2009 Lucha Libre AAA World Wide event
Triplemanía XVII was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by the AAA promotion, which took place on June 13, 2009 at the Palacio de los Deportes in Mexico City, Mexico. It was the year an event was held under the Triplemanía chronology. Triplemanía XVII was the third Triplemanía event to take place in Mexico City, and the second to take place in Palacio de los Deportes, site of the previous Triplemanía XVI as well. The show drew close to 16.000 spectators, down from the previous years 19.000 spectators in the same venue. The Triplemanía set reduced the capacity of the arena compared to the previous year but it was not a complete sell out.
The show featured two main events, four undercard matches and one untelevised "dark match". The first of two main event matches was a singles match for the AAA Mega Championship, a match that saw challenger Dr. Wagner Jr. defeat the champion El Mesías to win the championship. The other main event was a special five on five Steel cage match where the storyline was the fight over control of AAA between Dorian Roldan and Konnan. Each side chose a team of five to represent them, with the winning team earning control of the company. On the night the team representing Roldan and AAA, El Hijo del Santo, La Parka, Vampiro, Octagón, and Jack Evans, defeated Konnan's team of Silver King, Chessman, Kenzo Suzuki, Electroshock, and Teddy Hart to return control of the promotion to Joaquin Roldan. Featured matches on the undercard included Alex Koslov defending the AAA Cruiserweight Championship against Extreme Tiger, Crazy Boy, and Alan Stone in a hardcore match, "La Hermandad Extrema" (Nicho El Millonario and Joe Líder) defending the AAA World Tag Team Championship against Latin Lover and Marco Corleone. Finally the show featured an eight-man and a six-man tag team match.
Production.
Background.
In early 1992 Antonio Peña was working as a booker and storyline writer for Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL), Mexico's largest and the world's oldest wrestling promotion, and was frustrated by CMLL's very conservative approach to "lucha libre". He joined forced with a number of younger, very talented wrestlers who felt like CMLL was not giving them the recognition they deserved and decided to split from CMLL to create Asistencia Asesoría y Administración, later simply known as "AAA" or Triple A. After making a deal with the "Televisa" television network AAA held their first show in April 1992. The following year Peña and AAA held their first Triplemanía event, building it into an annual event that would become AAA's Super Bowl event, similar to the WWE's WrestleMania being the biggest show of the year. The 2009 Triplemanía was the 17th year in a row AAA held a Triplemanía show and the 22nd overall show under the Triplemanía banner.
Storylines.
The Triplemanía XVII show featured seventy professional wrestling matches with different wrestlers involved in pre-existing scripted feuds, plots and storylines. Wrestlers were portrayed as either heels (referred to as "rudos" in Mexico, those that portray the "bad guys") or faces ("técnicos" in Mexico, the "good guy" characters) as they followed a series of tension-building events, which culminated in a wrestling match or series of matches.
The most dominating storyline in AAA over the last number of years was the feud between the AAA loyalistst and Konnan's "La Legión Extranjera" ("The Foreign Legion"). The "war" between the two factions had been going on for several years with "La Legión" winning control of AAA at the 2008 Antonio Peña Memorial Show in a multi-man Steel cage elimination match victory over a team representing AAA. Since then the storyline developed as "La Legión" took control of the federation while Joaquin Roldan and Marisela Peña tried to regain control of it. In the spring of 2009 it was announced that the main event of Triplemanía XVII would be another steel cage elimination match between AAA and "La Legión", with teams of five facing off. Over the following weeks AAA announced the match participants with Konnan's side being represented by Silver King, Electroshock, Chessman, Teddy Hart and Kenzo Suzuki. Team AAA would be represented by La Parka and Octagón, both of whom have represented AAA throughout the feud. They would be joined by Vampiro, former AAA Commissioner who resigned his position in order to wrestle against "La Legión" and by Jack Evans who had turned on "La Legión" in the months before Triplemanía XVII. AAA held off on announcing the last AAA representative for a while until they revealed that they had brought in El Hijo del Santo to be the team captain. Hijo del Santo had not worked for AAA in 14 years before the show, but was one of the key players in the early days of AAA and a legend in Mexico. Joaquin Roldan later announced that he had hired a special guest referee for the match, Cien Caras who had been feuding with Konnan when AAA was founded.
Dr. Wagner Jr. had made a surprise appearance at the 2009 Rey de Reyes show, making his debut after the main event where he challenged El Mesías for a shot at the AAA Mega Championship. Konnan tried to convince Dr. Wagner Jr. to join "La Legión", even suspending him for two weeks so he could "make up his mind". In actuality this was done to cover up the fact that Dr. Wagner Jr. still had booking responsibilities to take care off before he could work for AAA full-time. In the lead up to Triplemanía XVII Dr. Wagner Jr. and El Mesías teamed up to wrestle against "La Legión", showing unity and respect for each other. The Triplemanía XVII match would be their first match against each other.
Dr. Wagner Jr. was not the only wrestler to make a surprise debut at the 2009 Rey de Reyes. Marco Corleone had left Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL), AAA's biggest rival, and made his surprising jump during the Rey de Reyes show. In the months after Rey de Reyes it was announced that Marco Corleone would team up with Latin Lover to challenge "La Hermandad 187" (Nicho and Joe Líder) for the AAA World Tag Team Championship at Triplemanía XVII. While the two had never teamed up before they were paired up since they had similar ring characters as they were hansome, metro sexual men with a male-dancer character that appealed to the women in the audience.
In the spring of 2009 AAA decided to create the AAA Cruiserweight Championship and held a tournament to crown the first champion. The tournament final saw Alex Koslov defeat Extreme Tiger and Alan Stone to become the first ever champion. AAA announced that Koslov would defend the title in a four-way elimination hardcore match against Tiger, Alan Stone and Crazy Boy.
AAA originally announced that they had booked X-Pac against El Zorro for Triplemanía XVIII. Later on the match was changed to play off feud between El Zorro and Charly Manson that started when Manson returned from a serious injury and included a match at the 2009 Rey de Reyes. Manson would team up with X-Pac and Rocky Romero to take on El Zorro, Dark Ozz and Dark Escoria in a match where the captain of the losing team (Manson or Zorro) would receive ten lashes with a Kendo Stick from the winning team.
Triplemanía XVII was also scheduled to feature a "Relevos Atómicos de locura" match (Eight man madness" match), a match created by AAA founder Antonio Peña. The match features teams of aman, a woman, a "Mini-Estrella" and an "Exotico" and was centered around the long running storyline between real life husband and wife Billy Boy and Faby Apache. The storyline between the two reached back as far as 2005 where the two were paired up on screen. The storyline saw many twists and turns over the years and included Faby's father Gran Apache, sister Mari Apache as well as the couple's child Marvin. In the spring of 2010 Aero Star was written into the storyline as a new love interest for Faby Apache, Initially Billy Boy acted like he did not care as he himself had found a new love in Sexy Star. The "Relevos de locura" match was scheduled to have Billy Boy and Sexy Star team up with "Mini-Estrella" Mini Abismo Negro and "Exotico" Polvo de Estrellas while Faby Apache teamed up with El Elegido, Octagoncito and Pimpinela Escarlata.
Controversies.
Several events leading up to TripeManía XVII put the participation of Jack Evans, Konnan and Silver King in question. The Mexico City Boxing and Wrestling Commission had suspended both Evans and Konnan as a result of a backstage fight between the two and Juventud Guerrera and it looked like neither would be allowed to appear at the show. While AAA kept promoting Evans as a participant the plans to have Konnan wrestle in the main event were changed early on, giving him a less active role on the show in case the Commission suspended him. The suspension was lifted on both wrestlers in the weeks leading up to Triplemanía XVII.
Silver King had originally lost his mask in a "Lucha de Apuestas" match against El Hijo del Santo in 1987 and according to Lucha Libre regulations was not allowed to wear a mask as long as he wrestled as Silver King. In 2006 Silver King had remasked while working in Japan, which is not subject to Lucha rules, but continued to wear the mask when he returned to AAA in 2008. The Mexico City Boxing and Wrestling Commission barred Silver King from wearing a mask when wrestling in Mexico City. Silver King continued to wear the mask when wrestling outside Mexico City, but would face a hefty fine and suspension if he wore his mask at Triplemanía XVII.
Production.
AAA invested 4,000,000 Pesos in the production of Triplemanía XVII including a more elaborate set that the previous year's Triplemanía event. They used the equivalent of twelve trailers of production space to handle the taping of the event, the show was not broadcast on regular television but as a pay-per-view through Sky with a later special edition DVD release.
Event.
The show began at 8:40 local time, starting with a Dark match that was only seen by the fans in attendance and not shown on the Pay-Per-View broadcast. The undefeated "Los Psycho Circus" (Psycho Clown, Killer Clown and Zombie Clown) faced off against "Real Fuerza Aérea" represented by Aero Star, Laredo Kid and Super Fly. Super Fly wore a mask that was a combination of his own mask and the mask his father wore when he wrestled as "El Seminarista" while Aero Star wore a mask that was a combination of his own and the mask of his mentor who had recently died, Abismo Negro. During the match Super Fly was thrown out of the ring with such force that he was removed from the ring on a stretcher, leaving Aero Star and Laredo Kid a man down. "Los Psycho Circus" size advantage proved too much for Aero Star and Laredo Kid as Killer Clown pinned Aero Star after just 2 minutes and 24 seconds of wrestling.
Preliminary matches.
The pay-per-view opened up with a match type created by AAA, a "Relevos Atómicos de locura" match (Spanish for "Eight-man madness match"). "Relevos Atómicos de locura" matches always feature teams composed of a male wrestler, a female wrestler, an "Exotico" wrestler and a "Mini-Estrella" facing off against each other. During the introductions the "Exotico" Polvo de Estrellas wore a robe and wig inspired by the Poison Ivy character from the Batman &amp; Robin movie that featured a headdress that shot fireworks. The main story of the match focused on Billy Boy and Sexy Star's ongoing feud with Faby Apache. The match was not isolated to males wrestling against males or "Mini-Estrellas" wrestling against "Mini-Estrellas" as all eight combatants mixed it up during the match. Octagoncito almost pinned his rival Mini Abismo Negro on one occasion, narrowly avoiding defeat. Sexy Star tried to seduce El Elegido, hoping to keep him from hitting her. When Billy Boy entered the ring Sexy Star quickly pulled El Elegido's mask off and left the ring with it, this left him vulnerable for Billy Boy to pin him while he was trying to cover up his face. Following their victory Sexy Star