Héroes Inmortales (2011) (Spanish for "Immortal Heroes") was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by the AAA promotion, which took place on October 9, 2011, at Arena Monterrey in Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico, commemorating the fifth anniversary of the death of AAA founder Antonio Peña. While the two previous Peña memorial shows were labeled with the Roman numerals III and IV, the 2011 event was simply known as Héroes Inmortales. The main attraction of the event was the Mexican debut of Sting, who took part in the ongoing storyline invasion of wrestlers from American promotion Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA). TNA performers Abyss, Jeff Jarrett, Magnus and Velvet Sky also took part in the event. Other matches taking place at the event included the fifth annual Copa Antonio Peña, Dr. Wagner Jr. defending the AAA Latin American Championship against El Hijo del Perro Aguayo and the culmination of the yearlong rivalry between Los Perros del Mal and Los Psycho Circus in a Lucha de Apuestas Masks vs. Hairs match, at the end of which one team would be either forced to unmask or have their heads shaved.
Production
Background On October 5, 2006, founder of the Mexican professional wrestling, company AAA Antonio Peña died from a heart attack. The following year, on October 7, 2007, Peña's brother-in-law Jorge Roldan who had succeeded Peña as head of AAA held a show in honor of Peña's memory, the first ever Antonio Peña Memorial Show (Homenaje a Antonio Peña in Spanish). AAA made the tribute to Peña into a major annual event that would normally take place in October of each year, renaming the show series Héroes Inmortales (Spanish for "Immortal Heroes"), retroactively rebranding the 2007 and 2008 event as Héroes Inmortales I and Héroes Inmortales II. As part of their annual tradition AAA holds a Copa Antonio Peña ("Antonio Peña Cup") tournament with various wrestlers from AAA or other promotions competing for the trophy. The tournament is normally either a gauntlet match or a multi-man torneo cibernetico elimination match. Outside of the actual Copa Antonio Peña trophy the winner is not guaranteed any other "prizes" as a result of winning, although several Copa Antonio Peña winners did go on to challenge for the AAA Mega Championship. The 2011 show was the fifth show in the Héroes Inmortales series of shows.
Storylines
The Héroes Inmortales show featured seven professional wrestling matches with different wrestlers involved in pre-existing, scripted feuds, plots, and storylines. Wrestlers were portrayed as either heels (referred to as rudos in Mexico, those that portray the "bad guys") or faces (técnicos in Mexico, the "good guy" characters) as they followed a series of tension-building events, which culminated in a wrestling match or series of matches.
At AAA's previous major event, Verano de Escándalo on July 31, Jeff Jarrett, a member of AAA's top rudo alliance La Sociedad and the founder of American promotion Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA), successfully defended the AAA Mega Championship against Dr. Wagner Jr. and fellow La Sociedad member L.A. Park. On the September 10 edition of AAA's Sin Límite television program La Sociedad leader Konnan informed Jarrett that Wagner Jr. and Park were no longer going to be a problem for him, but that El Mesías, who had a history with TNA, having worked for the promotion from 2007 to 2008, was after his title. Konnan, remembering that El Mesías had already lost the AAA Mega Championship and his hair to members of La Sociedad, asked Jarrett for a big name to stop him, which led to Jarrett announcing that at Héroes Inmortales Sting would be making his debut in Mexico and facing El Mesías in a singles match. In the buildup to the match, AAA noted Sting's and El Mesías' history against each other back from 2007, when the latter worked for TNA under the ring name Judas Mesias. The two engaged in two brawls with each other on the September 20 and 27, 2007, editions of TNA's primary television program, Impact!. The brawls were used to write the injured Mesias off television for the next three months and upon his return to TNA, his rivalry with Sting was not mentioned again. Sting appeared on the September 23 edition of Sin Límite, talking about his upcoming match and praising both his opponent and the country of Mexico, making a clear distinction between himself and La Sociedad.
In April 2011, El Hijo del Perro Aguayo, the leader of Los Perros del Mal, one of the subgroups within La Sociedad, was sidelined from in-ring action as he was forced to undergo an emergency surgery to remove a golf ball-sized tumor from his stomach. Aguayo made a quick recovery and returned to AAA on May 1 to continue Los Perros del Mals feud with Los Psycho Circus (Monster Clown, Murder Clown and Psycho Clown) and Dr. Wagner Jr., the quartet known collectively as Potencia Mundial. However, a month later, just days prior to Triplemanía XIX, Aguayo was forced to pull out of the event due to his body's adverse reaction to the medication given to him as part of his tumor treatment. Finally, two months later on August 19, Aguayo made his surprise return to AAA, replacing stablemate L.A. Park and teaming with Damián 666 and Halloween against El Mesías, Joe Líder and El Zorro in a six man tag team match, which they lost via disqualification, when Líder was attacked by his former tag team partner Nicho el Millonario, whom Aguayo then named the newest member of Los Perros del Mal. At the following taping on September 1, Aguayo faced AAA Latin American Champion Dr. Wagner Jr. in a non-title match, which ended in another disqualification, following interference from Nicho. Later in the taping, Wagner Jr. saved Los Psycho Circus and Joe Líder from Los Perros del Mal and then proceeded to challenge the rudo group to a Masks vs. Hairs match. On September 11, Wagner Jr., El Mesías and Extreme Tiger defeated Aguayo, Damián 666 and Halloween in a six man tag team match. After the match, La Sociedad overpowered their opponents, giving Aguayo the opportunity to reveal that at Héroes Inmortales he would be challenging Wagner Jr. for the AAA Latin American Championship with Monterrey-based independent professional wrestler, television host and rapper Konan Big in his corner. On September 16, Aguayo, Damián, Halloween and Nicho defeated Potencia Mundial in an eight man tag team match, when Damián pinned Psycho Clown. After the rudos were chased out of the ring by the steel chair-wielding Octagón, Psycho challenged them to a Masks vs. Hairs match at Héroes Inmortales, which Damián accepted. Wagner Jr. then accepted Octagón's offer to accompany both him and Los Psycho Circus to the ring at the event. This marked the fifth major AAA event in a row, where the two groups battle each other and continued the storyline from Verano de Escándalo, where Los Perros del Mal member X-Fly lost his hair in a similar match contested inside a steel cage. However, unlike in the several previous Luchas de Apuestas between the two teams, this time the entire losing team would lose their masks or hairs in the match, which was to contested inside the Domo de la Muerte, a domed steel cage. At the final television tapings, taking place six days prior to the pay-per-view, Damián 666, Halloween and X-Fly successfully defended the AAA World Trios Championship against Los Psycho Circus, while Aguayo pinned Wagner Jr. in a six-man tag team match. Post-match, Damián promised a surprise at Héroes Inmortales, which would "revolutionize lucha libre".
TNA's storyline invasion of AAA, which started in May 2011, continued after Verano de Escándalo with appearances by Abyss, Magnus and Rosita on AAA's television programs. At the September 11 taping, Konnan announced that at Héroes Inmortales Abyss would team with Chessman to challenge Extreme Tiger and Jack Evans for the AAA World Tag Team Championship, while TNA Knockout Velvet Sky would be making her first appearance for AAA since Triplemanía XIX in a match, where she would face Lolita. However, Sky's match was later changed to a six-woman tag team match, where she would team with La Sociedad and La Legión Extranjera members Jennifer Blake and Sexy Star against Cynthia Moreno and Faby and Mari Apache. For the match, the competitors would be wearing fluorescent clothes and wrestling under a black light, making them glow in the dark. The match type, known in Spanish as Lucha a Oscuras, is one of several match types created by Antonio Peña, and was previously used at Héroes Inmortales III in 2009.
On September 25, AAA announced the ten participants in the fifth annual Copa Antonio Peña. The match was built around the storyline power struggle between AAA's chief executive officer Joaquín Roldán and his son, AAA vice president and La Sociedad leader Dorian Roldán, with both choosing their own sets of participants for the match. The match included the reigning AAA Mega Champion Jeff Jarrett and fellow TNA worker Magnus. Active rivalries within the match included the ones between Cibernético, the leader of Los Bizarros, and La Parka, the leader of rival group El Inframundo, the team of Electroshock and Heavy Metal and the leader of Los Maniacos, Silver King, and L.A. Park and El Zorro. The feud between L.A. Park and El Zorro stems back to late 2010, when both were members of La Sociedad and Konnan, remaining loyal to his longest-standing partnership, chose El Zorro as the next challenger for the AAA Mega Championship, which he went on to win in December. The fact that the AAA Mega Championship was now in La Sociedad did not stop Park from announcing his desire to challenge for the title. In May 2011, Park and Konnan turned on El Zorro and kicked him out of La Sociedad, after being fooled by Los Bizarros into believing that he had attacked Park twice during the past month, when in fact the attacks had been perpetrated by Charly Manson with the goal of causing dissension within the rudo group. Park finally received his long-awaited shot at the AAA Mega Championship at Verano de Escándalo, but was instructed to only make sure that the title stayed on his La Sociedad stablemate Jeff Jarrett in a three-way match with Dr. Wagner Jr. After Wagner Jr. was eliminated from the match, the alliance between Park and Jarrett broke down following interference from Jarrett's wife, Karen. In the end, when Park went to perform a powerbomb on Karen, someone dressed as El Zorro ran to the ring and hit him with Jarrett's signature guitar, which led to Jarrett scoring the pinfall to retain his title. On the September 10 edition of Sin Límite, it was revealed in a secret conversation between Jarrett and Konnan, that the person who had interfered in the match was in fact La Sociedad member Chessman, not El Zorro. Konnan's plan was to send Park on a "wild-goose chase" after El Zorro instead of continuing to chase Jarrett's title. Chessman was rewarded for his deed on September 16, when Konnan named him La Legión Extranjera'''s new general, taking over the spot previously held by El Zorro.