Lucha Underground Season 3 Episode 10: Ready for War

1. Believer's Backlash: Famous B vs. Mascarita Sagrada

ER: This was exactly what it should have been and very fun. Famous B put on a helluva show with pratfall bumps, weapons improv and amusing vain comedy. He took all of Mascarita's shots and made them look gold, bumping huge on a football helmet headbutt, tripping and falling into a giant bag of popcorm, really just doofing it up all around the temple. Brenda gets piefaced, Sagrada hits a big elbowdrop of a step ladder on the announce table, and this was as long as it should have been. I would have liked to see some more random fan weapons used. And I always wondered how that worked. Do fans really bring their own objects to use as weapons, or does the fed pass them out? It would be a hilarious visual to see a bunch of wrestling fans milling about the street all carrying makeshift clubs and frying pans. I assume we'll see pictures of fans waiting in line for this taping spread across InfoWars as PROOF of an unpatriotic liberal uprising.

MD: I'm sure it's been done before but this was the Let's Make a Deal version of the "Fans Bring the Weapons" match. I loved the guy with the football. I also really love B's Jimmy Hart style jacket for Wagner. In a promotion where they tout Chavo Guerrero Jr. as a lucha legend, the Arrogance can was the most self-aware thing they've ever done. It's telling that it was proclaiming an awareness for 1991 WWF TV as opposed to actual lucha libre. My favorite bit was the magic wand and hat though. I would have been perfectly happy if that was the finish. They went on after that but not really to the match's detriment. Anyway, this was hugely feel good, a season ending sort of thing. I'm curious what the follow up will be.

MD: I'm not sure if Eric caught it but Daga got killed off screen. This is a wrestling promotion where people get killed off screen by members of the reptile clan. Also embarrassing fart jokes, so there you go.

ER: I completely missed that. Just like I missed Ryck apparently being killed in a comic book. And the Jack Chick tract detailing Vampiro's dark arts propaganda.

2. Marty The Moth Martinez, Jeremiah Crane, The Mack, Ivelisse & Mariposa vs. Cage, Texano, Dante Fox, Killshot & Argenis

ER: This was fun until the faceplant finish. It's a shame it was only 6 minutes as 10 people could milk this for way more fun. Plus short match time + large amount of match participants = Striker feeling the need to talk louder and faster to get his hack jokes in. Crane made a nice debut, Cage looked killer and hit one of his best 360 lariats, Mack hits his giant fat guy dive, Striker reminds me I still have two Cage/Texano matches to watch, and everything is flowing wonderfully...and then we get an immediate rudo turn by Fox, at the exact same time we're getting an injury angle (?), with Ivelisse rolling to the floor holding her ankle going Not Again! Dante Fox hits one of the most improbable drivers possible to turn on Killshot, really moving through several points of dance just to go through the trouble of getting him on his shoulders. Grab an arm, now the other, cross them, extend them, curl them tight to the body, now lift! It took as long for me to type that as it did for Fox to physically go through the motions. It looked terrible. Killshot has only been tolerable when matched against a larger dude who he can bump for. Now he'll be matched with a guy the exact same size as him doing the exact same flips. Yuck. Fox's inverted cannonball to the floor was sick though.

MD: With the exception of Argenis, everyone here had some sort of purpose or issue. Some of that is Marty just being an all out scumbag who pisses off everyone, but in general it highlights the strength of the promotion. I'm with Eric on Killshot. I've liked him well enough in a cinematic brawl or in a mismatch but he's the last guy you want in one of these multiman flipfests. I thought Crane looked good in his first actual match though you ended up forgetting him in the morass. It probably wasn't the best way to introduce the crowd to his stuff. As disposable Lucha Underground wrestling goes, this was fun, sure.

3. Grave Consequences: Mil Muertes vs. Prince Puma

ER: They've had a lot of fun with this gimmick and this match was no different. The match wasn't as good as the first one, but probably better than the one with Matanza. Puma starts it off big by jumping Mil and leaping from the back of the temple down into the crowd. All of the spots with the casket are always super impressive. That thing looks heavy as hell so it adds a lot of realism to the stuff they're doing around it. And all the spots into that casket always look back breaking. Both men bounce off it in painful ways, but that's not enough as Puma decides it's best for him to go through several tables. The chokeslam off the top through tables looked nuts, the spear through a table was great (with a piece of table almost hanging in air before dropping across Muertes' head), and Puma even made "normal" moves look devastating, like the flatliner on the floor. Muertes' big gimmick stip matches are as close to a guarantee as you can get to a good match. Although, am I the only one who thought this match just kind of...happened? The build really didn't seem strong, it just felt like the time of the season dictated the match. "Well, a Grave Consequences match has taken place about 10 episodes into the other seasons, so it's time to do another one!" Felt much more like Hell in a Cell happening because it's the month that Hell in a Cell happens, much less like "this match NEEDS to be Grave Consequences!"

MD: I'd rank this one in the middle as well. I did like the callbacks to Konnan. I don't know if he's on the outs with LU at this point or what (I think Vampiro replaced him in AAA), but if he is (and wouldn't he be on TV if he wasn't?), they deserve all the more credit for referencing him for the sake of story despite that. I was more into the general build for this than Eric. Vampiro goading Puma into it happened over a span of weeks and it certainly seemed big enough. Part of that depends on where they go from here, though.

I think the familiarity helped relative to the first one with Fenix. We know these characters a lot better by now. They've presented Puma as a star from day one. It made sense that he'd be able to hang with Muertes, even as he bounced off him, and I thought Puma wrestled well as an Ace fighting a monster in his own match.

The set pieces more or less made this. The 630 onto the coffin was crazy. The ring hook was gnarly. The powerbomb onto the coffin earlier in the match almost made the long, long time that Muertes took to set things up forgivable. It's telling that Eric, without the two of us comparing notes, picked a few completely different moments to highlight. I don't think I've actively got excited for anything on this show quite like the handstand reversal out of the Flatliner, though. That's probably the spot of the season.

They gave it all gravitas at the end by not doing a skit after the match like they normally do. So, yeah, I thought this felt weightier than Eric, but a lot of it does depend on where things go from here.


COMPLETE LUCHA UNDERGROUND GUIDE