Lucha Underground Season 3 Episode 15: En La Sombras

1. Killshot vs. Dante Fox vs. Mariposa vs. Jeremiah Crane

ER: I thought this was one of the more successful 4 way scrambles of the season. Participants don't always matter in these matches, as there's enough down time for everybody that people can be hidden. But layout is important and you need a traffic director, and people need to hit their stuff. It got a little kick-y and way too sound effects-y at one point (there's a spot down the home stretch where everybody is hitting a variety of kicks, back to back, and all of them have the exact same sound effect, so you were just getting that Slim Jim snap every two seconds), but this was a fun 10 minutes. Fox hit a bunch of rabid succession dives, and then Crane levels him with his awesome low tope. We get a ridiculous chair tower spot that leads to Mariposa throwing nasty chair shots at everyone, throwing chairs around like Necro Butcher, hitting guys at annoying angles with unfolded chairs, really fun bit of violence. Crane felt like he was running things in there, hanging back for the flip offense and always there to cut things off and keep it flowing. The postscript of the match was terrible though, with our final image being the continuing feud of Killshot/Fox, and Killshot hitting his finisher. And I still have zero clue what his finisher is supposed to be. He always just stomps both feet next to his opponent's head. Is it supposed to look like he's stomping the guy's face? Is it a bad bombs away? Whatever it is, no part of him makes any sort of contact with his opponent. Is the fear of another human being leaping high into the sky and *almost* landing on your face enough to paralyze one man long enough to get a 3 count? I'd probably be pretty rattled if I were lying around somewhere, and somebody almost landed on my face. So that's probably it. We'll go with that.

MD: I wanted to name this review: "Night of a Thousand Kicks." that's what this match felt like. In general, though, and this might just be me not watching a lot of super indy multimans and tags, I was really impressed by the complexity of the layout of this. There was a ton for these guys to keep track of and they did so pretty smoothly. I'm tempted to agree with Eric and give the credit for that to Crane. On the other hand, when you have this many strikes and kicks, none of them end up meaning anything. As much as I loved the image of the chairs (and it makes sense because Callihan's the world's best Ambrose), the unprotected shot meant nothing and was totally unnecessary. If you're going to do a spot like that, make it matter. On the other hand, Mariposa's shoulder blocks felt like they did matter because it was such a striking image to have the female in the match be the bully. They completely made it work and believable. Striker insinuating on commentary that insane Mariposa was somehow inspired, like the rest of America, by Sexy Star was pretty maddening though. And sure, if the shoulder blocks resonated, her tossing chairs around the ring absolutely did. She was a total bruiser in this match, even getting to finish the Tower of doom spot. I liked how frustrated she was in not winning the match too. Reactions like that are important in putting over the stakes. Killshot was generally as annoying as usual. Fox wasn't much better (and they're both all the worse for being neither heels nor faces; just being there). And yes, absolutely, on a show that's so heavily produced, why would they so clearly show us Killshot whiffing on his post-match finisher?

ER: There's not much worse than slo mo training in a dark gym to soft flamenco guitar plucking, and then finding a spider in your locker. Yucky! Luckily, that spider was in the locker of the woman who has overcome more than any woman in history.

MD: The Sexy Star thing wasn't so bad in 2x speed. She was hitting that bag super fast.

2. Kobra Moon vs. Drago

ER: Not a lot of LU matches end in a DQ, so I guess that makes this one noteworthy? According to Vampiro, Kobra Moon might not have any bones or cartilage, which I suppose could explain some of the clumsiness. I thought Drago looked quite good in the limited time we got; he did this single leg while shrugging her other leg over his body with his shoulder that looked smooth in a nice understated way. The smaller lizard person looks like Dirk Benedict at the end of Sssssss ("Don't say it, hiss it!").

MD: I'm thinking they should probably have done this over a span of three weeks right? Lizard guy one could debut after a normal Drago squash and look good in the debut. The next week, the trios champs could run him off. Then Lizard Kane could show up on week 3? That would have made everyone look stronger. This way Lizard Kane (did they have to give him both the Chokeslam AND the Tombstone?) was the only one who really got over. Drago's trip-based offense looked better than Angelico's trip based offense later in the night at least. His Dominator was brutal. I can't believe they let Ron Simmons do that week in and week out in 1996.

ER: Sexy Star has shown more anger and passion over this spider in her locker than she showed following her six months as a kidnapped slave. I'm starting to think Sexy Star is really bad at this.

MD: Hey, they made the Iron Fist hallway fight look good. Is this the first real time we've heard Mariposa speak? That's a mistake.

3. Jack Evans vs. PJ Black vs. Son of Havoc vs. Angelico

ER: This was quite the worst of stupid multiman spots, with tons of really bad set ups for moves that didn't look great anyway. PJ Black standing bent at the waist holding Angelico's waistband for an eternity, just to set up Havoc doing a double stomp, was a microcosm of this match. But it did peak with a legitimately holy shit spot with Angelico superplexing Jack Evans off the buckles to the floor. He clearly went over PJ/Havoc and took a full superplex all the way to the floor. Crazy, insane spot, taken by an insane man. But it was fine, as Jack was back in the ring for the finish no less than 15 seconds later. Very little to love about this match.

MD: In theory, I kind of liked that they switched up the way the match was laid out compared to the other multimans and made it a bit more of a 2 vs 2 thing. In practice, they didn't lean hard enough into it. Angelico/Havoc/Ivelisse had a real connection with the crowd. They could have done more with that. I don't think this was necessary worse than some of the other Bulls matches with the contrived set ups, but when you add in the lack of (narrative) impact everything had, it was pretty grating. I liked when they dumped Havoc out of the ring and that did set up an Angelico vs the World bit, but the bit itself was so bad that it didn't really earn any lasting goodwill. And hey, Angelico looks like a putz after they set up his return.

ER: This, right here, was a bad episode of professional wrestling.

MD: I'd call it more middling. That first multiman, while not necessarily a good professional wrestling match, was at least an impressive spectacle.

ER: I will compromise and say, "This, right here, was not a good episode of professional wrestling."


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