22 Years of AAA

It has been over two decades since the first show of Antonio Peña's lucha libre promotion AAA on May 15th 1992. How things have hold up until now?

Well, it's been kind of bitter sweet what AAA has done in lucha libre. 

In their first years they came in to the lucha libre scene with a huge bang, hiring luchadores that usually were booked on CMLL's main cards. Complemented with a few appearances of foreign wrestlers like Jake "The Snake" Roberts. Today its roster needs new luchadores, specially the women's division, they've used the same three women for their matches at least for five years. Thankfully they keep bringing wrestlers from abroad every now and then but it's better than nothing, in the last years they've brought Sting, Aj Styles and Low Ki, just to mention a few.

I must recognize the effort they've put through the years in bringing things that have not been done before (at least in Mexico), like the storylines or the six side ring. The bad part of this is that the most of Mexican luchadores aren't trained to do promos and the storylines aren't original or creative. There's this story where Konnan with an outsider or a member of Peña's family that wants to take over AAA that has been going for years, it's beyond incoherent and repetitive at this point.

Even though they've had the same roster for quite a while, somehow they've managed to do good booking and creating a lot of hype around some matches. The negative side of this is that the matches don't live up to the hype built for them, most of the bouts (specially the main events) have an interference in them.

The last thing I applaud in AAA is how bold they are in their expansion strategies. That's something they're really good at. In the last years they crated Quien Pinta para la Corona (A competition that gives independent luchadores a chance to work for AAA), they've released an animated film, two lines of action figures, and a video game. 

Summarizing, AAA has tried to be different in this 22 years, whether some of us like it or not, has work for them. So lets hope for the next twenty years to be better. Finally I have for you one of the most bizarre moments from AAA, the main event of Triplemania XII in a mask vs mask match, La Parka versus El Cibernetico.See you next week.

Francisco Arreola

@fcoarreola