Lucha Underground Season 2 Episode 3: The Hunt is On...

1. Bengala vs. Kobra Moon

ER: Wow, I'm so happy I managed to not get this spoiled as I had no clue Kobra Moon was Thunder Rosa! I've had the privilege of doing commentary on a few of her matches, as she works all over the Bay Area - including several shows for Phoenix Pro Wrestling. She's barely been wrestling a year, so it's a little crazy to see her get a TV gig. She's really nice, and clearly worked hard over this last year. So color me surprised when I recognized her through her mask and weird....snake tongue waggling? The snake stuff does not really work for me, but I'll give her credit for committing to things. If the producers told her to act like a snake, but a snake that is also a professional wrestler, I'd be hard-pressed to think of someone who did a better job of acting like a snake within a pro wrestling ring. Now, the match wasn't very good. I'm not excited for even more intergender stuff in this fed. I'm confident it won't be as bad as the Sexy Star stuff, but intergender matches have such a lower ceiling (and lower floor). As far as I know Rosa hasn't worked intergender matches up here, so it would be odd that they'd specifically bring in someone who has just a year under their belt, and then make them work a format they haven't worked before. She's very small, and I just can't see how that will work out. Match was fairly short, with Kobra hitting a rana to the floor, hitting a nice axe kick, doing a nice job of getting the knees up late on a Bengala splash. But Ricky Marvin isn't a very big guy and was much bigger than her here, already stretching the plausibility of things. So I'm left with a weird neutral feeling, as I could not be happier for her to be getting this opportunity, but I'm also unsure where she fits into the fed.

PAS: Ricky Marvin is also a bigger guy then he was last season, he is starting to get Super Astroish, but I am not sure if his agility has caught up to him yet. I liked the snake stuff in theory, although that choke sleeper looked barely applied. This didn't do much for me, and Kobra Moon looked a little too fragile to be a threat, Aja Kong I could buy kicking guys asses, not so sure about this girl who looked 105 pounds.

ER: I'll level with you, I didn't really understand that Aerostar vignette.

PAS: I think he is a time traveling space alien? Vignettes have gotten stupider and stupider this season, they feel like they are leaning into the Chikara which is not where I want to see this show go. Is there a dumber idea in wrestling history then Big Ryck getting murdered in the comic book? By the Disciples of Death who are Rough and Ready in the actual wrestling portion of the show, but apparently savage murder machines in the canon comic book. I like this show mostly but wrestling being taken over by Comic Con dorks is the fucking worst. I don't need a pro-wrestling extended universe.

2. Jack Evans vs. Drago

ER: So Jack Evans is probably a crazy person. I can't understand how his body lands the way it does sometimes. He finds a funny and dangerous tone here, doing silly stuff like bumping a slap with a 720, doing a funny cartwheel handspring eye gouge, hit little peekaboo through his legs on the top rope that leads to him getting superkicked...but then also just getting dumped on his head a couple times in a fast neck snapping way, or taking a rough DDT while draped over the top tope. I don't need him to go full Kenny Omega or anything, and some stuff eeks a little close, but he seems to know how to read the room. Drago had some fun moments and I really liked him in the opening minute bullying Evans into the ropes a bunch. But spotlight was kind of on Evans here.

PAS: I thought this was a little Shawn Michaels vs. Hoganish with Evans taking these outlandish over the top bumps for simple things. I like the idea of Jack calling himself the Dragonslayer but he is at his best taking big beatings, I wish they were setting up Jack vs. Muertes or Matanza where those spinning bumps would make more sense.

ER: Texano had kind of a misfire of a last season, but this package did a nice job of making his time here seem a bit more impactful. And just when I was rolling my eyes at yet another vignette of masked guys jumping a LU guy and getting beaten down, Texano starts breaking everything in sight with his bullrope and it gets awesome. Breaking beer bottles out of hands, breaking tables in half, busting chairs that get thrown at him. El Texano, The Whipmaster is infinitely more interesting than a feud with Daivari.

PAS: I did like the bullrope stuff, but man are the vignettes repetitive and lazy this year, does everyone live in some alternative universe where people in lucha masks are attacking people in the streets? Is this Frank Miller's Gotham?

3. Last Luchador Standing: Fenix vs. King Cuerno

ER: This fed knows how to doll up for their gimmick matches and this was no different. After a little early clumsiness with Cuerno balancing on the top rope while Fenix balanced on the opposing top rope things picked up big with Cuerno taking a big bump over the top, only to move out of the way as Fenix tope'd into nothing. Yes please. They use their sound sweetening for good as Fenix gets tossed into the ringpost and they do this great *ping* sound that sent shock waves down my hands thinking about fouling a pitch off in just the wrong way. Cuerno continues the beating by tossing Fenix through a row of chairs. Cuerno got to be a real badass throughout this, as Fenix got to hit some flashy dives (including his awesome springboard tornillo from the middle rope), but Cuerno would always cut him off, eventually knocking him to the floor and hitting the sick arrow tope past the ringpost. They shot the dive with the overhead camera and it was easily the best use of that camera angle yet. Everything builds to what we think is going to be a lunatic bump off of Dario's office, from a fed who loves doing lunatic bumps off of Dario's office. And unexpectedly, instead, Cuerno just takes a BRUTAL bump through a set up table, falling off the ladder. This may have been the nastiest bump in LU's history. And it's all because, for some reason, Cuerno HELD ONTO THE LADDER while falling!! So you just had this slow fallback as the physics of a man on a ladder shifted, and started to tilt back, and then he just kept hanging on tight to that ladder, all the way through the table and through the floor. You don't need sound sweetening to enhance the THUMP his body made. Cuerno was like Wile E. Coyote using an Acme drill to weaken a cliff side, and as he drills all the way through the cliff and begins falling to his sure death, he's still there in the sky, falling while drilling. That was Cuerno, just holding onto that ladder as he fell to his sure death. Insane.

PAS: This was a step below some of the absolute peak LU gimmick matches, but this was very good. Fenix is a guy I haven't loved outside of LU, but he is great in these kind of over the top brawls. He gets such great height on his dives and takes huge bumps. He also has a sense of dramatic timing which really comes in play in these kind of big main events. Cuerno was great too that final bump was truly nuts and truly unexpected.

ER: I'm predicting Phil will hate the cop show sketch to end things, and I definitely do think they need to pick a side, with Reyes playing things too serious (badly) and Ryan playing things too hammy (badly), but I foolishly like the angle of a vice squad put together specifically to take down madman Dario Cueto. Plus we got confirmation that B-Boy actually DID have his face eaten off.

PAS: This was super dumb, if you are going to do some convoluted crime story at least have it make internal sense. Reyes says "I should have brought him in when his brother killed Bael" and there is no answer and the whole story get exposed,  and then you have Joey Ryan playing a cop in a gay porn and that means we have to watch Joey Ryan. Cuerno was fun as a hammy evil promoter early in this feds run, but the more they have tried to build some sort of B movie horror film the dumber it has gotten. This is Hellraiser 6 level writing and completely divorced from what makes this fed good.


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**And we liked the Last Luchador Standing match enough to include it on our 2015 MOTY List (You see, it was recorded in November 2015, even though it aired 3 months later)**

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Lucha Underground Episode 39: UltimaLucha - Part II Review

Tomk joins us again for the season (and hopefully not the series) finale.

ER: I hadn't thought about who would be replacing Vampire since he'd be wrestling tonight, but my heart dropped when I saw Schiavello sitting there. He's a guy who I think can be decent but gets too blustery, wrapped up in shoehorning his awful catchphrases, and never builds to anything because from the beginning bell he's already screaming at 10. He comes off like a horrible Hawk Harrelson type.
TKG: This was first time listening to English language commentary and yikes, I’m sticking with Hugo. I did eventually re-watch the show with Hugo commentary and they should just really have Hugo comment the shows and then use some sort of translation bot for the English version. Hugo did an exceptional job calling Mundo v Alberto which was a real old school match and plays to him being knowledgeable about that type of match and match strategies. He really got over the Alberto blindness and how that would allow Mundo to do stick and run offense and meant that Alberto had to work more close range stuff, did a bit on how the potential of a tweaked leg would effect Alberto’s work and another bit on how a weakened arm might effect Mundo’s strategy. I don’t know if this reflected any of the actual in ring work but it made the details of work seem important, like you should pay attention to nuance that may not actually be there. Also Hugo understood the whole old school psychology of face spanking heel girl. Matt Striker called that spot like a guy raised on ECW. Hugo understood the Dusty trope where spanking a woman is understood as being an appeal to audience not to engage in domestic violence. Even if a woman slaps a man multiple times, a true man should never strike a woman…a “gentleman” knows to spank her instead. Hugo tearfully pointed to Dusty in the sky and said that Alberto spanked Melina like a “caballero”. 

1. Johnny Mundo vs. Alberto El Patron 

 
ER: I really liked most of this match, but the ending was a pretty loud fart noise. I don't think anybody wanted the return of Melina, and he's never able to hit The End of the World very well. He always lands really hard on his hip while his shoulder sort of grazes his opponent. So Melina with a weak belt shot combined with finishing on the least impactful move of the match, made for a pretty sour note. Still the first 90% of this was really good, with both guys taking turns getting tossed into railings and tables, Mundo tightening up his punches more than normal, AeP trying to rip Mundo's arm off, AeP getting dirt thrown in his eyes, tons of fun stuff. After the horrible finish we at least get more of Mundo getting tossed violently through things, with a nasty spill through chairs and then the payback revenge shot through a window. Melina was terrible throughout as Mundo bumps through chairs and she screams "No! Nooooooooo!" through tears, as if Mundo hadn't just been taking nasty bumps like that over the previous 20 minutes. Then we get that played out wrestling spot of a man spanking a naughty misbehaving woman, and Striker ups the ick factor with "I'm gonna rewind THAT on my DVR I can't TELL you how many times!" Yeesh. Coulda cleaned that one up in post.

PAS: I thought the handful of dirt as Mr. Fuji's salt was pretty great. I thought all of the wrestling exchanges in this were pretty good, feels like the kind of thing which would steal a WWE PPV if they were given some time. I didn't care for Mundo as a face in this fed but he has been pretty strong as a heel. Thought it was weird for Patron to immediately get his comeuppance after losing, felt like that could have been saved for a hypothetical next season. Also not sure why Mundo is squirting blood like that right before your garbage match. 

TKG: I really dug this. I’m so used to current generation of workers only knowing how to do heel runs from face WWFSNME style, that really cool seeing these guys do more of a Memphis thing which less about face giving chase and more about face standing off semi amused but wanting to get things started. The whole use of blindness to set up heel run and the slow recovery from that blindness, also felt super Mempho. I think I accepted flimsy chain being sold as death as being Memphisy too. I have positive feelings about Melina as being useful. I’ve seen Melina enough times live where she seemed to have real sense of when match had crowd and when was losing crowd that she knew when to lay back and when to egg on fans. I’ve also seen her Puerto Rican role as second to Davey Richards where she was kind of an Albano style manager who did both the mic work and the actual emoting for worker who couldn’t do either. That said, Mundo isn’t a Wild Samoan or Davey Richards, he needs a more Grand Wizard/JJ Dillon type second and not sure if Melina is up to that.

2. Pentagon Jr. vs. Vampiro 

ER: Vampire looks exactly like the fat bald bloated zombie on the boat, from the opening scene of Zombi 2. I assume that just shows Vampiro's loyalty and dedication to being on the El Rey network. I thought this was awesome, blew away all expectations for it. I'm not going to get into the Master reveal because really I don't care, because the match itself delivered for me in ways I wasn't expecting. This was a nasty violent W*ing brawl and Vampiro as immobile gorehound worked great opposite the vicious Pentagon. All the garbage spots built nicely, the spills into tacks and light tube remains were nasty, Pentagon punching Vampiro in the side of his bloody head was a helluva visual, and Pentagon did other neat things like just ignore Vamp's punches that whiffed. Pentagon gushing blood through his torn mask was crazy (maybe not as crazy as Striker ranking Vamp ahead of Terry Funk in terms of brawling. His comparison to Abdullah was at least physically accurate), and then the flaming table spot with Vamp on fire for way too long while the extinguisher guy was way out of position, just a nutso appropriate finish.

PAS: Pretty shocked that they would go full IWA KOTDM on TV like this, I like Vampiro theoretically but I have never enjoyed him in ring, and the fact he is willing to take this level of beating after multiple neck surgeries is pretty nutty. I would have liked to see this be the only brawl on this show, but if you are going to take it to the next level this is how you do it. Add Vampiro to Cage, Mack and Hernandez to guys who had career performances on this show

TKG: I don’t understand people’s confusion or surprise about the finish. I think I texted Phil several weeks earlier predicting that Vampiro was Pentagon Jr’s master, it seemed obvious to me. I’ve watched a lot of Kevin Sullivan/Raven/Who is higher power wrestling angles, this is how those end. I’ve watched plenty of Golan-Globus action movies, this is how those end. My wife watches the Steven Moffatt Dr Who episodes, this is how those end. It seemed obvious that they were doing the master makes student bring the monster back out of the domesticated master in order to beat the master at his most monstrous. I’ve always thought of Vampiro as second rate Chris Champion and whole angle probably makes a lot more sense if you think of it as Yoshi Kwan forcing student to transform Kwan back into Sinn. Champion also has time travel experience which would maybe add more depth to child is the father of the man stuff. Vampiro coming out looking that bloated also screamed “this match is setting up Vampiro with Penagon Jr v Vampiro’s evil twin Pogo the Clown with The Altar Boy in a no-rope Caribbean spider-web tag-match on some California XPW tribute indy”, so of course they were coming out as partners.

3. Aerostar vs. Fenix vs. Big Ryck vs. Jack Evans vs. King Cuerno vs. Bengala vs. Sexy Star

ER: Plenty of fun spots in this one, and I didn't have to flip out over Sexy Star winning. I really would have bet on her winning this thing. She looked predictably terrible here, but she wasn't in tons so it wasn't much of an issue. But that does highlight the main problem of the match, which was almost immediately they went to 5 people disappearing all at once, while two people work in the ring. That means at some times you had people selling on the floor for 5+ consecutive minutes, which is just ludicrous. I know a lot of it won't be captured on camera, but at least brawl around the floor. So there was a lot of stupidity wrapped around having 7 people crammed into something essentially worked as a singles match. But a lot of the spots worked and overall that's what counts. Evans took a couple of bumps to the floor, Aerostar hit his enormous cliff dive splash onto everybody, Cuerno just annihilated Bengala with his tope, Ryck crushes Sexy Star with a urunage (not long after taking one of the uglier and improbable ranas from her), and yeah this delivered about what I was expecting. They could have had more false finishes but they decided early that they were mostly gonna have 5 people selling around the ring and less dramatic saves, but whatever.

PAS: Some big spots here but didn't flow as well as some of their better multi man matches, I think 7 guys is just too many, and Sexy Star is the poops. Also Fenix, Aeorstar and Bengala all fill the same role in a match like this,there is a certain number of spots for your face high flyer and having three of them in the same match makes it hard for any one of them to stand out.

TKG: I guess this was fine Xdivision/WWA cruiserweight multi-person clusterfuck. I think it was hurt by them working little guys v Andre structure with Big Ryck instead of working any face/heel structure. And for the most part you had heel King Cuerno matched up with heel Evans, face Bengala matched w face Sexy Star, and face Aerostar matched with face Fenix. It felt like it weakened everyone’s character.

4. Texano vs. Blue Demon Jr. (No DQ) 

ER: "Everything you've ever known about lucha libre comes from this guy", Matt Striker, when talking about Blue Demon. Yeesh, what fucking lucha do you watch, Striker? Well, at least all of this was kept short. This had some pretty weak weapons shots considering what we saw earlier in the night. Nothing in this was memorable or interesting. 

PAS: Blue Demon is the wrong guy for this role, Santo would have been awesome as a the delusional lucha legend who refuses to believe his time is past, Universo 2000 would have worked, or hell use a Villano. Demon just can't deliver anything in the ring, and can't pull off this match. Still I do like Chavo and the idea of lucha families joining, just wish it was Chavo uniting with Brazo De Oro.

TKG: So I guess if I want to say the first match was Memphis tribute, second W*NG tribute, third WWA tribute, then this was an attempt to do an Antonio Peña AAA one. Maybe that’s the genius of Peña, it’s not so easy to do a watchable “overbooked immobile old guy v semi mobile roided out youngster with a couple of hungry local indy guys doing interference & bumps” match. Or maybe it’s just that Blue Demon sucks. Weren’t the guys from Lucha Libre USA involved in this thing? They used Tinieblas Jr as a fun chickenshit heel. Tinieblas Jr would’ve also been perfect in this role and I imagine would not cost much.

5. Mil Muertes vs. Prince Puma

ER: Awesome match, easily the best non-gimmick singles match in the promotion's history. If they end up never coming back for a second season they will have at least gone out with a bang. Both guys brought out the big guns and hit some pretty spectacular stuff. Puma was nuts in this, taking so many of Muertes' things right on the side of his face, crashing spectacularly on the missed dive into a chairshot, blasting through rows of chairs, but then also hitting all sorts of quirky kicks from impossible angles, and at one point managing to deadlift Muertes up into a big suplex. A real pull out all stops performance from Puma. Muertes leaned face first into everything, hit a couple wicked powerslams, delivered one of the best spears you'll see, really played off Puma nicely. This was just a real high end main event that really did feel like a big deal. Great way to go out on Season 1. 

PAS: Yeah this was what you would hope a clash of the titans main event would be. Both guys were kept super strong and Puma dies in this match, if he was going to lose his belt he was going to go down hard. I am not sure about Puma throwing suplexes when he is working monsters, but that deadlift was nutty strength so I bought it. Muertes might be top five wrestler for 2015, would hope Mesias will do something cool in AAA if we don't get a season 2 this year.

TKG: LuchaUndergound has kind of quietly found a way to make their title matches feel like a big deal. They’re not “lucha title” matches, these are matches filled with outside brawling. It’s also a fed where every match has outside brawling, so they can’t do the easy WWF move of having irish whip into steps be a way to make title match feel more important than undercard. But they manage to make the title match feel like it’s a different thing than rest of card. This is a card where lots of matches were about the violence, Alberto trying to get revenge and hurt/humiliate Mundo, the “cero Miedo” match was about the violence. The title match wasn’t personal, felt like it was about winning the title. Match with three sections. You had early floor brawling section with the idea that Muertes is more dominant on the floor and then the in ring section where Puma is the more dominant, and the post table spot section where Muertes better able to hold his own in ring. I liked all three sections and the face/heel as well as big/ little stuff that they were able to pull off in all of them. Also liked how the sections were connected/flowed together. Often with matches with clear sections you can make up fake falls in your head, ie “this is mat section, this is where mat section now over, this is the section where they’re working a body part and now that’s stopped”. That wasn’t the case here, really some of the cooler stuff in the match was the way they transitioning from one section to the next. I really liked the big table spot being used as a NOAH dome show title match apron spot instead of as a finish. I don’t think ever seen that done before. It’s a match I’ve now watched several times and enjoyed a little bit more each time. And while yes it is a real satisfying match for a promotion to end with, this was a wrestling supercard that really felt like it built up a bunch of strong faces to challenge new heel title holder. Muertes has to give Puma a rematch, has to give Drago a title shot, Fenix has the one win over him and the gift of the Gods, Alberto is done with Mundo, and of course what happens when the Mil Muertes the king of death meets the man with zero fear. It was a satisfying ending and teased a neat new season.

ER: Final video package was really good, although earlier Dario unlocked Matanza so casually that I'm wondering what suddenly made him rush and scramble away. I love the little coda it gave to all the major players. 

TKG: I loved Fenix driving off in his Pontiac Firebird. Immediately wanted buy the whole set of non-existent Lucha Underground Matchbox toys and then to take son to local hobby store and ask him if he wants to work with me on the non-existent” Drago Dragster” or the non-existent “Mil Muertes Hearse” Kustom Model Car Kits. Or more likely buy the hobby kits first, get frustrated with glue and tiny parts and then buy the matchbox ones to make up for it.


PAS: I liked the finishing video package too, although I think the entire Matanza, Dragon Azteca, Black Lotus stuff is super dumb. Cueto is a fun enough actor to mitigate it a bit, but the whole thing is super corny, Black Lotus is sub-porn acting level and the angle makes no sense if you think about it for more then a second.

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Lucha Underground Episode 36: The Beginning of the End Review

ER: So Pentagon's Master will reveal himself when he "proves that he is ready", which I assume is going to be a loooooong time from now as he's presently getting handled by tiny women and tubby announcers.

1. Bengala vs. Delavar Daivari

ER: I'm torn on whether to give Striker credit or not for "Bengala trying to earn his stripes". I groaned, but also appreciated how he said it in a real understated way instead of trying to yuk it up. Not a big fan of more Daivari wrestling on TV, but they kept this short at least. Bengala hit a great dive past the turnbuckles, and I liked his rolling German finish, but this really wasn't much.

PAS: I thought this was pretty good, Daviari is one of my least favorite people in this fed (and they all wrestled tonight!!) but he was inoffensive, and I thought Bengala was pretty cool, I loved all of the backfire interference spots by Big Ryck, and Bengalas tope taking him out was pretty cool. Perfectly acceptable stuff.

ER: I don't think I've ever seen anybody get more laid out by a chokeslam than Pentagon was here. Dude looked like he died after taking a 4 foot back bump. I'm just really not sure what to make of this whole feud. Pentagon is likely going to win, but I imagine Vampiro is going to come out looking like the real winner. The crowd seemed amped to see an out-of-shape-Vic-Mackey-stuck-behind-a-desk cosplayer take out one of the bigger badasses in the fed, and it's likely not going to be as infuriating as the wretched and embarrassing Sexy Star feud, but there's just no amount of smoke and mirrors that can make this good, right? This whole promo segment was pretty bad. Last week Vampiro got jumped and got gasoline dumped all over him. This week he and Pentagon stand in the ring NOT tearing each other apart, Pentagon making Ian Hodgkinson jokes, Vampiro casually walking around the ring with his back turned to Pentagon (the man who just attacked him from behind last week), just a bad bad segment.

PAS: I think Vampiro has been OK in this role, I agree about the craziness of that chokeslam being sold like that and I would rather see Pentagon do something else, but this is worlds better than the Sexy Star feud, and if you are going to build to a Vampiro match in 2015 you could certainly do worse then this.

2. King Cuerno vs. Killshot

ER: Cuerno hasn't been on in over a month, and now he's waiting in the ring after a commercial break while fucking KILLSHOT gets his entrance!? That's some absurd bullshit right there. And Vampiro is now just like that my new hero, as Killshot does an embarrassing running back elbow and Vampiro goes "what was THAT?" Nobody knows, Vamp. It certainly doesn't look like something meant to do harm to another human. Killshot may have the most thigh slap based offense I've ever seen. And none of his strikes ever look like they land. They're timed properly with the slap, the strikes just look horrible. And my god all of his moves start with a long looping somersault. Can't just do a diamond cutter, gotta handspring over the ropes and do a slooooow somersault before bunnyhopping up into one! It's all so hideous. Cuerno having to sell for this goof is a travesty. I'm reluctant to give him credit, but at least Killshot dies on a nasty apron sideslam, and holds his ground to take the Cuerno tope, and spikes himself on a nutty reverse rana. It should be noted, though, that every single move Cuerno did to Killshot did less harm than Vampiro's little chokeslam did to Pentagon. So much hate flowing through me right now.

PAS: Killshot did die nastily on the bumps he took, he might be fine as a Joel Goodhart style jobber who just gets murdered by guys who want to put over. Just never let him get any offense. He has to have the worst thigh slaps I have ever seen, just so obvious, it is like 60's Batman cartoon exclamations.

3. Super Fly vs. Sexy Star

ER: Just make it stop. I don't know why it's happening, I don't want to know why. Just take her off my TV. Please. It's awful.

4. Marty the Moth Martinez vs. Sexy Star

ER: It's so fucking terrible. It's pointless to even waste time watching it at this point. She's going to be on TV every week, she's never going to look good, she has the magic powers to make every opponent  suddenly not able to hit his moves at full strength. It's getting so damn tiring watching everybody have to noticeably hold back on their power moves. We get it, she is so tough and her story is truly inspirational to us ALL. Except I don't get what's inspiring, and she can't be that tough if guys have to set her down on the mat afraid that she'll snap in half. Is this some sort of elaborate Make A Wish campaign? Is Sexy Star dying? Did she win a sweepstakes?

PAS: I imagine both matches went about 20 minutes live and they had to edit them down to 90 seconds each to make them look semi professional.

ER: Well this has to be the worst episode in the show's history, right? Every match featured my least favorite people in the fed, with Daivari, Sexy Star and Killshot all getting WAY TOO MUCH screen time, and all looking like people who do not deserve any sort of screen time.

PAS: This show felt like a rib.



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Lucha Underground Episode 31: The Desolation of Drago Review

1. Blue Demon Jr. vs. Chavo Guerrerro

PAS: The rematch 31 weeks in the making. Man I guess I get that Demon Jr. is iconic and all, but he is poopy, and I am bummed he is back. Listless nothing brawl from Demon in a blue suit and Chavo. Thought Chavo looked crisp and like his alliance with the Crew but this was pretty meaningless.

ER: Just think where we all were in life 31 weeks ago. I was a young, virile 33 year old, head full of dreams. Now I'm a worn out zombie of a 34 year old, victim to the inevitable march of Time. I would love to hear HHH's Tough Enough take on Blue Demon's back bumps. Replacing B-Boy with Chavo is a major upgrade for The Crew so that's a good thing. But yeah this wasn't much.

2. Disciples of Death vs. Pimpinela Escarlata, Mascarita Sagrada & Bengala

PAS: Kind of strange to debut your new creepy monster tag team against a comedy trio. I love Pimpi, but demons from the underworld probably shouldn't have to sell fear of his taint. Bengala is apparently Ricky Marvin, and that dude has gotten tubby. Nothing I love more then a tubby highflyer and he hit some cool stuff. I am not sure who is under the Disciples masks, but I was pretty unimpressed, cool look and some cool mannerisms, but not much in the ring.

ER: I couldn't get a feel for any of the Disciples, but none of them looked very good doing the limited things they did. Their formula appeared to be weak stomp -> weak clubbing forearm -> tilt your head to the side -> take a long time to set up your two triple team moves. I do like Ricky Marvin coming in, and am also amused at Phil fat shaming him when he looks maybe 10 lb. heavier than when I last saw him. That Phil can be a real catty bitch. Liked Marvin's tornillo, liked Pimpi flying crotch first into a fan, but overall this wasn't good.

ER: "Johnny, you gave me a black eye. Who cares? I look great in sunglasses." Dario is awesome. But then Dario agrees to put Mundo in a 45 minutes match, and suddenly I don't find him as awesome.

3. Drago vs. King Cuerno vs. Hernandez vs. Cage

PAS: Drago gets in the match because all four guys had previously fought Puma, but because was banned he had to put up his mask. Awesome more impromptu mask matches, one of my least favorite things about this fed. This was a fun indy four-way which is a match type this fed does well. All four guys hit very cool dives, although it was pretty ominous that Cuerno was calling out Killshot, I was hoping he was Matanza food not a guy getting a high profile singles feud. Seemed to be setting up Cage v. Cuerno, but they never really faced off. For a guy putting up his mask, never got a huge amount of urgency from Drago.

ER: Awesome new gear on Drago, love the bat wings. And not only did they inform the TV viewer of the mask match in an earlier vignette, it appears like they announced it to the live crowd literally right before the bell. That is just so so stupid. Also, I was actually bummed when Drago got banished from the fed. I figured he was actually gone for good, or at minimum several months. But here we are like 5 weeks later and I haven't even had the chance to miss him. That's just lazy and pointless writing, and you can only play loose with stipulations so many times before a fanbase doesn't care. Right now there's a nice little bubble of people who are way into this fed, best to not squander that. Vampiro also points out how scaly Drago is looking, and I'm now thinking they should have saved this gimmick for a young flyer with psoriasis. I mean that is a skin condition that practically looks identical to the name of a famous luchador anyway. Starting to feel like a missed opportunity to bring some charity awareness to it. But I liked the match, I think just about every 4 way the fed has put on has been good. Couple rough moments like Drago and Hernandez not really catching Cage on a moonsault to the floor (though that did inadvertently create a good reason for Cage to be on the floor during the pinfall), and of course Cuerno takes the loss because fuck that guy apparently. Still, good action, and their 4 ways never overstay their welcome and that's a very important and often overlooked thing with this kind of match. I liked little moments like Drago going for a double clothesline and not budging Hernandez/Cage, dug Cuerno's right hands, Cage's surprisingly effective moonsault, and both men know how to work well in a multi man, without everybody getting in everybody's way.

PAS: This fed constantly makes the same weird booking mistake, running the same kind of thing on one show in multiple different ways, diluting the impact. We have had shows where multiple guys were breaking up with their valets, multiple shows where Puma faces a muscled up monster on the same show that Fenix faces a muscled up monster, now we have a show built around the return of the exiled Drago on the same show with the return of the exiled Blue Demon Jr., the exiled Chavo Guerrero Jr., the exiled Mascarita Sagrada and the exiled Escarlata Pimpinela, basically every wrestler who has been sent away from the temple all came back on the same show. It makes no basic storytelling sense.

PAS: This was another lackluster show, and I don't have high hopes for an hour of Johnny Mundo next week

ER: I think the last match at least made this episode better than Episode 30 (which was one of the worst of the series), but next week's iron man match with Mundo has me not expecting much. I mean, how many good iron matches have even happened in wrestling history? Rude/Steamboat is easily the best. Does Rock/HHH hold up? So right there we have one, maybe two good iron man matches, ever. That doesn't give very good odds for next week. And with that, Catrina's tits bring us to episode's end.


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