AAA completes its first full year under TKO control with two nights of TripleMania this weekend. AAA has become a lucha libre-flavored WWE product in many expected ways. Still, the depth of underutilized WWE talent loaned to AAA has created opportunities for great matches. The Mexico City show should be as hot and dramatic as ever for a TripleMania show, while being a little less messy than in the old days. It’s not the show I’m looking for, but many people will enjoy it.
AAA TripleMania will air first on Friday at 10 pm ET, and the second part will start Sunday at 9 pm ET. Both shows will stream internationally on AAA and WWE’s YouTube channels, as well as on their Facebook pages.
In Mexico, the shows will air on Fox One and Tubi, and they’ll be available on the Fox One YouTube channel in most Latin American countries.
TKO’s tagline for this show is the first two-night-ever TripleMania. It’s a stunningly false statement, requiring someone to believe these two shows—in different cities, days apart—are somehow one show in a way that all the other multiple-show TripleManías have not been. It’s also a bit out of character for this version of AAA, which has tried to portray itself as honoring the promotion’s history and simply adding to what already existed. So far, TKO’s AAA hasn’t done the big talent raid expected, has seemingly taken an AEW-like approach of fully honoring the contracts of a lot of people they aren’t using on TV anymore, has been more proactive in taking care of injured wrestlers than the occasional shaky behavior of previous management, and hasn’t gone directly at CMLL until this weekend. An AAA fan might construct a theory that AAA are the good guys and their TKO overlords are responsible for the less friendly decisions, like the choice to run these shows so close to CMLL’s big event. The reality is probably more that this is a very tightly budgeted company that doesn’t have the time or resources to battle bad press.
There is only good press to be found about AAA. It undoubtedly has the best approval ratings of any of WWE’s brands, packaging a lot of AEW-style workrate matches in a WWE package, with less cruft and filler than WWE has nowadays. I can understand why 1 hour of AAA is appealing to people who spend 5-6 hours watching Raw and SmackDown every week. For someone like me, who hasn’t been watching those shows in a decade, even a little bit of WWE flavor is still overwhelming to the senses. I’m not the normal person here; the normal person is someone who never really watched a lucha libre-style mask/mask match before WWE told them they had to watch the Grande one, and those fans loved that and everything else they’ve seen. I think those fans are being underserved, would like to know and learn more about AAA than they’re getting right now, and there’s a strong opportunity for people who are more positive about it than me.
This weekend will only continue the good news for AAA. They’ll draw a big crowd in Vegas, 3x bigger than the original setup. They’ve already sold out Arena Ciudad de México and are guaranteed a hot crowd. Nothing is secure about AAA’s future until they finally land that US media deal, but they’ve given themselves as long a runway as possible to do it. The version of AAA hasn’t truly lived up to their promise of internationalizing AAA—they’ve run Vegas twice, Los Angeles once, and will return AAA to Chicago later this month—but they’ve still got time to figure that out too.
AAA hasn’t done an iffy rollout of the lineups for these two cards. Last week’s TV previewed both shows and missed about 3 matches. I know of 12 matches total. It wouldn’t be surprising if they added surprise matches. Many of the matches are akin to TripleManias of the recent past, with no backstory nor compelling reason to be on a TripleMania. They still might be good, but they’ve undercut the “two nights of TripleMania” theme. (I’m also taking an uneducated guess as to card order.)
AAA TripleMania XXXIV Night 1
September 11, 2026
MGM Grand Garden Arena
Las Vegas, Nevada
Watch: YouTube
Adelicious, Máscarita Sagrada, Mini Vikingo vs Jack Cartwheel, Lady Shani, Mini Abismo Negro
A random mixed trios, with tecnicos and rudos mixed up for no apparent reason. Jack Cartwheel and Mini Vikingo will be part of the cruiserweight title match on Sunday. Still, the real purpose seems to be getting Mascarita Sagrada and Mini Abismo Negro (Demus’ version) involved. Is the ex-Torito a WWE wrestler who’s working AAA shows? An AAA wrestler who gets called up to WWE at times? An independent man who appears wherever the world needs him? The answer is unknowable.
Adelicious is the one unseen AAA woman who appeared in that guanlet match on Ola de Calor. She also popped up on the filler episode of TV the next week. Adelicious has been on the fringes of AAA the last few years. She’s a former Ultimo Guerrero trainee, a flashy athlete who could do all the moves and appeared to have no understanding of professional wrestling. Her appearance in that short Ola de Calor match was the first time a match of hers had any sort of structure. Adelicious is still years away from being someone, and there’s no guarantee she’ll turn out, but it fits what WWE has been looking for.
Cruz del Toro & Joaquin Wilde vs Takuma & Kento vs Axiom & Nathan Fraser vs Rayo Americano & Bravo Americano
One of AAA’s strengths is exploiting WWE’s weakness. WWE has amassed a lot of talented wrestlers they don’t truly have a use or purpose for, in the odd case that something might turn up. All those guys are very available for AAA to use to fill out their matches. There’s approximately a 0% chance these guys would get 12 minutes to go all out on a WWE PLE—or even a normal TV show—and that’s an opportunity AAA is very happy to give them. It doesn’t really have anything to do with lucha libre; it’s taking spots that might have gone to Mexican wrestlers trying to have the same style of match. My vision of AAA is one where people like luchadors Noisy Boy & Epydemius Jr. get a shot here instead of Fraxiom. Fraxiom will surely have the better match, and that’s where the priorities are.
Kento & Takuma are the odd inclusion here. They haven’t been particularly pushed in AAA in the last year. Heck, they haven’t been particularly pushed in a “team that shows up on TV only to lose to stars” role; that’s the Money Machine far more often, and the Vipers too. (NGD might also be wondering why they’re still in AAA if they can’t get this spot.) It might be an availbilty/visas choice that’s not clear. AAA management might be seeing something in these guys that they haven’t yet seen in their booking; maybe someone discovered Dragongate matches from a couple of years back and believes these two can still do it at a level they haven’t shown (or had much of a chance to show) since. This will very likely be the best match the Tokyo Bad Boys have been in over the last year; it’s just a matter of finding out how much they’ll be involved.
Mr. Iguana vs La Parka (c) vs Laredo Kid for the AAA Latin American championship
La Parka won the title tournament by beating Fiscal back at Ola de Calor. Mysterio set up this three-way match on last week’s TV, giving in to Iguana’s wish to be part of TripleMania and adding Laredo Kid for no real reason. I’m not sure what the plan is here, and it’s fair to expect there’s no great plan. They’ve already burned through two plans. Plan A seemed to be Hijo del Vikingo as a long-term champion, defending the belt on WWE TV like (and maybe instead of) the way Rey Fenix has the past few months, and having a big match with Mini Vikingo on one of these shows. Plan B seemed to be Damian Priest, a big WWE star, coming to mix it up with the AAA stars. Priest got heralded as a big signing, missed one of his two AAA matches, got put over strongly at Ola de Calor without winning, and is nowhere to be found on this card. (Lola Vice getting called up might just be related.) Priest is listed as doing a meet and greet in Mexico City on Sunday, so he’s probably in the Copa, but it would be no surprise if that’s the last he’s in AAA.
The real problem with planning for this title is the same one that’s been through both ownerships: AAA has too little time to devote to all its championships. (Note that Laredo and Hiedra’s mixed tag titles are not being defended this weekend, even with 12 matches.) They either need more TV or fewer titles, and only one of those seems to happen in modern wrestling. Having Parka win the title and just hold onto the belt until there’s something to do is a fine option while praying for an extra half hour a week.
Roxanne Perez vs Faby Apache vs Natalya vs La Hiedra; winner gets a Reina de Reinas title match at World Collide.
A four-way of three people who aren’t on AAA much and one person who is the current champion’s best friend. Hiedra would thematically fit as a challenger to (spoiler) new champion La Catalina. She might actually get a shot later, but the Worlds Collide theme seems to rule her out. Probably Apache for the same reason. It’s surprising to me that Perez, who has strong Texas roots and wrestled on both sides of the border before going national, hasn’t turned up much in AAA to this point. It seems to speak to using featured main roster talent on these shows. This is a spot for someone to put over a new champion in a technically sound match, and that sounds like a job for Nattie.
Ángel Garza, Berto, Daga vs Dave The Clown, Murder Clown, Panic Clown © for the AAA World Trios Championship
Los Perros del Mal are probably winning the trios titles here. This version of AAA doesn’t have use for this many clowns. Panic existed because AAA needed a midcard trios partner for Psycho, a top act (and Monster is long gone).) Psycho is back to being a midcarder, and so Panic’s barely wrestled over the last year.
Los Perros del Mal will continue to be pushed as top-of-the-card heels with these trios titles. They’re solid workers who can be counted on to have WWE-style matches and have been good in the matches they’ve had so far. AAA may even try to heat these guys back up again; if they want to give Penta an excuse for losing the Reigns match on Monday, these guys can easily be it. All that is possible. This act can’t be the money-drawing, game-changing act they seemed to be when they revealed they were wearing the iconic black, white, and red shirts. This version has shredded that possibility, the most obvious misstep in their first year of running AAA.
Losing cleanly and unremarkably at Ola de Calor hurt Los Perros del Mal. Bronco losing and getting kicked out of the group because WWE had a more important idea for them hurt them. Penta turning down the group might have been the biggest misstep. Los Perros del Mal got over because the biggest and baddest wanted to be part of the group and wear that shirt. No one is bigger or badder in Mexico than Penta, and AAA’s idea was to tease Penta joining the group and reject them twice over. Everyone else has confirmed to the fans that Penta made the right decision, that these aren’t the Perros del Mal they knew, but just people wearing the old shirts. Something felt very wrong about seeing a Perros del Mal logo shirt with WWE and AAA logos on it, and that bad impression has carried through their booking. Beating midcard clown teams and winning a title belt that hasn’t been defended in a year isn’t going to undo the damage. The only way to convince people that wrestlers are top guys is to have them beat top guys, and AAA’s already given up on that with Los Perros del Mal.
Omos vs Rey Mysterio
Omos is currently banned from AAA. (He showed up with a ticket anyway.) If he loses here, he’ll still be banned from AAA. Super banned from AAA; AAA and Mysterio will definitely have the power to enforce it this time. If he wins, he won’t be banned from AAA—a true mystery how that’s going to go. Beyond the silliness, Dominik and Grande will be in the corners to build up Sunday’s match.
This Vegas show exists, as has repeatedly been stated, because TKO wants to bring possible media partners to a show, and this was the best way to get them there. Thinking about all that for more than a second raises so many questions.
This show, where a seven-foot man is going to beat the promotion’s legend, where most of the wrestlers are not luchadors, where the top stars are not wrestling, and where heels are likely to win up and down the card, is the strong AAA pitch to TV people?
It’s a year and a half into TKO owning AAA, and they’ve made so little progress on getting a US media deal that they’re still just pitching media people on the general concept?
How much should we read about the shape of such a deal that the media buyers are types who apparently would feel uncomfortable going to Mexico City? (I doubt Spanish-language buyers would have much objection to that trip, but English ones might; the WWE English stream always outdraws the AAA Spanish-language one, by the way.)
Or is there really nothing to this, and this is simply just an extra date to make a TKO weekend out of their boxing event? And what does it say of TKO’s current respect for AAA’s ability to sell US tickets that they originally thought a 1,000-seat building would be a good room for a TripleMania card?
AAA TripleMania XXXIV Night 2
September 13, 2026
Arena Ciudad de Mexico
Mexico City, Mexico
Watch: YouTube
Copa Bardahl
There are many ways Mexican wrestling tradition has been forgotten or destroyed in the last year or so. And yet, this annoying match endures. Last year’s match was comedy, and then Omos threw everyone out. Omos then disappeared for six months, and the win wasn’t mentioned much when he returned. This year’s version is said to be a 15 Man Match with no particular stakes (beyond the office getting to tell wrestlers they got booked for TripleMania)
War Raiders open challenge for the AAA Tag Team Championship
Technically, it’s unclear if this is happening. The champs turned up on the post-Ola de Calor AAA episode to issue an open challenge for TripleMania. It must be on the Sunday show, because they’re currently scheduled to defend the same tag team titles against Damian Priest & R-Truth on SmackDown on Friday night. The Raiders retaining seems like a safe bet. Their opponents also aren’t a stretch. El Hijo del Dr Wagner Jr. did a lot of press for TripleMania last week, despite not actually being on the card at all. He and Galeno make the most sense as challengers and are likely to win the titles.
There’s been no mention of the AAA tag team title feud on AAA’s show itself. There’s scarcely been a mention of Rey Fenix defending the AAA Cruiserweight championship. In fact, after showing clips from the Royal Rumble – the Grande faceoff, Iguana and Parka appearing – the AAA show aired no new footage of WWE events. I chalked this up to some bad coordination between the different spokes in this wheel. I’m less certain I’m right. One other mysterious bit happened in the meantime. If you pay very close attention to the end of an AAA episode, you’ll see a “copyright Filip” notice where a WWE bug normally would appear. That switch happened a few episodes in and marked when AAA stopped airing WWE footage. (This finally changed on the most recent episode, where clips of Penta vs Fenix aired to promote the Mexico City Raw.) We haven’t learned much about the relationship between Filip and TKO since the initial ownership blitz. The reality of venture capital remains the same: it’s effectively no different than a high-interest loan, and one of these sides is going to owe the other side a big check at some date in the future. Plenty of people in AAA know that deadline date – I’m informed it’s not any time soon, though an event horizon is still kept in mind. I don’t think Filip is some hands-off investor here; bits like that copyright switch suggest they’re actively protecting their investment, but I have no idea how much it goes beyond that.
Rey Fénix © vs Nathan Fraser vs Mini Vikingo vs Jack Cartwheel for the AAA Cruiserweight Championship
Fraser, Vikingo, and Cartwheel went to a time-limit draw on Ola de Calor. It’s the first time-limit draw in AAA, because the promotion has never had time limits. (WWE thinking also meant no time limit was announced for that match, much less a time call, to surprise the fans by giving them something they had no reason to expect.) There were ways to get to the draw without doing a nonsensical finish, but the inspiration here was obviously indie matches or old US matches, nothing as much to do with lucha libre. They’re doing lucha libre moves, but that’s where the interest ends.
There may be some booking logic here. AAA has decided that Mini Vikingo is the guy they’re going to make, so having him win the title in a situation where Rey Fenix doesn’t actually have to take the loss is the way to go. On the other hand, the real point of this is to do as many moves as possible to get as high of a star rating as possible—no more, no less. I don’t feel as strongly about these matches as the one true star rating. I don’t have these multiman matches, but I don’t like most of them. Rocky Romero recently said that Antonio Inoki taught him that a great match is like a great son, with ups and downs. These multiman matches don’t allow for the down, unless it’s all the people down while begging the crowd to chant. The great Dragongate matches that inspired this madness also very clearly had ups and downs too. My memory for these things is terrible, but the indelible one of the famous Dragon Gate trios match in Ring of Honor was how it felt like being hit by waves – a rise, an impact, a low ebb, and back again. The style of matches AAA/WWE feels instead like getting shot in the face with a spray hose. It can actually feel pretty good on a hot day, but it’s not the most entertaining way to spend twenty minutes.
Psycho Clown vs El Carnicero in a street fight
El Carnicero’s debut showcased Chris Carter’s willingness to take crazy bumps. WWE wanted Carnicero to come off like a movie monster, and he came off like a movie monster. It didn’t tell us much more about how this match is going to work. Last year’s no-rules match with Garza and Pagano told us more about how toned down those matches were going to be compared to the complete chaos of past years. It’s hard to expect much different here. It’s also the first chapter in a story that, by current pacing, may still be going this time next year. Carnicero’s performance here may dictate a lot of that: this is going to be the biggest match of his life, by a huge distance, and he’s got an occasionally crazy person to work it with.
La Catalina © vs Flammer for the Reina de Reinas championship
Catalina had nothing but positive things to say when asked about CMLL and the rumors that she was unhappy there. She thanked them for everything they did for her and did her best to discredit those rumors. I believe that. I also believe that Catalina was raised on WWE and raised on the importance of championship belts. CMLL picked Persephone for both their belt and their top woman. AEW gave Catalina a look, gave Persephone a look, and then kept booking only one of them. Catalina also had no route to a secondary CMLL title, an event with as many title belts as they had. Fellow tecnica women held all of them, with India Sioux strangely holding three at once. Catalina was public about wanting to go to Japan. Sioux and Tabata got those spots instead. The Reina de Reinas championship is unlikely to be the only reason Catalina made that move, but it was likely a strong piece of the package.
Catalina is missing a little bit of that CMLL package. She worked a lot more often, was a bit sharper than she’s seen in AAA matches, and had opponents who knew her strengths (getting sympathetically beaten up, making fiery comebacks) well. Both Flammer and Catalina are women who can be OK and really need stronger personalities to bring out the best in them. That’s still something AAA is missing. Catalina getting the win is the easy thing to guess; a memorable match to that end is a bit harder.
Grande Americano vs Dominik Mysterio © for the AAA Mega Championship
Some Mexican wrestling fans thought the Grande Americano/Grande Americano mask match shouldn’t have happened in May. The match felt huge, and a match that huge should be in the promotion’s biggest show of the year. In a way, they’re kind of still right: Noches de Los Grandes feels bigger than anything happening on this show because of that match. And because this one hasn’t been as hot. It’d be foolish to bad-talk this match too much: they’re going to be very over on Sunday; it’s just going to be more because of the personalities involved than the strength of the feud. The Grande/Dominik segments have been fine to even good, but both have been featured less on TV in the last few months, and they’ve lost a bit of momentum. Grande has done a lot of talking and almost no wrestling since that mask match. Dominik doesn’t feel as over as he was when he started in AAA, and just hasn’t been in AAA as much. Again, I think this is going to be a very over match, just not quite as big a deal as it seemed late last year and early this year when they first did the breakup. It doesn’t have the same juice, and it follows something with a lot of it.
For those same reasons, Grande Americano is the obvious choice to win. There’s not enough juice here for the hero to lose and come back again. The Dominik that showed up in AAA seemed like the #1 star for years to come. That shine has faded. Some of the excitement has floated over to Grande instead, and some of it is Dominik’s relevance dipping in the US. Dominik is still a reasonable top guy, someone who probably should continue to headline the occasional AAA guy, but not someone you overturn long-term plans for. Grande Americano is clearly the long-term plan. There’s nothing obvious set up for him after TripleMania, but there’s also no great reason to keep it with Dominik now.
Both TripleMania events will have spectacular matches and appear set to wrap up some of the long-running matches. They’ll easily deliver high-level WWE-style action for free. It will be that WWE-style action with a lucha libre overlay, but that’s plenty enough for most people. I think people less enamored with WWE may still find something to pick around and enjoy.
