When Konnan announced that Sammy Guevara and Tay Melo had not only no-showed Noche De Campeones, the final marquee event of the Lucha Libre AAA calendar, but had been officially stripped of their straps, it turned the heads of fans of Lucha Libre, AEW, and beyond. Was AAA upset with Tony Khan, who also saw his Ring of Honor Tag Team Champions, FTR, lose the belts to Hermanos Lee, Dragon Lee and AEW's Dralistico, before the former vacated the belt to jump ship to WWE in the pursuit of becoming the next Rey Mysterio? Or was this all part of some bigger booking plan?
Now at the time, Konnan did issue a statement before running a Triple Threat mixed tag match to decide on the new AAA Mixed Tag Champions, a match eventually won by Abismo Negro Jr. and Flammer, and to be frank, it read a bit Kayfabe-y.
“Sammy and Tay have canceled three times, not twice,” Konnan said via E Wrestling News. “They wanted their own referee & Tay wanted her own stylist, so I have made a decision. There were three orders of business: Number one, the titles have now been vacated. Number two, I have already sent someone to the United States to get the titles. And Number three, whoever wins this Triple Threat Mix Tag Match will become the new AAA Mixed Tag Champions.”
Pretty strange, right? Though Guevara did try to make light of the situation, tweeting, “WTF!! All we asked for was to fly private & have a limo pick us up and have Brazilian food for lunch & dinner in our own locker room WTF! Konnan & AAA need to make this right,” fans still felt like there was something being left unsaid that would explain the real reason for his absence. Fortunately, on his Keepin' It 100 podcast, Konnan finally explained why Guevara and Melo weren't allowed to lose the straps in the ring and instead took them by force from one country away.
AEW didn't look out for AAA ahead of Noche De Campeones.
Discussing AAA with his co-host Disco Inferno on Keepin' It 100, Konnan let it be known that while the decision to take the straps off of Guevara and Melo wasn't unplanned, the decision to vacate the straps was and came on because of a decision by Khan to book Melo for a televised tag team match with Anna Jay, Willow Nightingale, and Ruby Soho.
“I will just say that Tony [Khan] pulled Tay because some girl, I don't know who, had COVID,” Konnan said via The Wrestling Observer. “I'm not sure why Sammy was pulled because he didn't even appear on the f—ing show.”
“The first time, they missed their flight. The second time it was, this girl is Brazilian Tay Melo, and I know this to be a fact because one time when I was handling Rey's (Mysterio) business when he was out of WWE, they wanted him to go to Brazil and to get a visa is not easy. So, she needed to get a visa. Tay sent me her visa papers and she was like, ‘I tried to get my visa, I couldn't get it on time, but we will be at the next show for sure. They sent me a video, everything was cool and the next thing I know Tony pulled her because somebody had COVID. What I don't understand is why didn't he just send Sammy because Sammy didn't do s–t on the show.”
Would it have been nice for Guevara to fly down to AAA to shoot an angle? Sure, but considering the “Spanish God” never actually defended the strap in AAA, why show up just to take the L? Especially when the option to lose the belt in the ring FTR-style isn't even on the table?
For better or worse, it looks like the relationship between AEW and AAA is cooling down, but why? Is it because AEW is working incredibly closely with New Japan, who now work with CMLL in Mexico? Or could Konnan see a chance to maybe, just maybe, work with WWE now that one of his star performers, Lee, is set to join NXT on a three-year contract with an option to jump up to WWE's main roster baked into the deal? Only time will tell, but with Rush, Bandido, Dralistico, and Andrade – at least for now – in AEW, it seems like cutting off the pairing 100 percent would be in the worst interests of AAA, especially before fans get that Kenny Omega-El Hijo del Vikingo match that was supposed to make the latter into an international star.
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