AAA on Televisa: 2018-01-27 

Bengala & Drago tope

Recapped: 02/12/2017

All matches were taped on Plaza de Toros Monumental, Apizaco, Tlaxcala on 12/16/2017. This is the final episode regaular episode taped in 2017.

The January 24th episode (finally) airs an abbreviated version of the 2017 Lucha World Cup, taped back in October. From January 31st on, this Televisa show becomes the third run version of AAA. The matches now air live on Twitch first, then air on Space channel one week prior to when they air on Televisa.

At this point, the Televisa version continues to be the one posted on AAA’s YouTube channel and so those episodes remain important to see any developments in the Noti AAA segment or any backstage vignettes not shown during the live broadcast. The matches themselves are not important (except if you want to go deep and figure out what’s been edited out.) If you’re trying to read these in order, you’ll want to jump from this to the 2018-01-26 AAA Twitch one, and follow along the Twitch recaps from here until all of this changes again.

Matches:

Aerostar, Drago, Raptor beat Averno, Chessman, Súper Fly and Argenis, Bengala and Carta Brava Jr., Mocho Cota Jr., Tito Santana
(13:16, good, via Lucha Libre AAA)

05:55 Argenis frontcracker Raptor
07:14 Argenis Spanish Fly Averno
07:21 DQ Super Fly foul on Argenis
07:31 Tito Santana pin Argenis
08:34 Aerostar springboard frontcracker Tito Santana
09:05 Chessman pin Aerostar
09:38 Carta Brava frogsplash Chessman
10:46 Carta Brava powerbomb Bengala
11:49
Mocho Cota huracanrana Drago
13:16 Drago Dragon Tail Mocho Cota

Rey Escorpión & Texano Jr. beat Hijo del Fantasma & Psycho Clown  
(10:45, Texano pin Fantasma, ok, Lucha Libre AAA)

Hijo del Dr. Wagner Jr. beat Hernandez
(10:39, Wagner moonsault Hernandez, ok, Lucha Libre AAA )

What happened:

this didn’t look fun

The show begins with Hernandez walking up to Poder del Norte, and telling them they just looked bad out there. I have no idea what he’s talking about. Because I’m watching this wildly out of order and very late, it’s possible I’m missing something. More likely, this was intended to air after the four way trios match. Anyway, Hernandez recruits them to unite with him and Johnny Mundo, specifically to help him beat Hijo del Dr. Wagner tonight. Mocha Cota wants help with the trios title match at Guerra de Titanes, and some money. Hernandez quickly agrees to the first. He doesn’t have money in his pocket for the second part, and assures he’ll get it to Poder del Norte soon. Poder del Norte seem skeptical but do end up interfering.

Later, Hernandez is in the bathroom, seemingly on a phone call with Johnny Mundo. Hernandez is sure he’s going to beat Hijo del Wagner and is not scared of Vampiro. Vampiro comes in the bathroom and Hernandez is scared of him. Vamprio tells him Hernandez can pick the Guerra de Titanes match stip if he wins, but he’s making tonight’s match no disqualification. Hernandez is also scared of this.

Tirantes breaks up Fantasma’s attempts at doing the Thril of the Hunt, ignores Texano fouling Fantasma from behind, and quick counts him for three. Texano and Tirantes shake hands after the match.

Argenis & Bengala should have Mascara de Bronce as a third man for the opener based on where they’re going. He’s not there. No one attempts to explain that or why they’re a two man team. That match is a single fall, and the last minute surprise stipulation is the winning team gets to use a weapon for their Guerra de Titanes match. That stipulation never comes up during the match.

Noti AAA sort of mentions Guerra de Titanes, less a preview and more as something airing in the future since it’s already happened now. The Aguascalientes & Tlaxcala cards (with Johnny Mundo) are previewed. They even hype an AAA house show lineup on 02/04, which doesn’t normally happen.

Poder del Norte do run in and attack Hijo del Wagner, so I guess Hernandez eventually paid them. Hernandez tries to distract Piero, even though he should know it’s a no DQ match since Vampiro just told him. Aerostar, Drago and Raptor slowly walk to the ring, and kind of sort of pull Piero before he can count three. The six other people all fight in front to Piero, who knows he doesnt need to be distracted. The técnicos do dives and everyone walks to the back, and then match goes on for a couple more minutes.

The doctor watches the entire match from the entrance area, which is dead center of the hard camera and more than a little distracting.

Hijo del Wagner is about to announce the stipulation for his match, when he’s interrupted by his father’s music. The younger Wagner is happy to see his father, though is obviously upset when his father announces he’ll pick Vampiro as special referee. Everyone – the cameras, the announcers, Vampiro – picks up on it except for Rey Wagner.

Thoughts:

They really needed to air this main event before Guerra de Titanes if they wanted their own angle make any sense. AAA had plenty of time and choice not to do that. They probably should’ve aired the Texano match too, since that started the Tirantes alliance.

Hernandez/Wagner was not much. It certainly was different than a normal AAA match, though not in a strongly positive way. It’s a really good thing Hijo del Wagner was turned rudo soon after this. He’s not good at being a tecnico at all, doesn’t have the offense or personality for it right now. The crowd seemed to care not all about this main event, which is no great surprise. I really don’t understand why the tag match didn’t go last – even the Rey Wagner & Vampiro post match stuff doesn’t come off as a big deal. Hernandez filled his role as overconfident bully fine, there just wasn’t enough here to work with.

The 2v2 was an ok match, maybe a good match, with the start of more evil referee stuff. Everyone before it followed the usual AAA formula, with nothing too exciting but a fair enough effort for the occasion.. Fantasma’s Punisher mask looks cool. It also seems to make it harder for him to show emotion during the match, and that’s really what he needs to do with Texano.

AAA doesn’t do cibernetico eliminations matches often, if ever. AAA didn’t quite do that with the opener, but it ended up being wrestled that way for a large part and it made it interesting to see in that CMLL style. They handled 11 people running around pretty well, with some very fast exchanges to start and getting people in and out of the ring when needed later on. It was funny to see that sequence where they definitely had planned to be a third person with Bengala & Argenis to help trip people up and dive and couldn’t totally ignore it. This was missing the standout individual performance to make it memorable; there were a lot of people doing their part well but no great moment.

I’m just tired of every técnico win having the rudos pop up and get the better of them two seconds later and that happening again here took the match a small bit.

Volador injury, LU season four notes

Volador, already with a messed up nose, almost gets a messed up head

CMLL (MON) 02/19/2018 Arena Puebla [2018 is Lucha Libre, CMLL]
1) Astro & Centella Roja b Ares & Fuerza Chicana LA MEJOR LUCHA LIBRE EN VIVO DESDE LA ARENA PUEBLA 19  DE FEBRERO DEL 2018 (posted by VideosOficialesCMLL)
tecnicos took 1/3.
2) Flyer & Príncipe Diamante b El Perverso & Rey Apocalipsis LA MEJOR LUCHA LIBRE EN VIVO DESDE LA ARENA PUEBLA 19  DE FEBRERO DEL 2018 (posted by VideosOficialesCMLL)
tecnicos took 2/3
3) El Malayo, Kawato San, Universo 2000 Jr. b Lestat, Pegasso, Stigma LA MEJOR LUCHA LIBRE EN VIVO DESDE LA ARENA PUEBLA 19  DE FEBRERO DEL 2018 (posted by VideosOficialesCMLL)
rudos took 2/3
4) Cuatrero, Forastero, Sansón b Johnny Idol, Kráneo, Okumura LA MEJOR LUCHA LIBRE EN VIVO DESDE LA ARENA PUEBLA 19  DE FEBRERO DEL 2018 (posted by VideosOficialesCMLL)
rudos took 2/3
5) Soberano Jr. b Mephisto [lightningLA MEJOR LUCHA LIBRE EN VIVO DESDE LA ARENA PUEBLA 19  DE FEBRERO DEL 2018 (posted by VideosOficialesCMLL)
Soberano won clean with a tornillo, setting up a title match next week.
6) Cavernario & Volador Jr. DQ Último Guerrero & Valiente [Relevos IncreíblesLA MEJOR LUCHA LIBRE EN VIVO DESDE LA ARENA PUEBLA 19  DE FEBRERO DEL 2018 (posted by VideosOficialesCMLL)
Volador was hurt in the first fall when he tripped over Ultimo Guerrero, stumbled, and his face hit the top rope. He bled heavily from the nose and looked groggy by the end of the match. Team Volador took 2/3, the last when Valiente pinned Cavernario after a missed Volador superkick and UG fouled Volador. Valiente was upset by UG’s action, and the rudos ended up beating up the tecnicos to set up a normal tag match.

The only one I’ve caught so far is the main event, where Volador got hurt. It was a freak accident. Volador seemed momentarily surprised but not too hurt at first, then increasingly out of it as the match went along. The ringside medic checked on him before the third fall, with Volador only looking worse after. This was a time where they probably should’ve just ended the match early and tried to go thru their entire match anyway. Volador isn’t listed on a card until Friday. I assume he’ll still be in that match but I hope he’ll be OK.

 

CMLL is billing tonight’s show as Mistico’s return to Arena Mexico. Mistico wrestled in Arena Mexico two days ago. I do not know why the wrote that.

Friday’s lineup has a couple of changes, which was expected when they had to repeat the card. Mistico is booked in Tijuana on Friday, so he’s off the show. Caristico is off too, so he’s probably got another commitment. Atlantis gets bumped up to the semimain (with Dragon Lee & Angel de Oro vs NGD) and Marco & Stuka are added to the card. CMLL also announced, if you bought tickets for last Friday’s show, you have to come to Arena Mexico to exchange the tickets for this Friday’s show by Thursday. They’ll also offer refunds in person for tickets bought at Ticketmaster.

CMLL’s changed Sunday lineup so Pierroth is in for Gran Guerrero. That would put Pierroth opposite Dragon Lee, which breaks the CMLL rule against father versus son matches. They’d normally just shuffle Pierroth into the semifinal, except Mistico is in that match. CMLL’s allowed exceptions in rare occasions, so this will be one of those or another change. Universo 2000 Jr., Disturbio and Shockercito also replace Puma, Tiger and Ultimo Dragoncito on Sunday.

A poster for a May show in Guanajuato lists the main event as Atlantis vs Penta 0M vs Xtreme Tiger. That’s remarkable for a show being advertised three months in advance, and for Penta & Atlantis being in the same ring. CMLL seem to have indicated to promoters they do not want most of their guys in matches (or sometimes even shows) with the The Crash wrestlers even while Rush was allowed to work those shows. A card three months out is likely to change.

Niebla Roja talks about not giving up after losing his mask.

Lucha Underground

Judging from social media posts, today is the day where many Lucha Underground wrestlers will be coming to Los Angeles to begin work on Season 4. Some people have already been in, some people will be in later, but the sprint to tape all of a season’s worth of episodes in a short period of time appears to be underway.

Chris DeJoseph was interviewed at the Wrestling Guy’s Store, and the audio was broadcast live on their site; the Wrestling Guy runs the merchandise stand at the temple, and LU is sending wrestlers to the store every night they’re not taping this week. As always, you should listen to the full audio to get context, and a lot of talk about the ticket situation. It does sound like “a place where we can seat more people” was one of the original goals for the new venue, but they ended up loving the possibilities of the place they’re at so much that they settled for having about exactly the same seating capacity. The big hope with the new ticketing system is that while they still hope LU people hang out before the show and have fun, that they don’t stand in line all afternoon and end up exhausted before the end of the show by assigning them seats.

DeJoseph is asked about the themes of Lucha Underground Season 4 and comes up with “rebirth” & “sacrifice”. The change in locations will be explained in episode 1, and a has real world benefit of giving them more room elsewhere in the building for other sets away from the main area which will allow them to be more efficient. The building itself is nicer & cleaner to work with, though the surrounding neighborhood is not quite as nice. They’ve integrated the existing freezer environment into their set, and people will have new places to jump off of. They believe they’ll be able to some things they couldn’t do in the original Temple.

The tapings will take place over four weeks. Every episode is already written, but they’re aware that they have a small timespan and an injury could throw everything off. Season 3 had a lot of stuff taped out of order, but they plan on taping in order in Season 4. There may be exceptions, there may be situations where someone is only brought in for a single weekend to save on travel costs and they go a bit out of order. DeJoseph doesn’t feel the quality of the show will go down with budget costs, even the vignettes – he feels like they’re smarter at how do them after three seasons and will be able to do them more efficiently.

DeJoseph said five wrestlers are scheduled to debut in the first weekend alone implying even more may be added. He described that first weekend of shows with an explosion noise – not that they’re going to do an explosion match, but that there’s going to be big happenings. DeJoseph specifically mentions the Mil Muertes/Catrina/Fenix/Jeremiah Crane storyline as something that’ll be addressed early on. Later, when talking about ideas wrestlers have come up with, DeJoseph alludes to a Ricky Mundo storyline that seemed to be dropped but was always planned to come back later and will be seen in Season 4. (This is likely about those mysterious photos.) In general, the talent hasn’t been told what they’re going to be doing in season 4 and won’t find out until they arrive.

DeJoseph assured us Penta & Fenix will be back. He gave the same answer both he and everyone else with LU have given about Sexy Star every time: wrestling is crazy, she’s always been great to deal with in their own experience (so don’t judge her by one bad moment), they’re not going to reveal if she’s going to be on Season 4 but they’re a big believer in resolving all storylines so it’ll be addressed.

Other notes

AAA Xalapa promoter LG Promociones says they’ll be holding an AAA Visorias – a tryout – in March. They confirm it’s a part of a TV taping in the comments. That would be the fifth known AAA TV taping of the month. That’d be the first time with five main line TV AAA tapings since 2009. I’m unsure why they’re taping so much more.

Vampiro briefly posted the 03/25 Monterrey TV lineup overnight because there was something on the card he was happy about. I got was a small thumbnail. I’m sure it’ll be announced soon enough.

03/24 MexaWrestling (MexaWar) at Arena San Juan has

Aqui La Lucha points out it’s the 10th anniversary of the introduction of NWA Mexico, a promotion who’s only visible impact was to cause CMLL to rename some title belts. Some of the more prominent current indie stars did work on those few NWA Mexico shows, but I’ve never been able to figure out if someone running NWA Mexico specifically had them as trainees or if those guys were just working all the indies and just were noticed because the NWA Mexico shows got attention for a time.

Veracruz’s Coliseo Fraternidad is celebrating Heavy Metal reaching 30 years in lucha libre with a show on 03/02.

In interview with Bobby Lee, as part of the notoriety of the lucha libre art in Leon.

DTU posted the winner goes to Dragon Gate elimination match on Facebook.

LuchaWorld has this week’s Poster-Mania.

Segunda Caida began a look back at Rey vs Psicosis matches with ones from AAA & WCW.

Acapulco luchador Lanzador Jr. passed aawy on Sunday.

new lucha videos for the weekend of February 16, 2018

CMLL Guadalajara: 2018-02-17
taped 2018-02-13 @ Arena Coliseo Guadalajara – Mega/YouTube
1) Esfinge, Pegasso, Rey Cometa vs Cancerbero, Disturbio, Raziel
2) Ángel de Oro, Niebla Roja, Soberano Jr. vs Ephesto, Luciferno, Pierroth
3) Diamante Azul, Mistico, Rush vs Rey Bucanero, Shocker, Terrible

CMLL Lucha Azteca: 2018-02-18
taped 2018-02-09 @ Arena México – Mega
Incredible Pairs Block B

IWRG Zona XXI: 2018-02-19
taped 2018-02-18 @ Arena Naucalpan – Mega/YouTube
1) Dragón Orus & Príncipe Omi vs Dragón Bane & Fandango
2) Alas de Acero vs Ram El Carnero
3) Diablo Jr. & Súper Brazo Jr. vs Dragón Yuki & Gallo Frances
4) Black Dragón, Dinamic Black, Dragón Fly vs Cerebro Negro, Dr. Cerebro, X-Fly
5) Capo Del Norte, Capo Del Sur, Máscara Año 2000 Jr. vs Liderk, Spartan, Spector
6) Aramis, Hijo del Pantera, Internacional Pantera vs Ovett, Trauma I, Trauma II