AAA TripleMania 34 Night One Review
The biggest event on the AAA calendar has arrived, folks.
It’s TripleMania time!
Tonight is the first night, taking place at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Paradise, Nevada (about a mile south of the famed Las Vegas Strip). 48 hours from now, night two comes to us from Arena CDMX in Mexico City, Mexico.
WrestleTix is reporting that, as of four-and-a-half hours before showtime, there were only 417 tickets left for purchase, with the current setup in the arena being able to hold 6,850 fans. If I had to venture a guess, I’d say this show is going to be sold out.
There are six matches on the card tonight, with two titles on the line, as well as a title shot for AAA’s next big event, Worlds Collide, that takes place two weeks from now.
Enough of the jibba jabba.
Let’s have some fun.
Adelicious, Mascarita Sagrada & Mini Vikingo vs Lady Shani, Mini Abismo Negro & Jack Cartwheel – Six-Person Mixed Tag Match
Each team features a male wrestler, a female wrestler, and a mini. This is the type of thing you’re only going to see in the world of Lucha Libre.
Corey Graves and JBL are on commentary tonight, as the women get the match underway.
A minute into the match, Lady Shani goes down with what appears to be some sort of legitimate injury. The camera didn’t even get to see what happened. She is being tended to by the trainers at ringside, while Adelicious is standing around for a bit until she is made to tag Mascarita Sagrada in. Now, it’s time for the minis to do their thing. That’s a real shame for Lady Shani, and for Adelicious, as well.
Jack Cartwheel and the 18-year-old Mini Vikingo are in now, and almost immediately, both men are flying all over the ring.
So far, this is a bit of a subdued crowd. They’re appreciative of the high spots, but pretty quiet outside of that.
In case you were wondering… yes, the minis can wrestle against the “normal sized” guys.
Man, as I was typing that, the match ended after Mini Vikingo hit a beautiful Shooting Star Press on Mini Abismo Negro to get the pin and the win for his team.
I don’t know how much Lady Shani’s injury changed the way the match was laid out, but things certainly felt a bit off once she was taken out. It turned the match into a straight up tag team bout, and then, one of the three remaining wrestlers (Mini Abismo Negro) didn’t really do much at all. For all intents and purposes, this was like an exhibition match to let the crowd cheer for the high spots of Mini Vikingo, Jack Cartwheel, and Mascarita Sagrada.
That’s fine and all, but this is the biggest show in AAA. That type of match doesn’t belong here. There wasn’t anything wrong with the action itself, but this could’ve, and probably should’ve, been a match on AAA’s weekly show. 3 Stars, I guess, if I’m being nice.
Latino World Order (Cruz Del Toro & Joaquin Wilde) vs Los Americanos (Rayo Americano & Bravo Americano) vs Tokyo Bad Boys (Kento & Takuma) vs FrAxiom (Nathan Frazer & Axiom) – Fatal Four-Way Tag Team Elimination Match
If you know my work, you already know my prediction for this one… we’re about to witness more spots than a leopard orgy.
Los Americanos are the most popular team in this match, as their alignment with El Grande Americano continues to captivate AAA fans.
Even though I said that, the crowd is keeping the same energy that they had in the first match. If there’s a big high spot, they pop, and if a heel plays to the crowd, they boo for a second, but they’re not really making noise otherwise.
Del Toro with a beautiful coast-to-coast dropkick, but it didn’t matter much. His team was soon overcome, and the LWO is the first team to get eliminated. Well, that made the high spot pretty pointless, didn’t it?
To this point, the Tokyo Bad Boys have barely been involved in the match, so OF COURSE, Takuma gets tagged in as I’m typing that sentence.
Bravo Americano gets Takuma on his shoulders, and as he does it, he picks Kento up for a Claudio Castagnoli-like Swing. Wow. That was impressive.
Axiom gets the pin on Takuma to eliminate the Tokyo Bad Boys, taking us down to the two teams I think most people assumed this would come down to.
Im a big fan of Kento, and a fan of Del Toro and Wilde (I don’t have a ton of experience watching Takuma), but with that said, this should’ve been a straight up tag match. Business has really picked up since it came down to two teams. This portion of the match has been amazing.
Rayo gets the pin on Frazer to pick up the pin and the win for his team. The match was decent enough to start, but it became a banger once it was down to FrAxiom and Los Americanos. I’m going to split the difference, and just say this was a 4 Star match overall.
La Hiedra vs Roxanne Perez vs Nattie vs Faby Apache – Fatal Four-Way Match for a AAA Reina de Reinas Title Match at Worlds Collide: Chicago on September 26th)
At the start, Roxanne is grabbed by the hair and thrown out of the ring by all three of her opponents, drawing some boos from the crowd. Not much boos, because this crowd sucks, but boos nonetheless. That’s interesting.
Have I mentioned that this crowd sucks?
Miscommunication between Roxanne and Faby. Roxanne is sent to the mat, and she sits there looking at Faby, waiting for the next spot. Faby just stands there for a moment, then motions for Roxanne to get up, and Roxanne quickly rolls to her feet. It’s not a great sign that, a few minutes in, and that’s the most memorable moment of the match so far.
No, but seriously, this crowd sucks. They aren’t being given a ton to get excited for in this match, but they aren’t making noise for anything.
The Reina de Reinas Champion, Lady Flammer, gets in the ring to try and help her stablemate, La Hiedra, get the win. That interference backfires, though, as Roxanne shoves Hiedra into Flammer, sending the champ to the outside. Roxanne then drops Hiedra with a Pop Rox, and she gets the win. Flammer will be defending her title against La Catalina on night two of TripleMania, and the winner of that match will be going on to Worlds Collide to face Roxanne.
Decent enough match. Nothing super spectacular or anything, but all four women had their chance to shine, and in the end, the right woman won, so there’s that. I’ll be nice and go 3 Stars again.
La Parka vs Laredo Kid vs Mr. Iguana – Triple Threat Match for the AAA Latin American Title
The crowd still isn’t super hot, but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that La Parka and Mr. Iguana are getting the best reactions of the night so far. Because of that, Laredo Kid is getting some of the best heel heat of the night when he’s on offense against either of his opponents.
It seems crazy, but watching this match is almost like watching it in slow-motion. It’s not a knock on anyone involved, but the pace and movements are a lot slower than, say, the elimination tag match featured.
La Parka with a b-e-a-utiful dropkick, straight to the teeth of Laredo Kid. To add injury to injury, La Parka landed directly on top of Laredo Kid after the dropkick, too.
La Parka gets the pin and the win on Laredo Kid to retain his newly-won title. The match was decent, but still not quite on the “great” level. Slightly better than some of the other matches on the show, though, so I’ll go 3.25 Stars. Overall, the in-ring quality has been a disappointment tonight. If this was an episode of AAA’s weekly show, it wouldn’t be an issue, but for their “WrestleMania,” this hasn’t been what it should’ve been.
Los Psycho Circus (Psycho Clown, Murder Clown & Dave The Clown) vs Los Perros del Mal (Daga, Angel & Berto) – Trios Match for the AAA World Trios Titles
It’s borderline insane to me that Psycho Clown has wrestled in more TripleMania main events than anyone in history.
Something else that is insane to me is how much this crowd sucks. I could be at the worst wrestling show I’ve ever seen, and I’d still find ways to make noise and entertain myself and the people around me.
El Carnicero shows up at ringside to attack Dave The Clown, and he gets fought off by Psycho Clown. Psycho and Carnicero, who will face each other in a Mexican Street Fight on night two of TripleMania, brawl through the crowd, and this has now become a three-on-two handicap match.
Murder Clown… all 300+ pounds of him… has been the star of the match so far. He’s listed at 309 pounds, and he looks like he’s 409 pounds, but he’s been jumping off of the top turnbuckle and performing superplexes, drawing pops from the crowd.
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter. The numbers advantage comes into play again, and Los Perros del Mal get the pin to become the brand new AAA World Trios Champions. Another good-but-not-great match. Outside of the Murder Clown stuff, you probably aren’t going to remember many spots from this one, but I’ll still go with 3 Stars for a rating.
Rey Mysterio vs Omos
Main event time. The stakes are that Omos will see his suspension from AAA lifted if he defeats Rey, who is the current on-screen General Manager of AAA. However, if Rey wins, Omos will be permanently banned from AAA.
Omos, who hasn’t wrestled on WWE television in two-and-a-half years, is now wrestling in the main event of TripleMania. Incredible. Oh, and that match two-and-a-half years ago was as a participant in the Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal during WrestleMania 40 weekend. His last appearance before that was in the 2024 Royal Rumble match. If you want his last non-battle royal match on WWE television or pay-per-view, you have to go back to Backlash 2023. You know the one… Backlash in Puerto Rico, where Bad Bunny wrestled Damian Priest. That was 40 months ago!
Naturally, we start things off with a face-to-belly-button showdown. I don’t know what their actual heights are, but their listed heights are nearly two feet apart, which is wild.
Omos is putting a beating on Rey. Rey’s wife, Angie, is shown in the front row with tears running down her face.
Commentary is really laying it on thick here, putting Omos over by saying that Rey has never been as outmatched in his career, even though he has faced and defeated numerous legendary giants during his Hall Of Fame career.
Obviously, with Omos on offense for most of the match so far, things have moved to a snail’s pace.
With the Referee distracted, Dominik Mysterio attacks his father at ringside, but Dom is then taken out by El Grande Americano. While the ref is distracted yet again, Rey hits Omos with a steel chair, and now Rey is building momentum.
The size advantage was just too much for Rey to overcome, though. Omos gets back on the offensive, and he drops Rey with a chokeslam to get the pin and the win. Omos is now reinstated.
After the match, Omos continues his attack on Rey, dropping multiple elbows on his fallen opponent. Dom attacks El Grande Americano at ringside, and the heel trio (with Dorian Roldan) leave in celebration.
Rey is strapped to a backboard, and once Omos sees that on the big screen, he bolts back to the ring and attacks the medics and officials that are around. Rey is defenseless, still strapped down. In a great visual, Omos lifts Rey up for a Chokeslam while Rey is still strapped to the board, and he delivers the Chokeslam atop the Spanish announce table. Gnarly spot. I get that Omos is a giant, but Rey didn’t have one person backstage to come and save him? Damn, maybe Dom was right about him all along.
This was a fun match. Definitely not the fast-paced, high-flying match you expect from Lucha Libre, but it told a really good “David vs Goliath” story, making both men look good in their roles. Omos looks like an absolutely unstoppable monster, though. I don’t know who’s supposed to stop him in AAA.
3.5 Stars
All in all, this wasn’t a bad night of wrestling, but if you’re grading it strictly on being the biggest event of AAA’s calendar year, you can’t help but be disappointed, in my opinion. The terrible crowd didn’t help things, either. I’m assuming… I’m hoping… that Sunday’s crowd in Mexico City will be better.
I’ll be right back here on Sunday night with my review of night two, but until then, be good to each other, folks. Thank you for reading.
