AAA on Televisa: 2017-07-08 

poor Bronce

Recapped: 07/08/2017

All matches were taped from Gimnasio Municipal Josué Neri Santos, Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua on 06/04/2017

Matches: 

Averno, Chessman, Súper Fly beat Argenis, La Parka, Lanzeloth
(9:34, Averno foul Lanzeloth, ok)

Hijo del Fantasma and Texano Jr. went to a draw in a cage match also including Kevin Kross in a cage match
(9:06, escape at the same time, ok)

Dr. Wagner Jr. & Psycho Clown defeated Monsther Clown & Murder Clown and Carta Brava Jr. & Soul Rocker in a tag team mask match
(10:01, Dr. Wagner & Psycho Clown beat Carta Brava & Soul Rocker, ok)

What happened: 

Lanzeloth as Mistico

The announcers announce before the match that the losing team, not the losing person, will lose their mask. Only the Traidor Clowns really seem to react strongly to the stipulation and the crowd does not really care. The Traidor Clowns find a screwdriver in a turnbuckle (maybe one they use the tighten the ropes) and stab Poder del Note with it. Copetes is taken out by a dive, and the two rudos teams quickly have the two técnicos pinned with no referee. They cover them for a bit of time before Mocho Cota Jr. arrives with Hijo del Tirantes to make the count. Wagner & Psycho kick out TV. Mocho takes out Tirantes with a chair a few seconds later. Poder del Norte ends up throwing the Traidor Clowns out, Wagner & Psycho give Rocker & Brava backcrackers and cover, and Vampiro shows up to count three. Mocho Cota argues that Vampiro is not a referee, but Vampiro unzips his jacket to reveal he’s smarter than us all and put on a referee shirt since the cage match. Psycho beats up Poder del Norte to force them unmask, though we’re not really given a great shot of them unmasking – they’re eventually shown standing around outside after the fact for a moment.

The cage match was specifically explained as only having one winner, who would get the title shot at TripleMania. True to form, that meant there would be two winners. They used US rules for cage matches instead of Mexican, where the winner was determined by the first person who touched the floor (instead of just getting on the outside of the cage.) Hernandez came out and got involved for reasons no one seemed sure of, least of all him – he stopped Texano & Fantasma leaving at one point, then Kross at another point. Mascara de Bronce came out and attacked Hernandez in term. Fantasma and Texano shockingly worked together at times, and then didn’t get along at other times.

Fantasma escaped the cage first, which meant he would’ve been the winner under normal rules (but they weren’t playing but those rules so it didn’t matter, and the announcers were aware of what was going on.) Fantasma and Texano very carefully climbed down the cage next to each other before taking the plunge off the bottom of the cage to the floor for the usual draw spot in a cage match. Copetes and Hijo del Tirantes did the usual bit of each favoring one of the guys in a draw, though Copetes does eventually make the motion for a tie match before Vampiro arrives. Hernandez waylays Mascara de Bronce with the briefcase while this is going on, and brings him into the cage to destroy him while Fantasma and Texano argue on the outside. Kross interrupts to take the briefcase away from Hernandez, who asks for it back. Vampiro walks out, and everyone ends up in the cage with him. Vamp announces the match as a draw with both men facing Mundo at TripleMania and takes the briefcase back from Koross. This angers Kross, who shoves Vampiro twice. Vampiro teases leaving the cage, but instead locks the door and takes off his jacket to tease fighting Kross. Mascara de Bronce climbs up the cage in the meantime, waits for his cue, and does a plancha onto Kross, Fantasma and Texano. (This seems to take forever because they focus on Bronce climbing up instead of showing the near fight – the spot is hurt because everyone knows it’s coming for too long.) Vampiro hands the briefcase to Bronce, who leaves with it. Vamp leaves too, and Kross beats up everyone else.

poor Bronce again

No lucha libre cage match is good and this match would’ve been better without the stipulation. Texano and Fantasma had to go at each hard because of their issue, but they couldn’t because Kross was always in there too. The cage meant they had to work all three in on every spot instead of focusing on the individual issues. It also meant there wasn’t much room for people to sell and get out of the way. The cage also didn’t allow rope running spots to look good at all (so much stopping right in front of the ropes and gently tapping them because they couldn’t run into them) and they just couldn’t stop doing those spots. The finish is a lame WWE finish, and the post match was primarily about Vampiro. You can see them thinking the Mascara de Bronce plancha spot would get him over to balance what happened before, but it came off as tacked on and fake looking.

Before the opener, Averno bad mouthed the fans and taunts Parka, telling him to leave like Ricky Marvin. Marvin gets named this time, though it’s more just the cue for Parka’s music to play. Averno taunts Argenis & Parka for having no partner (though we just saw Lanzeloth advertised for this match). Parka says Averno talks to much, acknowledges Marvin’s not here, and introduces one of the future stars of AAA as their partner. He poses before OGT beats up the lot of them. As usual, the rudos controlled the entire match until they do their pose spot, and then someone (Argenis this time) comes in to hit one of them. Averno eventually distracted Hijo del Tirantes and snuck in a behind the back foul to beat Lanzeloth. They took his mask too.

Thoughts: 

Super Fly’s usual ankle breaking spot

This week’s show as the Vampiro show, as much as it’s been since he’s been back. The cage match post match was designed to set up a TripleMania match or two, but the key focus was on Vampiro standing up to the new big scary heel and thwarting his plan. The main event had ref bumps seemingly just so Vampiro could be the big hero at the end, and a bit that put the spotlight on him instead of the guys who won the match and are headlining the biggest show of the year.

The main event seemed on paper like it would be a match to show Wagner & Psycho are way above every one else. It didn’t turn out to be that at all. It was a frustratingly even match throughout. Everyone did a big move, everyone did a dive spot, everyone ripped someone’s mask and eveyrone’s got their mask ripped up. Usually all in turn, one after another, as if they were going around in a circle during a preschool match. They even gave the other four a long visual pin over the guys who are main eventing TripleMania. Maybe it was intended to scare people into believing the impossible to happen, but it didn’t sound like the fans bought at all that much. After all that effort to make everyone see the same importance, Carta Brava & Soul Rocker’s mask removal seemed rush and unimportant. When the entire year is built around how meaningful it’ll be for one person or another to lose their mask, you’d think that act would be played up a little better, and less like a minor stipulation the heels were almost escaping.

The opener was better than the last version of that match because the handicap match really didn’t have anything going on it with it. It also helped by the rudos going out of their way to try to make Lanzelot look like someone special as a surprise guy; they even did the Mistico toss spot with him. He did well except for one weird spot with Super Fly, but then was beat and humiliated at the end so I’m not sure how much was really accomplished. La Parka slows this matches down so much, and the rudos seem uninterested in doing anything much during the three minutes they control at the start of every one of these.

what was Parka doing

Volador/UG & Pierroth/Vangellys tonight, The Crash in Tijuana, Alberto/MDA

tonight

CMLL’s annual Universal tournament concludes tonight. Either Ultimo Guerrero becomes the first and only three time champion, or Volador Jr. will no longer be the most important guy in CMLL not to have won this tournament. This is not exactly a new matchup – they headlined the FantasticaMania tour in January and headlined a couple shows last year – and it’s probably not a new match up in style quality.  Ultimo Guerrero and Volador do some very exciting things in their matches. The downside is they tend to do the same very exciting things in all their matches. Both are proponents of CMLL’s checklist match style, where important matches are about fulfilling the fan’s expectations of seeing the same big moves in the same fashion. UG’s usually worse about it, insisting on doing those same spots in the same order. (The front superplex much come before the super powerbomb.) It turns a match into a performance, into a stage play being doing routinely.

I’m sure there are differences and insights gleamed from watching a great actor play Hamlet for the thirteenth time, but I’d rather see a different story or a different role. The match will get over – they’re great actors who will perform their roles as well as anyone, and it’s the kind o high level match that will blow away people who are seeing them for their first time or even the fifth. It’s definitely arguable the problem is less about them, and how we – or I! – consume CMLL, that luchadors should not be required to reinvent themselves on a regular basis to appear to the every show fans, and that perfecting a formula is the better way to reach a mass audience. Still, it’s a high level match that I’m not all that excited in watching.

I’m not arguing the other singles match, Pierroth versus Vangellys in a hair match, will be any better. It will be bad. It will be atrocious. The difference is we don’t know exactly in what ways it will be terrible, but I’d kind of prefer not actually knowing. CMLL has never been concerned about putting bad looking matches in the ring if they had a good reason for it – think back to all the rough main events featuring the previous Pierroth in his bad army days, and you can see them similarly hoping the heavy angles they’ve run building up to the match will compensate for the low quality of action. The difference here is CMLL has tended to shy away from putting someone who lost an apuesta match into another one just a few months after. It’s a sign about how much the Munoz family means to CMLL right now that the least important person in the group – I think they’d agree with that – is getting two apuesta matches in four months.

My suspicions are Volador’s finally going to get the big red belt and that Vangellys is only in this spot because they needed someone with hair to feed to Pierroth build him back up.

The semimain may turn out to be the best match on the show yet. Caristico’s talked a few times about putting together a trio of himself, Dragon Lee and Mistico, and they’re a trio here against the Hijos del Infierno in what should be a big exhibition match. The third match continues the Blue Panther/Sam Adonis issue, with Diamante Azul, Soberano Jr., Dragon Rojo Jr. and Negro Casas rounding out the match. The second match is a women’s match, possibly because CMLL booked a women’s match before they remembered Princesa Sugehit was out of town today. Without her, Silueta appears to step in as Zeuxis’ rival for the night. Silueta teams with Vaquerita & Marcela against Amapola, Dalys and Zeuxis, and all six women figure to be back next week as part of the Copa Natalia Vazquez. The opener has Astral, Sensei, and Star Jr. versus Akuma, Arkangel and Matelicao.

CultIcon also previews this show. It’ll air at 8:30pm on the old ClaroSports page and also on Facebook. CMLL will have it on their YouTube channel about an hour after it ends.

The other major show tonight is The Crash out in Tijuana. The main event is a four way Penta 0M, La Mascara, Jeff Cobb and the debuting Marty Scurll. Maximo & Garza Jr. team up against Daga & Santo Jr., who is also making his debut with the promotion. I think Scurll will do fine, but I have concerns about how Santo Jr. is going to do. This is not the style of show or match he’s worked in Mexico so far, but he’s going to eventually have to find a way to excel in them if the third generation Santo is going to be an important person on his own – there’s not enough companies like FULL promoting traditional style lucha libre to solely make your name on those. (It’d equally be good for The Crash if Santo worked out here, since there are potential fans who probably only pay attention that name.) Nothing I’ve seen so far with Santo Jr. suggests this is going to work out great, but one good match could change some minds.

Jack Evans takes on Bestia 666 in a super libre match which continues to build to a hair match. War Machine face Rey Horus & Rey Fenix (The King) and Sami Callihan & Shane Strickland in a three way tag match. Oraculo & Serpentico vs Black Danger & Jonathan meet in a tag match, where Oraculo & Danger seem headed to a mask match. The opener has Arkangel Divino, Black Boy and the debuting Ultimo Panda against Eli Everfly, Famous B and Ultimo Maldito.

Again, The Crash show is not streaming anywhere – it was close enough to happening that it got mentioned on Konnan’s podcast but it didn’t get done in time again. Konnan’s said he’ll have video on his Patreon again. I still haven’t heard from anyone who saw the last show, but maybe I’ll jump into it this weekend.

This is from a few days ago: Alberto’s announced for MDA’s next show on 07/23 in Monterrey. MDA posted that on Monday, just before his week started to unravel. MDA’s also promoting the AAA TV taping this Sunday in Monterrey, and they’ve focused on that instead of saying any more about Alberto or that 07/23 show.

Metro.co.uk has an interview with Angelico. Angelico’s been wrestling in Europe since March, but mentioned he’s back in Mexico this weekend, and is scheduled on shows in Sinaloa today and tomorrow. I’d be surprised if he didn’t show up as an addition to Sunday’s TV taping. It may not be a forever thing; Angelico’s always been a nomad and mentions in the article that he’s been thinking of leaving Mexico and going to Europe for a year or two. Angelico notes he hasn’t made any decisions, he just has a lot of ideas of things he could try. He says nice things about Lucha Underground and seems to want to keep working there if/when they come back for Season 4, but also says his short term goal is to stay without a contract.

Lucha Underground promoted Johnny Mundo appearing on the PW Blitz (Illinois) show on 08/12. I can’t remember them promoting Lucha Underground guys on indie shows before. It’s not mentioned in the Twitter plug, but Mil Muertes is on there in character, so maybe licensing the LU gimmick will start to come with a social media mention (which would work better if they mentioned Mil was going to be on the show.)

DJZ is the guest on Colt Cabana’s podcast this week, and he talks a fair bit about his experiences in Mexico – including the injury. He says CMLL offered him a contract after his match with Hip Hop Man in the Elite tournament, and he credits +LuchaTV for making fans in Mexico aware of him enough in the first place to get him booked down there. (It’s a great minute of podcast when both +LuchaTV and Jocay come up right after each other.)

The new AAA Panini stickers will also in boxes of 50 stickers for ($22). They’ll sell them in individual packets for cheaper than that (and I haven’t seen how much), but the box is good if you’re trying to collect them all.

Guapito talks up his tag match with Zacarias against Gallito & Microman tomorrow in Morelos. Mije had other things to do, I guess.

CMLL notes today is the 11th anniversary of Misterioso taking Pantera (II)’s mask in a miscellaneous midcard cage match. Pantera’s claimed he wasn’t paid for the match and continues to wear his mask.

Garza Jr. is teasing something with Pagano again. This went nowhere last time.

Apolo Valdes writes about wrestling now against each other.

The Crash will debut in Torreon on 10/08.

AAA has this week’s Zona Ruda on their YouTube page. Hijo del Fantasma is the studio guest.

Fuego en el Ring has a new edition of their podcast up.

Segunda Caida reviews Demus vs Black Terry.

LuchaWorld has the latest news update.

1986 Coahuila/Durango lineups added to the luchadb

El Siglo de Torreon

I added 1986 lucha libre lineups, mostly from the cities Torreon and Gomez Palacio, to the luchadb database over the last week. They’re integrated the different pages of this site, and they’re also just available here. I am really just copying this text and changing the date.

This is a slow continuing project to mine the El Siglo de Torreon archive for lucha lineups and results. Of note this time, the text descriptions of cards disappear during the year – they’re gone pretty much from April ’86 to April ’87. I thought I screwed up my notes some how and deleted 12 months of content, but went back and double checked and couldn’t find any. There’s plenty of posters still, so I would guess the job of writing the very PR-like previews was simply empty for a while.

There are couple national articles that come thru. Angel Blanco’s fatal accident, which also ended Dr. Wagner Sr.’s career, happens this year. It’s underrated how amazing it was for UWA to not really suffer from losing those two and Solitario in a short time – it’s how loaded they were with stars at that point. There’s also an article about Fray Tormenta, the type that pops up ever 15 months even now.

The schedule is generally the same: Arena Olimpico Laguan on Thursdays, Auditorio and Palacio de Los Deportes most Sundays. UWA/LLI wrestlers are seen more often than EMLL ones, women are around a bit more often, and there’s no great continuity over championships. Pantera del Ring (Ephesto) & Megatron I disappear for most of the second half of the year. They’re around for just one match in October, where it’s mentioned they’ve been in wrestling in Mexico City. I don’t think we have any 1986 Pantera del Ring EMLL appearances, but I suspect we might find them if we had full Naucalpan lineups – or maybe there’s another gimmick we’re missing? And I have no idea who Megatron I ended up being.