AAA Rey de Reyes: 2019-03-16

Recapped: 03/16/2019

All matches aired live from the Acropolis in Puebla on 03/16/2019

Matches:

Big Mami & Niño Hamburguesa © beat Lady Maravilla & Villano III Jr. for the AAA World Mixed Tag Team Championship
(9:10, Hamburguesa splash Maravilla, good, 00:20:12)

Lady Shani © beat La Hiedra, Keyra, Chik Tormenta to keep AAA’s Reina de Reinas championship
(7:52, Lady Shani powerbomb on to chairs La Hiedra, good, 00:53:20)

Carta Brava Jr., Mocho Cota Jr., Tito Santana beat Daga, Joe Lider, Taya
(12:14, Cota double stomp low blow with chair Joe Lider, ok, 01:15:55)

Averno, Chessman, Súper Fly beat Drago, Pagano, Puma King
(14:04, Averno super Devil’s Wings Drago, ok, 01:37:51)

Mamba, Máximo, Psycho Clown beat Jeff Jarrett, Killer Kross, La Máscara in a cage match
(19:02, ok,02:10:52)

07:50 Jeff Jarrett escapes
08:33 Psycho Clown out
09:19 Psycho Clown back in
09:43 Mamba out
11:57 Killer Kross out
13:43 Máximo out
19:02 Psycho Clown out

Aerostar beat Laredo Kid, Hijo Del Vikingo, Jack Evans, Sammy Guevara, Australian Suicide, Taurus, Golden Magic, Myzteziz to win the AAA’s Rey de Reyes
(26:24, great, 02:54:07)

00:00 Vikingo & Myzteziz start
01:00 Eclipse Vengador Jr. enters
04:23 Taurus enters
05:41 Laredo Kid enters
07:08 Sammy Guevara
08:30 Jack Evans enters
08:30 Golden Magic enters
08:46 Taurus Rodeo Driver Eclipse Vengador
09:30 Aerostar enters
13:55 Taurus Rodeo Driver Myzteziz Jr.
14:16 Taurus Rodeo Driver Golden Magic
16:10 Hijo del Vikingo reverse 450 splash Jack Evans
17:37 Laredo Kid 450 splash Sammy Guevera
19:33 Aerostar super plancha Taurus
22:17 Aerostar splash Vikingo
26:24 Aerostar springboard rolling cutter Laredo Kid

Fénix & Pentagón Jr. beat Rey Escorpión & Texano Jr. to win the AAA World Tag Team Championship
(7:55, Fenix double stomp/Pentagon package piledriver Texano, good, 03:25:27)

Matt Jackson & Nick Jackson beat Fénix & Pentagón Jr. © for the AAA World Tag Team Championship
(7:08, Meltzer Driver on Pentagon, good, 03:42:30)

What happened:

So much happened.

A chaotic main event sequence saw the tag team titles change hands twice and end up on the waists of the Young Bucks. Pentagon & Fenix defeated Los Mercenarios to first win the titles in a match that was obviously shorter than usual for reasons. As Texano & Escorpión disappeared into the ether, Konnan confronted Fenix & Pentagon for their refusal to join him. This was a distraction for the lights to go out and the Young Bucks to show up in the ring. Fenix & Penta superkicked Konnan, and a match spontaneously started. (It was only clear it was meant to be a match because Piero stayed in the ring, there was no announcement or signal a new match was starting.) The Bucks dominated the early portion of the match, the Lucha Brothers made a comeback to their usual finishing sequence, and the Bucks kicked out. Fenix took an Indytaker on the floor and Penta was eventually defeated 2 on 1 after a Meltzer Driver.

The crowd did not react to the Young Bucks as they might in the US or Japan. They did eventually get into the match during the Lucha Brothers comeback, but it was probably the quietest crowd the Bucks have been in front of in a long time. Earlier in the night, Konnan had been an anti-AEW heel against face Cody Rhodes, so anyone following this angle had to be confused about it.

Aerostar won the Rey de Reyes, defeating Laredo Kid in what turned out to be an elimination match with timed entries. Both Vampiro & Jesus Zuniga said there were 11 people in the match, which was odd because 9 people were announced and only 9 people ended up being in the match. (The best guess is this was supposed to tease the Young Bucks being in that match instead, though it didn’t seem to work.) The 9 people weren’t the original 9 anyway, as Australian Suicide was missing for unexplained reasons and replaced by “Sombra Vengador Jr.”, a character from the “Por La Mascara” TV show on Space. He was portrayed by Lanzelot on this occasion.

Psycho Clown won a six-man escape the cage match after putting La Mascara thru a table. Brazo de Plata was at ringside for the Brazo family fight and gave Jeff Jarrett a mighty chop. This seemed a pretty definite win that should end the road to a hair match (though the hair match is still probably happening.)

The OGTs versus Puma, Pagano and Drago match had a few severe moments which appeared to be serious injuries and were later said not to have been them. Puma King attempted to give Super Fly a high-velocity sunset flip powerbomb thru a table to the outside, but the table was not correctly positioned and Super Fly’s head smacked on the edge of the table instead. A Pagano/Chessman backward plunge off the top rope thru a table seemed to go as dangerously as planned, though Chessman’s fist punched a hole thru the table on impact instead of it being broken. Chessman was checking his hand like it was broken, but AAA insisted he and Super Fly were OK.

Daga betrayed Joe Lider in the closing moments of the Perros del Mal reunion match, giving Poder del Norte the win. Daga told the announcers, Perros del Mal was done, they needed him but he didn’t need them. Poder del Norte put Joe Lider thru a table during the post-match, in something that was mostly in a small window while other things were happening.

This post-match also played into an earlier bit in the women’s match. Faby Apache confronted Lady Shani (wanted a rematch), Keyra (want her to close her mouth) and Hijo del Tirantes (want him to leave her alone) after Shani retained her title. This just got Faby attacked first by Hijo del Tirantes, then Keyra & Tormenta. Tormenta seemed to be Keyra’s new ally, at least for this night. Shani & Taya surprisingly made the save for Faby, who didn’t want much to do with them then. Later, when Keyra & Tormenta again attacked Taya after the Perros del Mal match, Faby returned the favor with a save and was friendly towards Taya. This seemed to be setting up a Faby/Shani/Taya vs Keyra/Tormenta/someone else (Maravilla? Tirantes?) direction.

Cody appeared in an in-ring segment with Hugo Savonvich to talk about the partnership between the two companies. Cody teased the idea of Chris Jericho & Kenny Omega coming to AAA and offered Hugo a spot as working on the Spanish media. Hugo accepted. They were interrupted by Konnan, with Taurus, Escorpión, and Texano. Konnan demanded that everything in Mexico run thru him, while Cody pointed out that Konnan was now just an employee in AAA and not an executive like him. This escalated into a fight, with Cody taking out Los Mercenarios (long night for them) until Taurus speared him. Psycho Clown led a group of AAA técnicos – Taya, Shani, Aerostar, Drago – in running off the rudos and then posing for photos.

Lady Maravilla continues to have Niño Hamburguesa under her spell. Hamburguesa would not hurt her and stopped Big Mami from doing the same a couple of times. The champions managed to get it together enough to beat Villano III Jr., but there were more problems after the match when Hamburguesa carried Maravilla off to the back.

Blue Demon appeared. It was unclear why.

Thoughts:

The “double” main event sacrificed both matches to get to the storyline. Rey Escorpión & Texano Jr. versus Pentagon & Fenix came off as a match rushing to fit in on TV time. There were a few the highpoints of a Lucha Brothers match. It was also very obviously off in some ways, and Rey Escorpion wasn’t having a good match. The Young Bucks match had more of a story to it, and more offense to the Lucha Brothers than I had felt the first time I saw it. It’s a weird compromise of a situation: they would’ve had more time for everyone if Texano & Escorpión weren’t treated as equals to the other teams and not just disposable people in the way of the match they really wanted to do, but they also clearly didn’t want to give away a ‘real’ Lucha Brothers versus Young Bucks match two months out from Double or Nothing. What we got was something that’ll probably be sufficient as a highlight package but wasn’t alone enough to get the Young Bucks over to a very unfamiliar AAA audience, and didn’t really satisfy anyone who came into the show believing Los Mercenarios versus Lucha Brothers were the main event. (The match got little reaction, so maybe there weren’t many of those people to begin with.) This AAA match was sacrificed to get AEW’s big match over. If it’s the start of a well-told story that gets a rematch over for TripleMania, it’ll be worth it. It’s tough to give scattershot AAA that much faith.

The Rey de Reyes delivered on lots and lots of crazy spots, and actually tried to get people over in the booking too. Taurus had his best night since his return by far, with the interaction earlier with Cody and beating people one after another impressively. It would help if there was some follow up from this, but it was a good start. Once Taurus was out, this seemed like Vikingo’s match to win. He did well with the time (except for the tough landing on Jack Evans) but really didn’t get any special focus before he was out. The Aerostar win was helped by it being over Laredo Kid, the guy who meant to most coming in. It did sort of feel like it came down to people everyone likes but no one’s quite sure if they’re meant to be a top star; it was a better field than Aerostar’s long ago Copa Antonio Pena win but it also was a bit of a self-contained universe. The big positive here is they had enough time to give everyone a moment, including Sammy & Jack further establishing their team (without Suicide for whatever reason.) It wasn’t perfect but it was a lot of fun.

The AAA cage match was very much an AAA cage. It coalesced into something coherent after they got rid of half the field and had enough space (physical, mental) to actually tell some story beyond people wandering around a small space and hitting each other. The Brazos story was the only thing that mattered here. They got a lot out of Brazo de Plata at ringside. La Mascara seemed to actually try and got laid out at the end. They don’t really need to do more with the La Mascara versus his family feud after this, but it’s also obviously going to keep going.

This will always be the match where Averno wrestled in a Batman outfit for no particular reason and Super Fly went the back of the head into the corner of a table on a powerbomb. The match was alright, hitting the usual high spots with these guys, but most of it was immediately flush from my mind. I had to go back and watch it later to figure out how Averno actually won. They didn’t do a bad job but it is not a match I’d want to rewatch.

The Perros del Mal was a solid action match that wasn’t really sinking in with me until the angle at the end, and then five hundred things happened at once. Poder del Norte wasn’t at all the focus here but did well taking the Perros offense and making an impression with the time they got. AAA did a good job of selling the importance of the Perros del Mal with the pre-match video and the shirts, though the turn still came off as a bit random. Daga seemed motivated to have a good night and was a lot better than in Monterrey. Borderline match, could’ve gone OK or good on it.

The four-way women matches make up for some of the limitations of the women by just speeding up the action and not giving a moment to think about what just happened. They did it more so here, with the weapons added just to give more craziness. Not everything came out smooth, especially early on, but it became quite a spectacle by the end. Also, the chair might have saved Chik Tormenta’s life from the Keyra corner dropkick. The Spanish Fly spot to the outside looked impressive, relatively safe, and kept Keyra out of the ring at the finish. This also was an effective win for Lady Shani, who could’ve used one. The angles after the match seem to be only clear in that we’re never getting any of the singles matches that are being set up, but it did feel like something was happening.

The opener wasn’t as crazy as some of their multi-team defenses. It is a lot to ask the técnicos to carry the speed of the action by themselves, but they still had some impressive moments. The match actually more one-sided than I would’ve figured, with Maravilla and Villano’s involvement being more about the storyline than anything they showed on. The storyline moved on, so I liked it.