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.


LUCHA UNDERGROUND MASTER LIST

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MLJ: Guerreros del Infierno A-4: Rey Bucanero & Último Guerrero vs Mr. Niebla & Villano IV

Taped 2000-08-04 @ Arena México
Rey Bucanero & Último Guerrero vs Mr. Niebla & Villano IV [CMLL Tag Titles?]

I had notes. I lost them, so we'll wing this one. (Yeah, I take minor notes while watching, just to keep track of things. Someday I'll post them instead of a review.) So, this was the match at the PPV and as I said last time, with Charles injured (and limping down to the ring to explain said injury), the initial tournament was over and GdI won by forfeit. It wasn't so easy for them, though, as they were made to immediately defend against Niebla and makeshift partner Villano IV. They complained (well Satanico did) and then, like good rudos, they took the belts and ambushed the tecnicos and the match was on.

I liked this a lot, especially the tercera which was absolutely action packed. I know I've said this before but it bears repeating: just seeing a well-defined tag team in this setting that I've come to really enjoy is both different and nice. I really need to go and watch more of those matches with Tramua I and Trauma II and the Caifan Rockero tags too. It's something we take for granted in the States, but in the land of trios matches that generally lead to singles matches, it all feels a little novel.

All that said, the structure here was a little weird, but not necessarily in a bad way. It's a title match so you'd expect a feeling out process to begin (or maybe a bit of Shine), followed by a flash victory, the reversal in a short segunda, and then them hitting a lot of bombs and near-falls and near-submissions in the tercera, not unlike the Marco/Rush title challenge we reviewed on Monday. Instead, they did the extended ambush-driven beat down for the primera, a comeback in the segunda which led not to an immediate pin and reset, but instead the rudos driven from the ring. Usually when you see a comeback that doesn't lead to an immediate fall, that's a sign that a match is only going to go two caidas. Instead, they looped around and did some tecnico shine before rolling into the tecnicos picking up the fall. From there, the tercera started with some tecnicos vs the world, had an endless dive train in the middle, and finished up with some really smart moments and GdI going over.

Maybe it'll get old (and maybe it'd especially have gotten old watching it week to week for three or four years), but it's still a joy to watch the rudos do their things. They brought back the double press chokeslam thing, though more impactful than the last time I saw it as they didn't sit down with it, and it led into that crazy crossed arm double choke submission. Likewise, they did the same with the roll back/forward double crab. That's how they took the primera.

I thought both major transitions were great. Really, there were four definitive moments like that, and they were all good, which means so much to a match being better than average and memorable. The first was the belt shots at the start. The second was the old GdI staple, the alley oop body splash. I'd never seen them do it quite like this though. Here, UG placed Niebla in the corner, horizontally over the top ropes. Then he let Rey charge in and lifted him up so that they did it in the corner. When they tried to repeat it, however, the tecnico moved, starting the comeback. It's such a good spot for them because they're always going to try to repeat it and it can always either hit or make for a quick and easy but character-driven and believable transition. They also have the assisted flip corner clothesline avoidance to use instead when they want to switch it up. In the tercera, at the end of the dive train, the rudos dove away causing one tecnico to crash into the other and heralding the end.

Finally, during the finish, they did a repeated spot with a reversal that came off quite well. This was the double (wheelbarrow and head-grab) facebuster, which took out one opponent. When GdI went for it again, however, UG started it and then turned to celebrate on the top and Rey ended up rolled up. That's one of my favorite things about lucha, repeated spots to lead to reversals/transitions and this one was well done. It was all futile though because one Guerrero Special later and the GdI had both the belts and the big win under their belt. Despite the injury to Charles it was definitely a good start to their reign.

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