AAA Heroes Inmortales IX
October 4, 2015
Domo San Luis
San Luis Potosi, San Luis Potosi, Mexico
Watch: http://internetvluchalibreaaa.com/

AAA Heroes Inmortales IX takes place this Sunday as $19 USD iPPV. It looks like a pretty good show. No one’s going to buy it.

AAA’s actually rebounded pretty well from the TripleMania debacle. All of the terrible veterans from TripleMania have either disappeared from TV or been downplayed. The vacant spots have gone to the young talented luchadors who were left off or minimized on the biggest show of the year. (The Aerostar, Bengala, Drago versus Daga, Hijo del Pirata Morgan and Steve Pain trios match is the best example of this trend, and a match worth checking out.) The month of Rey/partner versus Myzteziz/partner tag match has been pretty successful. There are still issues — most of the card won’t be mentioned on TV until 24 hours before this show — but it feels like AAA’s learned a bit from their mistakes. That sort of improvement is always encouraging.

There’s no just buzz for this show. Not from the casual fans; my hunch is most people reading this site don’t even know there’s a show this weekend until they saw this link. It’s not really much more exciting for those who follow lucha lire all the time. It’s coming too close after CMLL’s Anniversary show, which not only had a really great main event but also turned out to be free for all. That gives plenty reason not to put down money on this even if you were willing to trust AAA with your money again. (AAA will probably start airing this show on TV and YouTube in a couple of weeks, so you will be able to see it for free if you wait.) There are good matches on the lineup, but nothing that’s being built as an endpoint. The last few Heroes Inmortales have been treated as a B-show to set up the matches for the year ending Guerra de Titanes. This year’s lineup is no different. The iPPV feels like it’s only happening because they committed to doing six iPPVs a year, and the show feels like it’s happening now because AAA kind of has to do a show honoring Antonio Pena in October.

The best move AAA could’ve made was just to give this show away for free. It’s going to take something that grand to grab people’s attention again and get them to take another shot after the TripleMania disaster. It’s a show people would enjoy if they sampled it, and maybe it’d increase interested for the December show. It’s probably too late to do it now to get people to and it’s not going to happen, and AAA’s strategy appears to more along the lines of lying low for a year and hoping people just get over it. There’s a risk of teaching potential consumers that AAA is only worth watching free, but they’re currently teaching non-Mexico viewers that AAA is only worth watching when in Lucha Underground or a US indy show.

It is happening, so I might as well preview it.

AAA Reina del Reinas Championship – Goya Kong vs La Hiedra vs Taya © vs Mystery Woman 1 vs Mystery Woman 2

Taya has been AAA women’s champion for sixteen months. This is her first title defense. Welcome to lucha libre championships. The division was built around Sexy Star and Faby Apache, but one’s hurt and otherwise occupied and the other seems to be out of favor, so the whole thing has been ignored for months. This seems like a quiet reboot. Goya is known. La Hiedra is the ruda daughter of legend rudo Sangre Chicana, joining the promotion after a recent good performance as a local extra. One of the mystery women is Lady Shani, the ex-Sexy Lady who’s getting a new TV character after about two years of being kept on the sidelines. The other mystery identity has not been hinted at, but almost has to be a tecnico and is rumored to be a returning foreigner.

It’s impossible to figure out how this one goes. This feels like redoing the division in the mold of recent NXT, but most of the women haven’t been in a big high-profile singles match and Goya’s doing a completely different style. If they’re intending to make someone in one night, then one of the newer people should win, but it’s hard to imagine Taya losing the title without a single defense. I don’t know. Taya probably keeps it, but the story is how the match goes more than the result.

AAA World Tag Team Championship – Angélico & Jack Evans vs Joe Lider & Pentagón Jr. © vs Daga & Steve Pain

For thoughts on this match, let’s go to Jack Evans

Jack has not found his time machine yet so this match is still happening. AAA’s running a lot of three-way tag matches of late. The story to this one involves Daga & Steve Pain not exactly being on the same page as Lider & Pentagon, with maybe the tag team titles staying in the greater group but not with the same members. As with Taya, Lider & Pentagon have held these titles for a long time without doing anything with them, but their (bizarre) inclusion in the TripleMania (even more bizarre) ending angle suggests there might actually be plans for them now.

These matches appear rough to put together, but they’ve turned out good on TV. This one should go well too. The three teams are scheduled against each other on future TV tapings and all indications are they’ll keep bouncing around against each other. Pain & Daga most need a win to reestablish themselves as something important, but any one of the teams could end up with the titles.

Drago & Fénix vs Brian Cage & El Mesías

This appears to be a match. They actually announced this one and then filmed the angle to build it up: Cage beat up Drago, Drago spit his mist in Cage’s eyes to blind him. Mesias & Fenix appear to be involved because their names were pulled out of the hat first. Mesias has only looked even slightly motivated in AAA this year when he’s been in a match with Fenix, so it might work out fine.

Cage has no particular role in AAA after decisively losing the feud to Alberto and most similar monsters would move onto the next territory in this next situation, but AAA seems to genuinely like him and wants to keep him around. This might just be giving Cage a win while waiting for whatever’s next.

2015 Copa Antonio Pena Tournament РCibern̩tico, La Parka, Blue Demon Jr., Averno, Hijo de Pirata Morgan, Electroshock, Aerostar, Chessman, A Surprise Luchador, and Ni̱o Hamburguesa

It’s the Everyone Else match — only this time, they put all the guys who aren’t much good. That’s a better way to go. Averno is here because he got himself involved with a bad trio. Aerostar apparently lost a rock/paper/scissors battle with Fenix & Drago. The people in charge haven’t seem to decided which group Hijo del Pirata is supposed to be in. They have decided everyone else in this match isn’t much good and are best hidden. This is the best place for the least impressive mystery person, because it’s not like much will be accomplished before they’re ejected anyway.

This match has sometimes been a gauntlet match, sometimes a battle royal, sometimes a royal rumble. AAA never explains the concept going on, and never much does anything with the winner after a couple of weeks. It’s probably a rumble this year, but it doesn’t matter. The only sure thing is the winner of this match will take it much more seriously than the people watching or the people who are putting these shows together.

A Surprise Luchador, Psycho Clown, Rey Mysterio Jr. vs Hijo del Fantasma, Myzteziz, Texano Jr.

That’s the fourth surprise luchador card. AAA used to do a stipulation in every match for this show, and they nearly achieved having a mystery luchador for every match instead. This is about week eight of a “fifty two weeks of Mysterio and Myzteziz in tag matches” program. Neither has pinned each other yet and probably still won’t.

The slight story for this match involves Fantasma taking over lead rudo group La Sociedad and vowing to force Myzteziz to join up or else. (Myzteziz has been teaming without problem with La Sociedad members and is announced as doing so in the future, so either something will be worked out or the idea will be dropped.) Fantasma’s optimistically also going to be involved with the mystery man; everyone else lines up with traditional rivals and Fantasma could use a new challenger for his cruiserweight championship. Speedball Mike Bailey is listed as appearing in AAA a few weeks later, perhaps he’ll get his start in this match.

AAA Mega Heavyweight Championship – El Patrón Alberto © vs Johnny Mundo

Johnny Mundo, last seen on the losing side of the Verano de Escandalo main event, gets a title shot by virtue of AAA needing someone and having good matches with Alberto in other places. AAA’s gone default foreigner mode and aired Mundo cutting pro-US promos in front of video of the flag. It’s ok. This match will be better.

The current situation with Alberto & AAA is strange. He hasn’t been brought to a TV taping since TripleMania. The TV has focused on Mysterio versus Myzteziz. Maybe AAA felt Alberto wasn’t needed. Maybe there’s still some concern about putting him and Myzteziz in the same space. Maybe there’s more going on; Alberto hasn’t had made the same criticisms of AAA that he made of Lucha Underground, but he’s also said not a word about AAA since TripleMania ended. This show is taking place in Alberto’s hometown of San Luis Potosi and it’s centered around him, but he feels distant from the promotion – he’s talked on Twitter enthusiastically about his new MMA announcing gig, his plans to go to UFC Monterrey and the great looking motorcycle he’s bought, but not so much about this match.

This Alberto’s third major show in San Luis Potosi since coming back to AAA. He lost the first time to Texano to set up a title match. He lost the second time to Brian Cage to set up a title match. Alberto’s already onto the title match this time, but this is positioned as much a setup as those shows. The most satisfying result would to finally give Alberto the win in his hometown, but AAA always stretches out main event feuds. Mundo going one and done is unlikely, though it doesn’t necessarily mean title change either. The match should be good, but the ending might not be.

Should you get it? I was more excited for this show before I started writing about it. The main event has the best chance at being a killer match on the show, and most of the other ones (second, third and fifth depending on the mystery man) should at least be good with chances of being much more. The iPPV quality should be fine – it did not have the issues the conventional PPV did – but $19 is an increase over the previously secondary shows, and seems out of scale.  If you have about $20 and want to see AAA luchadors, you’re probably getting more for your money by purchasing Night 3 of BOLA and watching the recent free AAA TV episode on their YouTube channel.

This show is almost entirely for completest, and maybe they’d pay whatever anyway. Those who do buy will get a good show, but it’s not quite the big rebound show AAA needs.