Like any child of the eighties, I was exposed to wrestling at a young age thanks to WWE’s Rock N Wrestling era. I watched it, but it never quite resonated for me until I was in my early adulthood. But as long as I can remember seeing them, I’ve been fascinated by the masks and art of lucha libre. Mexico developed its unique form of professional wrestling, one that could often be a bit mysterious (or misterio) to American fans.

Over the years, I’ve watched tons of old-school WCW, kept my sights on matches in TNA and the indies, and fell in love with the strange world of Lucha Underground. In the last four years, AEW has built a solid division of luchadores with the Beast Mortos, Rush, Dralistico, Komander, and Hologram, while recently adding frequent visits from the stars of CMLL.

But one of the few places that never quite understood lucha libre was WWE. They would hire luchadors, but outside of Rey Mysterio, their track record with using them has best been described as poor. Talents stall out on the main roster, rarely even getting a lot of success on the midcard, let alone anywhere near the main event. This made it a rather large surprise when WWE announced they had purchased AAA during WrestleMania weekend.

On June 7th, we were given the first look at WWE’s era of AAA, although the sale won’t actually be finalized for at least a few more weeks. It seems likely that WWE will treat AAA as part of their international developmental expansion, but this initial crossover event seems made to showcase the top talent of AAA against many of those same luchadores currently trapped in the midcard. In the process, those WWE talents got a chance to show out while American fans were given their first chance to see a lot of AAA’s stars on this large of a stage.

Latino World Order (Cruz Del Toro, Dragon Lee, and Lince Dorado) vs. Octagon Jr, Mr. Iguana, and Aerostar

The show kicked off with a battle between two tecnico units. WWE’s Latino World Order saw both Rey Mysterio and Joaquin Wilde injured, so EVOLVE trainer Lince Dorado stepped in for the third spot. He went up against an AAA team of veteran Aerostar, the young heir to a famous name Octagon Jr, and the single wrestler who would get the biggest pop of anyone during the show, Mr. Iguana.

In case you didn’t get it from the picture, Mr. Iguana is a man in an iguana costume and face paint who comes to the ring with a stuffed iguana that is used Mr. Socko-style in a lot of his offense. Like Orange Cassidy in AEW, he gets over with a healthy mix of comedy with his impressive lucha skills. It was clear that everyone in the Kia Forum — except perhaps WWE management — knew what they would get from him.

The LWO were a perfect trio to work against three other high flyers, with Octagon Jr ultimately scoring the pinfall for his team. This led to him being challenged by Dominik Mysterio post-match, setting up a title match at Money in the Bank. I have to think if anyone at WWE knew Mr. Iguana would get that pop, he would have found himself in that spot instead.

Chik Tormenta and Dalys vs. Stephanie Vaquer and Lola Vice

The two luchadoras in this match are the talents I have the least knowledge of going in, although I knew both Tormenta and Dalys are famous heavy hitters. This actually made them a great match for the first wrestler here with no lucha history, Lola Vice, whose entire wrestling career has been in NXT. While a relative rookie at only three years in the ring, she held her own against a team with a combined 35 years of lucha libre history.

Lola’s role in this match played out as one might suspect, with the inexperienced wrestler beat down by the team of Tormenta and Dalys. She takes most of the AAA team’s offense before finally tagging in the hottest new star in WWE, Stephanie Vaquer. Business picked up once Vaquer really joined the fray, even leading to a double Devil’s Kiss, continuing her streak of showing off the most popular move in 2025 professional wrestling.

To the surprise of no one, Stephanie Vaquer picked up the win here.

Legado del Fantasma (Santos Escobar, Angel, and Berto) vs. Psycho Clown, Pagano, and El Hijo Del Dr. Wagner Jr.

The second trios match of the night saw the SmackDown heel unit Legado del Fantasma actually work together, something that hasn’t been common for them despite their time together. Their teamwork was put up against a team of luchadores not known to be particularly friendly with one another, but who are two of the biggest stars in AAA history, and a rising star carrying on the tradition of his father and grandfather.

Psycho Clown, Pagano, and El Hijo del Dr. Wagner Jr were all given time to shine in this match, but this battle was built around promotion for the upcoming TripleMania Regia III, which comes just a week later. That show sees Berto and Angel challenging for the tag titles. Like the previous AAA Mega Champion, it seems unlikely that the current AAA World Tag Team Champions will make it to the WWE stage, so Legado del Fantasma needs to look strong as the potential next champs. (Psycho Clown and Pagano, as well as TNA’s Nemeth Brothers, are also in the match, but I think Angel and Berto are the likely winners.) With that in mind, Legado del Fantasma scored the win in the first unpopular finish of the night.

Je’Von Evans vs. Laredo Kid vs. Rey Fenix vs. Ethan Page for the NXT North American title

The semi-main event featured two talents from NXT, an AAA star with a long history in TNA, and a former AAA Mega Champion who has to be questioning whether jumping to WWE was a good idea at this point. Je’Von’s catchphrase is “that boy is bouncy,” but this entire match was bouncy. With three high fliers up against him, even Ethan left his feet more than perhaps any match I’ve ever seen him in.

The match ultimately ended the way many a multi-person Ethan Page match should end, with Page screwing over everyone to steal the win.

Chad Gable vs. El Hijo del Vikingo for the AAA Mega Championship

Everything I needed to know about the future of former AAA Mega Champion Alberto El Patron was told in the video package for the main event, where the footage of Vikingo’s pin of him didn’t even show Alberto’s face. It will be interesting to see if he even gets a spot on either TripleMania.

Chad Gable came into the match talking a lot about becoming the new face of lucha libre. Vikingo made it clear he wants to protect the integrity of AAA in his second reign as Mega Champion (a title he relinquished due to injury.) This made two highly combustible elements in a match that initially feels like a clash of styles. Chad Gable isn’t afraid of the top rope, but isn’t a high flyer. Vikingo does moves no one else could dare, but isn’t known for an extensive mat wrestling repertoire. Yet both men had a chance to show the range of their wrestling skills as they put on a twenty-two-minute match of the year contender.

Gable has shown a capability of doing anything he’s asked to do by WWE management, inarguably making him one of the best all-around talents in the industry. But in his first PLE main event, he showed why he deserves a much larger push on WWE television.

At the same time, Vikingo showed exactly what fans of AEW, TNA, and GCW already knew. He came out of this match as a future superstar, not just for AAA but likely for WWE as well.

While one of the best shows put on by WWE in quite some time, Worlds Collide wasn’t without flaws. The Mexican National Anthem saw a line flubbed, leading to my new favorite sideways glance meme from Blue Demon Jr.

The big screens were also set up strangely, as the two lower screens covered up a part of the main middle screen, leaving several wrestlers’ names hidden by the lower screens. Even the event merchandise saw issues, as you can get a t-shirt with El Hijo del Dr. Wagner Jr’s name spelled with a “de” instead of a “del”.

Perhaps the biggest mistake was allowing AAA booker Konnan to sit on commentary alongside Corey Graves. Konnan has never been a good color commentator, but he showed his age during the women’s match when he said Dalys and Tormenta were good wrestlers because they were trained by men. Yikes. He seemed unable to avoid using “smart” terminology as well, exposing bits of the business in ways not normal for WWE television. Coupled with his inability to ever sound excited about anything and it made Corey Graves’ work even harder on commentary. It’s a far cry from Vampiro’s work on Lucha Underground. Though never perfect, Vampiro at least could bring excitement to the call.

Despite a few missteps, Worlds Collide highlighted some great luchadores now within the WWE’s growing umbrella. It didn’t give a lot of information on what the future of WWE’s ownership of AAA would bring. The show barely mentioned TripleMania Regia III beyond Legado del Fantasma challenging for the tag titles, but they did put up a hype video for August’s TripleMania XXXII. I would guess without the finalized deal, the company can’t work out any remaining rights to the material, but perhaps by the August mega-event, we will learn if WWE means to bring a regular AAA show to fans in America or worldwide. (And from there, maybe they can disentangle the rights to Lucha Underground and bring it back to a streaming service.)

The future of AAA seems anything but secure after Worlds Collide, but the quality of the card and matches gives me hope that America might finally get a true lucha libre weekly wrestling show, finally bringing the weird and wonderful art that’s fascinated me since childhood to the world.

What were your thoughts on Worlds Collide?

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