Maybe a normal update later, but just to hit the big things.
TripleMania is still up on Twitch, but only until the day is over; they’ll take it down after 24 hours. It’ll eventually turn up on AAA’s YouTube channel and it’ll no doubt be pirated, but if you want to be sure to watch it, tonight’s the night.
Timestamps: jumping close to the match start, not the entrances, using the Spanish feed but the English may not be that off.
0:40:14 – La Llave a La Gloria Match 1 (bad)
0:53:05 – La Llave a La Gloria Match 2 (great)
1:49:29 – Relevos AAA (good)
2:07:50 – Reina de Reinas (a disaster of epic proportions)
2:40:56 – AAA Tag Title Match (good)
3:17:17 – Torneo Triplemania (a complete unwatchable mess)
3:52:35 – Pagano vs Mesais (surprisingly boring)
4:20:00 – TLC ladder match (good)
5:14:55 – Wagner vs Psycho (great)
No attendance was announced. I think this is going to be a situation where all the tickets were bought, but many were not used – there were visible empty floor seats, either from people who decided to watch the boxing match instead or scalpers who got left holding after that match was announced.
The boxing match did end just as Wagner/Psycho was starting, but the post match of that coverage meant Televisa was airing the mask match on a 10-20 minutes and anyone with a Twitter account was spoiled. There was a lot of talk, even backstage, about AAA stopping the show at some point to make sure the mask match didn’t happen until after the fight. There were parts late where it felt like things were going longer than they needed to for that reason, but my hunch is Televisa was always going to be content with airing the Wagner/Psycho match on a delay and the show went very long because AAA just put too much stuff on it.
The Twitch broadcast stayed up the entire show. They had over 60K viewers in Spanish and another 10K in English at the peak. The US announcers were pointing out how they were beating various gaming channels and it came off as a success in that way. Assuming the ad revenue is what they wanted it to be, I expect this or something like this to happen again for next year’s show.
The big news on the show
- Dr. Wagner Jr. unmasked after 32 years. That was amazing
- which means that poster was really right after all and AAA both successfully made the deal to get their biggest mask loss ever and couldn’t keep it quiet for one more day.
- Johnny Mundo is still champ, and they’re going to keep doing the stuff with him and Vampiro forever because it got them the non-Mexico attention they desperately crave.
- Neither Kevin Kross nor Mascara de Bronce had that magical briefcase, and I’m kind of wondering if it got dropped or if AAA is just horribly inconsistent. Oh wait.
- Aerostar did a dive from space and yet Monster & Murder Clown are tag team champions. To be fair, Murder was the only guy who caught Aerostar so he does deserve an aware for saving the dude’s life.
- Sexy Star is still Reina de Reinas champion, but no one’s talking about that. There was an initial PW Insider reported where Rosemary was said to fear shoulder damage and the others almost got into a fight with Sexy Star over it backstage. Sexy Star was acting very strange by the end of that match, grabbing out to Rosemary’s arm and wrenching it around after the match was over. The allegation is she got stiffed by Shani and took it out on Rosemary, but I don’t know. I do know that match was just as much a disaster when Sexy Star was out of the match as in it, with too many time spent around a lousy chair that wouldn’t stay up right and all the women looking upset about what was going on. Every wrestler on Twitter is livid at Sexy Star, AAA hasn’t said anything. I think nothing comes of it, except maybe Sexy Star gets to pick her opponents going forward because not that many people seem to want to work with her.
- AAA’s completing a change in how they handle their training. Gran Apache (and others) would train AAA wrestlers at other schools, but now it appears AAA will have their own Vamprio run school. (This would seem to imply Vampiro is moving to Mexico full time, which has not been hinted at before and may not actually be the case.) Angelikal, Hijo del Vikingo and Ashley all were announced as winners – in something that felt like it might have been known before they got out there, because no one reacted as big (happy or crushed for losing) as you’d expect for that sort of thing – but all 14 finalists will be the first class in the school.
- Rey Escorpion showed up for the no-finish of the Pagano/Mesias match. He’s definitely jumped to AAA. Maximo & La Mascara showed up after the conclusion of the mask match, and they might have been simply visiting for the night. Cobarde was the mystery person in the Torneo TripleMania, which is not the sort of surprise they’d keep secret and suggests they really might have been trying to get Alberto but wouldn’t pay him what he wanted. Latin Lover returned to award the belt, but never wrestled so he must not be able to and it didn’t seem like anyone returning for that match was back for more than the night.
The English announcing was not any good. Gill & Ramirez were more professional than Striker’s performances, but they came in with almost zero product knowledge and trying to wing it. They made many references to AAA not giving them a format sheet or preparing them at all, but it’s also clear they did not watch any AAA and their preparation was limited to looking a few things up on wikipedia beforehand. They clung strongly to people they knew from elsewhere (Vampiro, GFW, Vampiro, Blue Demon, Vampiro, Vampiro, Vampiro) like a young child’s security blanket. Not being able to ID the Llave guys is one thing, not being able to ID the OGT guys or being surprised Wagner would start a promo “bien bien bien” presented the product in a worthless way. This happens every year, and it’s clear AAA is fine with the product being presented terribly because they let the same mistakes happen every year. AAA will never expand into the US market with these efforts, but they don’t seem to concerned about that either.
I didn’t hear great things about the Spanish announcers and their prep either. Announcing is just not a thing AAA values at all.
The other news from last night is The Crash finally announce both Rush & Pierroth would be working their shows. They have not left CMLL, but are working in The Crash as CMLL reps. That means CMLL has agreed to some deal where The Crash pays CMLL for each appearance; given how much CMLL didn’t want to work with The Crash prior, it must be a pretty good amount. Rush will be working the Gran Prix on 09/01, will start with The Crash on 09/02 and be working The Crash dates after that. Rush & Pierroth may still work CMLL dates when they’re not working with the Crash. This is a short term agreement, and who knows what everyone will be thinking when it’s done.
On Twitter, Konnan acknowledged it was a package deal: Rush was only coming if they booked Pierroth as well. I do not envy finding a way to use Pierroth on a promotion that’s mostly Dream Match based, and that will be the big challenge to overcome long term. I suspect he’ll actually be using the La Bestia del Ring name, since it’s CMLL who’s been forcing him to stick with Pierroth for this time.
I missed how the mask match finish was spoiled. Can someone point me to that please?
Jakeindf- AAA (or somebody) put out a promotional poster for “Dr. Wagner Jr. unmasked!” two weeks from now, and it was on Twitter on Saturday morning/afternoon.
SO glad I missed the spoiler for the mask match. Also really cool to see how many viewers the had on Twitch. I hope this becomes a regular thing.