taped 2014-08-17 @ Arena Ciudad de Mexico, Ciudad de México, Distrito Federal
so many gifs
Aerostar, Jennifer Blake, Mascarita Sagrada, Pimpinela Escarlata vs Mamba, Mini Abismo Negro, Sexy Star, Súper Fly: [GOOD] Watched this via the screen capture recording, which cut out a few spots I knew I saw live – it was a much better version in full and that’s the one you want to track down. Very planned out feeling match (not just for the announcers, but the truck knew which camera they were supposed to be on even before the moves happened), but it made for some really good action for however long it lasted. The series of Super Fly diving out of the ring and Jennifer following with her dive was strong. Mamba seemed not to be in this match, but maybe it was just lost in the feed drop outs.
Angélico vs Hijo del Fantasma, Australian Suicide, Fénix, Bengala, Jack Evans, Joe Lider, Pentagón Jr., Daga ©, Bengala for the AAA World Cruiserweight Championship: [GREAT] Pretty fun insane spot fest which would possibly have be better if not for the moments where people were semiconscious. Everyone got their moment in the match without rushing things; they managed to give all the eliminations some time to build them up and avoided guys just being dropped after one move. There were a ton of highlight spots, exactly the point of this match, but the spots felt earned and not forced in to do something. They were clearly going all out for the biggest show of the year but the match held together while.
You did have to ignore the fact that a lot of people in the match were just standing around the ring and watching – after the dives around 6 minutes in, everything was usually one on one with everyone else waiting their turn. They made sure to stay off camera so you only noticed if you stopped to think about it, but I wonder if it would’ve looked more silly live or if there was just enough going on to distract from it. It’s always like this in multiman matches, but there’s usually not this many men, and it meant some people disappeared from the match for long stretches. Daga had a six minute break in this match. Fenix seemed to go even longer.
Fenix made up for it by being the focus of the match, intentionally or not. He was star of the match for a big stretch in the middle, but also clearly knocked loopy by Bengala’s kick. Fenix probably should’ve been pulled out of the match, but his body on auto pilot somehow kept him from getting any more hurt. I’m not sure if it kept Bengala from being hurt; taking that kind of piledriver from Fenix at the moment was suicidal. (I’m not sure if the phantom handspring cutter happened because Fenix forgot what he was supposed to do, or if Fantasma forgot.) Fenix collapsed on the apron as soon as he was done, but he was back to posting photos of himself on Twitter so hopefully he was okay. Pentagon Jr. also seemed like he picked up a hip injury; he rolled out of the ring in the middle of series of moves and was limping for a while. Australian Suicide banged his head hard on the floor on his reverse 630 senton dive (?), but seemed okay and pulled off a nice Shooting Star Press lately.
Fantasma was pretty crucial to this match, helping Pentagon Jr. with the rudo spots in the middle and getting in his bigger spots near the end. He did weirdly seem to have problems with his mask, adjusting it while fighting Angelico. The format made Fantasma come off more like a survivor than a winner – that was the only elimination he got – but I’d be excited to see him in singles defense should AAA actually book any of those.
Drago seemed to bail on either a Spanish Fly or another Lider Death Valley Driver. That seemed like a smart idea. That first DVD got not much reaction, but the crowd always seemed distant in this building (at least on TV.) Bengala looked much sharper, maybe too sharp for Fenix, but a promising sign. Enjoyed Angelico expanding his usual comeback clothesline spot to the longest series of clotheslines possible. Enjoyed more how Jack, Angelico and Suicide didn’t fight when there wasn’t any need for them to do so, and instead worked together (like a team!) to take out everyone else.
Jack walking on his hands down the ramp was very happy for him. Daga and Pentagon murdering Jack was very sad. Daga didn’t seem to get a lot here, but was good with he had, and the series of moves to eliminate Fenix was awesome. Drago and Jack had some good chemistry; that seems like a fun match we might never see.
If you’re doing title histories at home, Jesus Zuniga declared this was a match for a new championships, suggesting that Daga’s title was the AAA Cruiserweight Championship and this was the AAA World Cruiserweight Championship. That doesn’t seem to match what they’ve said before and it scarcely matters, but I’ve got all this dead space next to the gifs so I might as well use it. The new belt did have the new logo, which might mean new belts with new logos for everyone, except the Mixed Tag one Pentagon Jr. was carrying appeared to be from a couple logo ago.
Faby Apache © vs Taya Valkyrie in a AAA’s Reina de Reinas Tournament match: [OK] Watching a match to figure out when someone’s nose breaks is a weird way to watch a match. Taya double knees Faby hard early, then Faby high kicks Taya soon after. The blood doesn’t start to turn up for a couple minutes later, but Taya rolls out, checks her self, and then checks her nose again right before Faby slaps her. Blood really stats coming after that. Faby’s wasn’t at all concerned enough to stop attacking Taya’s face. (AAA replays believe it was a later kick.) Taya’s lost of oxygen causes Faby’s tornado DDT to go round, adni t’s clear from there they have a match with a lot of spots planned out and either are skipping them or are slowly setting them up. Taya escaping Faby’s armscissors with a powerbomb was impressive, which we got more of that and maybe that was the idea. Taya’s moonsault is not getting any better and she landed right on her face. Faby was Faby but this wasn’t near her best. I counted two spots where Tirantes cost Faby the win, two more where it was questionable, and Taya’s win was on a slightly fast count. It seemed like more than live, but match was OK on the replay.
Blue Demon Jr. vs El Mesías, Electroshock, Averno, La Parka, Chessman in a a cage match: [OK] A lucha cage match. Most of the guys escaping in no time made the whole thing look more like a joke, but it was a lucha cage match so it’s tough to make it more of a joke. I think the La Parka escaping in seconds via untied shoe bit was a designed comedy spot but it also came off as totally random. The boot saw more action than La Parka did. I’m assuming Averno was originally supposed to be in the four way and not this, but he wasn’t much in this either. Chessman doing the dive during the entrance was about as dumb as Chessman’s done, and that’s a long list. The easiest way to tell Mesias isn’t all the way back is the one on one with Electroshock only went seven minutes, not seventeen minutes. Or maybe they were actually short on time. It was for the better, it didn’t drag like previous Mesias cage matches and crowd was in to the near escapes.
Psycho Clown vs Texano Jr., hair/mask: [GREAT] A story of two different matches, cut just about in the middle. The first part was about doing gory things to each other to get a reaction from the crowd. Stabbing someone in the forehead with a fork is actually probably safer than some of the stuff doing in the cruiserweight match, much less later in the match, but it feels much more savage. That first part had all the annoying parts of the previous matches, with coipius interference, heavy bledeing as psuedo-drama, biased referees, and then it all just went away about half way in. Second half of the match, after the referee change, was an AAA approximation of a CMLL big match – they checked off the cavernaria before long. They did the big spots but kept the pace from dragging in between them, and the fans really bought into the Schwein and the Destroyer as near falls. I thought the superbomb was the right moment to end it, but they brought back up bigger for the finish. This match was a strong way to peak the feud.
Spanish announcers seemed better on this show. Maybe my strong dislike for the English announcing – Vampiro was much more entertaining reacting on camera than talking – but Arturo seemed to be much more in tune with the product. Jesus even did a good job of emphasizing how Texano finally survived the Destroyer after many times of taking it.
Myzteziz vs el Hijo del Perro Aguayo, Cibernético, Dr. Wagner Jr. [Copa TripleMania XXII]: [OK] Crowd seemed strangely quiet, maybe burnt out, for a fair portion of this match. It really seemed like it should be an exciting thing with the weird matches up – randomly rudo Cibernetico versus Myzteziz was a thing to see – but the energy wasn’t really there. Dr. Wagner was here, but wasn’t the Dr. Wagner off previous years. The cut was bugging him (and he wanted to make sure we knew he was hurt to have an excuse), but he couldn’t get himself or the crowd going as strong as those other appearances. I thought for a second he was going to be beat by everyone’s finisher one after another, but instead Wagner & son just got chokeslammed to oblivion. Wagner’s section with Myzteziz was the best part of the match before he left. Perro/Myzteziz was a tease of old times, though I don’t remember Perro escaping La Mistico so easily in those old days. Perro got the glory of the win, but Myzteziz was kind of amazing to see a guy who quit a match on a slight finger injury be covered in blood and still fighting here.
