(alternate title: “One Lucha Libre AAA ticket, never used.”)

Let’s go over what we know:

AAA sold few tickets to the New York & Los Angeles shows, so few that they turned off the ability to see a seat map so no fan could see a visual representation of unsold tickets in one space. (Though the ticket selection screen still shows no many more tickets have moved.) one source told me the MSG show had sold much less than 1,000 tickets as of mid-July.

No matches have been announced for either show.

AAA had been posting canned Tweets regularly (and probably automatically) to hype these shows. Those have vanished. AAA hasn’t tweeted the word “MSG” since June 26th. AAA hasn’t used the #LUCHALIBREAAAenNY tag since June 18th AAA hasn’t used the #LUCHALIBREAAAenLA tag since June 29th AAA has continued to push their Mexico shows as normal; they’re not giving on social media ticket sales, just these shows.

Neither the Spanish nor the English announce crew mentioned the AAA US shows on TripleMania commentary when it would normally be a focal point This week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletters says the announcers were specifically told not to bring up the US shows.

Fite.TV were announced as carrying these shows on PPV. They currently list no show airing on September 15th.

An AAA show was announced for September 16th outside Mexico City, the day after the scheduled show in New York. It’s possible for everyone to make it back from New York to be on this show, but it would be challenging.

I’ve been waving “AAA’s shows look concerning” red flags. AAA’s usually helpful in telling me when I’m way off base. No one’s gotten back to me to say I’m wrong.

None of this is definite proof the shows are canceled. The tickets for New York and Los Angeles remain on-sale as of late Thursday and there were still ads playing for it in the Forum last night. The evidence showing they’re not running theses is getting overwhelming though. We’re waiting for someone on the AAA show to be announced as working somewhere else on September 15 or for AAA to say something. That may still take a while. The social media mentions being dropped in June suggest someone knew to stop pushing it a while ago and yet nothing’s been said. You shouldn’t wait for them to finally change say it to make other plans.

I got a pretty decent ticket: Sec 117, Row 14, Seat 11 in New York City. I don’t think I’m using it. I’m definitely sure I’m not buying a plane ticket and a hotel room for a show that doesn’t seem to exist. More importantly, I don’t want you – a person with an interest enough in lucha libre to be reading this – to have bought tickets to these shows to spend more money on them that you’ll have trouble getting back. I have no doubt the ticket money will be coming back. AAA’s been trustworthy on that in the past. I can’t vouch for airlines or hotel companies or whatever else. I’m sure you can find other things to do in New York if you’ve got no alternative, but I’d like you to have the option to do something else with your time and money.

(LA people: these shows are being fronted by the same investors. Tickets didn’t move much better for LA. If the NY show goes down, they’re not going to run a standalone show in Los Angeles a month later.)

There’s a lot more to say about why these shows didn’t work. I’d like to wait until they get officially canceled to talk about it, but I suspect all the responses to this will be people diagnosing the problem. I think the overarching problem is AAA beliving in taking giant swings and nothing else, and they’re not getting slow pitch machines in the US. There are smaller steps they need to take first – and everyone’s going to list them now – but they seem unwilling to take that approach. It’s a shame because TripleMania seemed to prove there would be a market for a well promoted and positioned AAA show in the US. These plans were not it, but that doesn’t mean AAA should give up. Just don’t start with the level 99 boss of MSG, start a little bit smaller and smarter.

Like this: Like Loading...