Lucha Underground Episode 31: The Desolation of Drago Review

1. Blue Demon Jr. vs. Chavo Guerrerro

PAS: The rematch 31 weeks in the making. Man I guess I get that Demon Jr. is iconic and all, but he is poopy, and I am bummed he is back. Listless nothing brawl from Demon in a blue suit and Chavo. Thought Chavo looked crisp and like his alliance with the Crew but this was pretty meaningless.

ER: Just think where we all were in life 31 weeks ago. I was a young, virile 33 year old, head full of dreams. Now I'm a worn out zombie of a 34 year old, victim to the inevitable march of Time. I would love to hear HHH's Tough Enough take on Blue Demon's back bumps. Replacing B-Boy with Chavo is a major upgrade for The Crew so that's a good thing. But yeah this wasn't much.

2. Disciples of Death vs. Pimpinela Escarlata, Mascarita Sagrada & Bengala

PAS: Kind of strange to debut your new creepy monster tag team against a comedy trio. I love Pimpi, but demons from the underworld probably shouldn't have to sell fear of his taint. Bengala is apparently Ricky Marvin, and that dude has gotten tubby. Nothing I love more then a tubby highflyer and he hit some cool stuff. I am not sure who is under the Disciples masks, but I was pretty unimpressed, cool look and some cool mannerisms, but not much in the ring.

ER: I couldn't get a feel for any of the Disciples, but none of them looked very good doing the limited things they did. Their formula appeared to be weak stomp -> weak clubbing forearm -> tilt your head to the side -> take a long time to set up your two triple team moves. I do like Ricky Marvin coming in, and am also amused at Phil fat shaming him when he looks maybe 10 lb. heavier than when I last saw him. That Phil can be a real catty bitch. Liked Marvin's tornillo, liked Pimpi flying crotch first into a fan, but overall this wasn't good.

ER: "Johnny, you gave me a black eye. Who cares? I look great in sunglasses." Dario is awesome. But then Dario agrees to put Mundo in a 45 minutes match, and suddenly I don't find him as awesome.

3. Drago vs. King Cuerno vs. Hernandez vs. Cage

PAS: Drago gets in the match because all four guys had previously fought Puma, but because was banned he had to put up his mask. Awesome more impromptu mask matches, one of my least favorite things about this fed. This was a fun indy four-way which is a match type this fed does well. All four guys hit very cool dives, although it was pretty ominous that Cuerno was calling out Killshot, I was hoping he was Matanza food not a guy getting a high profile singles feud. Seemed to be setting up Cage v. Cuerno, but they never really faced off. For a guy putting up his mask, never got a huge amount of urgency from Drago.

ER: Awesome new gear on Drago, love the bat wings. And not only did they inform the TV viewer of the mask match in an earlier vignette, it appears like they announced it to the live crowd literally right before the bell. That is just so so stupid. Also, I was actually bummed when Drago got banished from the fed. I figured he was actually gone for good, or at minimum several months. But here we are like 5 weeks later and I haven't even had the chance to miss him. That's just lazy and pointless writing, and you can only play loose with stipulations so many times before a fanbase doesn't care. Right now there's a nice little bubble of people who are way into this fed, best to not squander that. Vampiro also points out how scaly Drago is looking, and I'm now thinking they should have saved this gimmick for a young flyer with psoriasis. I mean that is a skin condition that practically looks identical to the name of a famous luchador anyway. Starting to feel like a missed opportunity to bring some charity awareness to it. But I liked the match, I think just about every 4 way the fed has put on has been good. Couple rough moments like Drago and Hernandez not really catching Cage on a moonsault to the floor (though that did inadvertently create a good reason for Cage to be on the floor during the pinfall), and of course Cuerno takes the loss because fuck that guy apparently. Still, good action, and their 4 ways never overstay their welcome and that's a very important and often overlooked thing with this kind of match. I liked little moments like Drago going for a double clothesline and not budging Hernandez/Cage, dug Cuerno's right hands, Cage's surprisingly effective moonsault, and both men know how to work well in a multi man, without everybody getting in everybody's way.

PAS: This fed constantly makes the same weird booking mistake, running the same kind of thing on one show in multiple different ways, diluting the impact. We have had shows where multiple guys were breaking up with their valets, multiple shows where Puma faces a muscled up monster on the same show that Fenix faces a muscled up monster, now we have a show built around the return of the exiled Drago on the same show with the return of the exiled Blue Demon Jr., the exiled Chavo Guerrero Jr., the exiled Mascarita Sagrada and the exiled Escarlata Pimpinela, basically every wrestler who has been sent away from the temple all came back on the same show. It makes no basic storytelling sense.

PAS: This was another lackluster show, and I don't have high hopes for an hour of Johnny Mundo next week

ER: I think the last match at least made this episode better than Episode 30 (which was one of the worst of the series), but next week's iron man match with Mundo has me not expecting much. I mean, how many good iron matches have even happened in wrestling history? Rude/Steamboat is easily the best. Does Rock/HHH hold up? So right there we have one, maybe two good iron man matches, ever. That doesn't give very good odds for next week. And with that, Catrina's tits bring us to episode's end.


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MLJ: Casas vs Cota 1: Mocho Cota & Silver King vs El Dandy & Negro Casas [Relevos Increíbles]

1994-03-18 @ Arena México
Mocho Cota & Silver King vs El Dandy & Negro Casas [Relevos Increíbles]

Brief two match interlude here before I shift gears. I may have gone and obtained an episode of CMLL TV from 1994 in order to watch the Mocho Cota vs Negro Casas hair vs hair match. It was just really striking to me that a lot of the people I talk to hadn't seen it. Negro Casas is one of my favorite wrestlers, but Cota is unique and special in his own way. He's unconventional and so over the top. I'd liken him to Fuerza Guerrera more than anyone else, maybe? But he's more unrelenting and pesky, especially in his early 90s comeback. If modern day Casas is some sort of trickster god, early 90s Cota was a malignant goblin. I've been impressed with how over the top and larger than life he's been in the 93-94 matches I've seen him in and I just had to see what he and Casas could do, given time and stakes.

It was attached to the 61st Anniversary, a week or two before, in what may have been an attempt to run multiple Anniversary shows. We don't have a lot of the matches that lead up to the actual hair match online but this revelos incriebles was early on. I looked at some old Observers and Meltzer said this started back on 3/4/94 and apparently they had a singles match the week after this one that drew 8000 at a time they were normally drawing 1000 on the Friday night shows. There was some thought that they were going to blow things off with a hair match in April but apparently they wound things down and heated them back up as the year went on. It didn't completely work as the eventual hair vs hair match apparently only drew 4000. Meltzer claimed that Cota had a bad back injury around this time and it affected his work but I'm going to pin that on the world not ready to yet appreciate what Cota brought to the table that may not have been necessarily athletic but more character based.

So this was Silver King and Cota vs Dandy and Casas. Silver King and Dandy were tecnicos. I've seen way too little Silver King, by the way, and he's someone I mean to do a lot with at some point. I have no idea HOW Cota turned on Casas but it must have been heated since Casas went after him right from the get go. King and Dandy seemed fairly bemused to be stuck in the middle of this.

And it was a lot of fun. I'm not sure I'd call it great or even good, but it was effective and fun. Cota was an opportunistic lout. He could hold his own, but in equal combat with Casas, he'd never win. He'd be the first to go to a kick or a cheapshot. He'd complain and gripe and rudo it up. He'd ambush Casas at any chance he had and what he actually would do wouldn't be smooth but it would be canny. It was after an ambush towards the end of the primera that he was able to pick up Casas in a fireman's carry and just dump him out:

Almost immediately thereafter he pulled the rope down to make Dandy go flying (he had been in an exchange with Silver King), which give his side the last bit of advantage to pick up the fall.

Casas fired back at the start of the segunda with a potential foul. The refs' reaction and Casas' reaction to that was pretty funny, and he followed it by leading him into the corner, as if protecting him, and then peppering in a great little elbow:

Things were pretty much broken down by this point with the partners breaking up any sort of advantage. Eventually Cota tried to hold Casas for a Silver King missile dropkick but miscommunication ruled. That let Dandy and Casas dropkick their opponents out and they held the ring. Cota responded by running to the back and he returned with a rare foreign object (knuckle dusters ironically enough). He clocked Dandy but Casas got it from him and fought back with it. The refs saw that and Cota got the DQ win. I've seen objects like that so little in CMLL that it does mean something when they're used. Casas didn't take the loss lightly and beat Cota up for the next few minutes any chance he could and I could see why this drew well the next week.

I wouldn't call it a necessarily good match but Silver King and Dandy worked well together for the bit we got to see them and it was all definitely fun. Cota and Casas, being two of the greatest characters I've ever seen, certainly had good chemistry with one another.

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