Cero Reviews AAA Triplemania XXIX

[cero2k]

AAA Triplemania XXIX
August 14, 2021
Arena Ciudad de Mexico, CDMX

AAA Triplamania Documentary - We got a history about the evolution of Triplemania, with comments from Marisela Peña, Dorian Roldan, and some wrestlers. Some of the comments felt exaggerated. The thing that I really liked was when wrestlers like Mamba or Vikingo talked about their first Triplemania. Psycho Clown talking about all his luchas de apuestas was great too. This went about 30 minutes total.

Aracno, Estrella Cosmica, & Leyenda America vs. Picudara Letal, Terror Purpura, & Venenoide - 6/10
This is yet another of these terrible Marvel matches. The people working the match are Hijo del Vikingo as Aracno, Lady Maravilla as Estrella Cosmica, and Octagon Jr. as Leyenda Americana; on the other team, Picadura Letal is the new Sexy Star, Brian Cage is back as Terror Purpura, as is Taurus as Venenoide.

I thought the match was fun, but it had a terrible finish. Just like I said last year, the collection of wrestlers is really good, so whatever mask they were, they can have a pretty good match, it's just so phony. The finish however, was soo bad. The heels are are dominating the match, and so fake Hulk came out, looking like a $5 kids party Hulk, and he just attacked Picadura Letal and Venenoide, had a staredown with Terror Purpura, while Leyenda Americana pinned Venenoide.

Post-match - Some geek, Loki I think, threaten the heroes. He looked tiny.

Copa Bardahl Triplamania
Drago vs. Pimpinela Escarlata vs. Tito Santana vs. Mocho Cota Jr. vs. Argenis vs. Mamba vs. Carta Brava Jr. vs. Mr. Iguana vs. Nino Hamburguesa vs. Villano III Jr. vs. Myzteziz Jr. - 6/10
Match was ok, it wasn't the clusterfuck that it usually is, it was actually booked in a way that it set up a couple of feuds, worked some rivalries, and built up Iguana for the win.

Mid-match, La Parka Negra and Super Fly came out and jumped the match, they were not officially entered, but they were also taken out quickly easily. If they just wanted to get them in for the appearance, why not just add them to the match?

Aramis eliminated himself by doing a dive over the top rope. Later on, Myzteziz and Argenis also eliminated themselves with a Spanish Fly to the floor.

Octagon Jr. wasn't in the match, but joined commentary so that Villano III Jr. could call him out and distract himself that would later lead to his elimination and consequent pull apart outside the ring.

Final two were Mr. Iguana and Carta Brava with Iguana getting the win with the Iguanarana.

Post-match - Iguana got his big trophy. After he was done celebrating, a new countdown started and when it came to zero, La Nueva Generacion Dinamita, Sanson, Cuatrero, and Forastero made their AAA debut, freshly out of CMLL, they came down, with their names, and attacked Mr. Iguana. Security ran down and also got their asses handed to them. Aramis and Octagon Jr. tried to make a stand, but they got easily destroyed. Fantastic showcase for NGD.

They cut a promo talking about traditional wrestling, which was good when they trash talked garbage wrestling, but now when they were mysoginist against inter-gender wrestling. He did trash talk meme wrestlers like Iguana.

Poder Del Norte ran down and faced off with NGD until La Empresa ran down and joined NGD to take out Poder del Norte. Seeing a heel ran down to defend their promotion against invading wrestlers will always mark out. Great crazy angle, but I wasn't sold on La Empresa and NGD joining forces on night one. Poder del Norte posing like winners after getting their asses handed wasn't great either.

I don't know who to credit this joke to, but I saw it in L.A. Park's twitter. "Don't win the Copa Triplemania, the winning prize is an ass kicking".

I think they may had been some shoot issues between Poder del Norte and NGD after they angle because they kept pushing each other on the ramp while commentary was trying to move into the next match.

Campeonato Reina de Reinas AAA / Impact Knockouts Championship Match
Faby Apache (w/Lady Shani) (c) vs. Deonna Purrazzo (w/Lady Maravilla) (c) - 7/10
Trying to explain the history between Faby Apache and El Hijo del Tirantes would take me another 20K words, and I completely understand that if you don't know it, you're going to see this as a bunch of overbooking, but in reality, this was 100% a Faby Apache match. Her having to deal with a crooked referee and outside interference is what has made her the super babyface that she is. So all that considered, the action was good, Purrazzo didn't get to work the arm that much, but she did look strong as she got closer to hitting Cosa Nostra and locking in the Venus de Milo for the submission win.

Post-match - Old man Fantasma came out to give Purrazzo the title. She celebrated and then Faby attacked her until the heels ran away.

Campeonato en Parejas AAA Match
The Lucha Brothers (Fenix & Pentagon Jr.) (c) vs. Brian Cage & Taurus vs. Los Jinetes del Aire (El Hijo del Vikingo & Laredo Kid) - 8.5/10
Well, this was just fucking awesome. Tons and TONS of spots. Everything between Taurus vs Hijo del Vikingo was a highlight. the match was awesome that you should just go watch it.

Something that I would like to point out was that commentary really undersold Brian Cage's power, he did a lot of power spots and commentary didn't sell them at all, or failed to sell them properly.

La Empresa (DMT Azul, Puma King & Sam Adonis) vs. Team AAA (Chessman, Murder Clown & Pagano) - 4/10
It's a match with both Pagano and Chessman, I already hated it coming in. I expected a lot more unnecessary violence, but they actually kept it really tame in terms of weapon use, they had some chairs and stuff, but the match didn't get all bloody or vicious. Weirdly enough, the wrestling was so meh that I started thinking that this needed more violence. Finish to the match came when Pagano and Chessman, who hate each other, started fighting with each other and allowed La Empresa to get the win

For what it's worth, La Empresa looked really good there, leagues beyond Team AAA.

Post-match - Chessman and Pagano kept fighting to the back.

Megacampeonato AAA Match
Kenny Omega (w/Konnan) (c) vs. Andrade El Idolo (w/Ric Flair) - 8/10
Ric Flair coming out with Andrade was the big surprise of the night, and I take it Don Callis wasn't allowed into Mexico, or maybe he wouldn't be allowed back into the US if he came to Mexico. Either way, Konnan and Omega working together here makes sense for AAA, but may come across weird for AEW fans in the US, knowing that Konnan works with Santana and Ortiz. Konnan is and has been for a while, the foreigner contact between AAA and the rest of the world, and for the most part, anyone that comes from another country, tends to join Konnan's side against AAA.

I thought the match was good. I haven't really seen Andrade matches since he left CMLL to join the Fed, and once out, I've only really seen the Sydal match on AEW to really get an idea of how he's doing now a days, he's definitely bigger than when he was La Sombra, and obviously older, so what I saw looked ok. My hardest thing to get into was seeing him as a babyface, because he's not really a babyface in character and he didn't build this match with appearances or anything. The one thing that this match relied on heavily was that Mexico is the only country in the world were you can still have a nationalistic storyline and not make it necessarily racist, and so commentary sold this as Andrade finally bringing back the title to Mexico, but that was all, there really is no reason to think that Andrade is this big Mexican hero, all I see is a dude that left to the US, hooked up with a 'guera', and is now living the life in dollars.

The match itself was pretty basic, mostly Omega getting some heat, Andrade making a comeback, and when things look bad for Omega, he starts to cheat until Ric Flair got involved for the chop exchange and Figure 4 Leg Lock on Konnan spot. At the end, much to my surprise, Omega actually retained with the One Winged Angel.

Mascara vs Cabellera
Psycho Clown (w/Goya Kong) vs. Rey Escorpion (w/La Hiedra, Samoano & Taurus) - 8.5/10
I didn't feel the big match feels from this match, I had followed the build up, but AAA was pushing water uphill here, trying to make us believe that Escorpion had a single chance at winning this match and taking one of the most valuable masks in Mexican lucha today, but well, let me tell you, they definitely figured out a couple of near falls that had me screaming.

Psycho and Escorpion had been trading wins all year, some in singles, but mostly in whatever combination of Los Mercenarios versus Psycho and whoever the partner of the week was. Through brawls and altercations, Escorpion had taken some of Psycho's masks by force, he had established that Psycho could fall to the Aguijon Mortal. The match itself was somewhat basic for this type of match, with Escorpion getting a lot of heat, going for the mask early on and ripping half of it, but as it goes on, Psycho makes his comeback and busts open Escorpion. It was until the last couple of minutes that they started teasing falls, that Escorpion's partners started to get involved and breaking pins. It all comes down to Psycho taking out everyone, surviving his sisters turn, low blowing Escorpion and getting the win

Another thing that strongly comes into play in this match was that Psycho Clown's father, Brazo de Plata passed away not long ago, this match in a way was in his honor in Psycho's corner, his second was his real life sister Goya Kong, and that's when they delivered the biggest near fall that AAA has had, probably since Wagner vs Psycho. Goya Kong turned on his brother late in the match, at a point that you just felt the finish was coming, and out of nowhere, there is this huge turn and a pin from Escorpion, and I'm sure that most people felt that was it, that was Psycho losing the mask, and in a way, when thinking about this match at that point, it's not that out of hand to think that the death of his father could be the catalyst to consider a big change in Psycho's career, a chance like unmasking and going forward under his family name. Regardless, it was a hell of a near fall.

Post-match - It was weird to a point. Escorpion argued that Psycho got the win with a low blow, which he did, but he still accepted the loss and honorably got his hair taken by his daughter. So you're seeing the heel accept the stipulation, even when he clearly lost with a low blow, and it is his own crying daughter who is cutting his hair. How the fuck am I not going to get behind Escorpion here? At the end Psycho didn't feel like the big winner because Escorpion came off as a super honorable man.

OVERALL THOUGHTS
Triplemania was really good this year, maybe in it's most AAA way, but this show was great. A huge difference from last year that felt like a big clusterfuck main evented by two of the worst wrestlers in the promotion. This one was capped off by some big title matches, two heated feuds, one of which had been nicely built between Psycho and Escorpion. The Marvel schtick was out of the way early and it while I still think it's horrible, it felt somewhat more prepared than the first one they did.

Worth mentioning about that Marvel match, kuddos to all the wrestlers that pulled double duty, and in the case of Taurus, triple duty, also being there with Escorpion for the main event.