We’re in the middle of a 17-day break between AAA TV tapings. There still will be an AAA show every week, with Lucha Capital finishing up this week. But it’s a nice weekend to have off if you have to catch up on indie matches and/or socialize with human beings.
AAA would normally head into Best of programming next week. It might not happen right away since the AAA YouTube show is one week behind Space. It might not happen at all, since that was what Televisa seemed to want and Space might want new material. For now, the second half of Heroes Inmortales will air.
This looks like another in a series of skippable CMLL weeks. Puebla broadcasts finish up for the year, Tuesday might have a good main event but is peaking for the next two weeks, and it is unclear if there will be anything going on Fridays.
AAA , Capital (WED) 12/12/2018 Pinche Gringo Barbecue, Miguel Hidalgo, Distrito Federal [Lucha Central, thecubsfan]
1) La Máscara b Carta Brava Jr. Bonus match. 7:00, La Mascara won with a campana.
2) Máximo b Máscarita Sagrada 9:12, Maximo winning with a sort of cradle. Maximo advanced to next week’s final.
3) Golden Magic b Aerostar 8:42. Golden Magic won with a super powerslam to advance to the final. Aerostar picked up a head wound early after being hit by a Magic dive, which stopped the match for a minute or two as the medics (ineffectively) tried to fix it.
4) Laredo Kid b Texano Jr. 9:14. Laredo won with the Laredo Fly, advancing to the final.
5) Hijo Del Vikingo b Drago 9:21. Hijo del Vikingo won via imploding 450 splash and is the last wrestler added to the final.
6) Taya b Keyra, Vanilla 6:09. Taya beat Vanilla with the northern lights suplex/double stomp combo to win the women’s final.
Taya theoretically earns a title shot at Lady Shani with the win, though that wasn’t played up in a big way. (Taya actually hyped up the Impact title match she’s got coming up next.) My understanding is AAA is planning on running a show in Mexico City to kick off the year – probably on the 18th. Taya getting her shot (probably with others) and the Laredo/Fenix match would make sense for that show. Assuming they’re actually going to happen.
The men’s final is Australian Suicide, Pagano, Pentagon Jr., Psycho Clown, Maximo, Golden Magic, Laredo Kid, and Hijo del Vikingo. There was no mention of how the finals will work. I think Kross will be added – I think Fenix was brought in last week because AAA already booked a date with him, and I’d assume they would’ve already booked Kross as coming in for the final – so a set up of 3 three-way matches and then a fourth three-way final is the most likely.
CMLL Informa revealed Hijo del Villano III – the younger brother of AAA’s Villano III Jr. – will debut on Christmas Day. He’ll be teaming with his uncle, Villano IV. CMLL is also now advertising that show as Dragon Lee’s debut. There’s also a 50/50 chance they’ll do the Camorra head shaving on that show.
Dragon Lee & Rush were in Miami yesterday to do press for the MLW shows tonight and tomorrow. (The Friday show is their live special, they’re taping shows out of order tonight, it is mildly confusing.) Before he left, he did an interview with Box Y Lucha where Dragon Lee revealed Exatlon would give him an egg, four olives, and two slices of tomato for breakfast. That is a bit less than he’s used to eating. Dragon Lee says he lost 19 KG on the show, which would be 41 pounds, which sounds like I’m misunderstanding things because that would be an amazing amount of weight for someone who didn’t look to weight all that much. He says he may need nose & ear surgery.
Lucha Underground has a video interview with Vampiro. It looks like they’re putting out new content every Thursday until they run out of content. Starting with Chavo and Vampiro isn’t exactly reaching me but it is better than disappearing totally.
Taya won the (newly created) women’s Lucha Capital championship, beating Vanilla & Keyra in the final. Martha Villalobos presented Taya with the championship.
Hijo del Vikingo, Laredo Kid, Golden Magic, and Máximo join Pentagon Jr., Psycho Clown, Pagano and Australian Suicide in next week’s final. I’d still assume Killer Kross will be added until proven otherwise.
Fenix joined the commentary for the last few matches. He said he was recovering day by day and was moving around much better, but there was no update on exactly when he’d be back.
Aerostar suffered a head injury on an early Golden Magic dive. The match ceased for a couple minutes as the doctors wrapped up the outside of Aerostar’s mask to stop the bleeding, which did not actually stop the bleeding and seemed to distract Aerostar. He took it off a minute after they continued, and continually checked his head for blood.
Thoughts:
why Laredo why
The women’s match was a strong final for the tournament, the best all women’s match of this tournament. Taya’s double slam spot seemed like it got the biggest reaction of a spot in over an hour. Keyra kicked people very hard. Taya as the strong woman throwing people around is maybe the best use they’ve come up with her so so far. Vanilla’s weakness was better hidden with two other people in the match. She seemed to best serve as a target for really hard offense. Vanilla couldn’t quite keep up with the pace, but didn’t drag the match as much down as she would’ve in a singles match. This was a short main event but it really didn’t need to be any longer.
Drago/Vikingo was Vikingo’s best singles match so far. The shooting star press to the floor was crazy, and he was impressively flying even before that. Vikingo has a deeper reserve of offense to fill out a singles match. Drago was the secondary figure, but was able to keep up with the pace. There’s a few errors noticeable in rewatching it and the imploding 450 could’ve had a better landing, but Vikingo looked top level most of the way. They keep calling Vikingo the future of AAA and he probably will be, but he’s a trios champion who’s going to the final day fo this tournament, Vikingo is the present too.
Texano hasn’t been impressive on this show, but Laredo Kid is a mental case taking crazy bumps to the floor so the match was still easily worth watching. At least Texano’s slow pace gave Laredo time to recover from taking a scoop slam to the floor, and his big spots looked really good. Glad he’s moving on and hopefully he gets a better opponent next week.
the only good moment in the match
Golden Magic/Aerostar was thrown off course by Aerostar’s injury. The crowd seemed concerned it was serious and never got back into the match after the restart. They still seemed to want to do most of their planned match, but the pace was off in between the spots. This match was still much better than what preceded it, but not what you’d hope for out of this matchup.
Maximo/Sagrada was the worst match of the tournament so far. Maximo was committed to doing nothing, and they did a lot of nothing for about five minutes. Sagrada eventually getting a comeback woke the matchup slightly, but at that point I was disappointed the accidental mask pull didn’t end the match much earlier. Every tease of Sagrada advantaging in this match was like a horror movie villain coming out from behind the corner. Máximo didn’t even bother trying in the least, but it is also obvious no one can figure out how to work with Sagrada in the least.
Carta Brava tried, which put him one up on La Mascara. A rudo/rudo match was going to be a struggle, and Mascara continued his bit of not exactly being excited to be in these matches. He also looked totally gassed by the end of the match. The dives were nice but there’s no reason to watch there.
