Lucha Underground Episode 17: A War Started in Mexico... Workrate Report

ER: Loved Dario in the opening with Patron, especially the faces he was making after Patron swept everything off his desk. I hope this guy gets more exposure for his work, excellent casting job.

1. Mil Muertes vs. Fenix

ER: So let me get this out of the way, but jeez I was so distracted by Fenix pulling up his tights the whole match. It has to be some weird nervous tick, because he would only do it after taking offense. He would never do it when he was in control, instead he would take a devastating bump and then immediately hike the back of his pants up while he was KO'd. It drove me bonkers by the end of this thing. Outside of the constant gear adjusting I liked the way Fenix bumped for Muertes (especially the way he kept banking his head off the apron when Muertes was slamming it), and Muertes had some pretty great moments too. I loved Fenix gearing up for some rope running offense and everybody else seeing a massive Muertes right hand coming a mile away. They try some things here and not all of it works, but mostly I thought they filled the time well.

ER: I'm not sure how to feel about this Konnan vignette. A) I thought it was awesome, looked amazing, totally badass. B) It's for Konnan, who can barely walk and is one bump away from having to Kickstarter a new kidney. Now one of my all time favorite wrestling matches is "old broken man vs. young punk", but in most of those matches the old broken guy was a guy who was an excellent wrestler in his prime., which would never apply to Konnan (unless you read the Hall of Fame bio he wrote for himself in the Observer). Still, the vignette was good enough to make me interested.

2. Big Ryck vs. Sexy Star

ER: This was about what was expected. Even then it looked silly that Ryck sold any of Star's offense even slightly. The fact that he bumped for a crossbody looked silly. The size difference was just too much, and Star's offense looked like it wouldn't move Ryck an inch. I did like how Ryck went through the motions of doing his finisher, but instead just held her shoulders down. Still not really sure how this helped either of them, but we'll see where things go with The Crew.

3. Alberto el Patron vs. Texano

ER: Well, this got a lot of time, but it felt pretty aimless and definitely didn't show the same kind of hate and wild passion that Alberto was showing in Dario's office. This was kind of worked like a TNA main event that got some time, with Alberto throwing out a bunch of finishers and Texano kicking out of them, with Alberto eventually drawing the DQ. I was amused that they started a "This is Lucha" chant when the guys were basically doing superplexes and arm bar teases. The crowd was pretty noticeably annoying during this episode, now that I think about it, with a bunch of dumb chants. Usually they've come off like everybody is really into the show, this was the first time I noticed that it felt blatantly "getting ourselves over!!!" There were chants for the referee, a "She's so Sexy" chant during the Star match, annoying little things like that. Both men looked fine enough in this, just felt like they didn't know how to fill time, and kind of worked the wrong match for their first big (rushed) fight. Some new stuff Alberto tried didn't really work. In WWE he was always good about hitting a smooth arm bar. Here he did this dorky thing where he called for it from the corner like Edge calling for the Spear, then sprinted across the ring to a downed Texano, came to a complete stop, and then tried to lock on the armbar. He did hit a nice dive, and the bull rope whipping looked good, but this was kind of a flop for me.


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