The Lucha Brothers in AEW Retrospective: Greatness in 5 Matches

If reports of The Lucha Brothers (Rey Fenix and Penta el Zero Miedo) being WWE-bound are accurate, maybe it is the right time? It was always inevitable.

Historically, competition at the highest level of pro wrestling has resulted in wrestlers “jumping ship” between the top two companies. There are opportunities to try and find a greater level of success and/or security elsewhere.

If it’s there, why not risk it? However, the circumstances and conditions must be right.

I’ve written elsewhere in more depth about how AEW vs. WWE has reshaped the industry and how wrestlers and fans are the biggest benefactors. The Lucha Brothers have held tag team, trios, and singles gold.

As cornerstones of AEW, their impact on the promotion cannot be denied. Both have helped define the company’s alternative style of wrestling to WWE’s “sports (and) entertainment”.

They have competed in some of the greatest tag team matches in the company’s short five-year history. Also, as singles wrestlers, both men have been relied upon in various roles across the card.

They remain fan-favorites. Whether they stay or go or eventually return, there’s inevitably a risk.

Celebrating Their Success

I’m going to spotlight and analyze ten Lucha Brothers matches that show their impact on AEW’s history and creative across two articles. Five matches per article, starting with those that display the team’s capability as wrestlers and storytellers.

Additionally, I’m going to analyze how their performances have impacted my and other AEW fans’ views of the promotion and the brothers themselves. Part two will focus on how and where The Lucha Brothers have hit a creative and booking ceiling in AEW.

It will discuss why a move to a different territory might be appealing. Included in each list are singles matches, but mainly tag team contests.

I make no apologies for the fact that seven of these ten matches feature at least one member of The Elite. Five feature The Young Bucks.

The Lucha Brothers are AEW originals whose DNA has bled and mixed with that of the company’s founders. While I have tried to have variety, it’s impossible to talk about the best of The Lucha Brothers without including The Elite.

Their legacies are interwoven for better and worse. The Lucha Brothers, more so than FTR, are arguably The Bucks’ biggest rivals.

History makes them inseparable. While I won’t dive deep into the history of this rivalry, Aarij Arifeen has in his article here.

The match order will be chronological. If I have missed an important match and its significance, please let me know in the comments.

1. The Young Bucks vs. The Lucha Brothers (Double or Nothing 2019)

It’s fitting this legacy feud, which prior to 2019 had been contained previously to the indies (PWG) and Mexico (AAA), began at AEW’s inaugural PPV, All Out. This semi-main event showed AEW putting the importance of tag team wrestling forward on day one.

In what has become a very AEW move, the first match did not follow the traditional first encounter basic match formula. It would not end in one fall.

Instead, the stakes were raised to fit the story. The Bucks beat The Lucha Brothers at AAA’s Rey de Reyes 2019 for the AAA World Tag Team championship.

Build for the match focused on each brother tandem wanting to prove they were the best. It was The Lucha Brothers who raised the stakes to Escalera de la Muerte (Ladder of Death) match for the AAA titles.

The purpose was to prove their superiority over The Bucks by beating the California natives in their comfort zone. Lasting just under twenty-five minutes, it’s an excellent showcase of the innovation and creativity of both teams.

Tame in comparison to later battles, their use of ladders was none the sense unique as springboards rather than for inflicting pain. Ladders were a feature rather than a crutch.

It’s a match built around bravado and one-upmanship. It tells a story of equity and parallels.

A well-coordinated spot fest with a story built into it. The first chapter in their rivalry delivered.

The Lucha Brothers drew first blood, winning back their AAA World Tag Team Championship. The loss would play into The Young Buck’s and The Elite’s initial crisis of confidence.

They believed they were truly the best.

2. AEW World Tag Team Championship: Kenny Omega and Adam Page vs. The Lucha Brothers (February 19, 2020 Dynamite)

In Kenny Omega and Adam Page’s second tag team championship defense against The Lucha Brothers, there was a real sense that The Elite men might lose their newly acquired belts. Penta and Fenix seemed poised to steal Page and Omega’s gold and take their spot in what would be their absolute classic match with The Young Bucks at Revolution, it helped create that magic called “the feeling” that anything could happen on Dynamite.

The Lucha Brothers played an important role in the developing story of insecurity and imposter syndrome with the “Anxious Millennial Cowboy”. A full analysis of the storyline can be found here.

Teamwork went wrong as Kenny set up Fenix for the buckshot, but Rey moved! Page hit his own partner with a closed fist rather than the full lariat.

Omega barely kicked out of a Penta-driver. Page and Omega would battle back hitting their buckshot/V-Trigger combination to secure the win out of nowhere.

The Lucha Brothers lose nothing in defeat. However, post-match, Page’s face was riddled with insecurity.

Although he gained the victory, Page had hit his own partner (again). The Lucha Brothers again played their part in the Elite saga.

Not for the last time.

3. FTR and The Young Buck vs. Lucha Brothers and The Butcher and The Blade (July 8, 2020 Dynamite – Fyter Fest Night Two)

Early on, AEW had put the art of tag team wrestling back on the map. However, The Lucha Brothers were key in helping establish multi-man and multi-tag team battles.

They, as much as The Young Bucks, are responsible for making this type of match a beloved feature of AEW cards. Guilty as well of adding the spots, tropes, and features that have for some dissolved this genre of eight-to-ten-man tags into a parody of itself.

Working with The Butcher and Blade provided a unique contrast of characters and synergy. The teams would work as a unit a lot and would later become Eddie Kingston’s Family.

This was FTR’s third AEW match. The slow build was underway for FTR vs. The Young Bucks.

These matches offered layers to the contest. A sampling of potential dream matches and future contests.

A pinch of the can they co-exist trope, mixed with the anticipation of how philosophically and mechanically opposed wrestlers could work together. Such showcase matches displayed the best and uniqueness of each team.

For FTR, it gave the fans more snippets of what they could do within WWE’s restraints. The Lucha Brothers worked like glue, bringing in interesting spots at the right time to connect phrases of wrestling together.

Fenix breaks up a pinfall with a top rope crossbody to knock his opponent’s partner! Still the best version of what’s become a tired tag-match trope.

Likewise, Fenix hitting a huge destroyer to the outside onto the field of opponents was a marvel. It quickly became an expectation in these types of matches.

For better or worse, The Lucha Brothers made these contests a stable of AEW.

4. AEW World Tag Team Championship: The Young Bucks vs. The Lucha Brothers (All Out 2021)

Considered by some as one of the best tag team matches of all time and one of the best cage matches of all time, it is perhaps the pinnacle of their rivalry with The Young Bucks. The Lucha Brothers won a tag team tournament to earn the right to face The Bucks for the tag titles for the first time in a tag match in almost two years.

They did, however, regularly compete against each other in multi-team matches in the time between two encounters. Building on their first encounter, the escalation in violence with weaponry was minimal and creative.

The cage was used in the traditional sense to keep out interference. As a weapon, it was used in vicious and simplistic ways to inflict maximum pain.

It pushed the boundaries of spectacle and violence but in a way tamer than say late 2023 and 2024. It seems that, since The Bucks faced Darby Allin and Sting (matchpoint breakdown of the match here), they are more dependent on blunders.

The only additional weapon was the infamous sneaker full of thumbtacks. Penta’s sacrifice, taking the thumbtack superkick in place of his brother made The Bucks heartless and the man without fear the bravest SOB on the planet at that moment.

Fenix’s crossbody from the cage still puts my heart in my mouth. Again, The Lucha Brothers were victorious and finally claimed the AEW World Tag Team Championship.

The victory was sweet and ended The Bucks’ best tag championship run.

5. AEW Trios Championship: Death Triangle vs. The Elite (Full Gear 2022)

Death Triangle was tasked with leading the trios division after Brawl Out. As a unit, the group of The Lucha Brothers and PAC was and remains a fan favorite.

Although they seemed destined to be placeholder champions – something that Rey Fenix would later experience with the International Championship – the last-minute title defense at Full Gear 2022 was a great surprise in many respects. First, an inspired choice of booking for the returning Elite members after Chicago.

Against career rivals, there was a guarantee of stability and a banger of a match. At a time when the perception of the EVPs had been changed forever, ensuring The Elite had an elite performance was trusted with the trios champions.

How the crowd would respond was uncertain. The performance of all six men proved their claims to greatness as the best teams and wrestlers in all of wrestling.

Second, the outcome. The champions retained and proved themselves to not be temporary as we might have imagined.

The match delivered for a short time a potential sense of hope for the trios division. Afterward, the best of seven series was announced.

It sparked hope that in 2023 the trios division could live up to the heyday of AEW’s peak. When factions and units of friends were the lifeblood of AEW storytelling.

Building Blocks

Regardless of what happens, The Lucha Brothers’ impact on the first five years of AEW is built into the foundations and walls of AEW’s house. Their rivalry with The Bucks fuelled the resurgence of tag team wrestling as a priority again on televised American wrestling.

The Lucha Brothers, more than FTR, can claim to be The Young Bucks’ greatest rivals. Not just simply on the quality of the contests.

These consistently lived up to expectations and redefined them. Unlike FTR, The Lucha Brothers have been central to helping The Young Bucks and The Elite evolve as characters throughout different periods of the latter’s sagas and its most satisfying moments.

Yet, being so strongly associated with The Young Bucks and Elite as their foils has positioned them in their shadow. While they might be the other side of the coin, they are the tails to The Buck’s head.

Secondary. In the conversation for one of the best teams in the world but not the best. Despite having many key victories over The Jacksons and The Elite, the latter are the company’s main characters.

Their name is part of the company. Penta and Fenix are building blocks but it’s the EVPs’ names on the building.

For me, as fundamental as they have been to AEW, by themselves, they are not on equal footing in terms of importance in kayfabe. Similarly, their range of classic matches and feuds when contrasted with The Young Bucks seems more limited.

In part, due to that continual booking as foils. Their role has been vital to AEW.

Mine and other fans’ perceptions aside can’t diminish their significance. So, if they desire to see what they can do beyond the confines of AEW, now is perhaps their best chance to see if they can be more.

More From LWOS Pro Wrestling

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