Lucha Underground Episode 13: Johnny Mundo vs. The Machine

1. Son of Havoc vs. Angelico

ER: They're doing a "loser" gimmick with Son of Havoc, which makes it only more amusing that his one LU victory was over Sexy Star. This match was fine I guess, but my eyes kind of glaze over at a certain point during these YouTube music video style matches. It didn't help that both guys were approaching Petey Williams syndrome, where you do things that look like they should hurt, but done in a way that doesn't look painful whatsoever. It's like both guys are too athletic for their own good. Both guys take some big bumps, but they just kind of bounce around a bit and land on their feet. Havoc especially would do high impact moves that looked like they wouldn't break through wet paper. I did like a lot of Angelico's knees, those looked awesome. He had a couple jumping ones and a big running one in the corner that looked great.

PAS: Angelico was so bad in his IWRG days, that I am pretty impressed he has gotten all the way to passible. I think I enjoyed this more then Eric. Angelico actually has some contact in his stuff which is nice. Havoc has some very cool spots, but it is hard to stand out doing dives in a fed with so many high flyers, his whole gimmick of biker on a losing streak who does tope fakes and shooting star presses makes no sense. They really should have given the Son of Havoc gimmick to Todd Morton or Damien Wayne and done something else with Matt Cross.

ER: Did Johnny Mundo just call some guy a hambone?

2. Famous B vs. Pentagon Jr.

ER: I dug the Pentagon Jr. video, as I'm a big fan of bad tournament fighting movies. This was a short, effective and fun squash. Famous B actually got to do a couple things before getting his arm snapped. I liked how B took the package piledriver, liked how he flopped around selling the arm.

PAS: This is what they should have been doing with Pentagon Jr. from the beginning, they had him come in as a guy moving at a million miles an hour in spot fests, but what he is great at is being a violent asskicker. Loved the arm break, so vicious looking, looking forward to see him really get unleashed in a nasty brawl.

ER: Ooooooo they're bringing back Dario's key! And it appears he's housing some sort of man dog, and has been for years, like Bob Hoskins in Unleashed. It's gonna be tough to bring in a guy as cool as my brain is picturing. "Chained up monster" is gonna be difficult to live up to. But I'm still excited.

PAS: It would be cool to have Jeff Cobb play Matanza, lunatic suplex machine as crazed caged monster would be great. If not someone should call up Kongo Kong who really has the body of a guy caged up in a basement. Whoever it is, it has gotten me excited.

3. Drago vs. Aerostar

ER: Really liked Aerostar's iridescent onesie, and overall this was a fun little sprint. Aerostar looked off on a couple spots but Drago recovered from them admirably. I liked both guy's dives, Aerostar's was really crazy as it would have been too easy to catch his foot on the ropes. Aerostar took a wild bump off a blockbuster, getting dumped right on his head. Still this was smart as both guys got to show off, but the better guy goes over definitively.

PAS: This was OK, too short to really mean much, more of a WCW Nitro lucha match then a WCWSN lucha match. Aeorstar is a crazy dude, and is getting over purely on spots in a fed where even the jobbers do insane dives.

4. Johnny Mundo vs. Cage

ER: I liked this fine, although it was a mixture of not really liking the first part of the match, but really liking the restart portions of it. Mundo is obviously an incredible athlete, but half the time his body goes through all of these amazing flips only to end with his toe grazing his opponent's head. His strikes looked better here than they have so far in LU, and I liked him mixing up his shots and going after Cage's kidneys a couple times. And really that's a smart strategy when you're up against a guy who will surely have kidney disease at some point. I loved Dario coming out and throwing Mundo's fight or die spirit in his face, his promo from the office restarting the match while giddy with blood lust was great. Still not really sure about Cage. His missed springboard moonsault was pretty impressive, but again doesn't really fit with who they push him as. And he doesn't really work stiff like Big Ryck. I like his discus clothesline, and him turning Mundo's flips into various backbreakers was smart, but I'm not really sold on him yet.

PAS: Yeah this was fun, but I agree with Eric's criticisms of both guys. Mundo really needs to lay it in more, his kidney shots looked OK, but the fired up comeback right hands were pretty bad. Cage's finisher looked cool, but seemed really awkward to set up. Like to see Dario back as a competent mastermind rather then a goof.

PAS: Alberto is a pretty big star and I am looking forward to seeing what he can do removed from the limitations of WWE structure. Neat intro.

ER: "…but you already knew that" and then winking, is one of the cooler ways to end a conversation, let alone an episode of television. I could see that becoming some sort of meme.


LUCHA UNDERGROUND MASTER LIST