Alberto El Patron Reportedly Pulled From AAA TripleMania XXX
Last week, a report from Emily Pratt of Fanbyte suggested Alberto El Patron would be making his return to Lucha Libre AAA at the first TripleMania XXX event of the year on April 30, teaming with Laredo Kid to take on the teams of Johnny Superstar (John Morrison) and Taurus and Dragon Lee and Dralistico. Now a follow-up report from Pratt is throwing cold water on that news.
In an update to the story today, Pratt stated that the same source who told her of Alberto El Patron's AAA return had followed up by revealing El Patrton would not be appearing at TripleMania XXX after all. According to the source, El Patron had been pulled from the show and would be replaced by an unknown wrestler described as someone from the American independent scene.
The initial report suggested that Alberto El Patron had not been AAA's original choice for Laredo Kid's partner, but that they had turned to him after their first option was unable to appear due to visa issues, leading to AAA booker Konnan feeling he needed a "big name, a big surprise" for the match. AAA never commented on the story and has yet to comment in regards to the updated story.
Alberto El Patron had previously wrestled for AAA from 2014 to 2015 following his departure from WWE, and he would win the AAA Mega Championship from Texano Jr. in December of 2014. He held the title until he returned to WWE in the fall of 2015; though he was expected to return to AAA to drop the title, WWE rescinded the offer to have El Patron return after AAA canceled their Guerra de Titanes event. The Mega Championship was instead vacated.
After leaving WWE a second time in 2016, El Patron was scheduled to appear at AAA Heroes Inmotrales in October but ultimately no-showed the event, claiming he had been attacked en route. In 2018 he was similarly booked for TripleMania XXVI but didn't appear after being unable to come to financial terms. Since then El Patron has tried to get other lucha ventures in Mexico off the ground, such as Nacion de Lucha Libre, with limited success.
Alberto El Patron's reported participation and then removal from TripleMania XXX is only the latest in a career filled with controversy. In the past several years, El Patron has garnered attention for walking out on Impact Wrestling at their joint Impact/Lucha Underground WrestleMania weekend event, his turbulent relationship with WWE star Paige and accusations of sexual assault by his girlfriend in May of 2020. El Patron was ultimately indicted by a grand jury on counts of aggravated kidnapping and sexual assault, but the charges were dropped in December of 2021 due to a missing witness.
AAA TripleMania XXX Monterrey is this Saturday in Estadio de Beisbol Monterrey and is scheduled to air on FITE TV in English and Spanish commentary, with Joe Dombrowski and Larry Dallas on the English call. The show will be headlined by AEW tag team The Young Bucks taking on AAA/AEW's Rey Fenix and AAA Mega Champion Hijo del Vikingo in tag team action.