Lucha Underground Season 2 Episode 5: The Machine

1. Jack Evans vs. PJ Black

ER: I liked this, while also disliking it. I didn't think Black looked very good, but while Black was looking kinda meh, I was loving Evans doing his best to make Black look murderous. Evans bumping for a limp spin kick and taking a roaring elbow like a gunshot and getting launched on a slow lift German looked really good, and I loved him doing dickish things like clotheslining Black's legs while he was on the top rope. But then when Evans would go on offense his stuff would miss just as bad as Black's, maybe even worse. Poor Black had to literally run halfway across the ring to catch a springboard kick to the face. Evans would have fallen about 4 feet short. I like Evans' in his new Dragonslayer shit talker persona, but this match fell pretty flat.

PAS: This was kind of a mess, Evans is at his best getting beat up and selling for bruisers, or in a tag team working as Ricky Morton or a hot tag. These 50/50 matches with high flyers he has been booked in LU really don't showcase his strengths. PJ Black brings nothing to the table,  just a weird waste of money and an example of this feds weird WWE washout hard on.

ER: "I'll turn you from a jobber to a robber". Dug the Famous B late night infomercial, and especially loved that it wasn't him beating up luchadors in a dusty bar. I guess he served his time doing short match job duty in season 1, but now his arm must be all healed from Pentagon and now he's selling life advice and get rich quick schemes in the hood.

2. King Cuerno vs. Killshot

ER: Barf. Wasn't looking forward to seeing Cuerno working 50/50 with Killshot of all people. The sound sweetening was absurd in this match, but kind of hilariously inconsistent. You'd get two superkicks in a row that sounded like brutal bullwhip sound fx, but then they would just let a sloppy Killshot jumping knee go silent. I mean if you're going to make 5 bad Killshot strikes sound like a sledgehammer hitting metal siding, you may as well make all of them sound like that. Killshot had some flat out embarrassing moments in this, among them an astoundingly stupid breakdancing legsweep kick that...well honestly I have no fucking clue what it was supposed to be. The best was him hitting some sort of ace crusher off the apron but he...slipped? or something so ended up kinda slapping Cuerno's tummy and dragging him down by the arm and left Cuerno with no clue how to bump it. Killshot's specialty is doing moves that look like he takes more damage than his opponent, but this one took the cake. This is a taped fucking show, and THIS made the cut!? What kind of Killshot offense was edited out?? Cuerno was made to look like a boob doing even stevens elbow exchanges with this goof. Killshot has no clue how to get in position for anything in the ring. At one hilarious point he is on the mat and needs to get to the corner for the next spot, so starts rolling there, but rolls the wrong way at first so has to loop back around to get to the right corner. He's just rolling around the ring, like ghost Kobashi is giving him invisible Kobashi rolls. It's incredible. Is Killshot fucking with us? Five episodes into this season and we've already had two featured Killshot matches where he took over half the match. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuu...

PAS: Yeah this was stinko, if Cuerno can't drag you to something good, they need to feed him to Matanza.

3. Texano vs. Mr. Cisco, Cortez Castro & Chavo Guerrero

ER: I hate handicap gauntlet matches. They always go short and always end with the people who seemingly have the advantage being made to look completely incompetent. Cisco loses immediately to a superkick (not even a cannon firing sound effect superkick like in the last match, you know, when superkicks were just used to set up other moves), poor cop Castro fares a little better, and Chavo barely eeks out the win after Castro holds Texano's legs down. You know, Texano, the guy who worked even with superstar Daivari last season. The guy now running through the team who one week ago were competitive with the top tecnico trios team in the fed. This was a mess of stupidity, almost designed to be as ineffective as possible, while also presenting the least interesting match possible. Money!

ER: Man Dario blows everybody else on this show out of the water. Him being scaled way back has really caused the show to suffer this season. Even if the wrestling was bad in some season 1 episodes,  you could always count on a couple vignettes in Dario's office with him cockily swirling scotch or making great facial reactions to tecnicos he was screwing over. Now he barely pops up every other episode.

PAS: I loved the speech, I just wish it wasn't in service to some mystical Golden Child horseshit. Still the show has been hurt by his absence.

4. Johnny Mundo vs. Cage

ER: "Love him or hate him, he's in shape." Okay, Vampiro. And you still think he weighs 320, right? That would put Mundo around 275? This match was okay I guess, but this season even more than last feels like there's just zero regard to selling in matches. There was just no rhyme or reason to what was keeping each man down in this match, or what would allow them to pop up to hit a move of their own. One twisting slam from a fireman's carry would put Mundo down, another would allow him to hop up and hit a spinny flippy kick. Still not sure why they sweeten the sound on some strikes but need some others just flapping in the wind. I liked Mundo kicking Cage's legs out from him while climbing the turnbuckles, liked Mundo's rope jump tornillo, and this flew by quick enough, and Striker's references were really obnoxious and ehhhhhhh some wind is being taken out of the sails here. And I was really hoping Mundo would get a rave trash valet for no reason, so my wish was granted! Hurrah!

ER: Ladder match next week should be good, at least? Right?

PAS: Let's hope so this is a bunch of poop shows in a row.