Recapped: 07/10/2016
What happened: Pagano beat Psycho Clown again. Pentagon Jr. (winning a three way tag match) and Dr. Wagner (beating Mesias) won title shots in underwhelming fashion.
What was good: I liked the trios title match and didn’t have a lot of time for the rest.
Where can I watch it: It’s all on AAA’s channel, including exclusive matches.
Mesias starts the show of the ring for general Trump praising and crowd criticizing. It turns out that Dr. Wagner is just like all these ugly people. They prompt the crowd to cheer for Wagner, and they do! And then Wagner comes out a beat late. Wagner playing to the crowd goes longer than Mesias’ promo, of course. Wagner’s wearing an open chin mask, exposing a gray beard which makes him seem much older than usual. Wagner’s microphone has some annoying feedback, but the point he gets around to is he’s going to reclaim the heavyweight belt at TripleMania. Mesias explains all the ways he’s better than Wagner and challenges Wagner to fight now. Wagner is OK with that idea, but the security (who’ve been hovering around Wagner since he came out) stop him. One edit later, Wagner is gone and Mesias finishes his promo.
Match 1: Damián 666 & Nicho el Millionario vs Joe Lider & Pentagón Jr. and Monsther Clown & Murder Clown
Arena Naucalpan, 06/16/2016
Video: thecubsfan, luchalibreaaatv
Winner: Perros del Mal (Pentadriver)
Match Time: 6:01
Notes: Psycho Clown enters with his partners, much to the annoyance of the rudo announcers. Psycho talks about his match with Pagano later and talks up the Naucalpan fans. Pentagon interrupts to challenge Psycho, and says if he believes in Monster & Murder so much, he should give Pentagon a title shot when he beats them. Psycho sort of goes with this. Pentagon attacks Monster to start the match. Match is worked with two teams facing off and a third team resting. Nicho & Damian are part of it early, but vanish late and eventually get knocked over the barricade by Murder. Lider tries to dive onto all of them and comes up a little short. Pentagon beats Monster for the win.
Review: [ok] Totally stunning how little time this got. They nearly had more people in the match than minutes it lasted, though I’m not sure more time would’ve made it better. Nicho & Damian had one of their easiest nights in years, and it wasn’t much harder for most everyone else. Joe Lider was the exception – he’s really taken his death wish up a notch in the last few months and I’m starting to get concerned. Right guy won anyway.
Match 2: Dr. Wagner Jr. vs El Mesías
Arena Naucalpan, 06/16/2016
Video: mluchatv, luchalibreaaatv, thecubsfan
Winner: Dr. Wagner (Mesias DQ for mask pull)
Match Time: 8:37
Notes: Mesias is wearing his Muerte Cibernetica mask again. Texano comes to the ring before the match, explaining he’s sick of Mesias’ talking. He wants to fight, so he offers a title match to the winner. Wagner borrows the mask to reminiscent about when he was wrestling at El Toreo and Texano was a small kid. Wagner agrees that Donald Trump sucks, which of course causes Mesias to attack him and the fight is on. Wagner is dragon screw legwhipping Mesias when Mesias pulls off his mask. Piero is looking at the crowd for no obvious reason, then turns back to count when Mesias is covering Wagner. Wagner’s laying on his side and clearly not pinned, but Piero still counts a slow two before awarding the DQ and running away from Mesias.
Review: [ok] never really felt like it got going in the time they had and a totally unsatisfying finish. The distance between Mil Muertes and Mesias remains large, but both guys were a bit coasting off the reaction and this didn’t approach the better matches they’ve had at all. The finish looked particularly bad with Wagner clearly not down (and no reason for Piero to be distracted in the first place.) It didn’t feel like much happened at all in this one.
Noti AAA
- Hype for the taping in Ecatepec, focusing on Psycho Clown/Pentagon
- Hype for the Mexico City taping – no matches announced
- Scenes from the AAA press day, including Averno & Chessman and the Apaches having a skirmish
Match 3: Psycho Clown vs Pagano
Arena Naucalpan, 06/16/2016
Video: mluchatv, thecubsfan, luchalibreaaatv
Winner: Pagano
Match Time: 17:36
Notes: Psycho Clown attacks Pagnao to the way to the ring and no opening whistle every sounds. Hijo del Tirantes is referee and on his side; he’s even wearing a Pagano caricature on the back of his suspenders and hands Pagano weapons during the match. Pagano is forking Psycho in the head two minutes in. Psycho bleeds a lot and is taken apart by Pagano for quite a while, around five minutes. Psycho stops a Tirantes count by pushing the barbed wire bat under his hand in a cute spot. Psycho starts a comeback, and Tirantes gets in his way. Psycho eventually makes a comeback, and the match is built around Tirantes failing to count three fast enough. Pagano bleeds a lot off a chair shot. For some reason, there’s thumbtacks near the Naucalpan freezer, which gets poured on a makeshift table (set up by ringside staff.) Pagano and Psycho crawl up to the level above and then both jump off into the table. Somehow, Psycho is hurt much worse than Pagano and is pinned on the outside. (This hadn’t been falls count anywhere until this moment.)
Review: [below average] pretty much everything I dislike in AAA in 2016 in one match, so there’s no way I was going to like this or even am remotely the right audience for this. I don’t think the match looked pretty good, but they were trying to bleed and they were trying to give Pagano a corrupt win, and they did do both of those things. They also went way long to try and create an epic match, and it just turned into people doing moves for the sake of moves (and Pagano being as much a danger to himself as his opponent.) The highlight of this brawl, for me, was when they went for the traditional Naucalpan bottle spot, only Pagano didn’t get a bottle out of the box they were in, and just hit Psycho with the box itself. The finish looked silly, a stunt to do a stunt, and this was only impressive as being strange.
The rest of this taping did not air on TV, but were posted on YouTube as bonus content.
Match 1: Faby Apache & Mary Apache vs Mamba & Taya
Arena Naucalpan, 06/16/2016
Winner: Apaches (Mary senton con giro Taya)
Match Time: 7:26
Notes: AAA referees have generic shirts (so the sponsorship must’ve come to an end.) Piero is referee in this one. Mary’s wheel kick doesn’t come as close to Mamba as she wants near the end. Mary’s top rope senton con giro lands completely on Mamba. These events may be related; both Apaches also tap Mamba in the face with their boots after the fact.
Review: [ok] This was a professional tag match up until the end, given enough amount of time to make it feel like a more like a real lucha match than most on this card. This was generically fine, and so better than most. The end though, whoa. The Apaches are very scary people who I do not want to be on the wrong side of.
Match 2: Dinastía, Niño Hamburguesa, Pimpinela Escarlata vs Mini Histeria, Súper Fly, Taurus
Arena Naucalpan, 06/16/2016
Winner: rudos (Taurus Michinoku Driver)
Match Time: 5:05
Notes: Match starts about 7:24 into the video. That’s about halfway in. Pimpinela’s got to dance. Taurus spends almost the entire match on the apron, coming in for contact for the first time about four minutes in. He avoids a Pimpi kiss (Tirantes gets it), and takes her out. Niño squashes him in the corner, but Taurus fires up spear him, and gives him the Michinoku Driver for the win.
Review: [ok] I guess at least they’re booking Taurus strong? This was an oddly short and very unsatisfying match by AAA standard, with most of the people barely getting in the match. It’s not just the entrances were longer than the match, it probably took Taurus more time to put on his gear than he spent in the ring. Dinastia was in for about 20 seconds. This was a waste.
Match 4: Dark Cuervo, Dark Scoria, Zorro © vs Aerostar, Bengala, Drago for the AAA World Trios Championship
Arena Naucalpan, 06/16/2016
Winner: Zorro (storm cradle driver)
Match Time: 10:43
Review: [good] best match on the taping, though they deserve more praise than that. It took quite a while for them to bring up the intensity to make it feel like a title match, but I think they got there by the end. The final sequences with Aerostar, Drago, Cuervo & Scoria felt like they mattered, even with them being off a little. Crowd wasn’t really into this match and the previous title match with Fenix was more exciting – not just because of him, but Aerostar & Drago felt like they got in more – but this is the kind of regular TV defenses which at least make the champions come off like they’re accomplishing something. The Xinetez won cleanly, came off like the better team at the end.
