Lucha Underground Episode 18: No Escape Workrate Report

1. Pentagon Jr. vs. Argenis

ER: At first I thought it was silly that Argenis was the first guy to get an extended run of offense against Pentagon (at least since he came back under orders of the Master), since Argenis doesn't really have offense that looks great. But once Pentagon took over then he never looked back, and it felt like he made it a point to punish Argenis even more for getting that run on him. Pentagon got to toss him around like he was Lesnar, dumping him a couple nasty ways into the turnbuckles, and finishing with that arm breaker. I loved how they filmed the arm snap from the feet up this time, instead of across the body the way they've been filming it. This way you really got to see that arm bend behind Argenis' back, and it looked sick; made my tennis elbow flare up.

ER: Jeez so they managed to make Konnan look awesome in another video. Naturally, all of this flies directly in the face of what I actually know to be true. Here they show his cane to have practically legendary power, as he breaks through a cinderblock and rips into a heavy bag, emptying out the sand. The videos are making him out to be Hoy Quarlow and while I have no idea what satisfying direction they can actually go with this, it is undeniable that I'm love the videos.

2. Angelico vs. Ivelisse

ER: Okay, I'm getting a liiiitle tired of man vs. woman matches in this fed. I'm all about being progressive, but even if you work the matches as believably as possible, what's the ceiling for how good they can be? I obviously don't need pure realism in my pro wrestling, but these kind of matches have kind of a short shelf life for me. Plus I feel a little uneasy seeing a whole bunch of dry hump and forceful cunnilingus spots get played for babyface pops. This match had way too much of that. I mean Angelico doesn't want to hit a woman, how noble! He just wants to grind on her to a degree that they switched to an alternate camera angle a couple times. What's next, are we gonna get vignettes with Big Ryck mixing drinks for Sexy Star while wearing a colorful sweater? I get it, Angelico is slimy. But he was also the face here, and everything about it felt awkward. That's not even getting into the uncomfortable Son of Havoc as cuckold referee. All that being said I enjoyed Ivelisse's offense in this. Her tornillo off the top looked real impressive, really landed perfectly stomach to stomach with a thud. I liked a lot of her stuff, loved how she crumbled off a roundhouse kick. Angelico accomplished what he set out to do, I just did not care at all for what he set out to do.

3. Cage Match: King Cuerno vs. Johnny Mundo

ER: I actually dug this match. I was worried Cuerno would be held back without being able to build to his great tope, but bumped around huge, taking a big hip toss into the cage and I loved him committing fully to his missed double knees into the cage. Escape the cage spots can be dorky but I liked some of the ones they did here, especially Mundo catching Cuerno by the mask and Vampiro putting over that Cuerno respected the mask too much to win the match but have his mask yanked off in the process. Some of Mundo's moves and strikes were problematic as expected but other times they worked. I liked them fighting on the top ropes, and even though a little goofy I liked both been being punched out and both face planting off the top. Still I thought it overall worked, mainly due to Cuerno's commitment to everything: his big moves, his big misses, his big bumps.


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