AAA on Televisa: 2017-07-15 

Venum dive

Recapped: 07/16/2017

All matches were taped at Poliforum, Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas on 06/19/2017 

Matches: 

Texano Jr. beat Marty Martinez
(7:59, sit down powerbomb, ok, via Lucha Libre AAA)

Big Mami & Niño Hamburguesa beat Lady Shani & Venum for the AAA World Mixed Tag Team Championship
(7:52, Mami inside cradle Shani, ok, via Lucha Libre AAA)

Dark Cuervo & Dark Scoria ©  beat Hernandez & Máscara de Bronce for the AAA World Tag Team Championship
(6:38, Cuervo powerbomb Mascara de Bronce, ok, via Lucha Libre AAA)

Carta Brava Jr., Mocho Cota Jr., Tito Santana © beat Aerostar, Drago, Raptor for the AAA World Trios Championship in an outcome later overturned (7:10, Tito Santana frog splash Raptor, good, via Lucha Libre AAA)

What happened:

every taping crazy Aerostar dive

In a vignette, Mocho Cota tries to raise Carta & Soul’s spirits after losing their masks. We’re shown that backstage, and then shown a camera with Jesus Zuniga coming into interview them. It’s like two different styles of interviews happening at once. OGT pop up from nowhere to reiterate their challenge for the title match. Soul Rocker is called “Tito” here and Tito Santana on the graphic – Arturo eventually explains it for those who don’t know. it stills says Soul Rocker on Tito’s Poder del Norte shirt. Poder del Norte is mostly the Milicia now, borrowing that look (which was also Mocho Cota Sr’s look for a time) as a trio. Raptor has the 3 briefcase to cash in for this title match.

Raptor gets a visual pin on Carta Brava, but Piero is looking outside for reasons not clear. Mocho Cota lips in a foul soon after and pins Raptor, and Tito adds a frog splash for the win. Poder del Norte’s music play for about 5 seconds before Vampiro’s music interrupts. He walks to the ring, and Poder del Norte walk around him to pose on the stage. Vampiro says it was an exciting match but that isn’t the way to win a title match in AAA. Vampiro announces he’s throwing out this match, and Poder del Norte vs the técnicos in a best of five series where the winning team keeps the trios titles. The tencicos do a triple dive on the rudos, which is half missed by the camera.

The new Panini Album is released July 19th and is pushed hard as a result. Noti AAA focuses on the plane unveiling.

dropkick is not good, sell is a lot

Mascara de Bronce looks for Vampiro before his match, and finds him with Hernandez. Neither are happy to see either, and Vamp points out Mascara de Bronce doesn’t have his briefcase. Vampiro explains they’re partners for a tag team title match tonight. He doesn’t explain why, because there is no explanation. Hernandez refuses a tag in the first minute of the match. Cuervo and Scoria repeatedly knock Hernandez off the apron anyway, which appears to anger him to enough to want to get into the match. He still can’t for a while, but does come in with a double clotheslines on the rudos when they mess up, works with Bronce for a minute or two, then pulls Bronce off a pin. Hernandez talks Bronce into continuing, and of course they mess up their next spot (in storyline and in real life.) Bronce gets pinned, then Kevin Kross comes out and throws him around for a bit. Hernandez gets Mascara’s briefcase from somewhere – and now it’s the #4 one, and Bronce definitely didn’t bring it to the match – gives it to Kevin Kross for some reason. I have no idea.

La Hiedra tries flirting with Venum to be his partner for the mixed tag title match, but he says he’s already got a partner. Lady Shani shows up just in time to pull Venum out of that mess and to their match. Announcers are still billing Lady Shani as a ruda, though she’s been on the tecnica side for months. (I haven’t fixed it either, guess I should.) Venum has a “1” briefcase, which isn’t the right number and appears to be an actual briefcase as opposed to the one they had earlier. Shani has the match probably won with a backcracker on Big Mami, but lets go of the pin and stands up because La Hiedra’s music is playing. (This is so dumb.) Hiedra is still nowhere near the ring when Shani, motionless, gets inside cradled by Big Mami.

The Marty/Texano match didn’t air on the TV show but is included on the YouTube channel. Something the announcers say is very obviously removed around at the 5:10 mark.

Thoughts: 

Kross suplex watch

The main event was a little sloppy at time – a problem with all the matches this week – but had some exciting moments and these two teams have potential for a good series of matches if they get better as they go along. The Poder del Norte work much better against these técnicos in action matches than they were getting out of the main event feud and they’re obviously motivated by their recent focus. Raptor is not yet at the level of his partners but these matches will help him get there. This could’ve gone a bit longer, but it’s one of probably six, so it’s fair that they’re going to save things for other matches. It would’ve been less dramatic but less forced if Vampiro had earlier decried there would no more fouls in title matches as part of making the matches more serious rather than coming off as inconsistent by bringing it up here only after the main event was over. The general idea – AAA is going to take title matches seriously now so title should be taken seriously – makes sense as a big concept, but it’s tough to believe in when both the other title matches had silly/dumb finishes and weren’t about deciding who was the best team. Saying you want title matches to be serious on the same show where two people who’ve never teamed and are feuding getting a title match is incongruous. AAA’s track record is they’re going to ignore this push when it suits them too, so there’s no reason to buy in caring until they prove otherwise, and they didn’t prove anything on this show

The tag match was whatever.. They did try to have it make internal sense, but it was still a match which made little sense to exist and accomplished little. It doesn’t even benefit Scoria & Cuervo to get an easy win because no one took the match seriously and they were bit players in it. It’s not doing all that much for Mascara de Bronce (or Hernandez, who was so dumb that he didn’t want to win the tag titles.) It didn’t do much for storyline Vampiro commission, booking a match that didn’t make any sense. There were a couple good spots, but there was also some awkwardness and nothing worth checking out outside of the context.

flying moth

What we learned about in the mixed tag title championship is that title is less important than a Shani/Hiedra feud, about the twelfth most important feud in the promotion right now. Yet, that feud isn’t important enough to actually give them the mixed tag titles to fight over (so maybe they really are going to fight for the Reina de Reinas championship.) Instead, Hamburguesa and Mami win the belts in a match where they seem much less over than usual and do not look especially good in the ring. Shani & Venum do some cool things, enough to just pull this up to OK for me, but there are some groaners of bad spots, no particular flow or story to the match since they’re both sort of tecnica teams and a terrible cliched finish. That OK is a generous grade.

There may be other weirder reasons why Texano/Marty was cut out of TV, but it comes across as easy to skip anyway. It’s not bad, but it’s a cold match – the crowd doesn’t really know Marty, there’s not much to get him over, and they don’t care about this fight all that much. The biggest reactions are to the normal lasso spots, which leads into the finish. I’m not sure what Texano is supposed to be at this point: he’s the slight técnico here and hasn’t been presented as rudo much since the turn. It’s also a little bit sloppy at times, not enough to tank it but it never gets a high level.

keep on swinging

Villanos win in IWRG, Puebla preview

IWRG (SUN) 07/30/2017 Arena Naucalpan [+LuchaTV, The Gladiatores]
1) Lunatik Xtreme & Power Bull b Fly Tiger & Voltar
2) Mike b Pantera del Japon
Mike won despite injuring his left leg.
3) Demonio Infernal, Kempo Jr., Monaguillo b Dinamic Black, Hijo del Alebrije, Shaolin
4) Danny Casas DQ Veneno
Veneno hit the referee for the DQ.
5) Black Dragón, Hijo De Dos Caras, Imposible b Gallo Frances, Herodes Jr., Trauma II
Hijo de Dos Caras wants a shot at Herodes Junior title.
6) Villano IV & Villano V Jr. b Hijo de Pirata Morgan & Pirata Morgan and Hijo del Pantera & Pantera and Black Warrior & Warrior Jr. and Diablo Jr. & El Hijo del Diablo and Negro Navarro & Trauma I and Golden Magic & Mr. Magia and Bombero Infernal & Bombero Infernal Jr. [Legado Final]
Fathers on each team started and were replaced by sons when they were elimianted. Villano V Jr. beat Trauma I for the win (though with a foul), and earned a shot at Mr. Electro’s IWRG Heavyweight title.

They’ve focused a lot on the Villanos here of late so it makes sense to try a title match with them.

Today’s Arena Puebla is a busy show, closing out it’s typical July run of bigger than usual shows. The main event is a rare Caristico/Rush amtch. It’s a feud that’s been teased off and on in Arena Mexico, but has only happened once before. That match was back in January 2016, with those two getting a main event while half the roster was in Japan for FantasticaMania. That time, Caristico got a visual submission with the referee down, but Rush recovered to beat him cleanly with the Rush Driver. This matchup doesn’t seem like it’ll be a great techinical battle, but they should be good at getting emotion from the crowd.

Shockercito and Pierrothito meet in the tercera for Shockercito’s CMLL minis championship. CMLL’s mini division is not popular at the moment, but this is one of the better singles matches they can throw it out. Pierrothito is getting up there in age but still can move pretty well and is a good bully to go against the undersized Shockercito. These two met back in March to decide this title in what was their first ever CMLL singles match. (They’d also met on the 2016 DragonMania show.) It’s too soon in Shockercito’s title run for a title change, but otherwise Pierrothito would seem like someone could unseat him. The title match and positioning will let these guys go all out and, as long as Tirantes doesn’t screw up a count again, they should put together a pretty entertaining match.

The semimain is Dragon Lee, Mistico and Stuka Jr. vs Ephesto, Mephisto and Negro Casas, which could be a quick good match. Rey Cometa, Soberano, and Stigma face Puma, Tiger and Malayo. Local Puebla guys getting in a high position normally doesn’t get any follow up, but there’s a chance Malayo could be set up as Stigma’s next victim, and it’ll be at least interesting to see what he shows against higher level competition. The second match is a women’s match with Sugehit but not with Zeuxis: the sides are Vaquerita, Sanely and Sugehit vs Amapola, Dalys and Tiffany. The show opens with Arkalis, Espiritu Maligno, Rey Samuray versus Ares, Guerrero Espacial and Rey Apocalipsis. It’ll air on CMLL’s YouTube channel at 9pm.

In WMC, brothers Super Comando & Artillero beat brothers Fulgors, which appeared to set up a two hairs vs two mask on the next WMC show.

In AULL, Keira defeated Lady Maravilla to keep that groups’ women’s championship.

The Crash’s show in Torreon looks to be on 10/08. They’re doing discounted tickets if you buy a few months early.

1987 Coahuila/Durango lineups added to the luchadb

Santo vs Espanto

I added 1987 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 think this is the first one of these which isn’t bigger than the last one.

This is a slow continuing project to mine the El Siglo de Torreon archive for lucha lineups and results. As noted last time, the paper appears to have not written about lucha libre for the first four months of the year before resuming it’s old coverage of show previews in April. What’s new this year is somewhat regular result article start to turn up in the last third of the year. That’s a first, and probably an indication of the local scene being so hot that the paper finally decided it was worth it’s resources to start covering it a bit more. I believe there were some columns too, but nothing interesting enough for me to grab this time.

The schedule is Arena Olimpico Laguna on Thursdays, and then usually all three of Plaza de Toros, the Auditorio and Palacio de Los Deportes on Sundays. There’s a few weekends off (and/or missing from the newspaper), but it’s about 200 shows a year, almost none of which haven’t been in a wrestling database to this point. There’s more Mexico City talent coming in regularly too; this isn’t just the local names fighting each other.

These results have been ready for most of this week, but that poster up there is holding things up. I know I’ve seen a online video of that title match, sometime in the last year. It had an established outdoor shot of the building (with the name of the building), but we couldn’t figure when it was – because I had the title switch in Satillo instead of Torreon. This was like a VHS tape someone had uploaded in one piece to YouTube and hours long. I thought it might be one of the videos on this channel, but I don’t see it there.

I know I had discussed this video with someone, but I can’t find any discussion of it on Twitter or DVDVR or email. I know I had started to work on timestamps for the videos, but gave up when I figuring out dates was impossible. And now I remember and can’t find the video. I keep derailing myself trying to figure out which channel I saw the video and it’s just not happening.