Pentagon Jr., Daga and Garza Jr. have just quit AAA, jumped to the Crash

thecubsfan news

Tonight’s The Crash show is ongoing as I type this. It looks good in highlights, but internet issues meant the stream never was broadcast. It’s too bad, because there was something to see even beyond the matches. Early in the night:

https://twitter.com/wrestlewords/status/823032059866320897

AAA Konnan saying obscenities at AAA is basically normal podcast material for him. Tonight, it turned into a little more of that.

They weren’t alone.

https://twitter.com/wrestlewords/status/823058229244661760

As far as I can tell, no one said they were quitting at AAA, but that’s obviously the implication. Pentagon would only change his name if he was leaving – AAA owns the name, and trademarked Cero Miedo when they previously were scared of him leaving – and showing up on a Konnan booked promotion in 2017 is pretty much handing your resignation to AAA.  It’s notable they had the Perros del Mal gear with them, since that also takes the most popular stable in AAA.

Daga & Pentagon are booked on the next two AAA TV tapings, and Garza is booked on the first one, next Friday. That show on Friday in Toluca will might be the first time we get an idea of what’s going on. There probably will be questions asked if AAA holds a TripleMania press conference on Tuesday as ESPN Mexico reported.

This is a significant blow to AAA if this is permanent (and really, all we have is an in-ring bit.) The promotion is already low on names and stars, and losing Pentagon in particular messes up more of their main events. It’s not clear if AAA was told in advance: Pentagon losing would make some sense if they knew it was his last night, but they couldn’t have known Daga was losing or they wouldn’t have set him up as the next challenger for Johnny Mundo.

(AAA said they were going to announce the Tlaxcala lineup this past week, and did not. I thought it was just a timing thing, and now I wonder if more was going on. AAA had a private and likely free show at Gimnasio Juan de la Barrera tonight. I don’t think there was ever a public lineup, but perhaps Daga or Garza didn’t show for that and that’s when AAA found out? Pentagon Jr. was working an indie in San Diego, which made coming to this show easy to do.)

The Crash has talked about running 20-30 shows this year. This gives them more full times names to do it. These guys aren’t jumping to work four shows a year either, and it’s not worth the coming war with AAA unless they’re running a lot more shows. This is probably the first of a lot of news for the Crash, and a lot of hard back and forth between the two promotions. Konnan also personally gains a lot of power, since he’ll be helping booking out the two most popular Mexican guys to indie promotions going forward.

This also does give an indication of what Pentagon believes about Lucha Underground status. Either he’s been assured AAA won’t be able to affect his Lucha Underground status, or he believes LU is a long enough shot to return that he’s not risking much by leaving AAA. If LU had been running tapings this month, or if LU had already gotten live shows and merchandise coming in where these guys were being paid more during the taping breaks, it might have been a much harder decision. This is the cost of LU not getting deals done. Hopefully, Pentagon Dark is still on Lucha Underground in Season 4, but he (and Daga and Garza) now go on the unknown status list with Sexy Star, Fenix and Jack Evans.

I’ll add more to this post if they say anything more after the show.

Edit:

Juventud Guerra had a few quick words from the guys who jumped. No one says all that much but everyone seems in a good mood.

Edit 2:

On Twitter, Konnan says this is the same as 1996. That’s when Konnan and others exited AAA to for Promo Azteca.

Edit 7:20AM: On Facebook, Pentagon confirms he’s out of AAA and completely independent. (I’ve checked the headline to this post.)  Pentagon – or, Penta El 0M – says he’s talking to the person in charge of Perros del Mal to see if they’re continue using that name.

Earlier, Perros del Mal said they had no idea guys were going to jump and will release official information on their plans going forward. Joe Lider is the only Perros del Mal member who’s still in AAA, so the group would either cease to be or a lot of people who haven’t previously been part of the group will suddenly be sporting the shirt.

Daga and Garza Jr. should not have name issues. Garza Jr. appears to have trademarked his own name after appearing on AAA TV with it. Daga used his name prior to coming to AAA.

We can safely assume AAA will try to fight this somehow.  The question going forward is who will be on each side. There’s people still in AAA who associated with Konnan behind the scenes; Hijo del Fantasma and Taya are the biggest names to come to mind. At the same time, the more people who leave, the more likely AAA’s handing out better deals to keep people to stay.

12 thoughts to “Pentagon Jr., Daga and Garza Jr. have just quit AAA, jumped to the Crash”

  1. At least AAA still has talents like Dave the Clown and Young hungry Main Events like Dr. Wagner

  2. So how come Pentagon isn’t using the Pentagon Dark name? I thought that gimmick was explicitly created to give him something he can use without AAA approval…

  5. I really don’t think aaa cares. They seem to think they can replace anyone. They don’t care about work rate.

  6. How many more departures will it take for a change in AAA? And with CMLL being…. Well CMLL I have no hope for a cool FenixPentagon invasion story. I hope that all three have better success outside AAA. WWE Mexican Championship tournament winner anyone?

  7. So, people leave promotions often. Long-term how much does this hurt AAA? Do you folks think they can recover from or is this a red flag of a more serious downward spiral?

  8. I think lucha underground was a bad idea for aaa. Before lu, no one gave a F about Pentagon or Fenix in the states. Or Drago or Aerostar

    With the peso being so awful, aaa have no choice but to book local indy guys.

  9. Does The Crash sell DVD’s? Do thy have a show on TV? Or commentators? Their shows sound awesome lately.

  10. The Mexican guys who made it in LU and now get booked regularly in the US are making the best money they’ve ever made in their lives so I’m happy for them. LU shouldn’t get any blame here.

    AAA knew LU would lead to exposure and there was a right way to do business and a wrong way to do business. They could have worked with the wrestlers, helped them get bookings, split the pay equally so both sides benefit & spread the AAA word so they’d be known as AAA/LU superstars instead of LU superstars. Instead AAA chose to make it hard for promoters to book the talent, took a huge cut of the payoffs without telling the wrestlers & made the wrestlers need to secretly sell merchandise so the office wouldn’t find out they were making extra $ and refuse to give out their paycheques.

    There is an ABUNDANCE of talent in Mexico that could step in and be turned into the next crop of young talent. It’s a never ending cycle in Mexico. The problem is two things:

    1) AAA has nobody in the office who scouts talent. If someone new joins AAA it’s because they have a personal relationship with the Roldans or someone else working in that office.

    2) AAA doesn’t want to pay for new talent. It’s pretty common knowledge down in Mexico that Dave The Clown was one of these guys who would work for free. He’d show up at shows asking to be booked for no money. Or he’d drive other wrestlers (including some AAA guys… hint hint) to shows and just hang out hoping to get a gig.

    If you aren’t looking to spend money and have zero care about the quality of your own product you will end up with guys like Dave The Clown as your top acts because quite frankly nobody else wants him.

  11. AAA continues to exist in a business model that won’t grow their company and frankly, could only exist in a country like Mexico. They don’t set up storylines; they don’t use their talent to grow the company. The Roldans are tone deaf about what the fans want. AAA will continue to fail.

  12. Penta OM has announced that he no longer is a Perros Del Mal member…so, it looks like Garza, Fenix, Daga and Penta would be forming a new team…

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