Triplemania XXIII Review
August 9, 2015
By: Josh Boutwell of Wrestleview.com
AAA started out this night with the goal to really continue their quest to becoming a big part of International wrestling as they were appearing on American PPV for the first time since the early 90’s (as well as globally on iPPV). AAA shot themselves in the foot on a lot of instances in TripleMania but in the end they will definitley leave a lot of people talking following the ending of the show which may end up erasing all of the mistakes leading up to it.
The biggest issue with the show were the constant (and when I say constant I mean CONSTANT) techincal issues first with the audio and then later with the video. For the majority of the show the audio went in and out sometimes with an unbearable buzzing sound and other times with one or both announcers completely mute. At one point the Spanish announcers could be heard with the English announcers under them (the same issue they had during the Lucha World Cup). Then during the Blue Demon match the video became unbelievably shaky as well. Thankfully right before the Hair Match everything was ironed out but damn near two hours into the show it was inexcuseable for that to have taken so long to fix and I can guarantee they will not get SOME return business following those technical issues. Even Court Bauer who just joined AAA was complaining about it on Twitter.
As far as the wrestling goes they also shot themselves in the foot here as well. When you are trying to get over to an American audience that your product is different from the stuff they have seen before (and more like Lucha Underground) putting guys in the ring like Villano III who had no business being out there, physically, is not a good start. Villano III could barely move and it was painful to watch the match with Psycho Circus at times. Villano IV worked very hard and tried his best but there was no saving that trainwreck. They would have been better off letting Villano III’s sons work with IV in that match. They are obviously heading towards a Mask vs. Mask Match between Psycho and Villano IV, and it is cool to see them honor Villanos like that but they would have been better off just doing the first Psycho-Villano IV one on one match instead of this.
The opening match was a really fun fast paced match that is the type of match you really want to get the fans into it with. Drago was the obvious stand out and he was flying all over the place but Dinastia and Daga definitley should have been given more of a chance to shine.
Another match AAA shot themselves in the foot in was the Trios Titles. That would have easily stole the show had it simply been a Triple Threat Match or even better an Elimination Match, but AAA just HAS to put a random match inside a Cage at TripleMania. Not only that they added a weird stipulation that saw the titles hanging from a scaffold above the ring and the only way to win was to pull down one of the titles. It made the match a cross between the Ultimate X and a Steel Cage Match. That was a weird stipulation but it did add some cool spots that they were able to do off of the scaffold that they wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise. It was the wild spot fest you would expect there with Fenix, Angelico, and Evans pulling off some insane spots. Texano was kind of lost in the shuffle here but it was a really fun match. It just makes you wonder how awesome it would have been if they weren’t saddled with the cage.
The Blue Demon 30 Year Anniversary Match was short and sweet. It wasn’t anything great but it wasn’t anything horrible either. Mesias worked hard and Demon did some solid old school lucha in there. Replace this with a match with guys like Aerostar and Super Fly and it would have come off so much better.
The Hair vs. Hair Match was awesome and they really busted thier butts in the match. AAA overbooked the hell out of it like they always seem to do in big matches (because Konnan is the Mexican equlivalent of Vince Russo at times) but they pulled it off. I think Cage may have hurt his leg or knee at some point in the match which sucks but it was a really good match.
The Main Event was extremly hyped up and for good reason as Myzteziz and Rey are the two biggest luchadors of the last 30 years. They both worked really hard and it turned out to be a great match despite a copule of clunky spots. They pulled off some really cook sequences too and Myzteziz was beating the shit out of Rey at one point in a tease of a rudo turn. I think that the referee, Rafa el Mayo (who is just horrible), really hurt it at times with the slow counts. I swear Hijo de Tirantes and Mayo are possibly the two worst referees in all of wrestling. They do their best to ruin great matches and I have no idea why AAA keeps them around. Regardless people will probably remember the ending of the show more than anything else.
After rudos ran out to attack Myzteziz and he and Rey ended up teaming up to fend them off Myzteziz shocks everyone by turning rudo. I think they really did that well as Striker was even teasing that they would team up to go for the Tag Titles at some point before Myzteziz did the rudo turn. Rey and Myzteziz could turn this feud into a huge money program for AAA leading up to an eventual Mask Match. Myzteziz challenged Rey to do the match but that happens at the end of pretty much every lucha show ever so we will see if they are really going there. I think his very brief rudo run back in CMLL was one of Mistico’s coolest runs so this could end up being really fun. He isn’t at his peak as a tecnico anymore and now AAA has both Alberto and Rey with a huge gap in top rudos after the death of Perro so this is much needed.
I still have hope for AAA and Lucha Underground becoming a true alternative in America that can get a big following but they have to deliver on the type of matches that they CAN give us rather than shooting themselves with booking like tonight (though the ending saved it) and the horrible production errors. Hopefully there is a ton more to come with AAA’s international expansion but we will have to wait and see I guess.
– Promo/Segment of the Night: Myzteziz’s rudo turn
– Match of the Night: Alberto vs. Cage/Rey vs. Myzteziz (****)
– Overall Grade: C+