Lucha Underground Season 3 Episode 33: Havoc Running Wild

TL: Really enjoy when Dario can show off the acting chops, as he gets all into making Rey vs. Matanza finally happen. As well he should.

Son of Madness vs. Mascarita Sagrada

ER: Quick match to set up the main event, which is fine as I don't have tons of interest seeing Sagrada face guys in a singles match. Havoc runs out to jump Madness, which isn't very honorable. Madness wasn't unprofessional during or after the match, feels weird for Dario to give Havoc a chance at an Aztec medallion. And they clearly had tons of ideas for Madness, as they brought him in, immediately had he and Havoc fight...then nothing until bringing him back a couple months later to fight Havoc again. We don't really know WHY Madness has it out for Havoc, other than they dress the same and he's the only guy we've seen him against. This is pretty dumb.

TL: Mascarita Sagrada wearing a biker vest is one of the most Lucha Underground things ever. Very happy they didn’t have him come out on a Big Wheel, which is something I would have 100% expected. Madness needed a win somehow, and a regular old vertical suplex (it was supposed to be a brainbuster, but it looked like a damn suplex more than anything else) gets the job done. I GUESS there had to be a blowoff between Madness and Havoc, but did anyone really want it?

Marty "The Moth" Martinez vs. Argenis

ER: I really liked the Argenis/Pentagon Dark match (from Ep. 22, the last time we saw Argenis), and especially like Argenis in that match. His stock continues to rise as he works another match that - just like that Pentagon match - could have been a squash match but instead was turned into something more memorable and meaningful due to Argenis. Here he bumps big for all of Moth's big slams, and I loved his comeback, snagging Moth's foot during a leapfrog to make him faceplant, then kicking him in the chest while he recovers. Argenis hits a big flip dive (and I still get scared thinking someone is going to bust open the back of their head on those temple steps) and a nice rana on the floor. Mariposa throws him into the post, and he takes a nice post bump, and comes up bleeding. We don't actually get a lot of blood in this fed (or wrestling in general anymore), so it really made the match feel like a bigger deal to me, and made Argenis look tougher for lasting as long as he did. I'm game for a Fenix/Moth Mascara contra Caballera.

TL: I don’t know when Argenis became one of the better transition guys in Lucha Underground, but he wrestles the way I want guys to transition on offense. He comes up with nifty ways to get back on offense from basic things (huge sucker for a trip off a leapfrog attempt) and then, as Eric says, he’ll bump HUGE to feed the heel. It’s really basic stuff, but he does it in really great ways. I mentioned Dario’s acting chops earlier, but the cutaways to Melissa saying, “Marty! What are you DOING?” is cringe-inducing. Argenis bleeds buckets because he just wants us to like him that much more before Marty finishes him off. Really happy to see Marty booked like an honest-to-God rudo and actually make him bleed and take a mask. An apuestas match I can really get behind.

Joey Ryan vs. Sexy Star

ER: How does the sound effects guy sleep at night after adding those ridiculous sounds to Sexy Star's slaps? She knows her way around some awful offense (I cannot think of someone with a worse legdrop), but I did really like her throwing Ryan by his chest hair. Striker gets all giddy talking about areolas, but the joke was her clearly throwing Ryan by grabbing clumps of his chest hair. I didn't hate this. I expected to hate this. That has to count for something.

TL: So Sexy Star gets 80% of the match, and then eats a superkick and loses. And when Joey DOES win, Striker calls it “The biggest win of his LU career.” I also expected to hate this more, but it was just there. That’s better than most Sexy Star matches I can talk about.

Boyle Heights Biker Brawl: Son of Madness vs. Son of Havoc

ER: The feud that continues, for reasons we might never know! I really liked the first half of this, both guys took dangerous bumps to the floor, stiff trash can shots, Madnes hits an insane slingshot double stomp to the floor (and Havoc was not lying close to the ring, Madness really went a long way to stomp a hole in him), Havoc getting shoved into the crowd, Madness bumping down the riser seating, big dive from Havoc. All of that kind of stuff has contributed to the best kinds of LU brawls. So I really loved all the stuff that went to the floor, but I didn't love a lot of the stuff in ring. Havoc has really weak offense, which tends to look weaker - and sillier - in the middle of a wild brawl. The driver on the trash can was pretty rough, but the stuff with a hammer and beer bottle just comes off ridiculous. If they had given me some more reason to actually care about why Havoc was willing to hit another guy in the face with a bottle, it could have been a major moment, but other than knowing that these two likely have some kind of a past, that's all we know. They've had two matches, the second one ending with a bottle to the face. It feels like I should know more about those motivations.

TL: That double stomp over the top to the floor made my eyes wide. That’s a ridiculous idea and it looked absolutely rough as all hell. A lot of this stuff looked reckless, which adds to the fact that it’s a street fight. The footprints on the back from the Havoc double stomp was a cool aesthetic. The back body drop into the steel grating was sick. It does lose a lot going back into the ring considering what the first part of this match brought on, and Havoc bouncing around as if he didn’t take a bunch of punishment is par for the course for him. At least the Mushroom Stomp looked good this time. This ended up being a good match, but they could have done a lot more if they made the end of the match look more like the first half of the match.

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Lucha Underground Season 3 Episode 22: The Cup Begins

TL: Would have really enjoyed a leadup episode of Bracketology into the Cueto Cup, where you could have brought on upstarts and underdogs and gave them some screen time. Get Vinnie Massaro to talk about how Sicily needs a big win and show off his favorite pizza recipes. Maybe have King Cuerno show off a trophy buck from his latest hunting excursion. Show Sexy Star training on how not to injure someone legit doing a cross-armbreaker. I would have gladly watched 45 minutes of that.

Instead, it’s probably the biggest brand made star in the company doing a walk on-screen return instead of being in the ring, flexing his healed arm and slinging catchphrases. Really odd way to bring Pentagon Dark back, especially given he’s basically one of a handful of folks who actually should have the title in the company at this point.

TL: Should also be mentioned that Vampiro is dressed like he just got done playing 18 holes at his retirement community’s muni course, complete with horizontal striped polo and horn-rimmed glasses. Now I need to go watch “Mr. Hole-In-One” Barry Darsow on some WCW syndicated TV.

1. Mala Suerte vs. The Mack

ER: This felt like a chubby version of a Nitro era lucha match, and that's a fine thing to be. And that's a good thing, I was in the mood for that kind of popcorn match, and the first round of a pretty silly tournament for an even sillier cup seems like the best place for it. I liked the opening armdrag exchanges, they felt like older exchanges you don't see a lot anymore, Cholo rolling off Mack's back, doing the drags low and quick. Mack is obviously going to be a guy advancing in the cup, so the finish was never in doubt, but considering that they threw out a couple more nearfalls than I expected. Suerte's senton is really over in the building (the one where he jumps off the top and runs across the ring to land it) and if you're going to have silly signature offense I'd rather watch a nice senton than the worm. Mack busts out some nice stuff, especially crazy is him catching Suerte and lifting him all up and around his body before hitting a driver. That's some Cobb strength right there, and Suerte isn't a small dude.

TL: I’m with Eric. I’m definitely here for portly lucha armdrag sequences. I am DEFINITELY not here for Matt Striker saying “Shades of Tenryu!” though. Suerte’s offense is really great, and I was half expecting that senton to be that splash that one Dragon Gate guy does where he leaps off the top rope, lands on his feet, and then leaps again to finish the splash, but this works, too. I’m also a big fan of a Crucifix Driver, as it looks absolutely devastating when thrown correctly. Still think it’s odd that with an offensive repetoire like Mack’s that he finishes with a stunner, but credit Cholo for bumping big on the offense, at least. Glad he got some offense in, too. Definitely fits in on the lucha Nitro matches, would be a fine WCW Pro main event, as well.

ER: I'm a big fan of cartoon CGI lightning, so Cage's lightning infused power glove gets the full point from me. I want him to punch through somebody's body with it.

TL: Think it’s awesome that Dario has a Glove Guy, and now that I’ve seen the lightning in action, they really should have gone full Infinity Gauntlet with it and have gems that make it do weird stuff.

2. Argenis vs. Pentagon Dark

ER: Dang this was good. This is easily the best Argenis performance (would you believe that if you've made it this far, you will have already seen 15 Argenis matches!?!?) and the first time Pentagon has looked interesting since the ninja battle episode. Argenis takes a bunch of great Psychosis bumps from leg kicks, really getting knocked around the ring by Pentagon. You think this is going to be a one sided annihilation, which would make sense. I just pointed out that we have seen 15 Argenis matches on LU and there's a good chance most of you couldn't name a favorite Argenis memory. So it's the opening round of the Cup, obviously Pentagon is going to advance, and you don't expect much from Argenis. But then he gets a nice rana and a nice moonsault to the floor. Pentagon is obviously too much for him, as he runs into too many kicks, gets suplexed violently into the turnbuckles, gets a decent nearfall off a big neckbreaker, basically justifies his appearances up to this point. I expected nothing from this match and Argenis made it mean a little something, and Pentagon actually came off cool for the first time in ages. I think now we actually have Pentagon Dark, and before we were getting Pentagon Baja Blast or Pentagon Gamer Fuel.

TL: Basically an extended squash for Pentagon, really throwing out all the kicks he can in his offensive repertoire and saving the really good offense for Reseda, I’m guessing. Argenis DOES get some neat stuff in, as the timing on the Asai Moonsault was fantastic and that convoluted hammerlock neckbreaker at least looked cool. Dark really has the Fear Factor down to a devastating degree, as he always makes it look nasty. Agree that it was a great Argenis performance in bumping, and the months off occurred when Dark started really making his rounds on the indy scene, so you could tell he came back looking and feeling more like a big deal and it showed.

3. Texano vs. Famous B

ER: Brenda keeps getting more and more "produced" every time she appears. I don't like it. It's like they keep having her do loud and poor Harley Quinn impressions and give her way too many scripted lines to shout. Texano's powerbomb looked good.

TL: Have a soft spot for Famous B, so him taking a big powerbomb in full “first time in Texas and this is what I bought at the first Western store I could find” regalia makes it in to the win column for me. Still don’t get what they’re trying to do with Texano at this point.

TL: Actually dug the take on Mysterio/Mundo 24/7 or what have you, complete with dude with heavy British accent doing the voiceover. Whoever made the final graphic needs to know how vectors work, though, and I totally buy Dario going into his budget to really push the match because he’s such a great promoter.

ER: Michael Schiavello is just about the biggest No Buys guy you can get with me. I think his commentary is genuinely terrible.

4. Drago vs. Aerostar

ER: This didn't really work. I don't care about the lizard people, but I do think working as a defined rudo is a better move for Drago, makes his stuff have some context. But this whole thing was just poorly constructed. Aerostar did some cool things, like Aerostar will do. He also looked like he flew into a brick wall on a dive, shooting right past Drago and hitting solidly into the front row. Vampiro covered admirably by saying that Drago caught and threw him. But damn that was a nasty ending to a dive. But moves in this match meant nothing. There was no rhyme or reason to who would recover faster, no transitions, just getting up and doing moves, several of which looked nice. But this was like me trying to rap, absolutely zero flow. Sometimes Drago would attack Aerostar while he was bouncing on the ropes, other times he would patiently wait in place for the move that came after the bouncing. It didn't add up to enough for me.

TL: The odd thing about this match to me is that it didn’t seem like they had any idea how to cohesively put things together. Striker puts over the “long pauses” as they’re hesitant to go after each other, but he and Vampiro were definitely covering a lot of general mistiming. And yeah, there wasn’t a part of this match that really got going. The Aerostar dive was very Blue Panther/Villano V-esque in its nastiness, but that was a misguided highlight. They need to make up their mind on whether Drago is a willing participant or someone who really has issues taking orders from Kobra Moon. Shades of grey in this particular scenario doesn’t work.

ER: Okay, you have to believe me here, but earlier in this review when I said, "I want [Cage] to punch through somebody's body with [the power glove]," you need to realize that I do not read spoilers for these shows. I have no idea what's going to happen, didn't know about the Sexy Star title win, none of this. I had zero clue 30 minutes later that Cage would literally punch a man's head to a pulp. And not just any man, but Lorenzo Lamas, TV's Renegade ("He was on fucking Falcon Crest!"~Phil Schneider). So now Cage is a murderer, and he seems mentally fine with being a murderer, which means there are several wrestlers I would like for him to murder and will now be confused if he ever loses a match again.

TL: I think the most unrealistic part of the epilogue was the big wig saying Cage got that big lifting weights and drinking protein shakes, when obviously the glove is a synonym for roid rage. Eric is way more prescient than I am, however, and Cage going full-on grindhouse on Lorenzo F’n Lamas makes me wonder what practical in-ring special effects we’re going to get with this glove. Can’t wait for his first Cueto Cup match, where he will most likely punch someone with the glove from the ring through Cueto’s office window thanks to an invisible harness of some kind. Or him hitting the Aztec symbol in the middle of the ring to make the lights in the arena flicker on and off or something. Is it in the budget for him to go full-on Attack on Titan and have him punching holes through people now that we’ve seen what he’s done to poor Lorenzo? Really wish I could have seen the look on Cage’s face when he found out this was going to be his story arc this season, because I don’t think there was anyone else in the company happier to hear what he or she was going to do than him. My favorite storyline LU has ever done and it’s not even close.

ER: I love Tim's idea to have somebody on wires getting punched by Cage and landing 20 feet away. If you're gonna go big and silly with it, go big and silly.

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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.


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Lucha Underground Season 3 Episode 2: The Amulet

ER: Hey Joey Ryan and Castro had a horrible fake fight in their super secret cop room, and it was about as bad as their cop acting. Why is the cop story still a thing?

MD: I'm with Eric on this. The word to use with all this cop stuff is bemused. Also, if this was all going to be so goofy, they should have cast Lisa Marie Varon as the head cop. More wrestlers as cameos to make this stuff more tolerable.

1. Dr. Wagner Jr. vs. Mascarita Sagrada

ER: Doc was at least generous taking head and arm drag for the guy and not spiking him with the Wagner Driver. This seemed clipped. Not sure what Sagrada is going to do to get revenge on Famous B, but I predict it will somehow end with Brenda turning on B and aligning herself with Sagrada.

MD: Again, I like the logic here. It makes sense for Sagrada to be the surprise opponent, and Santos sure announced him with gusto. I kind of love the full on ridiculousness of Nurse Brenda. It feels like 90s AAA with the themed ring girls. The work itself was fine. Sagrada's been so weirdly competitive against people that for Wagner to really squash him helped cement him as dangerous. You have to think most of the audience has no idea who he is, so every bit helps.

ER: Captain Vasqez and Castro need to take a workplace communication course as they clearly both have different goals. Castro was openly working all last season on catching Cueto, and reporting this to Captain Vasquez, but now he's apparently not supposed to go after Dario....even though she's been fully aware of what he's been doing the entire time...This fucking story.

MD: My co-contributor here just no sold "A Millennia Ago." I personally want this to go 10 seasons and to have a complex Lost like underpinning that they're working out as they go. Embrace the kayfabe insanity. It's all crazy. They want to tell this Mortal Kombat type story and they decided the best way to do so was in a backdrop to fully complete pro wrestling matches, using those tropes and half pre-existing characters with their own legacies outside of this (like Chavo or Rey) and half new ones. This entire thing is madness. It's also painfully mundane at the same time. I don't understand what other side Castro was supposed to choose. Either he was with Captain Not-Victoria or He was going to go after Dario then and there? Joey Ryan's on Dario's side. Somehow I think we were supposed to see this as a clear duality of choices and that wasn't it at all. Still, "A Millennia Ago."

2. Argenis vs. Mil Muertes

ER: Another quick squash, again feeling like stuff was clipped out, and more Striker idiocy with him calling Cuerno/Muertes "the biggest feud in our history". I have no clue what criteria you can come up with to make that statement true.

MD: Why was Puma out there again? And why does a Reaper have a Trident and not a Scythe? Is he a Maritime Reaper?

3. Weapons of Mass Destruction: Marty the Moth Martinez vs. Killshot

ER: So the main take away from this match was that this was, indisputably, the worst Matt Striker has ever been on commentary. This commentary was right down there with the absolute worst pro wrestling commentary I have ever heard. It was so distractingly bad, did such a disservice to the actual violence occurring, and was so meticulously planned out and just continuously vomited into our ears, that it didn't seem sustainable. But he managed. He started out terribly, and managed to keep getting worse, and worse, and louder, and it was constant. Usually his commentary elicits somewhere between an eyerolling groan all the way up to just an eyeroll. But this was far worse than his usual degrees of eyerolling jackassery. Here he was just distractingly, aggressively, needlessly horrible commentary. The jokes were bad, the puns were bad, it downplayed just about everything being done in the ring, and then he had to cap things off by bring rape into the whole mess. Every word spoken was so embarrassingly planned out, you could just picture him googling "Famous Quotes About War" and then writing all of his puns down, like the world's shittiest @ Midnight contestant. I'm not sure he reacted genuinely to anything the entire match. It's clear he had a list of jokes he was going to tell, and he was going to shoehorn them in no matter the situation. I'm curious how he had them ordered, if he had them written out in what he felt were the "best to worst", and then he picked evenly throughout (because you can't just front load with ALL of your A+ material), or if he had the jokes divided up amongst categories of moves, like "After Guy Takes Table Bump, Say _____", "After Guy Takes Weapon Shot, Say _____".

Whatever his method, it couldn't have worked worse. Again, there was no genuine reactions from him the entire match. Every movement in the ring was used as a vessel for him to transfer his specific brand of dogshit from his mouth to our ears. Instead of reacting to a move with excitement or attempt to build any sort of narrative, he would just use each wrestler's movements as an opportunity to scream out another inane war-related pun. "SEMPER FI" after a clothesline, on down to mind numbing stuff like yelling "BOUTROS BOUTROS-GHALI!!!" after another move. I have no clue how that even relates to war, but REFERENCES~ I thought the references would die out eventually. Striker will often make a bad pun, Vampiro will groan about it, and then he'll go back to actual business. But these puns never died. They kept going, relentlessly, each one less clever than the last; each one taking away from actual violence and pain that Killshot and Moth were going through, all for the end result of ham fistedly shoving REFERENCES~ into the atmosphere. And then it all peaked with Marty the Moth looking at Melissa Santos, licking his fingers while making a V sign, and Striker blurting out how he was eyeing Santos, "perhaps the spoils of war??" Yep, just because Marty was playing dress up and we got to see a prop fight with fake grenades, we can also just make mention that Moth might rape Santos after he conquers and loots Killshot's village. What a remarkably stupid thing to say. "The spoils of war", after they've already done a foolish and misguide rape angle. This somehow overshadowed all his remarkably insensitive and assholish remarks about napalm. I'm sure every wrestler would want to work their matches while some blowhard reminds people about villages of innocents being burned to the ground. I honestly cannot believe he didn't just double down and start making Holocaust jokes. He was already doing his best to draw any attention away from what was actually happening in the ring, he might as well have gone for broke.

The match itself was a lesser version of the kind of wander around the Temple matches we've gotten used to. This one was more gimmick-y as weapons and Styrofoam boxes were already arranged around the ring for them to fall into, but it still lead to some nasty spots. Moth outed himself as a wild bump maniac last season, and that was on full display in the first minute of this as he made a through the crowd brawl with Killshot pretty brutal by falling onto surfaces that aren't easy to fall on. Killshot takes a few ungodly bumps of his own, the most impressive is him getting run face first into a ladder that had been set up from the apron to the ring barrier (with Moth almost hitting a fan in the face while setting it up, then showing the fan he didn't care). It was an amazing shot, with Killshot taking it the way Lawler would take a ringpost bump, and making it look as good as the best Lawler post bumps. Earlier he took a backdrop driver onto the apron, later he would take an insane bump through tables that had been set up at ringside. This was probably the best Killshot has looked, but he's still just not good enough to give any sort of drama or meaning to these dangerous bumps. They would never actually lead to anything, and he's not good enough to put over the gravity of them (and Striker certainly wasn't helping with that). The match oddly felt too long, and too short; too short to really put over the danger in some of the spots, to properly sell the damage. But it wasn't short, it was 25 minutes, and the idea of it getting another 10 just seems absurd. So overall it didn't really work for me, while also liking plenty of it. How annoying am I? I had to honestly ask myself if Striker's commentary made me like the match itself less than I would have with somebody else talking over it, or had I just muted the TV. And I don't think so. I was impressed by the insane bumps, but also felt they got recovered from too easily. And overall, I just don't think the feud "deserved" this level of match. One guy stole dog tags. That doesn't really get to "blood feud" for me. I think having these two have a match like this just dilutes things when they have a match like this between two actual main eventers, with something bigger than dogtags on the line.

MD: Eric went off on Striker, so I won't say much about that; just if this was supposed to be seen by us as vicious and brutal (and I think it waS), then Striker's commentary made sure we were going to see it as one big joke instead. Personally, I thought his "Sorry I love you" moment from Puma vs Rey was far worse since it completely disrupted a genuine match that was the main event of the entirety of season 2. He was absolutely terrible though. Tonally, I agree with Eric that the level of brutality didn't seem earned from a storyline perspective, not like, let's say, the No Mas match from last season was. They can't just put on something like this without meaningful build, treat it like a joke, and then have it resonate. For what it's worth, Striker's worst moment here was after Killshot grabbed the dog tags on the ladder and he shouted "The symbolism couldn't be any louder!" Louder? Maybe not, but it could have sure been better if he just kept his trap shut.

I though the match itself did more things well than not, though (even past how great Marty's been as of late). I think I'm higher on it than Eric. For starters, Killshot's most annoying tendencies seem to all be based around the ropes. You take that away from him and he's not doing a bunch of springboard or handspring goofiness. The walk and brawl and plunder stuff they did here seemed to suit his slightly off the wall offense far better. It created a natural set of limitations that forced him to censor himself. Second, I really like how this was laid out with set pieces, in that it avoided the traditional Sabu-ness of everything stopping so that they could set up a table or a ladder. When those things were involved, they set them up between other spots and then paid them off later. It helped the flow. I think they should have had Mariposa assert herself earlier on (even if they took her out for a while before the end). When she did show up, it was in the usual "ladder match" moment, which made no dramatic sense here since there was nothing hanging over the ring. In general, though, these matches are so heavily produced and when it works, you get something that's really sort of cinematic and far better than it could have possibly been otherwise. That was this match. The problem is that when something is so heavily reliant upon production, all of the elements have to come together, and that's nigh impossible in a world with Matt Striker on commentary.


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Lucha Underground Season 2 Episode 17: Crime & Punishment

ER: Having Dario mug in the ring during the Aztec medallion intros was a somewhat out of character but funny bit. "Aerostar!! Welcome back to Earth!" Making fun of the interchangeability of the Disciples of Death, egging on Chavo and Cage may have been the best ("Fight it out guys, fight it out!!"). Again, Dario out there riffing and cracking jokes was a little off considering the punishment he and his brother went through last week in Graver Consequences, but the guy is funny and charismatic so it's fun to see him riff.

1. Argenis vs. Daga vs. Kobra Moon vs. Mascarita Sagrada

ER: This was perfectly acceptable, if flawed. Everybody did something I liked and something I disliked. Daga hit a nice shoulderblock and a really great rolling flip dive to the floor, but then took ages to set up a silly double submission on Argenis and Moon. Moon would throw a great dropkick but then do some clunky stalling (though these may be character directives that I just don't understand yet or aren't being communicated well), Sagrada took a fine beating, with him getting tossed and spun neck first into the bottom rope, and Argenis doing a Backlund lift into a driver on him looked sick. So yeah, some fun stuff, some problems. This was definitely a 4 way match between some low level guys.

2. Marty the Moth Martinez vs. Killshot

ER: Martinez deserves a lot of credit in this one for taking some of Killshot's stupid indy offense and making his other stuff look good. But damn there are so many guys in this fed I'd rather see get 8-10 minute singles matches than Killshot. The way he boings and sproings out of offense makes stuff that should look really devastating just look fun and painless. He takes a nasty release German at one point, and an exploder into the buckles, and then just kinda bops around like he's covered in Flubber. He takes a curbstomp and makes it look like Boogaloo Shrimp perfecting a new breakin' move. Moth takes a ridiculous DVD on the apron and some sort of neck duck driver from Killshot, leans into all of his thigh slaps, takes a great spill off the apron after a sidekick, really tries to make Killshot look good. But they seem ointent on the Killshot hardsell this season, so I'm sure we'll get more of these "feature" matches with his athletic brand of bumbling.

3. Gift of the Gods: Texano vs. Joey Ryan vs. The Mack vs. Sinestro de la Muerte vs. Aerostar vs. Sexy Star vs. Chavo Guerrero

ER: These Gift of the Gods matches haven't been very good so far. 7 guys is too many. In a trios match you have a few guys waiting on the apron because they're not tagged in. In this match you have guys lying around selling or waiting on the floor because...they just don't want to win, I guess? Mack looked good in this, Aerostar had some cool moments (I mean, throw Aerostar in a match and he's going to do a couple cool things). His falling meteorite is a crazy awesome flying move, and I liked when he was rope running at one point he found a way to kick an opponent on the floor with both feet, while not missing a beat running. That's impressive. This whole match existed to set up the Cage/Chavo angle, which feels like a weirdly roundabout way to just get to a cage/Chavo match that was set up out of nowhere anyway. Let's take several weeks to have qualifying matches for entry into this match, to set up a match between a guy who was and a guy who wasn't supposed to be in this match.

ER: The Pentagon/Vampiro sadomasochism stuff is getting weirder and weirder. I like where it will eventually wind up, with an even more violent Pentagon emerging to take on Dario and Matanza. But this went on a bit too long.

ER: Pretty nothing show this week.  If you had to skip one, this wouldn't be a bad pick.

PAS: WILL DO!!!
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Lucha Underground Season 2 Episode 12: Three's a Crowd

ER: Dario crushed it in that opening segment. "No, I like my plan better" and "Yeah yeah we know. You're a machine" were classically delivered. He really knows how to play off of wrestling acting.

PAS: Dario is really great, the material he is stuck with is really hit or miss, but I just love his delivery.

1. Argenis vs. Killshot

ER: Striker says it's been many months since we've seen Argenis, and then in the same breath talks about how we saw him in Aztec Warfare. You know, a few episodes ago. It feels like half the episodes this season have opened with a freaking Killshot match. Vampiro talks about how Killshot's movements have been more "military" since coming in with new gear. A) what the fuck is military movement in pro wrestling, and B) how can anything Killshot does be compared to any kind of military? Was it his kick that whiffed? Was it his double somersault ace crusher? Was it the Argenis superkick he sold by not realizing he had been kicked and continuing to climb the ropes? Striker and Vampiro are now ONLY talking about Killshot as a soldier, something not mentioned until last week. Every fucking thing he does now relates to an IED blast or PTSD. It's fucking awful.

PAS: I thought this was the best Killshot has looked,which is an incredibly low bar. His new gear is kind of cool, and I suppose him having some gimmick is better then no gimmick. Still Killshot is still Killshotting.


2. Daga vs. Texano

ER: Did somebody get hurt in this one? Was there a clip? Or do both men just have the magical ability to look good one moment and then like really bad pro wrestlers the next, usually with neither looking good at the same time. Early on Daga sells a move by awkwardly holding his groin, and then spends most of the match selling his left arm despite no work being done on the arm, and then would spent a couple moments not selling the arm...but then would go right back to selling the arm. He also had multiple moments of bumping moves before they came close to hitting him, like when he just waiting to be kicked off the ropes to the floor, but fell off before Texano got there. Or later when Texano threw some of the worst lariats I've ever seen, and they would have looked bad even if Daga hadn't already been bumping them before they made contact. I mean that segment where Daga takes a mistimed bump when Texano barely grazes him with a lariat, followed by Daga taking a flip bump from a lariat before it reaches him, was one of the very ugliest things I've seen on LU. I don't even know if I'd expect to see something that embarrassing in a Sexy Star match. For a guy I've liked before, Texano sure has gotten the very least out of a lot of guys so far. Daga is one of those guys who wrestles with an extreme disconnect. Sometimes his stuff looks good, but he always looks like he's thinking about how to execute the move, and what step comes next in his routine, instead of making it look like a natural exchange between two bodies.

PAS: I thoughts parts of this looked pretty good, they were definitely working pretty stiff although the LU sound sweetening was working over time. I agree that those clotheslines looked terrible, but I think this mostly achieved what they were shooting for. Nothing I would ever watch twice, didn't really make me want to see either guy again, but no need to slur them with the Sexy Star curse.

ER: Why the hell is Muertes still hanging out with the Disciples of Death? Shouldn't he have murdered them by now for making him look like such a poor supervisor? They love their comedy skits, so have Muertes in a shortsleeve button up and bad necktie, telling the DoD that their poor performance reflects poorly on him as their supervisor. "I created you from lightning, and trusted you to accomplish the clear goals I set out for you. But I don't want to spend my time micromanaging you, telling you how to do every step of your job. Productivity is DOWN, and we need to get better." And then he makes their heads explode like in fucking Scanners. There, I just took 20 seconds to write a better shitty "real life job" sketch than the police officer nonsense they're running.

3. Rey Mysterio, Dragon Azteca Jr. & Prince Puma vs. Johnny Mundo, Taya & Cage

ER: Fun match, although maybe I had expectations higher than I realized, as I was left hoping for more. I actually thought it was a match that succeeded far more at the little things, with then"big spots" leaving me a little flat. Little story and character moments like Rey getting yanked off the apron before the hot tag, or Cage rebelling against his forced tag partners by using Taya as a weapon and tagging in Mundo by slapping him, those kind of moments hit HUGE. But some of the big spots came off flat and overly planned. Dragon Azteca made a nice match debut, some of his spots looked really good (Mundo tossing him in the air only for him to grab a DDT on his way down looked awesome) but needs to tighten up his strikes. At one point he kicked Cage in the stomach to break something up and Cage hadn't realized he'd been kicked. They built to the Rey hot tag really well, and I oddly got really excited for a Rey/Taya singles. Taya has the charisma to pull off being a good Rey opponent, and I dug Rey's interactions with her in this. The go home stretch was good, the build to it was good as happened as it should have, I was just left a little...well I guess I wanted more. I'm difficult.

PAS: I liked this more then Eric did, I thought this was pretty pitch perfect for a spotfest trios match. Rey looked incredible, he looks like he has regained 75% of his speed and he was just bolting around the ring. It is incredible that Rey is as old as he is and he looks athletically on the level of kids like Azteca and Puma. Loved all of Cage's power spots, slamming two guys at once, catching Puma in mid air in suplex position, he sometimes overdoes it in singles but is a great multiman guy. Just exciting spot after exciting spot, with a little bit of story and a superstar team working great together.

ER: Feels like they're going to Matanza/Muertes far too soon. I guess they don't have anywhere else to build to, they're clearly the two big monsters and everyone wants to see them go up against each other. It just feels like these two won't meet JUST one time, so maybe I'm not as excited for this match, assuming it will be just something to set up another match? I dunno. But I liked the almost oddly touching moment between Dario and Matanza, with Dario telling him he's the most valuable thing in the world to him. It's a sentence that can be viewed as both exploitative, or strongly affectionate, which is why it was so good.


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Lucha Underground Episode 30: Submit to the Master Review

PAS: Chavo is really good in these vignettes, he and Dario are by far the best actors in it, meanwhile Black Lotus is almost porn level terrible at conveying anything. I may be out on this whole Matanza thing, it doesn't appear to be leading to a wrestling match, instead just backstage movie fights, and this is starting to remind me of midgets blowing up speedboats in 1993 WCW. Dario is a better actor then Cheatum, although he might not be as good as King Curtis.

ER: I also loved Chavo and Dario in this. "Now why don't you tell me what you really want."

1. Jack Evans vs. Argenis

PAS: This had some fun Evans moments, including a couple of nifty ju-jitsu take downs and grappling, but Argenis is the dullest guy on this roster, and nothing he did here made me want to see more of him. Seems like a spot that could be used on almost anyone else in AAA. If rumors are true and he is one of the goblins with Mil Muertes I hope he can do something more interesting with that role

ER: I liked this more than Phil, and while Argenis may have zero charisma to speak of I thought his work in the match was fine. His timing was on when it came to reversing Evans' spots, he threw a real nice low dropkick and hit a nice flip dive, I even liked stuff like a flapjack into kicking Evans below the belt. I thought he and Evans played off each other well and liked how well Evans' flips led to some of his stuff getting reversed (such as the cartwheel into getting suplexed). Also dug the two caught ranas that Argenis turned into powerbombs, one in the ring and the other against the railing on the floor. That one looked nasty. I still have no idea what these Legends of the Hidden Temple medallions are going to be, but Pentagon's sure hasn't done him any favors yet.

ER: I actually loved how long the camera held on Mack/Cage when they caught each other's strikes. It was like the Weathers/Schwarzenegger handshake in Predator, only with eye contact. It was glorious. And yes, Black Lotus' line reading really is porn level as Phil stated. Her pronunciation of "Matanza" sounded like a first week ESL student trying to be sexy. BUT I liked her dozen chest shots on Chavo, although the locker door shots on The Crew looked kinda weak.

2. Son of Havok, Angelico & Ivelisse vs. Delavar Daivari, Cage & Big Ryck

PAS: Match that had some fun moments, but ultimately disappointed. Big Ryck looked great again, and is a bummer he is stuck with Daivari who is getting added to the Killshot/Sexy Star list. I thought the handoff suplex was really cool, and Cage and Ryck as a Road Warriors style killer tag team would be pretty cool, I guess if we kept him out of the ring Davari would be a fine Precious Paul. If you just made Ivelisse and Daivari seconds this would have been a better match. Finish keeps up the dishwater dull Texano v. Daivari feud.

ER: This should have been better but chose to focus more on some angles, and the match didn't get as much time as other trios matches have gotten. Ryck looked good, and I'm with Phil that a big jacked up team with Cage would be fun. The trade off vertical was awesome (and the camera wisely cuts to Ivelisse screaming during the handoff), Ryck throws a nice elbow, Cage is really good at eating Angelico's strikes (combined with Angelico's knees and roundhouse kicks looking nice), I dug Havoc's little evasive cartwheel off the top, but really this match didn't add up to much. Crowd again seemed to care far more about Ivelisse actually sitting with them instead of the match itself.

3. Submission Match: Pentagon Jr. vs. Sexy Star

PAS: Man fuck this match. This was probably even worse then their first match, as instead of Sexy getting a fluke win, Pentagon Jr. has to escape the dominant Sexy Star with the help of interference. Pentagon tried hard, but Sexy Star is bad and not credible, and no amount of smoke and mirrors can make it different. Now Pentagon is going to be stuck feuding with Vampiro who sucked in the ring when he could actually move, can't imagine how bad he will be now.

ER: Blechh. I was dreading this when it was announced last week, dreading it far more when I found out from the program guide that it was a submission match, and then just sad when it turned out to be pretty much exactly what I was dreading. Pentagon has to hold back on all of his offense, Sexy Star no sells moves more than any wrestler in the fed, Pentagon needs help to beat a woman who has been laughed off by other opponents, and Pentagon has to work overtime to make Star's weak offense look painful (he tries, but is not successful). Her one positive attribute is that she's flexible, so she can make Pentagon's cool submissions look ultra nasty. Now that also creates another problem as Pentagon's submissions DO look nasty (That one in a piledriver position while bending her ankles across each other?! AWESOME!), which makes it more absurd when she lasts through all of them, only to almost tap Pentagon with a limp single crab. Super Fly runs in and protects her with an ultra soft power bomb (pretty sure Bubba Ray didn't protect Mae Young this much), then we get a tubby Vampiro staring down Pentagon. You know, Pentagon, the ruthless killer who went after a helpless ring announcer a few weeks ago, but now suddenly doesn't immediately shit down Vampiro's neck. This fed just can't properly build a good rudo. Pentagon's heat after going after Melissa was off the charts, and it's almost as if they've purposely tried to cool him off ever since. Vampiro flips out in front of a mirror afterwards, but it looks less like Captain Willard losing his mind and more like an adult baby play acting "crazy". All of this made me sad.

PAS: What a bi-polar fed, they follow up last weeks awesome show with this turd burger. Hopefully that means next week will be good

ER: You can make an argument that last week's episode was the best in company history. At minimum it would be in the conversation. And, having made that argument, you could go on to argue that this episode was among the worst in company history. I don't read tapings results and I avoid spoilers, so maybe some of the things I'm not digging all end up rosy and cozy. I'm skeptical, though.


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Lucha Underground Episode 25: The Way of the Drago Workrate Report

ER: Dario talking down to the Crew was great. "Do you know what a lay up is!? A 'gee-mee', if you will." And also apparently the caged beast is Dario's brother?

1. Fenix vs. Killshot

ER: Vamp trying to put Killshot over as versatile because he has "MMA style shorts". This match was probably the most you could hope for in a 7 minute Killshot singles, and what that means is a couple things look cool and many things did not look like a total abortion. Killshot...is not good. His facial selling is horrid. He sells a move with this wide eyed scream, like Chris Tucker selling a punchline. All of his offense involves spinning his opponent. He's always grabbing a guy by the shoulders, spinning them around, grabbing a guy's arm, spinning them around. He threw a nice spinning superkick here (probably his best looking thing in the match, so of course Fenix immediately does a kip up). I liked the opening rolling wristlock stuff. I'd always love when guys like Regal would grab a wrist and roll through with it. Killshot doesn't do it very well, but at least imitating Regal is better than imitating Ric Blade. I liked moments of this, like Fenix snapping and slapping the shit of Killshot, but most of this felt like one guy doing a finisher, kickout, other guy doing a finisher, until one of the finishers finished. Having a super competitive match with a guy like Killshot seems like a big step backward for Fenix. Killshot needs to be the first guy to have all 4 limbs broken by Pentagon.

PAS: Yeah this wasn't horrible, but it wasn't good. I have no idea why they would give Killshot a singles match (or employ him at all, but at least keep him to trios) and Fenix is far from the guy you want trying to carry someone. Lets hope he is the victim of a Dario scheme soon.

2. Famous B vs. Ricky Mandel vs. Vinny Massaro vs. Argenis

ER: Oh awesome!! I joked about them matching up all of Pentagon's victims, and my dream has come true! Oh, bummer, it was just a set up to put Texano over. Cheap trick, LU. I liked Vinny immediately going for a lariat but then holding his injured arm "oh shit that's right all of our arms are fucked!" Vinny also bumped better than the others for Texano. Really wanted to see this 4 way. I like when guys who have kinda been established as jobbers get a shot at moving up the ladder on each other. Like when Renegade would face Sick Boy on Saturday Night or something.

PAS: They should have had them all out there with casts on their arms like four 80's Bob Orton's. I thought Texano looked pretty violent, and I am looking forward to him brawling with Davari

ER: Marty "The Moth" Martinez? Ok. I liked Dario blowing off some weirdo fan.

PAS: This felt very Chikarish in a wink about wrestling kind of way. Keep that Colt Cabana shit far away from my lucha.

3. King Cuerno vs. Cage vs. Hernandez

ER: Match was going really fun until the poorly handled Marty the Moth run-in. I have no idea who the guy is (apparently was a guy I don't remember on Tough Enough) but the run in was lame. Cuerno annihilates him with his awesome dropkick, but it's the first move of the beatdown so the Moth has to keep popping up for other stuff. Then since it was just a quick run in he bumps to the floor and runs out swearing vengeance. Came off bad as the dude took Cuerno's awesome kick and some other stuff, but just acted angry as he went to the back (instead of like a goob who got his stomach kicked in, as he should have been). The match was a fun X-Division match with heavyweights. I thought Cuerno looked great through all of this. Cage seems to excel in multi-man matches which is kind of a unique skill. I always find myself disliking him in singles or tags, yet he somehow seems to thrive in triple threat or 4 ways. Triple threats especially seem difficult to thrive in, but he genuinely seems better at them. Everybody got some nice stuff, Hernandez made some questionable faces, Cuerno took about 12 bumps right on his shoulder, and this was rocking....until a run in that led immediately to the ending. Reallllly not loving how much Cuerno is just getting beat clean. This guy seems like he should be the top star in the fed.

PAS: Cuerno really seems to be floundering lately, don't see any reason for him to be in this match and they really should do something with him. I liked Cage v. Hernandez as a battle of high spot heavyweights, would like them teamed up as a kind of a roided Steiners team. Marty the Moth feels like he is quickly going to move on my Sexy Star/Killshot list of things I don't like.

4. Drago vs. Prince Puma

ER: This was really fun, both guys were on point and and hit all their complicated things really effortlessly. And these are two guys with a bunch of fun complicated stuff. I am starting to think the fed is really tossing out too many very serious stips lately without announcing them in advance. Having a loser leaves the fed and mask match are two things you can really build to. It seems like they're going too over the top with Dario manipulating outcomes, like they're doing it so often that it's all starting to feel like things are meaningless. Last week we have the culmination of a tournament that sees a surprise entrant after the tournament ends. If he wanted Angelico's team taken out that badly, there were tons of opportunities to do that instead of waiting until after they won. So now Drago is gone which is a real bummer, especially on the same show that Killshot got a featured match. Drago is one of the most consistent performers on here so if he is actually gone that's a real blow. This was a heck of a performance to go out on. I can hardly keep up with either guy here, and they blow through some neat submissions, each gets dumped on their head with some wild stuff (loved the reverse rana bump) and this was just really really fun.

PAS: Yeah this was a really good match, fun highspot wrestling with some very cool counters and an especially awesome rolling submission by Drago. I am with Eric about the booking though, I think we are forgiving a lot of horseshit because Dario is such a good actor and the production is cool. This is the second time in a month they have burned through cool heated gimmicks on face v. face matches with no build and no hate, just so Dario can smirk evilly. I was really sick of heel promoter before this fed, forgave it for a bit because I liked Dario, but now it is the same tired shit we have seen in wrestling for the last 20 years. For a fed with a lot of cool different ideas, it sucks that this is the one they are still clinging too

ER: And then after we get some weird dragon stuff...


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Lucha Underground Episode 18: No Escape Workrate Report

1. Pentagon Jr. vs. Argenis

ER: At first I thought it was silly that Argenis was the first guy to get an extended run of offense against Pentagon (at least since he came back under orders of the Master), since Argenis doesn't really have offense that looks great. But once Pentagon took over then he never looked back, and it felt like he made it a point to punish Argenis even more for getting that run on him. Pentagon got to toss him around like he was Lesnar, dumping him a couple nasty ways into the turnbuckles, and finishing with that arm breaker. I loved how they filmed the arm snap from the feet up this time, instead of across the body the way they've been filming it. This way you really got to see that arm bend behind Argenis' back, and it looked sick; made my tennis elbow flare up.

ER: Jeez so they managed to make Konnan look awesome in another video. Naturally, all of this flies directly in the face of what I actually know to be true. Here they show his cane to have practically legendary power, as he breaks through a cinderblock and rips into a heavy bag, emptying out the sand. The videos are making him out to be Hoy Quarlow and while I have no idea what satisfying direction they can actually go with this, it is undeniable that I'm love the videos.

2. Angelico vs. Ivelisse

ER: Okay, I'm getting a liiiitle tired of man vs. woman matches in this fed. I'm all about being progressive, but even if you work the matches as believably as possible, what's the ceiling for how good they can be? I obviously don't need pure realism in my pro wrestling, but these kind of matches have kind of a short shelf life for me. Plus I feel a little uneasy seeing a whole bunch of dry hump and forceful cunnilingus spots get played for babyface pops. This match had way too much of that. I mean Angelico doesn't want to hit a woman, how noble! He just wants to grind on her to a degree that they switched to an alternate camera angle a couple times. What's next, are we gonna get vignettes with Big Ryck mixing drinks for Sexy Star while wearing a colorful sweater? I get it, Angelico is slimy. But he was also the face here, and everything about it felt awkward. That's not even getting into the uncomfortable Son of Havoc as cuckold referee. All that being said I enjoyed Ivelisse's offense in this. Her tornillo off the top looked real impressive, really landed perfectly stomach to stomach with a thud. I liked a lot of her stuff, loved how she crumbled off a roundhouse kick. Angelico accomplished what he set out to do, I just did not care at all for what he set out to do.

3. Cage Match: King Cuerno vs. Johnny Mundo

ER: I actually dug this match. I was worried Cuerno would be held back without being able to build to his great tope, but bumped around huge, taking a big hip toss into the cage and I loved him committing fully to his missed double knees into the cage. Escape the cage spots can be dorky but I liked some of the ones they did here, especially Mundo catching Cuerno by the mask and Vampiro putting over that Cuerno respected the mask too much to win the match but have his mask yanked off in the process. Some of Mundo's moves and strikes were problematic as expected but other times they worked. I liked them fighting on the top ropes, and even though a little goofy I liked both been being punched out and both face planting off the top. Still I thought it overall worked, mainly due to Cuerno's commitment to everything: his big moves, his big misses, his big bumps.


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Lucha Underground Episode 14: A Shot of El Patron Workrate Report

ER: Liked the Alberto/Dario interaction, loved the way Dario just changed the subject when Alberto asked him about the key.

PAS: Not a ton about Matanaza this week, I had some suggestions last week, but if what the WON says is true, the only real use of Vince Russo would be as a monster kept in a cage. Dario said he liked to destroy pretty things, and Vince Russo is the one guy wrestling fans would truly look at with terror.

1. Argenis vs. Fenix

ER: Total spotfest, but I dug it. Argenis didn't really look that good, but his two rana variations did and I'm a sucker for a smooth rana. This was one of the better Fenix performances, his rope assisted flip dive was crazy. There was no selling or transitions to speak of, but they never made any allusions to those things so it didn't really bother me. I think that's the key with me, no selling really bugs me when it's sporadic throughout a match, but if they establish right out of the gate "this is just going to be 5 minutes of our highlight reel" then I can just enjoy it like junk food.

PAS: Sure, this was a nice job showing all of their stuff,  Fenix needs to never throw a punch or kick again, still some cool dives, and they didn't make either guy do more then they need to do.

ER: Damn the Mil Muertes and Big Ryck vignettes killed it. Muertes lifting up Catrina by the throat like Darth Vader, Ryck still cool smoking cigars because he recognized the cigar didn't hurt him, people did, Muertes walking down the dimly lit hallway like Maniac Cop, loved the way Ryck was filmed and loved the cigar smoke as his face comes into light. Great stuff here.

PAS: Yeah those were both awesome, coolest Muertes has ever looked and Ryck as Man on Fire Denzel bent for vicious revenge is going to rule.

ER: I also love how they use Mariachi El Bronx. That's a sweet little bonus for a house band. Usually when there's a wrestling show with a band playing it's some lousy metal band that are friends of the promoter.

2. Son of Havoc vs. Johnny Mundo

ER: Not my thing. It's funny I just mentioned a spotfest that pretends there's going to be selling vs. one that just goes for broke with spots, and here we have the other side of that. We get Mundo screaming about his knee about one minute into the match, and then never see that injury again, yet we get to hear Striker and Vampiro talking constantly about his blown out knee, how Havoc is hooking that bad knee, how "that's not good for the knee" every time Mundo does a backflip and lands on his feet. It's like enjoying a B movie that knows exactly what it is, as opposed to a movie with big aspirations that just falls on its face. There were a couple cool spots in this, my favorite being Havoc running away from a Mundo dive but Mundo using his parkour (on a BAD KNEE!!) to flip back through the ropes and dive diagonally out of the ring to grab him anyway. But this was one of those matches where I just keep hoping for it to end after awhile.

PAS: Big mistake to book Mundo with a knee injury. He is a guy with some real limitations, and selling is one of them, I imagine if he had a hurt arm or neck, he wouldn't need to limit his offense, here he just ignores it and does all of his stuff anyway. The announcers go on and on about his blown out knee, but if this match was on mute, no way you would know it. I enjoyed Havoc in this, seems weird to have Barry Horowitz have cooler spots then your pushed highflyers, but he really hits some cool stuff, that fake where he topes the ring rope is awesome looking.

3. Ricky Mandel vs. Pentagon Jr.

ER: Feels like they should have shown highlights of Pentagon breaking Famous B's arm the other week, but I suppose it makes sense they didn't with him doing the same thing to Mandel. Although this promotion doesn't really do replays which is odd. They show a bunch of "last week on" at the beginning of the show, but there are a lot of times when a guy is walking to the ring and we hear "we remember last week when…" but there's no clip of the thing they're talking about, just the guy walking to the ring. But they are going in the right direction with Pentagon, feeding some lower tier guys to him and letting him walk circles around them. I wonder if this is going to lead to a bunch of one armed men coming back to haunt Pentagon?

PAS: Man Pentagon is a nasty fucker, I loved the counter into the backbreaker and the kick to the spine. I don't know who the Master is going to be, I think Vampiro is too genial at this point, LA Park would be perfect, but I am not sure how the lucha politics would work.

ER: I don't know the details about this, but Alberto feels like a pretty big "get" for them. I also don't know the details surrounding him leaving WWE, but hopefully this isn't one of those things where Vince decides to buy up a bunch of LU guys and then never use them. I mean, it would be amusing to see Vince buy Son of Havoc or other guys that have gone through developmental that they didn't originally want.

PAS: Promo was really good, Alberto really felt almost Eddieish, although if Russo is really coming in, he better get used to neckbeards making unfunny Mexican jokes behind his back, maybe Alberto will slap the shit out of him too. Think they hotshotted the Texano Jr. arrival, feels like that could have waited a week. Nothing great in the ring this week, but a lot of the booking issues I had a couple of weeks ago seem to be solved.


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Lucha Underground Episode 12: They Call Him Cage

PAS: Cage really needs a manager, what is Jeff G. Bailey doing these days.

1. Fenix vs. Mil Muertes

PAS: This is the best Muertes has looked, (not literally, his pants still suck) I really liked his jabs and big right hands and all of his throws looked good. Fenix mostly just stuck and moved which kept him from doing some of his dumber more elaborate stuff. Still have no idea why they had a David v. Goliath opener, on the same show with a David v. Goliath main event

ER: I thought this match was awesome. Both guys laid in shots, Fenix bumped all over, and everything looked cool. Perfect little WorldWide match. Fenix peppered in a couple stiff elbow shots, great running knee and then of course spectacular leans into everything Muertes throws. I rewound a couple different moments in this which is always a good sign. Loved how Fenix bumped that running punch from Muertes, loved how he took the spear, loved him getting dumped by a deadlift suplex and really loved him getting plopped on his head in the corner from a belly to belly. Really liked both guys in this. Just a perfect short match.

PAS: They are still great at the vignettes, as Cage as crazy street fighter crushing bottles with his hands is the best use of him

ER: This was great, loved that shot of Cage looking at the camera while a dude ran up and broke a bottle over his head and Cage no sold it. This episode is off to a killer start.

2. Argenis, Super Fly & Aerostar vs. Mr. Cisco, Bael & Cortez Castro

PAS: Really fun match, the crew are one of my favorite things in this fed, even Bael looked a little better then he had in the past. Just balls to the wall stuff, with Aerostar breaking out a little from the pack, he really moves smooth, just effortless flow with all of his moves, and some really nutso dives. I liked the AAA trio (although it ignores the Aerostar v. Super Fly mask v. mask beef) they should give them all matching gear and a gimmick. I could see this matchup a ton of different times.

ER: Man I wasn't expecting this to get 10+ minutes but I'm glad it did! Tons of crazy stuff in this. Aerostar standing on Argenis shoulders, while Argenis himself stood on the ropes, to deliver a crossbody was nuts and something I've never seen. Also loved the corner dropkick sequence that saw the Crew each get to attempt to scrape Aerostar's mask off onto their boots. We had some wild dives, Cisco getting rana'd off the top onto everybody, the weird Striker overhype for Argenis (a couple weeks ago he compared him to Silver King and Dr. Wagner, who he is absolutely nothing like, and this week he compares him to Hijo Del Santo), Cisco continuing to be a chubby little bump machine and doing a bunch of nice little things (loved how he really went for the legs on drop downs), and arguably the most I've ever enjoyed Cortez/Reyes. This episode is on a freaking roll.

PAS: I know I don't want to see Vampiro v. Konan in the ring, but I did enjoy their face off. I am a fan of Konan on this show and I like all of the history you felt in that face off. Maybe they could do a poor mans Eddie Marlin v. Tommy Gilbert match cowboy boot match.

ER: Boy, for two guys I never liked in their prime, and two guys I know would be horrible now……I really want to see a Vampiro/Konnan fight now. I really liked their interactions throughout this interview, and maybe if they know their own extreme limitations they can hobble something out? I love old guy fights so if it's them potatoing each other for a few minutes I could see me loving it more than anything else they've ever done.

3. Prince Puma vs. Cage

ER: This match was weird as I enjoyed the ring work of both men, while at the same time had a major problem with the match structure. In a vacuum, both guys looked good. Cage got to do his power offense and had some neat little ways to cut off offense, loved his little shoulder shrug to block Puma offense, loved him burying his shoulder into Puma's stomach in the corner, then shaking him off. A lot of Puma's stuff looked nice, he really lands with accuracy and it makes his flying stuff look better than most. But the problem was they've presented Cage as this bulldozer street fighter and now he's wrestling the same as Fenix. It's that horrible Abyss paradox where he's larger and can bump, but would bump exactly the same no matter if he was wrestling Chris Sabin or Rhino or Sonjay Dutt. Here Cage breaks out his 2nd rope moonsault and bumps all over for Puma, which is impressive, but completely absurd. I hate this even stevens kind of thing anyway, but when there's this kind of size difference you just can't work this kind of match. And this is a corner they backed themselves into when having a couple large guys in a fed made up of a bunch of smaller guys. Phil mentioned earlier they booked a David & Goliath undercard match on a show with a David & Goliath main event. And then the main event goes and just has a layout the same as any other guys in the fed.

PAS: Agree with Eric, this was Cage trying to prove he could work at the same speed as Puma, while Puma is trying to throw suplexes. Big Ryck is a much smarter worker, and this match would have been way better if Cage worked it like he worked the vignette street fight. Did like some of the spots, and the finish with the nasty Konan blade job ruled, but I wanted the match to be better.

ER: So that mystery Asian woman may be a vampire. I would actually kind of love if they added in a From Dusk Til Dawn crossover story, because why not. Who will Matanza (?) be? Will he be immortal? Whatever the case I loved how Dario sold this whole exchange. I think this was actually my favorite episode of the series so far.

PAS: I wonder if Matanza is the monster being kept in the basement with the key. I wonder who is going to play him, seems like they already have too many giant characters, although Kongo Kong would be awesome in this fed


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Lucha Underground Episode 10: Law of the Jungle Workrate Report

1. Aerostar vs. Argenis vs. Angelico vs. Cage

ER: Striker describes Argenis as a Silver King/Dr. Wagner Jr. type which…okay I've seen Argenis before and nothing he does in the ring would ever remind me of Silver King or Dr. Wagner Jr. Nothing he does, nothing about his look, not at all. Silver King and especially Dr. Wagner are maybe the exact opposite types of luchador to a guy like Argenis. "I really like this Angelico kid. Reminds me of an old Cien Caras." I just really am not understanding the comparison. It's so weird that maybe I just heard it completely wrong, but I don't think so. Vampiro opts to call his style "conflictive" which…I'm pretty positive is not an actual word. Match itself was very fun. Angelico is a guy who usually looks like he gets hurt way worse when doing his offense, stuff like lightly kicking a guy on the top rope while falling on his own head. But this kind of 4 way is the perfect setting for guys like him as he can bump big, get out of the way, and then do a cool spot. His dive over the turnbuckle was insane. Cage also looked good and I liked how everybody pinballed off of him. This is also the "smallest" I've seen Cage in over a year. He's still way bigger than he was a couple years ago, but in early 2014 he ballooned up to Scott Steiner levels of not being able to lower his arms properly. Now he's still gassed but has a lot more of his agility back. He took all of their ranas really nicely and set them up well. All of the floppers did a great job bouncing off him and everything ran smoothly, no glitchy hangups. Also dug Cage's folding powerbomb on Aerostar, followed by him powerbombing him into Angelico. We got some really cool dives and aside from Angelico's insane one I loved the top rope no look tope en reversa from Aerostar. Really fun stuff.

PAS: Yeah this was really good, probably the second best match this promotion has done. I think it is a little weird to intro four guys like this in one match. Might have been better to intro Cage and Aerostar along with Son of Havoc and Super Fly, it is hard for four guys to make an new impression all at once, and I think Argenis and Aerostar may have been a bit overshadowed. Angelico was one of the worst wrestlers in the world when he was regularly showing up in IWRG, but he looked passible here, and his dive was nutso. Really cool use of Cage, and this promotion has been great at using giaganto roid dudes.

ER: Chavo sits in the ring to call out Blue Demon Jr. (whose name Matt Striker can now finally pronounce the way a human being would) and I love the camera work focusing on Chavo secretly pulling out brass knux. Demon putting the boots to Chavo didn't actually look very good, but it was more energy than I've maybe ever seen from Demon so I'll give him points.

PAS: I hope this is it for Blue Demon, this was a fine blowoff and was better then having to watch him in a match would be. Wonder what they do with Chavo from now on, he has been one of my favorite dudes in this fed, and would hate to see him marginalized.

2. King Cuerno vs. Drago

ER: This match was their weakest so far but used moves to set up a bigger match so it gets a pass. This was more a couple of big spots with not much in between. We had a massive flip dive from Cuerno (and again Drago gets full credit for leaning way into Cuerno's dives) and a nice dive by Drago, and then a clunky set up to get Cuerno lying on top of a table (there really is no good way to get a guy to accidentally lie down on a table) leading to a massive splash from Dario's office that exploded the table in fantastic ways. I'm actually surprised this episode hasn't had any replays, as stuff like that spot and Angelico's dive feel like things that should have been repeated a couple times.

PAS: I think this was a 2/3 falls match edited way down. Sort of a bummer as I was looking forward to these guys building on what they had done before, as opposed to just setting up a couple of spots. Still the blowoff should be great.

3. Fenix vs. Prince Puma

ER: This wasn't really my thing. Fenix's stuff works way better in a 4 way type match, and eventually this kind of just turned into nonsensical your move my move stuff with no real transitions. Fenix would hit a 450 and that would lead directly into Puma hitting a sit out piledriver. Fenix also has the habit of overly anticipating moves sometimes, not really good at naturally getting into position for stuff. A couple times he was so anticipating a move that he started bumping before the move part came. I like Vampiro bringing up Finlay booting him in his back when Puma does that to Fenix (which Striker keeps uncomfortably referring to as "The Victim Kick". Not sure what that means but it feels icky), saying it sent shockwaves down his arms. Donovan Morgan told me a similar thing years ago when Takayama booted him square in the spine, and he said both of his arms went momentarily numb. That was one of the first times I remembered thinking wrestlers were complete lunatics. So yeah all in all there were some neat spots in this match, but by the end I couldn't really care much about them.

PAS: I though the finish run was pretty cool, and that rope running spot into the superkick was great, but this had a very videogame feel to it, which I don't love. I understand that is going to be the working style of this fed, which is fine, I enjoy enough about Lucha Underground to tolerate this kind of PWGish thing, still I think both guys would have been served working with Rudo's to slow them down a bit. Looking forward to Puma v. Cage or Fenix v. Pentagon Jr. for those reasons.

ER: Feels like they need to go back to some more vignettes per episode. The last few weeks have had a lot of all ring action, and it seems crazy to be saying "man I wish there were more backstage skits!" but I think those were a real strength for this show. They obviously have some talented wrestlers so it's not the worst thing to have a whole show of just wrestling, but they started out with a real good balance of wrestling with character back story, and now it feels like the characters have just kind of stalled. Like they made a big deal out of Cuerno being some kind of hunter, but haven't really explained why outside of one video several weeks ago. Now he's still referred to as a hunter and Vampiro compares him to Predator, but we've not really been shown any reason why that's the case, other than them saying it a lot. I think they need to get back to that kind of stuff.

PAS: Yeah, I want to know who Dario is keeping under lock and key, I assumed it was Cage but apparently not, they need more campy angles as a bunch of guys doing flips for flips sake is going to wear a bit thin for me. Still liked this episode a bunch, but it did feel a little formless.


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