AAA on Televisa: 2016-04-02 (Rey de Reyes part 1)

everyone lived
everyone lived

Recapped: 04/02/16

What happened: Texano, as a pseudo-tecnico, won the heavyweight championship. Averno & Chessman retained the tag team championship.

What was good: The TLC match was the best match on the show. The heavyweight match was alright but the context hurt it.

Where can I watch it: It’s on AAA’s channel.

It may be meaningless, but Hijo del Fantasma is still in the open for this show. Upcoming show plugs include Wagner/Psycho for DF.

The show begins with an in-ring tribute to Perro Aguayo, with a giant picture of him, flowers, and the Perros del Mal. (All five, with Kahn Del Mal.) Pentagon dedicates Rey de Reyes to Perro. Everyone gets a chance to talk. Most of the roster comes out the ring, many in Perros tribute shirts come out for a moment of applause. Ayako Hamada appears to be part of the group. Some wrestlers (Mini Psycho Clown) wear normal Perros del Mal shrits during the show, and staff members are wearing a “Staff del Mal” shirt.

Match 1: Faby Apache, Máscarita Sagrada, Octagón Jr., Pimpinela Escarlata vs Mamba, Mini Psycho Clown, Taurus, Taya
Plaza de Toros Monumental El Paseo, San Luis Potosí, San Luis Potosí, 03/23/2016 
Video: +LuchaTVluchalibreaaatv

Winner: técnicos (Octagon Jr. 450 splash Mamba)
Match Time: 11:37
Notes: Pimpi is in a wedding dress, and they kill a lot of time with Pimpi trying to kiss Leo Riano.

Review: [ok] slightly better match, but really the same Relevos AAA match we see every other week with a couple extra dives at the end. All the spots seemed to go ok, Tirantes was less involved than usual, and the crowd was into it, but this seemed too familiar for me. Octagon Jr. being in an opener and being introduced before Faby and Pimpi makes him come off as a new midcard gimmick character, which they could’ve done with Flamita. They’ve got ot be careful how they position him if this character is important to them and not just a lawsuit maneuver. Fenix, who’s not treated super great, still would be the biggest star in this sort of match and the person the match was built around. Octagon Jr. was used no different than Argenis, but wrestled much better than Argenis.

20160403aaa_match1_1
bull charge is bad news
20160403aaa_match1_2
all the highlights are Taurus highlights

Match 2: Averno & Chessman © vs Daga & Joe Lider and Argenis & Australian Suicide [TLC] and for the AAA World Tag Team Championship
Plaza de Toros Monumental El Paseo, San Luis Potosí, San Luis Potosí, 03/23/2016 
Video: luchalibreaaatv+LuchaTV

Winner: Averno & Chessman (Chessman powerbomb Australian Suicide)
Match Time: 14:30 (4:58+9:32)
Notes: Argenis is a replacement for Jack Evans, who had food poisoning. The announcers talk about Jack Evans, but don’t actually seem to mention this.

Review: [great] I can’t believe I’m rating this high, because it had also felt a inseperable than every time they do this, with any storyline they had coming into this match being dropped in exchange for the usual three way fighting, and I’m not a huge fan of this style. Still, I think all the big spots came off really well, and they actually built to a finish – Chessman was the winner because he was the last man last alive. The really big spots near the leading into that came off superb, and there weren’t many moments where every looked dumb prior to it. (I looked dumb; I just assumed this was a belts hanging TLC match and couldn’t understand why people were going for pinfalls for the longest time.) This was instead just a plunder match, but setting up big spots – or maybe the editing helped a bit – didn’t over take the match. I think Suicide was the star of the match, with both the moonsault ladder press and the bit with Daga at the end. Joe Lider was secret hero of this match by actually understanding how a metal ladder works (it extends!) and saving Daga from doing being dumb. The table bump he and Averno took was crazy and it’s no surprise at least on one of them needed help after that. I would’ve really liked them to spend not 8 minutes instead of 10 minutes on introductions and use those extra 2 minutes for after the match. They cut away from that match far too soon to sell the damage

laddersault
laddersault
this seems not fun
this seems not fun
ladder Destroyer
ladder Destroyer

The UTDN/YouTube segment is a video package on Texano/Mesias and a replay of the tag match that set this up.

Match 3: El Mesías vs Texano Jr. for the AAA World Heavyweight Championship
Plaza de Toros Monumental El Paseo, San Luis Potosí, San Luis Potosí, 03/23/2016 
Video: +LuchaTVluchalibreaaatv

Winner: Texano (sit down powerbomb)
Match Time: 12:19
Notes: Mesias and Texano do promos before the match, setting up Texano as the patriotic rudo against the arrogant foreigner Mesias. Mesias worked more rudo and Texano more técnico during the match.

Review: [good] They worked hard and this would’ve been a well-remembered match in other circumstances, but it was hurt a lot by the big crowd making relatively little noise. Texano randomly turning técnico before the match was hilarious, but it was easy to play off patriotism and the crowd bought into it at first. These guys lost them somehow – it was the last match on a long show with a cold angle, maybe somehow isn’t the right word – and a match built around big moves for near falls didn’t get much reaction for those spots. This was a lot of stuff that was good, but needed an extra flavor to make up for the lack of interest going into it and really just didn’t have it. This might be more worth watching with the sound down.

new (old) champ
new (old) champ