Lucha Underground Episode 32: All Night Long Review

ER: This is a tough episode for me to provide much insight into, as it was one match, nothing else, and everybody is going to have very different thoughts on it. There were parts of this I loved, parts of it I did not love, parts I thought the iron man gimmick helped the match, parts where I thought the iron man concept was definitely hurting the match. So I guess the questions can be, did I like the match? Did my hour feel wasted? Overall I thought the match worked, and overall my time did not feel wasted at all.

It's kind of a tough match with a lot of different set pieces, and it drags in spots and defies logic in others, but overall it works. Mundo works so much better as a smarmy rudo, it had to be obvious to anyone who's ever watched him. And when you consider the two ways they could have worked this, I think they went the right direction. On one hand you have Mundo cheating early, building up a big lead, and seeing Puma gallantly fight back to pull it out. On the other you have Puma racking up the big lead, then Mundo cheat to come back before ultimately failing. On the former you get the champ fighting and overcoming adversity, and on the latter you would see more of the champ struggling to hang on, escaping by the skin of his teeth. I think they could have pulled both ways off, but I liked the route they took. I do think they went to Mundo cheating not too early, but too damn strong. He bent a fucking CROWBAR over Puma's head 20 minutes in. That was admittedly tough to get over, to picture Puma somehow gaining strength and energy 20 minutes after getting brained by a crowbar. A crowbar just seems like too much to come back from. In the alternate match layout, Mundo gets too desperate and hits Puma late in the match with the crowbar, then starts piling up the pinfalls as fans get worried he'll catch up to Puma's total. This way Puma doesn't have to do offense after getting knocked with a crowbar, he can more believably stall in the ropes and tie Mundo up. Now, that obviously wouldn't be as exciting, so as I said up above I'm glad they went the route they did. But I could never fully get past the crowbar shot as something you can recover from. So that's a big quibble from me, but that aside they still kept me engaged for most of 45 minutes, no small feat. I loved Mundo getting his big lead and then going on the run. Admittedly at first it struck me as odd that the match was apparently no DQ, no countout, but you still had to pin the guy in the ring. Seemed clunky at first, as guys would wander but then there was always filler time as then a guy would have to be drug back into the ring, sometimes from far away. But it made Mundo's running away more satisfying, since Puma couldn't just catch him wherever, and it made El Patron's return even greater as he got to be the one who kicked Mundo's ass back into the one spot where he could lose. Mundo's strategies were great, the table spot was fucking insane, fighting on top of the grandstands was also crazy yet overshadowed, Puma came out looking like a true champ, Mundo further established what a dick he was, and Patron had the most logical return possible, just brutalizing the guy who put him out. WWE has this obnoxious habit of a babyface getting taken out by a heel to end a program, and then the babyface never returns for revenge, just returns to a new program. Seeing Patron actually return to go after Mundo shouldn't have been shocking, but it was because of how much sense it made. Very satisfying match, one of the only iron man matches I've actually enjoyed.

PAS: I was pretty shocked at how much I enjoyed this. I had very little faith that either guy had the chops to work a match this long and have it remain interesting. I enjoyed the wrestling parts of this early, and then when they got to the garbage spots they used them in impressive and logical ways. I liked Mundo building up a big lead with the tire iron shot, it makes total sense that you are going to pin a guy a bunch of times if you dent his skull with a tire iron, and it also makes total sense to get a big lead and run away. He was also such a dick dancing with the band and talking shit on the grandstand, that table spot was nicely teased and totally lunatic. Also really enjoyed the Alberto run in, doesn't take away from Puma's victory as Mundo was being such a poor sport, and brings Alberto back in a big way. Lots of cool spots, a sensible well executed story and some big drama, about as good a match as those guys could work with those stips. Glad to see LU back after a weak couple of weeks.


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