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:
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 doesn’t 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.
Is AAA now subscription only on twitch?
Yes, for VOD content. The live feed is still free.