AAA Triplemania XVIII, June 6, 2010, Arena Mexico, Mexico City, DF.

There are two things you need to know about lucha libre before watching any show. (1) the refs are as involved in the match and stories as are the wrestlers, there's heel refs and face refs, they side with the wrestlers, they cheat if heel, a lot of slow counts, they'll even break pins, so don't get annoyed by the antics of the refs. (2) Lucha style tag makes it seem like matches have no control at all. This point in particular makes it a but hard to evaluate a match since you may not get all catch all the action.

Loser must be the winners slave for a month.
Las Gringas Locas (Rain & Jennifer Blake) and Sexy Star (LE*) vs Cinthia Moreno and Las Apache (Faby and Mari) - 5/10
The build up video of this match suggest that this match should have bigger stakes than becoming slaves for a month. Both teams did some good work together. The finish was bad in the sense that it killed the momentum the match was picking up, not to mention if one of the quick counts by a heel ref.
Apache comes out waaaay to late. waaaay to late. But then again, when was the last time a ref had a mic in his hand? I didn't like that Apache was all up and arms on the ref, but when Konnan came out, he didn't do anything.

Four-way elimination Tornado Tag team match for the AAA World Tag Team Championship
Los Maniacos (Ultimo Gladiador & Silver Cain) vs Beer Money, Inc (Robert Roode & James Storm) (LE*) vs Hermanda 187 (Nicho el Millonario & Joe Lider) vs Atsushi Aoki and Go Shiozaki (LE*) (c) - 6/10
The build up video was great, but it focuses on the feud between the 187s and La Legion Extranjera, two problems here, the video never shows neither team of the LE, second problem is they don't build any team other than the 187s. This is technically TNA vs NOAH vs AAA. NOAH guys get eliminated first, out of nowhere if you ask me. The elimination of the 187s keeps building the feud, but it seems like they should have done a lot more here.

Aftermath with Los Junior Capos was good, as new champs, not involved with the LE feud, Los Maniacos needed new contenders. Los Capos step up and make the challenge.

Steel Cage Lucha de Apuesta match with the hair of referees Pierro and Hijo del Tirantes on the line.
Team Hijo del Tirantes (Alex Koslov, Chessman and Hernandez) (LE*) defeated Team Pierro (Heavy Metal, Octagón and Pimpinela Escarlata) - 7/10
Build up video was meh, but it made perfect sense and it really build up the match. What has Octagon become with the years, why does he come out to 'La Bamba' !? I don't know if they were stalling for something, but it took almost 20 minutes to start the match.Koslov has a pretty good spanish, no wonder he is so over in Mexico. Personally, this matches don't make sense, in order to win, the team must leave the cage, but if a team mate leaves, while you're closer to the win, makes your team weak, plus you look like a bad team mate if you leave your team. Anyway, sick plancha from Super Mex!! But Chessman's moonsault was even crazier!!

Four Way Elimination for the AAA Cruiserweight Championship
Jack Evans vs Extreme Tiger (c) vs Christopher Daniels (LE*) vs Nosawa (LE*) - 8/10
Generico cameo in the build up video!!! OLE!! Build video doesn't really take on any feud, but it does a good work on building each wrestler involved. Jack Evan's got potentially the biggest pop of the night. This was a great match, kinda spotty, X-Division style, but then again it's a cruiserweight title. A lot of double teaming in this match, Evans and Tiger used to be a tag team, so the pairings came out really natural. 450 to the outside by Tiger!! Nosawa's elimination was good. Tiger's elimination was the best way in order to have him stay strong, yet remove him from the match. Daniels vs Evans was just amazing.

Extreme rules Tag Team match
Cibernético and Abyss vs El Zorro and El Vampiro Canadiense - 5/10
The build up videos were meh, abyss' was bad. Ciber is really over with the fans. A lot of things didn't make sense in this match. To start off, Konnan has a feud with Vampiro, who should technically be on la Legion's side. Abyss, the outsider is not with the Legion. Konnan calls out the Legion to attack Ciber and Abyss, but then Konnan interferes and attacks Vampiro and gives the win to Ciber and Abyss....over booking. Aside the booking, the match was short and not extreme enough to get a higher rating.

Aftermath with the 187s - nice, fuels the feud.

AAA World Heavyweight Championship Match
Electroshock (c) vs Dr. Wagner Jr. - 8.5/10
Decent build up video. Reminded me how awesome Silver King vs Dr. Wagner was. This is the first one on one match, so it's bound to be far slower, yet more controlled than any other match in the night. This match has great wrestling, everyone was expecting extreme stuff, illegal stuff, but none of that, it was almost like a pure wrestling match. Aftermath was honorable and great, makes the champ and the title seem soo important.

At a point in the match, Wagner and Shock are mat wrestling, amazing slow wrestling with a lot of counters, but slow nonetheless. The crowd started shitting a bit on the match for that. The announcing team instead of trying to cover up or ignore, actually started commenting on it, saying that a lot of fans right now just want to watch extreme wrestling or fast paced wrestling, Konnan even said that this is the basics of lucha libre, if you don't like this, then you don't like lucha libre.

Match for the rights of the name "La Parka"
L.A. Park (LE*) W/ Dorian Roldan vs La Parka w/ Joaquin Roldan - 9/10
Both Parks came out to the exact same song, but La Parka was better at dancing. A chair shot in the first minute of the match, so it's gonna be one of those matches. The size of this match is huge, it's like if Bret fought HBK 13 yrs after the Montreal Screwjob. Violence escalated quickly. Parka's mask was torn soo bad that he needs to stop every so often to fix it. The match goes back and forth for the most part. Great near falls near the end of the match. Best ref bump ever!!

Perros del Mal invade AAA and help out Park. The decision of the match gets thrown out because of it. AAA tries to make a stand, but not a lot of people come out, but i liked that even the women came out. I think this was the point where i started to consider los Perros del Mal as a mexican nWo. They actually had the power to mostly end the feud between la Legion and AAA in order to join forces to battle los Perros.

OVERALL THOUGHTS:
This show did feel like a big show, most of the small matches had people from other companies coming in, and the final matches had big stakes in them. The wrestling itself has so and so, some neat stuff, but some other stuff was just out of control. Overall a good show, I actually think that if you don't know a lot of spanish, you may enjoy some things more than I who sometimes dislike the Mexican luchador mic work.

NOTES:

- LE* = Representing La Legion Extranjera
- Konnan at commentary is great. The announcing team is a 5 man one, but it is the perfect heel/face announcing team, they even work the audience during their introductions.
- The Sixed Sided ring they have is freaking huge!! Larger than the old TNA ring.
- There was an after show concert. This personally killed the momentum that the Invasion had, there shouldn't be an after show or dark match after such a big segment.

AAA Triplemania XVIII
June 6, 2010
Palacio de los Deportes, CDMX

Opening - They showed a video that was all about war, had a bunch of of real life war from WWII to Cartels to ISIS to Spartans. It was kinda weird, but it eventually led to actual AAA footage. Marisela Peña then opened with her Antonio Peña urn that will never not be awkward.

AAA World Mini-Estrellas Championship TLC Match
Mini Abismo Negro (C) vs Octagoncito vs Mini Charly Manson vs Mascarita Sagrada vs Mini Psicosis vs Mini Histeria vs Mascarita Sagrada vs Mini Chessman vs La Parkita - 7/10
Mascarita Sagrada, Octagoncito, and Mini Charly Manson stole the match in my opinion, they had some of the better offence, and in the case of Manson, the best bumps. Octagoncito won when it came down to him and Mini Abismo Negro, with the former dropping the latter from the ladder to a table and going back up for the title.

Losers must be the winner's slaves for a month.
Las Gringas Locas (Sexy Star, Rain & Jennifer Blade) (LE*) vs Cinthia Moreno & Las Apache (Faby Apache & Mari Apache) - 4.5/10
Sexy Star is the current Reina de Reinas Champion, she came out with an LGBT flag.

The match started with some tornado tag chaos and I'd argue that was some of the best stuff of the match, they were doing 3-person spots, trading control. Once they started pairing up and getting near falls, we started seeing Hijo del Tirantes break up pins and attack the babyfaces, and it just kinda led to Blake hitting Faby with a broom and the fast count from Tirantes for the win.

Post-match - La Legion Extranjera dressed the losers with a maid's uniform. Disgusting Hijo del Tirantes was out there trying to grab on Rain. The tecnicas accepted their loss, but still cleared the ring.

AAA World Tag Team Championship 4-Way Elimination Tag Match
Go Shiozaki & Atsushi Aoki (C) vs Los Maniacos (Ultimo Gladiador & Silver Cain) vs La Hermandad 187 (Joe Lider & Nicho El Millonario) vs Beer Money, Inc. (Robert Roode & James Storm) (LE*) - 6.5/10
Shiozaki's nameplate on the broadcast said "Go Shio Sake". Before the match started, we saw Dorian Roldan telling the 187s that Konnan is on commentary and that if they touch him, they'll be suspended.

Shiozaki and Aoki dominated early, they were easily the best wrestlers in the match. Konnan claimed that they were part of La Legion Extranjera, but that was a lie, they never joined, they actually won the titles from Taiji Ishimori & Takeshi Morishima, who represented La Legion Extranjera. Unfortunately, Aoki and Shiozaki were the first eliminated by Lider.

187s were the next eliminated by Beer Money when Konnan distracted them. Final two wasn't that good, they hit a terrible tower of doom and then , when it seemed that Beer Money had it won, but Silver Cain got Storm with a DVD for the win. Some good stuff early on, but once Shiozaki and Aoki were gone, the match got pretty bad.

Post-match - Los Capos challenged Los Maniacos for the titles.

Pierro vs Hijo del Tirantes Hair vs Hair Cage Match
Team Hijo del Tirantes (Alex Koslov, Chessman, & Hernandez) (LE*) vs Team Pierro (Heavy Metal, Octagón, & Pimpinela Escarlata) - 5.5/10
This is the usual AAA stupidity of cage matches, were you must leave your team in a disadvantage in order to win the match.

Octagon and Kozlov were the fist out. Hernandez and Pimpi had a decent exchange right before Pimp escaped too, but not before kissing Hernandez and Hijo del Tirantes. Hernandez and Chessman double teamed Heavy Metal for a bit, Hernandez hit a huge plancha from the top of the cage, right before escaping. Chessman then one-upped him with a Moonsault, but Metal moved out of the way. Chessman escaped after Metal was hit with a chair right as he had reached the top of the cage.

Match was kinda shitty, we had two bit spots and that was it.

Post-match - Pierro got shaved, but then attacked Tirantes with a chair after Tirantes kept mocking him.

Extreme Rules Match
Abyss & Cibernetico (LE*) vs El Zorro & Vampiro - 4/10
The booking here was a mess. Vampiro and Konnan are feuding, but when Konnan called out la Legion, they all attacked Abyss, who is in the other team. Cibernetico cleared the ring, and to makes things worse, Hernandez taking out Vampiro accidentally led to Konnan doing a Fuji on Vampiro so that Ciber could hit the Garra Cibernetica for the win, AND THEN! La Legion come back and attack the men that Konnan just aided to win! Who the fuck is with who!?

Match itself was meh, not really that 'extreme' nor well wrestled enough to make up for it.

Post-match - La Legion control Abyss and Ciber until Nicho and Joe Lider come out and help Ciber clear the ring before Vampiro and Konnan could come to blows.

AAA Cruiserweight Championship Match
Extreme Tiger (C) vs Christopher Daniels (LE*) vs NOSAWA vs Jack Evans - 8/10
This originally was supposed to be a '4 nations' match with Kozlov instead of Jack Evans, making it Russia vs USA vs Mexico vs Japan, but Kozlov would end up being moved to the cage match.

Match was good, a lot of great action. Not the fast pace you would imagine given the participants, but the moves were definitely up to it, a high flying X Division style match.

Extreme Tiger hit a top rope 450 to the floor on NOSAWA for a near fall. He would be eliminated a minute later after a footstomp. Second eliminated was Tiger at the hands of Daniels when Relampago came out to distract him, giving Daniels the opening for a School Boy. Daniels and Evans had some good near falls, one with Daniels locking in a single leg Boston Crab for a near submission and another with the BME. Evans would make a comeback with a bunch of jumping knee attacks and a failed 630, and a final 630 Phoenix Splash for the win. Mexico loves Jack Evans, they were wild for the win.

Daniels got busted open really early in the match, and it didn't seem on purpose.

Dr. Wagner Jr. Promo - Good, basic stuff.

Los Maniacos Promo - Good. Electroshock congratulates Silver Cain and UG. Cain told Electroshock that they won't interfere in his match with Wagner because they believe he can do this alone.

AAA Megachampionship Match
Electroshock (C) vs Dr. Wagner Jr. - 9/10
This is the first one-on-one match of the night and we're almost done with the show. This was awesome, it was straight up wrestling, none of the hardcore bullshit that AAA is full of. Fans at one point even shat on the match because Electro and Wagner were chain-wrestling on the mat, and even commentary had to remind you that THIS is what Lucha Libre is.

Story here was that Electro had the size advantage early on, but as the match went on, Wagner had better stamina and slowly started to gas out Electro. They traded a bunch of submissions and near falls as the match went on, and at the end, Wagner was completely in control until he dropped Electro with the Wagner Driver for the win.

Post-match - El Mesias came out and awarded Wagner with the Megachampionship.

"La Parka" Name Rights on the Line
L.A. Park (w/Dorian Roldan) vs La Parka (w/Joaquin Roldan) - 9.5/10
La Parka definitely got the bigger pop of the two, which at this point is understandable since L.A. Park is part of La Legion Extranjera. As the match goes on, more and more people started getting behind Park until they were divided in half.

This got violent really quick. The feud between these two is legendary without actually feuding, it's all fueled by real life politics that in a way, is neither wrestler's fault, but AAA's management.

Match saw L.A. Park DOMINATE La Parka for the first 10 or so minutes of the match, he beat the shit out of him, tore his mask, used chairs, broke tables, just complete dominance by Park. It wasn't until Park went for a second table that Parka managed to throw Park into the table to finally get some offense. Parka's comeback was awesome. He tore Park's mask too, he brawled into the crowd, he was out there hitting Tope Suicidas.

Both men started going back and forward. Park started going for Parka's back, while Parka went for the head, in a really cool way, they were both using Backstabber and Codebreakers respectively, showing their similarities, but contrast nonetheless.

Towards the end of the match, for different reasons, both men started arguing with Copetes, the referee. The spot ended with Park hitting a Tope on both Parka and Copetes, except Parka got out of the way, and Copetes took a ref bump with a full Tope. This led to Park hitting a Piledriver on Parka, which is an illegal move in Mexico.

Dorian gave Park a chair to attack Parka, but Joaquin tried to stop him. Park went after Joaquin, so Doria had a change of heart, turned on Park in order to defend his father. In return, Park attacked both Roldans. Dorian managed to recover and hit Park with a chair, but the, suddenly, two men wearing Perros Del Mal shirts jumped in, took out Dorian, pulled Park on top of Parka's body, and Hijo del Tirantes ran out for the pin.

Post-match - The rest of Los Perros del Mal came out, were talking about 20 bodies. At the end, Perro Aguayo Jr came out to a huge ovation. He cut a promo that AAA needed a new direction, and it was coming at the hands of Los Perros del Mal. He said that the best and real Parka had always been L.A. Park.

We got the announcement that the commission nullified the decision of the match since Hijo del Tirantes was not official for this match and him counting the finish, and thus La Parka had not lost the name.

OVERALL THOUGHTS
This felt like a huge show. Looking at the card before the start, you're seeing people from all over the world, you're seeing big title matches, and at the top, one of the most legendary matches anyone could book in wrestling history. The wrestling was up and down depending on the match, the less people the match had, the better it came out.

LE* = Representing La Legion Extranjera