Lucha Underground Episode 11: Last Luchador Standing Workrate Report

1. Cortez Castro & Mr. Cisco vs. Pimpinela Escarlata & Mascarita Sagrada

ER: I've actually been liking Cisco a lot during his LU run and I thought he looked great in this. He bumps way bigger than Cortez and I think he has a bunch of really great offense. He takes moves way better than the other guys and this match was a good showcase for that, as Pimpi has a few moves that require both heels to bump at the same time and Cisco always looked better. Sagrada was also downplayed as he hits a couple ranas and a flip dive (which B-Boy bumps terribly and makes it look like he got barely grazed with a Nerf football). I like how the rudos isolate him and make the most of the size disadvantage. I still like what Pimpi is bringing to the fed (even though I've seen him getting dumped on a lot). I always think he looks fine and again, Cisco made a lot of his stuff look great.

PAS: I really enjoyed this, the crew added in a lot of nasty looking cheap shots, and Pimpi may not have the athletic juice of his younger days, he still knows how to lay it in, time comebacks and elicit sympathy. I am adding my voice to the praising of Cisco. What the fuck happened to B-Boy? He was always a guys who's instincts I questioned a bit, but his execution was always good, he has looked awful in every moment of action in this fed, did he have a stroke or something?

ER: Post match and everybody turns on Big Ryck and jumps him, brutally burning his eye with his own cigar. Nasty stuff. I'm not sure what to make of the turn but Ryck seems an odd guy to be a babyface in this promotion as it's a little tough to regularly get behind a guy who won't be an underdog in any situation. Maybe Cueto digs the "strength in numbers" thing but still curious about storyline reasons for Dario paying fat stacks of cash to take out the other guy he was paying cash. Striker is still WWE conditioned as he states Ryck has been taken to a "medical facility".

PAS: I have enjoyed the look and vibe of the backstage stuff in this fed, but the motivations have often been lacking. Cueto has great delivery, but nothing he does makes any sense. What happened to the monster he had locked up anyway? Why did he pay one group of thugs to take out another thug he payed to take out John Morrison? I am worried we are getting the same lazy writing that has plagued wrestling for the last 20 years, with a slightly flashier package.

ER: Cage interview sure wasn't much. This man has not been given the gift of speech. He had an almost comically bad delivery. Vampiro looked absurd, like Vic Mackey going under cover to stop a Byz Lats drug ring.

PAS: I like Vampiro as an aggressive interviewer. He is better in that role, than at commentary.

2. Super Fly vs. Pentagon Jr.

ER: Kind of an aimless match with a couple of cool spots. A lot of this was centered around Pentagon attacking Super Fly's leg, and Super Fly yelling about his battered leg, but outside of yelling and holding his leg after getting kicked it never seemed to bother him too much. We do get a bunch of fun superkicks that just made me want a Chris Adams style superkick match, and Pentagon does his brutal dropkick to a moonsaulting opponent, but this didn't add up to much for me.

PAS: I liked this more then Eric. Pentagon is at his best as a nasty asskicker, and I like him beating on dudes better then flying around trying to match spot for spot with guys like Fenix.


3. Sexy Star vs. Mariachi Loco

ER: This felt like the kind of match they should have had when Sexy Star debuted. Instead this match was spent acting like Star has always been an equal to her male counterparts, when they could have just done something like this the first week and had it established that she's equal. That said I liked this match and Star's comebacks and offensive runs were logical, and she even brought some stiff work especially with some kicks to the face. I dug all her armdrags and her capitalizing on Mariachi's mistakes made sense in the match.

PAS: Yeah this was pretty good, Sexy Star was really laying it in, and Marachi Loco was good too as a bumbling heel bumping around. Not really sure where they are going with her now that the Chavo feud is over, but I wouldn't mind Pimpi turning heel and a feud between those two.

4. Last Luchador Standing: King Cuerno vs. Drago

ER: Well this was disappointing, but I'm also a guy who dislikes Last Man Standing matches more than a lot of people. It's a stip that just constantly interrupts the action, with a big move and then lying around waiting. There have been LMS matches that I've enjoyed but usually with me it just ends up getting in the way of what could have been a fine normal match. And it doesn't help when you have a goofy ending where apparently it counts as a guy not being able to stand, when the other guy is physically preventing him from doing so? That took what could have been a brutal finish in a No DQ match, into a confusing finish. Both guys have shown a good rhythm together, and this stip took away that rhythm, as instead of a grueling match it just came across as a restart after every move. We still got big spots like the Cuerno tope and a sick Michinoku Driver to the floor, I just don't think overall the stip helped them.

PAS: I didn't mind the pacing as much as Eric, Cuerno is already deliberate, which is what I like about him, so the pauses kind of worked with the pacing of his matches. The pace differences is what I like about this series. Still that was a pretty dumb finish. Especially if this was supposed to end the feud. This show had some fun action, but it really made me question their booking


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MLJ: Mocho Cota in 1993 II: El Satanico/Fishman/Mocho Cota v. El Rayo de Jalisco Jr./Lizmark/Latin Lover

Taped 10.9.93 @ Gimnasio Olímpico Juan de la Barrera, Ciudad de México, Distrito Federal
El Satanico/Fishman/Mocho Cota v. El Rayo de Jalisco Jr./Lizmark/Latin Lover

On paper, this seems pretty comparable to the match I reviewed on Monday. Grundy was a drag on that one, even if there were a few specific things he could do well. Here we have Rayo, and the impression I've gotten from the few matches of his I've seen, are that he's a big ham, and an attention hog, maybe a proto Wagner, Jr (though they're pretty close to the same age and I find Wagner more charismatic and able to back it up better). Fishman always struck me as someone who was perfectly acceptable in a trios match, but I should watch some of his singles matches at some point. He was into his 40s here but then so were Satanico and Lizmark.

As before the entrances were great. Cota had some sort of horror mask and sort of an Imperial Guard valet. Fishman came out to We Are the Champions with a girl in fishscales. Satanico, amazingly, came out with these red klansmen of doom. Lizmark was out there with a cape and Tirantes, and Latin Lover instead of coming out with two women, came out with none, but at least he had some flamethrower thing.

This ended up being just two caidas but it had everything you might have wanted from it, a massive, violent beatdown, the tease of a comeback, and then the actual one. I won't go through everything but I loved the beatdown. The rudos took right over by charging forward and they played the numbers game well. Cota hit his fireman's carry into a hotshot again and it looked even better this time. They held onto Lizmark's mask straps to hold him into the corner so he couldn't fight back. Unsurprisingly Rayo made sure to fight back as much as possible before getting overwhelmed. My biggest problem with this was the heelishness of the ref which really took the heat off of the wrestlers and put it on him. I like the modern CMLL style more where the ref is just hapless and helpless in the face of rudos being rudos so it's not his fault, it's theirs.

Towards the end of the caida, after being cut down at every point, the tecnicos rallied. Lover, instead of coming in directly through the ropes when it was his turn, ran around the ring (and the heel ref) to stage a quick ambush. Everything broke down to crazy brawling with Cota and Lover mounting and hammering each other. Eventually, though Cota hit some massive headbutts to gain control of the mount, symbolically cutting off the comeback and letting the rudos pick up the primera.

Cota kept on shining to start the segunda. He measured Lover with knees and bit at his wound and was all over him until the tecnicos charged back again. It was a pretty rousing comeback with quebadoras and a powerbomb and Lizmark palming Satanico in the face, mask ripping, chair shots, the works. Cota bled and Lover continuously ripped his face apart.

This continued on for a few minutes, some very solid action with a lot of hate and blood and mask ripping behind it until it built to all three pairings getting highlighted in the ring one at a time. It ended with Rayo and Fishman, and Rayo, furious, grabbing the mask off for the rudo win (on paper at least). Satisfying trios. There was a bit of meandering at times and the heel ref stuff was irritating in a bubble but was probably more tolerable in context.

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