Lucha Underground Episode 24: Trios Champions Workrate Report

ER: I enjoyed the Angela Fong captive lights off training vignette, although in this story the Shaw Bros. and/or Kill Bill stuff is maybe a little on the nose.

1. Pentagon Jr. vs. Sexy Star

ER: God I thought this was really terrible. Star in a long singles is just death as she has no clue how to pace things. Here she sells practically nothing and has no idea how to transition from one move to the next. The most she sells in this match? When Pentagon kicks out of a pin. Seriously, she stomps all over him in the corner, drags him to the middle of the ring, pins him, he kicks out...and then she starts selling like she's been in a war. Drags herself away, holding her stomach, struggling to get up. I had to rewind to see if I missed him doing something unsavory after his kickout. But nope, she just randomly decided to start selling something for the first - and last - time in the match. The rest of the match is just Pentagon striking her or hitting a big move, both of them lying there, and then her getting up and doing a move. It results in her hitting a nice dive at one point, but damn was this match awful. Just horrible layout and then to top it off, a real pointless, rushed result. Pentagon actually gets a bunch of real, actual heel heat, and the next week his actions are already avenged. At this point I reallllly wish Sexy Star was just not around, as all of the booking revolving around her is clearly far and away the worst thing on LU. And that's not even counting Striker and Vampiro talking in their Owen voices for half of the match.

PAS: Yup this stunk, they are trying so hard to make Sexy Star a thing, but it isn't going to happen. Pentagon had no business losing, especially to someone Big Ryck treated like a joke. They go back and forth each week to whether she is a serious competitor or not, she is one of the five worst wrestlers on the roster, and continually placed in big angles. She has the feel of a nepotism push, like she is Mark Burnett's long lost illegitimate child.

ER: Boy that cameraman was really running circles around Mundo/Alberto in that segment. What the hell was that?

PAS: I liked the segment, but I felt like popping a dramamine afterwards.

2. King Cuerno, Texano & Cage vs. Angelico, Ivelisse & Son of Havoc vs. Big Ryck, The Mack & Killshot

ER: Wow I was surprised at how awful this was. You look at that list of names and go "man I hope Killshot isn't in a lot of this" and then Killshot is in this more than any other person. And boy did he look like clearly the worst guy in this fed. Every name I wanted to see more of got dispatched quickly, and every name I did not want to see got the bulk of the time. Willie Mack continues to be a bright spot and I really hope this turns into tons more gigs for this guy. He literally gets better every time I see him. He throws so much into everything, from a standard clothesline to a big fat guy tope. Texano really made Daivari look good, flying hard into a ringpost and spilling out nicely into chairs. But holy shit Killshot. Everything this guy does looks bad-to-horrible, from his offense to the way he stumbles into position to take moves to the embarrassing mannerisms he makes before hitting a move. Here he got to finish off Texano with his finisher "leaping off the top and landing with both feet on either side of your opponent". It's a devastating move that he also uses on the indies. Havoc's offense looked extra pillowy soft (can we just retire that cartwheel elbow into the corner?) here, and there were way too many clunky sections of this. Maybe the clunkiest was that awkward portion where Angelico was in the corner, and Mack, Ryck and Killshot took turns sloooooowly running towards him and finding ways to miss him and fall to the floor. Man all of that looked bad. That's a fairly good way to sum this one up: A lot of that looked bad.

PAS: I watched this with my wife, and she was really irritated by Angelico's overacting while selling. It didn't bother me as much, I suppose that is because I am used to wrestling being an art form aimed not for television audiences but for the back rows of arenas, more like a filmed play then a movie. Still LU is clearly a TV show, so maybe he should tone it down a bit. Liked this a bit more then Eric, thought Big Ryck and the Mack were both great in this, and the Davari v. Texano beat down was pretty violent, still Killshot man, what a turd.

3. Angelico, Ivelisse & Son of Havoc vs. The Crew

ER: Well, this was pretty fun. You may have noticed Angelico's dive. It's still just bizarre to me that this fed doesn't do replays. That dive was the kind of spot you show a dozen times from every single conceivable angle. You bring in extra cameras to make new angles. You watch that Angelico dive and think, what if his foot slips? How easily could you imagine him losing his footing and then crashing down into the ropes and apron? Just a total lunatic spot, one you want to rewind, put into slow motion, then rewind again. Awesome. Cortez looked good here, dropping some nice knees on Ivelisse, and doing an ill-advised but nutty suplex over a ringside barrier into a steep drop on Son of Havoc (which Havoc didn't seem to mind too much, seeing as he was up running around and doing a moonsault seconds later). We'll see where they go with these trios titles as several of the trios matches have been really fun, if we get regular 10+ minute action then these can be a real treat.

PAS: That Angelico dive was so insane, that it made the whole show. Probably the greatest balcony dive in wrestling history, so many of those spots are a guy climbing for a long time to a really high place, take a moment soak in the crowd cheers and fall down. This was awesome because it was a leap not a fall and it pretty much came out of nowhere, no big set up, no four table to break a fall, just some crazy leap to nowhere.


LUCHA UNDERGROUND MASTER LIST

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MLJ: Dandy vs Satanico Interlude: Atlantis/El Dandy/Ultimo Dragon v. El Satanico/MS-1/Pirata Morgan

1992-09-11 @ Arena Mexico
Atlantis/El Dandy/Ultimo Dragon v. El Satanico/MS-1/Pirata Morgan

So, first world lucha journey problems: every time I start a project, this awesome guy posts more awesome matches on youtube. It's sort of like the Fiera vs Casas hair vs hair match. I was in the middle of stuff there and didn't feel like I could do it justice. Thankfully, OJ covered it at length. I'd like to tackle this one, however, even though it's going to disrupt the Virus spotlight so early in.

This was a week before the Dandy vs Satanico hair match in 92, which was part of CMLL's 59th anniversary show, but not the main event. The Main Event was Great Kabuki, La Fiera, and Pierroth, Jr. vs Rayo de Jalisco, Jr., Atlantis, and King Haku. Also, Aja Kong was on the card. I haven't covered much Dandy vs Satanico here, but I have seen a decent amount of the 90 feud, and it's awesome. The 92 hair match doesn't seem easily available, but it is out there at least, because I've seen it reviewed.

Thankfully, this match, which just popped up last week, was awesome. It was all about visceral and organic violence to build the hair match (and, in great WWE fashion, to make sure to put Satanico over strong because he was going to lose at the big show). I wasn't entirely sure what to expect going into this but I knew that the pairing was really interesting. I'm not high on Ultimo Dragon though I think he can serve a role in a trios match, but he and Atlantis were really non factors here. It was the Satanico and Dandy show with MS-1 and Morgan playing a very specific role and doing it perfectly.

I thought I might write it up regardless, just because of the talent involved, and I started to note the difference for how each wrestler lifted the girl who came down with him up onto the ring (like how Dragon struggled but still tried to be a gentleman and the sheer mirth that Satanico did it with) but it would be ridiculous to waste time talking about that sort of thing with this match. Let's get right to it.

The rudos swarmed at the get go and they didn't look back. You see beat downs, and extended beat downs, and extended beat downs that start with an ambush today but you don't see them like this. Here, they isolated Dandy in the ring, with MS-1 and Morgan alternating between holding him in place for Satanico to hit and letting him pinball around the ring a bit off of strikes while preventing Atlantis and Dragon from getting into the ring. This wasn't a brawl around the ring and the ringside area. This wasn't tossing him into big kicks and big moves like you might see out of Los Ingobernables. This was a constraining of movement. Visually, this was striking as Dandy was mostly pinned on his knees or into the corner and the violence came to him. The fans' eyes were drawn to the strikes bee-lining onto him and the only relief from that was Satanico stopping to gloat at them.

The second stage of this, once Dandy is bloodied and beaten down, was for Morgan and MS-1 to exit the ring. He'd been bullied and held and weakened, so Satanico could really unload on him in a gloating, arrogant manner. Dandy, however, heroically, would start to fight back, once, twice, three times. Every time though, Morgan and MS-1 are there, lunging into the ring and cutting him off, usually after just one punch. It's very straightforward, very clear storytelling. It's some of the most direct and obvious storytelling I've seen since I've started this project and it was so, so very effective. The beating was so unfair and severe that anytime Dandy showed any hint of light the fans wanted to rally to it, but the cut offs were so sudden and absolute. He kept trying though, right to the point where Satanico kicked him out of the ring.

After that they made short work of Atlantis and Dragon, first with a killer rocket launcher:

and then a double crab/camel clutch combo:

And finally a big splash off the top by Ms-1 that I didn't capture. You've seen that before.

This rolled right into the segunda and more punishment of Dandy. Satanico had him on the rope, choking him and playing to the crowd and just look at them,
this anger:

and this pout!

Satanico just knew what he was doing like no rudo in history and Dandy lived his gimmick in a way that's hard to even wrap your head around in 2015. The violence just seemed so natural. Satanico could fill time with such honest, believable, ground-level carnage; this was a master-class in mauling. And the clear, direct story continued. Dandy would try to fight back. Dandy would get cut off by MS-1 and Morgan. Again. And Again. and Again. Each attempt was more valiant than the last, got just a little further than the last, but was cut off so definitively. It was only after Satanico tried to go for a second bulldog that Dandy shrugged him off. This time, his partners saw the opportunity because it was bigger, not just a gutsy punch but a shrugged off move that played to the entire arena. This time, they were able to act in time, charging in to stop Morgan and MS-1.

And thus the match turned. Up until now, the violence had been contained, constrained. Now it opened up. A deep match became wide as the three pairings pounded on each other around the ring and ringside area. The camera would focus on one pairing but you'd see another off in the corner of the screen. The tecnicos pressed their advantage as the crowd cheered, and bodies went flying into posts and the ring apron. Maybe it would have made more sense to focus more on Dandy and Satanico, but the match would go back to them.

For now, there were just glimpses of Dandy trying to get revenge, trying to open Satanico up, and finally driving him into the ring, alone. MS-1 was there on the apron, refusing to get in to help his partner. He wanted nothing of the tecnico's revenge. Satanico was just as alone as Dandy had been a few minutes earlier, even if it was for entirely different reasons. The other tecnicos drew back letting Dandy take the lead and he was hurt and damaged and Satanico was a desperate force, so it's even at first, with Satanico getting whatever shot he could in including some great headbutts. Bolstered by the crowd, Dandy would have nothing of it. He sold the damage of the match but was unrelenting. He ate blows but kept coming until they finally brawled out to the floor.

The match ultimately had to come back to them since it was setting up their hair battle the next week. They left the stage for now so that the other four wrestlers could make their own grand exits from the match to lead to the refocusing of the finish. Atlantis hit a quebadora on Morgan and then followed it up with this great stomp out of the ring. I can't even express how natural a bit of violence this was and how well it fit into the match. He was going to get a blow in, no matter what and it ended up as something so small but also one of the least choreographed looking bits of wrestling I've seen in ages:

Dragon couldn't match that but he could dive out onto MS-1 from the top, which lead to Atlantis pulling Morgan back in, sliding him out the other side of the ring and hitting an Asai moonsault. This was that grand exit I mentioned, and set the stage for Satanico and Dandy to cap off the match.

The next minute or two that followed felt big to me, like the finishing sequence of an apuesta match or a title match. There was just that atmosphere in the air. They didn't do anything huge, strikes, a few sequences, some submission attempts, but the near falls felt like they meant something, and so much of that was the level of intensity that they brought to it. It felt like the last act of a war and were there any justice in the world, Dandy would have won it. Instead, he went for a splash off the ropes and crashed low onto Satanico's knees. That was the beginning of the end for Satanico would lock on a version of the Atlantida and win the match. Despite the brave comeback, the rudos won in two falls. True vengeance would be deferred for the Anniversary show.

I loved this. It was so straightforward, just a primal lucha trios match. I wouldn't call it a brawl because past a minute or two of the tecnico comeback it wasn't even enough for that. There wasn't really a meaningful shine. In a lot of ways, it was 2/3rds of a match, but it was the 2/3rds I like the most. I know other people care way more about other aspects of lucha, but this is the stuff for me. I'm almost glad that I can't just watch the Anniversary match on youtube right now, because in this moment, it just couldn't live up to my expectations for it.

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