

Psycho attacks Escorpión the ramp and dives onto him into the crowd, which the cameras struggle to catch – Psycho dives into nothingness. Texano stats to cut a promo in the ring when Fantasma’s music interrupts, and Texano caught off guard by Fantamsa coming thru the crowd to attack him. Tirantes tops Fantasma from using a chair in the attack for some reason, allowing Texano to grab the title and get away.

OGT come out first, get some chairs, and sit waiting for Poder del Norte to come to the ring. Poder del Norte decide to charge the ring. Averno & Chessman kick them, while Chessman just grabs his chair and hits Mocho Cota Jr. with it.

Late in the match, Carta Brava sends Chessman into referee Copetes to take him out. Mascara de Bronce and Argenis run into attack for no obvious reason, taking out both team. Bengala watches from the stage, then sneaks in to face Cota. Cota turns the tables on him, then runs into Avenro Devils Wings. Super Fly sends Copetes back in the ring to count three.

Poder del Norte go to the back while OGT celebrate their win. After a couple moments, there’s a cut backstage where Argenis, Bengala and Mascara de Bronce are already down and Poder del Norte are standing near them with chairs. Raptor, Aerostar and Drago show up as they cut in, and both sides throw chairs back and forth.

This opener is Mr. Aguila’s surprise return to the promotion (after a cameo at TripleMania.) He’s a replacement for Marty and wrestling as Perros del Mal rep. The match is originally a tag match, but Vampiro makes a four way match before the start, where the winner will get a title shot at Johnny Mundo in 2018 at Guerra de Titanes. They still work it like a tag match, with guys standing on the apron waiting for tags instead of all four people in the ring at the same time.

Hernandez is close beating Dr. Wagner when Hijo del Dr. Wagner runs in and attacks Hernandez from behind. Tirantes looks away from the ring for no particular reason. Wagner wins with a flapjack this time. Mr. Aguila and Pagano get up to fight on the stage, and Aguila throws him off into rows of empty chairs. He gets back up to the ramp after some time, and the Wagners attack him for no real reason. I have no idea.

Polvo de Estrellas, who has not had a televised AAA match since October 25, 2014, is a celebrity acting in a play. Marisela Pena, OGT and the Traidor Clowns are shown coming to the play. This goes a minute. A segment hyping the Xalapa taping goes about 20 seconds.

Thoughts: 

Three way matches are really tough to make interesting and this didn’t have anything to offer that wasn’t boring the last five times I saw it. Escorpión was the most interesting, but barely soon, and this just seemed to be killing time for that finish. Texano, who thinks he should have the Latin American title, seems like he should be much more upset about being cheated his title chance they he seemed here. The post match made the statement that the match was pointless – Fantasma/Texano is the match that matters, not Escorpion getting a title shot. It was at least good that they ended the show with something beside a Wagner or Psycho feud.

I kinda of liked the trios title match up until the overbooked finish. I guess they didn’t want Poder del Norte to lose again clean, but then they probably should’ve just not booked this match, instead of booking people to run in for not any explained reason. (The técnicos were attacking both teams indiscriminately. It was just an excuse.) Poder del Norte seemed very into this match and showed a lot of energy thru out, and the brawling feel of this match was a nice counter point to last week’s técnico/técnico match. I wish they could’ve aired the same week to better draw out that comparison. One thing I’ve noticed is it seems easier to spot the tropes that are way over done from the outside than for the guys in the match. The stacked up superplex is my current pet peeve, but I’m sure the triple pin attempt by Poder del Norte on big moves following it was supposed to be a climatic near fall. Only, the fans barely reacted, because these matches have taught them they’re never ending with three guys getting pinned at the same time. There’s a lot of stuff used for two count reactions like that which don’t get them because they’ve been used only for those reactions too many times, and I don’t think the crowd ever had a moment where they thought the champs were going to retain their titles.

At least the four way was short. All of Pagano’s moves look so ugly. He and Aguila have a bad looking sequence about four minutes in which makes me wonder what I’m doing. I know Pagano must be over because no one this bad who’s not related to someone would be pushed as hard as he is otherwise. I think Mr. Aguila is a good addition but he didn’t really show anything here that would prove it, and the hug plunge thru table was not so great. Hernandez did a great superman dive, which they showed from as far way as possible. Thinking about all the people AAA didn’t go with as hard as they could’ve and then watching Hijo de Dr. Wagner get a big push is hard.