Lucha Underground Season 2 Episode 23: The Phoenix, the Dragon, and the Spaceman

1. King Cuerno vs. Mil Muertes

ER: Real disappointing match. It felt like Liger vs. Juvy where you get all excited for what should be a special and awesome match, and then it goes 4 minutes and has a lame finish. The foot on the ropes finish wasn't a tequila bottle, but it may has well have been. Cuerno was made out to be a twerp who can only hit his one move by total accidental luck (hitting his bullet tope while the ref is admonishing Muertes for no reason other than to get taken  out by the tope) and 90% of the match is Muertes manhandling him while he runs and stooges. Muertes hits a sweet chokeslam but man was I hoping for something wayyyy more between these two.

ER: Do Dario Cueto's tumblers say "Whiskey" on them? That seems....a little too cute. I mean, my mother has two jars in her kitchen that say "Heroin" and "Cocaine" that were a wedding gift some 40 years ago, and I love them and will take them as my own when my parents die. But Dario's office is not my mother's kitchen.

2. Prince Puma vs. Dragon Azteca Jr.

ER: Killer little spotfest match, the kind that aims to be a total highlight reel and succeeds. We start with a bunch of fun evasive spots, and things kick up to a new level when Azteca went for a tope and Puma caught him in a fireman's carry. It looked insane. If Puma hadn't caught him then Azteca would just be an ink stain on the Temple steps.  Vampiro says that "this has gone from showing respect, to a low down dirty street fight"....even though there has been like two strikes thrown, and the move just performed was a crazy tornado DDT. I have no fucking clue what street fights a pilled up Vampiro imagined he saw. These guys break out some wild stuff and they both take crazy offense so well. Loved the goofy rolling cradle rana off the top. This was really best way to work a tecnico/tecnico match, just two guys breaking out some wild spots and having a ball doing them. This gives me even higher hopes for Rey/Puma.

ER: Dario has Mack, Cage, Texano and Son of Havoc waiting in the ring, and I assume they will have a match as they're all in their gear and waiting in separate corners of the ring, but instead Dario just announces that they'll fight at Ultima Lucha for the "greatest unique opportunity in the history of this great sport". And then they fight for a little bit. So how great can the greatest unique opportunity be? Like, will it be a title match? It's a title match, right? But that's not very unique, that's just an expected reward considering the context. So it must be something like a blowjob while riding the Gravitron at the county fair? That's an opportunity a lot of people probably haven't had.

3. Fenix vs. Johnny Mundo

ER: I really really liked this. This felt like a higher point within that whole "heavy on reversals, scouted offense, moves set up for the purpose of doing other moves" kind of match. The shit built nicely, it all looked good, the cool stuff looked cool, and that's what you want from that kind of match. Fenix is one of my favorite guys in LU, and was a guy I really didn't care about before LU. He does stuff I like, that I would likely dislike in other situations, like the smooth rope walk stuff he does. Taya has been really great running interference during her time in LU, it's a real strength that not a lot of people get right. Here she clubs Fenix in the throat and holds him in place while Mundo sets up a kick, and it adds to things. Fenix pays her back by flopping onto her on a flip dive, Mundo's knees and springboard crossbody looked really good, and I just really liked all of this.

ER: The Ultima Lucha card looks good. There's a couple matches that I expect nothing from, such as the ring debut of Black Lotus (seems like a waste of Azteca Jr.) and that Gift of the Gods six man looks potentially rough (though I'm happy because they put most of my least favorite people in the same match, and I'd rather have them all out of the way than spread around). But the card as a whole looks pretty damn stacked. I'm hyped.


COMPLETE LUCHA UNDERGROUND EPISODE GUIDE