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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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 24: Trios Champions Workrate Report

ER: I enjoyed the Angela Fong captive lights off training vignette, although in this story the Shaw Bros. and/or Kill Bill stuff is maybe a little on the nose.

1. Pentagon Jr. vs. Sexy Star

ER: God I thought this was really terrible. Star in a long singles is just death as she has no clue how to pace things. Here she sells practically nothing and has no idea how to transition from one move to the next. The most she sells in this match? When Pentagon kicks out of a pin. Seriously, she stomps all over him in the corner, drags him to the middle of the ring, pins him, he kicks out...and then she starts selling like she's been in a war. Drags herself away, holding her stomach, struggling to get up. I had to rewind to see if I missed him doing something unsavory after his kickout. But nope, she just randomly decided to start selling something for the first - and last - time in the match. The rest of the match is just Pentagon striking her or hitting a big move, both of them lying there, and then her getting up and doing a move. It results in her hitting a nice dive at one point, but damn was this match awful. Just horrible layout and then to top it off, a real pointless, rushed result. Pentagon actually gets a bunch of real, actual heel heat, and the next week his actions are already avenged. At this point I reallllly wish Sexy Star was just not around, as all of the booking revolving around her is clearly far and away the worst thing on LU. And that's not even counting Striker and Vampiro talking in their Owen voices for half of the match.

PAS: Yup this stunk, they are trying so hard to make Sexy Star a thing, but it isn't going to happen. Pentagon had no business losing, especially to someone Big Ryck treated like a joke. They go back and forth each week to whether she is a serious competitor or not, she is one of the five worst wrestlers on the roster, and continually placed in big angles. She has the feel of a nepotism push, like she is Mark Burnett's long lost illegitimate child.

ER: Boy that cameraman was really running circles around Mundo/Alberto in that segment. What the hell was that?

PAS: I liked the segment, but I felt like popping a dramamine afterwards.

2. King Cuerno, Texano & Cage vs. Angelico, Ivelisse & Son of Havoc vs. Big Ryck, The Mack & Killshot

ER: Wow I was surprised at how awful this was. You look at that list of names and go "man I hope Killshot isn't in a lot of this" and then Killshot is in this more than any other person. And boy did he look like clearly the worst guy in this fed. Every name I wanted to see more of got dispatched quickly, and every name I did not want to see got the bulk of the time. Willie Mack continues to be a bright spot and I really hope this turns into tons more gigs for this guy. He literally gets better every time I see him. He throws so much into everything, from a standard clothesline to a big fat guy tope. Texano really made Daivari look good, flying hard into a ringpost and spilling out nicely into chairs. But holy shit Killshot. Everything this guy does looks bad-to-horrible, from his offense to the way he stumbles into position to take moves to the embarrassing mannerisms he makes before hitting a move. Here he got to finish off Texano with his finisher "leaping off the top and landing with both feet on either side of your opponent". It's a devastating move that he also uses on the indies. Havoc's offense looked extra pillowy soft (can we just retire that cartwheel elbow into the corner?) here, and there were way too many clunky sections of this. Maybe the clunkiest was that awkward portion where Angelico was in the corner, and Mack, Ryck and Killshot took turns sloooooowly running towards him and finding ways to miss him and fall to the floor. Man all of that looked bad. That's a fairly good way to sum this one up: A lot of that looked bad.

PAS: I watched this with my wife, and she was really irritated by Angelico's overacting while selling. It didn't bother me as much, I suppose that is because I am used to wrestling being an art form aimed not for television audiences but for the back rows of arenas, more like a filmed play then a movie. Still LU is clearly a TV show, so maybe he should tone it down a bit. Liked this a bit more then Eric, thought Big Ryck and the Mack were both great in this, and the Davari v. Texano beat down was pretty violent, still Killshot man, what a turd.

3. Angelico, Ivelisse & Son of Havoc vs. The Crew

ER: Well, this was pretty fun. You may have noticed Angelico's dive. It's still just bizarre to me that this fed doesn't do replays. That dive was the kind of spot you show a dozen times from every single conceivable angle. You bring in extra cameras to make new angles. You watch that Angelico dive and think, what if his foot slips? How easily could you imagine him losing his footing and then crashing down into the ropes and apron? Just a total lunatic spot, one you want to rewind, put into slow motion, then rewind again. Awesome. Cortez looked good here, dropping some nice knees on Ivelisse, and doing an ill-advised but nutty suplex over a ringside barrier into a steep drop on Son of Havoc (which Havoc didn't seem to mind too much, seeing as he was up running around and doing a moonsault seconds later). We'll see where they go with these trios titles as several of the trios matches have been really fun, if we get regular 10+ minute action then these can be a real treat.

PAS: That Angelico dive was so insane, that it made the whole show. Probably the greatest balcony dive in wrestling history, so many of those spots are a guy climbing for a long time to a really high place, take a moment soak in the crowd cheers and fall down. This was awesome because it was a leap not a fall and it pretty much came out of nowhere, no big set up, no four table to break a fall, just some crazy leap to nowhere.


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Lucha Underground Episode 21: Uno! Dos! Tres! Workrate Report

ER: Ryck and his boys (including Willie Mack!) confronting Dario, with his boys holding him down while Ryck casually eyes his lit cigar, made me legit tense and nervous. These vignettes are so damn effective.

1. Angelico vs. Johnny Mundo

ER: I really liked all the kung fu counter sequence. I could also see putting some guys on blast for something like that, but fuck you're on a network where 20% of the programming is kung fu movies, so it feels like a nice thing to do, like it will make for a nice "Network Synergy" montage to be shown at an El Rey corporate retreat. This whole match was really a pleasant surprise. Not something I was excited for when I saw the lineup. Angelico has some junky looking offense (I hate his missed punches, he throws them with the same arm slot you'd throw a baseball), but he will bump like a loon and he flies admirably into some of Mundo's goofy-yet-fun offense here. Mound's parkour wall-leaping spin kick was awesome, Angelico can throw a fine flying knee, Mundo dumped him with a top rope powerbomb, just a bunch of fun quirky spots that all landed.

PAS: Man I kind of like Angelico in this fed. Pretty shocked, as he was a nightmare when he first showed up. This was dosey doe wrestling, but it had some very awesome individual moments, this was the coolest Mundo parkour stuff yet, and I could live without ever seeing another Angelico v. Mundo punch exchange, but there was way more to like then dislike.

ER: And talk about stuff that's perfect for El Rey, now we have an "Avenging my parents' death" angle. Yes!! Next we'll have somebody debuting because they're trying to rid their village of drug lords. Or a rare elephant heirloom has been stolen from their village and people in Lucha Underground know where it is.

2. Drago vs. Aerostar

ER: A little disjointed but with these two at this point I really don't care, they're just too fun to watch. You get the dives you want, some of their cool headscissor takedowns; Aerostar does a bunch of effortless stuff, but also peppers in nice between move stuff like nice stomach kicks and a couple mean stomps to Drago's head. I love the force Aerostar gets on his spin around rope walk dropkick, love Drago's tight cradles and submissions. The finishing flash pin worked for me because it looked constructed in a way that Aerostar kicking out of it was unlikely. Drago did such a cool job of grapevining every limb.

PAS:  A little less crazy then some of their other matches, but it definitely had it's moments, Aerostar has been awesome so far, I think they should push him as one of the top guys going forward, he has really put it all together.

3. Big Ryck, Killshot & The Mack vs. Sexy Star, Super Fly & Pentagon Jr.

ER: Killshot is Shane Strickland, who was in one of the worst matches I've seen in the last decade. I know there are a finite amount of black indie guys available, but come on man. Toss Derrick King some dollars or something. And man was Strickland predictably bad in this. All of his overly rehearsed strike combos looked so awkward. And his flying offense is completely negated by teaming up with a giant fat dude who does way more impressive flying offense. Hats off to him for catching Star on the alley oop top rope rana but damn did he look like shit in this. That's not even factoring in his shitty lurching body posture and mannerisms, which I guess is his idea of character work? Really would have been flipping the hell out for this if it was Ryck/Mack vs. Pentagon/Fly and those guys all straight brung it. The Pentagon/Mack stuff was godly, with Pentagon lighting Mack's chest up with chops (Pentagon really came off like a menacing badass throughout, even against the much larger Ryck) and Mack hitting all his super impressive fat guy flying. Striker was a complete king of the misplaced references twat throughout the show, here saying Mack reminded him of a young Junkyard Dog...as Mack is hitting a springboard armdrag.

PAS: There isn't really a finite amount of indy black guys though (I mean technically the number isn't infinite, but in the colloquial sense of the term, scarcity isn't an issue) so here comes a classic Segunda Caida name drop, 27 indy black guys who would have been better then Shane Strickland in this six man

1. ACH
2. Louis Lyndon
3. Flip Kendrick
4. Rich Swann
5. Derrick King
6. 2 Cold Scorpio (how fucking great would 2 Cold be in Lucha Underground)
7. AR Fox
8. Boyce Le Grande
9. Dairus Carter
10. Jonathan Gresham
11. Se7en
12. Virgil Flynn
13. Marcus Lewis
14. Kongo Kong
15. Moose
16. Big Ben Johnson
17. Trevor Aeon
18. Black Baron
19. Jay Lethal
20. The Dark Mon
21. Brian XL
22. Shadow Jackson
23. Jon Williams
24. Trey Williams
25. Fred Vehi
26. Cedrick Alexander
27. Oaktown Kid Tyson Thompson

I have no idea what that Killshot suplex was supposed to be, it looked like he powerslammed himself. Continuing to love Ryck in this fed, and this really made me want to see Ryck v. Pentagon singles match. Also dug the Mack too he looks way more polished then last time I saw him. Despite Sexy and Killshot, this was very good.

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Lucha Underground Episode 19: Grave Consequences

1. Aerostar vs. Drago

ER: Jeez Louise man. Aerostar. You guys are lunatics. Were parts of this rehearsed as hell? Yah. Do I care? Nooope. Aerostar hits the wild reverse cannonball off the top to the floor, one of the crazier spots I've witnessed. Everything after that is sweet cream cheese frosting. Aerostar sticks the springboard dropkick and then breaks out some Crouching Tiger ropewalk action. Drago pulls out a wild corkscrew moonsault over the top, Aerostar ends it with a great hands-at-side springboard splash. These two continue to innovate, and it's a blast to watch.

ER: Konnan as Hoy Quarlow vignettes continue to rule as this fed has somehow made me interested in seeing Konnan get some sort of vengeance. And nobody with a brain should have interest in anything Konnan. But here I am lord, I'm interested in Konnan!

2. The Crew vs. Big Ryck

ER: This is a 3-on-1 elimination match with no DQs according to Striker. And it's kind of disappointing. The dude gets his eye burnt out, and really comes back and everybody wrestles the same as if these three guys hadn't burnt his eye. It's fairly short for an elimination match, and really aren't they all? Always frustrating when elimination matches get the same length as singles matches, not accounting for the extra bodies that have to believably be pinned. I do like Ryck going wild with weapons, crashing Cisco's body through a chair, violently beating everybody with a busted cane, but for three men Ryck was made to look way too unstoppable. I mean if he tore through these guys this easily what's really stopping him from ripping Cueto's office door off the hinges and gutting him!? I still like The Crew's corner dropkicks but really they looked like total weiners here.

PAS: That was some great looking pomp and circumstance to set up the casket match. Having it brought down by spooky Day of the Dead mimes really added to the match. So much cooler then any of the fancy Undertaker entrances.

ER: Totally agree with Phil there, usually wrestling doesn't get these kind of cool visuals. These days we just get 80 shots of guys standing in the same frame as the Wrestlemania sign.

3. Mil Muertes vs. Fenix

ER: Casket match time, baby! Muertes starts things with a big ass dive and eventually attacks Fenix with a respectful funeral arrangement (I predict Phil will make a joke about Bodie buying flowers for Deangelo Barksdale's funeral. Don't let me down buddy). Fenix goes for a dive and Muertes throws the fucking casket into his face. Was not expecting that one. Fenix gets busted straight open and Muertes chokes him with the ring rope support eyelet. Back in and Fenix gets hurled recklessly into the coffin (propped up in the corner) and leaves a spectacular dent in it. This match really got special when things moved into the crowd, and there was honest to god competent crowd brawling. Not just one guy walking while loosely holding the other guy by the hair, these two were fighting all around, taking mean spills; the fist fight at the top of the arena looked great with both men throwing bombs while standing on the edge of a steep fall. Fenix gets launched headfirst into a heating duct, and really Fenix made this section by bumping around painfully into everything, flying into rails, going headfirst into surfaces, getting splatted by a powerbomb. Mil beat him around the arena and Fenix engaged, and it was beautiful. The double stomp finish into the coffin was great, and while I wish they would have figured out the ending a little better so Catrina didn't just immediately get up from the lariat, that is a minor complaint and this whole spectacle was wonderful. Best LU match so far.

PAS: This was really awesome, I haven't particularly liked either guy a ton in Lucha Underground before (have loved some AAA Mesias), so I was really surprised at how great this was. This was the first time that Muertes has looked like a real killer, all of his little stuff landed with real force, and the big moves like the throw into the coffin were awesome looking. There is this great moment where Muertes is just smashing Fenix's head into the guardrail, like he is trying to open up a coconut. Bloody main even spectacles are one of my favorite kind of wrestling matches, and we haven't had one as good as this is quite a while.

PAS: One of the cool things about Lucha Underground, is the because they have access to the entire AAA roster, they can have guys come in, work a story and leave. One of the big problems with the WWE is that they have the same guys every week, and they only leave if they get hurt or join the UFC. Muertes can be buried alive, disappear for four months and then come back as a bigger deal. It is the kind of thing that the territory system allowed, which is missing in wrestling otherwise.

***ER: We've added the casket match to our Match of the Year list, and decided that for now it's the #1 match that we've reviewed this year. Will it stay #1 all year? No way to be sure, but we've already watched a lot of wrestling in the first 3+ months of the year so it landing at #1 at all is a feat in itself, and we're confident that at the end of the year it will still stand out as being one of the most unique, memorable and great matches of the year.***

2015 MASTER LIST

LUCHA UNDERGROUND MASTER LIST

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Lucha Underground Episode 17: A War Started in Mexico... Workrate Report

ER: Loved Dario in the opening with Patron, especially the faces he was making after Patron swept everything off his desk. I hope this guy gets more exposure for his work, excellent casting job.

1. Mil Muertes vs. Fenix

ER: So let me get this out of the way, but jeez I was so distracted by Fenix pulling up his tights the whole match. It has to be some weird nervous tick, because he would only do it after taking offense. He would never do it when he was in control, instead he would take a devastating bump and then immediately hike the back of his pants up while he was KO'd. It drove me bonkers by the end of this thing. Outside of the constant gear adjusting I liked the way Fenix bumped for Muertes (especially the way he kept banking his head off the apron when Muertes was slamming it), and Muertes had some pretty great moments too. I loved Fenix gearing up for some rope running offense and everybody else seeing a massive Muertes right hand coming a mile away. They try some things here and not all of it works, but mostly I thought they filled the time well.

ER: I'm not sure how to feel about this Konnan vignette. A) I thought it was awesome, looked amazing, totally badass. B) It's for Konnan, who can barely walk and is one bump away from having to Kickstarter a new kidney. Now one of my all time favorite wrestling matches is "old broken man vs. young punk", but in most of those matches the old broken guy was a guy who was an excellent wrestler in his prime., which would never apply to Konnan (unless you read the Hall of Fame bio he wrote for himself in the Observer). Still, the vignette was good enough to make me interested.

2. Big Ryck vs. Sexy Star

ER: This was about what was expected. Even then it looked silly that Ryck sold any of Star's offense even slightly. The fact that he bumped for a crossbody looked silly. The size difference was just too much, and Star's offense looked like it wouldn't move Ryck an inch. I did like how Ryck went through the motions of doing his finisher, but instead just held her shoulders down. Still not really sure how this helped either of them, but we'll see where things go with The Crew.

3. Alberto el Patron vs. Texano

ER: Well, this got a lot of time, but it felt pretty aimless and definitely didn't show the same kind of hate and wild passion that Alberto was showing in Dario's office. This was kind of worked like a TNA main event that got some time, with Alberto throwing out a bunch of finishers and Texano kicking out of them, with Alberto eventually drawing the DQ. I was amused that they started a "This is Lucha" chant when the guys were basically doing superplexes and arm bar teases. The crowd was pretty noticeably annoying during this episode, now that I think about it, with a bunch of dumb chants. Usually they've come off like everybody is really into the show, this was the first time I noticed that it felt blatantly "getting ourselves over!!!" There were chants for the referee, a "She's so Sexy" chant during the Star match, annoying little things like that. Both men looked fine enough in this, just felt like they didn't know how to fill time, and kind of worked the wrong match for their first big (rushed) fight. Some new stuff Alberto tried didn't really work. In WWE he was always good about hitting a smooth arm bar. Here he did this dorky thing where he called for it from the corner like Edge calling for the Spear, then sprinted across the ring to a downed Texano, came to a complete stop, and then tried to lock on the armbar. He did hit a nice dive, and the bull rope whipping looked good, but this was kind of a flop for me.


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Lucha Underground Episode 8: A Unique Opportunity Workrate Report

1. 10 Man 1 Fall to Finish

ER: Dug Cueto hiding his shiner behind a pair of big shades. So I thought this was a battle royal, but then they explained the rules that first pinfall wins it, so really it was more like a 10 man scramble. This match both worked for me and did not work for me. There were some really fun moments. I liked Havoc's stuff with Puma, dug Cuerno's flattening tope, Havoc had some crazy high speed Space Flying Tiger Something into a crowd of people, tons of fun spots and go go go. What I couldn't stand about it was that everybody was on a completely equal plane and there was no established hierarchy. In the first 7 weeks the show did a nice job of establishing a hierarchy. We knew the top of the food chain and the bottom. Here everybody was the same. Mariachi Loco got more showcase spots than King Cuerno. Sagrada worked equally with Big Ryck. The Sagrada shit is really starting to annoy me at this point. Not only does everybody in the fed now work equal to him, but he sells less than any worker in the fed.  He'll take a move that would put a larger worker down, but when he takes it he's already moving into position to hit his next spot. The novelty is still there for most of the crowd so I get the push, but the novelty is over for me and seeing him put over so strongly over more believable, capable workers is just strange to my eyes.

PAS: Lots of fun dives in this, but this would have been a below average ROH scramble, it really needed Dixie to give it some structure. I don't get what Son of Havoc's deal is, he was a thug biker who was getting humiliated, and now he is breaking out the craziest high flying spots of the match. If they wanted Matt Cross to do his stuff, give him a different gimmick. Individually fun stuff, and I liked the end run with Puma and Fenix, although I am not sure how that singles match is going to work.

ER: Another Cage promo. "I am not a man, I am a machine." A machine that manufactures triceps tears, I imagine.

2. Boyle Heights Battle Royal

ER: Okay this is the battle royal. So another 10 people but more traditional "feet touch the floor" rules. And for a battle royal it was okayish. I like how Sexy Star went after Chavo until she was eliminated, how she had the blinders on to the rest of things and just wanted his blood. Mundo did his standard "guy who can't be eliminated" schtick, always hanging on during potential eliminations. Vampiro made me laugh one of the times he hung on by dropping "If Fit Finlay were in this he would have kicked Mundo's lungs out through his chest right now." I'm not sure what it had to do with anything, but he's probably right, and I kind of would like a regular "What Would Finlay Do" updates during matches. Shoot, any wrestler ever could think WWFD and it would always make them a better wrestler. Last week Vampiro randomly brought up his Wrestle Society X match with X-Pac (the best match of that promotion's run), so who knows what other surprises lurk in his brain. The ending went on a little too long for me, felt like an endless series of Mundo getting almost tossed, then getting back in. Plus once it was down to Mundo and a couple others we got a bunch of really bad Mundo offense. Really bad knees from the clinch (a couple really whiffed by 2 feet), floppy kicks to nowhere, pretty flashy bunch of nothing.

PAS: I don't mind Mundo's goofy stuff, and the last three with Chavo, Mundo and Muertes was pretty neat. Chavo taking that German suplex like Kenta Kobashi was pretty crazy. Chavo has been so good in this fed so far, I really hope he gets something interesting to do. Still it was a battle royal, and had the flaws of a battle royal.

3. Mil Muertes vs. Fenix

ER: This match didn't do tons for me either. Dario's pre-match promo was kind of clunky, taking the scenic route to get to his announcement of AZTEC WARFARE, which is the most dangerous and extreme match EVER devised…and I suppose we'll find out what it actually is in a few weeks when they come back after the holidays. Fenix and Muertes didn't match up very well, with Muertes have to stand around for some silly offense (the worst offender being a dorky handspring into a diamond cutter). I just wasn't feeling this one.

PAS: Fenix gets really exposed in singles matches, and Muertes isn't a great opponent for him. Nothing much to see here.

PAS: I did love Dario backstage with the belt. "I know you like to break pretty things" is a pretty bad ass line, really looking forward to this surprise.


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Lucha Underground Episode 7: The Top of the Ladder Workrate Report

Danny Trejo is in the house for this episode!

1. Super Fly vs. King Cuerno

PAS: Super Fly shows up on Lucha Underground with a mask four days after losing it in Mexico, they should probably coordinate that stuff better. This was a fun match, with Super Fly being good in the role of enhancement guy. His Space Flying Tiger Drop was pretty great looking. Pretty much just a set up for more Cuerno v Drago, but I liked it

ER: This was a fun extended Cuerno showcase. Cuerno has nice stomps, which is not really something anybody has anymore. When you think about it the stomp used to be a pretty common thing for a bad guy to do, but you just don't see many guys using them anymore. At least the guys doing them are apparently doing them with pride. So I didn't have much problems with it in the past episodes, but pretty sure we can officially get rid of the vertical hanging camera. I don't think it adds to any shots, and often it takes away from them. Here Cuerno took what looked like a cool bump to the floor but you couldn't really get a feel for the gravity of it with the overhead shot.

PAS: Pentagon Jr. vignette was fun. I don't really get violent Ninja warrior from what he is doing so far, but I liked the Kung Fu B-Movie feel.

ER: Oh man the zoom in on the victim when Pentagon Jr. breaks the poor guy's arm during a sparring session was hilarious. He's like a villain in Bloodsport or something. Also laughed at the dual superman punch by two Aztec warriors on a sunset hillside.

2. Fenix v. Chavo Guerrero Jr.

ER: Did not love this, although it actually had a bunch of individual moments that I liked. I loved the spot where Fenix was taking Chavo apart with leg kicks and Chavo levels him with a clothesline. Fenix took the clothesline great. Loved Chavo twisting his boot on Fenix's mask. Loved Pentagon's interference. But it was very disjointed and at the end felt like a bunch of things happened, but it didn't add up to a lot. We've talked about how Fenix has trouble stringing his big spots together as he doesn't seem to know what to do between the big moments. We had the return of the overhead camera shot as I had no idea what happened with a miscommunication spot, as both men ran towards the ropes but Chavo ended up falling through them to the floor or…something. It looked clunky from that camera, and it's possible it was a bad looking spot that looked worse than clunky when shot normally, so they opted for the overheard traffic cam, but either way I'm no fan. Also did not like the Chavo reversal spot on Fenix's big double knees from the top. Almost every reversal spot I've ever seen from a top rope move looks bad, as the reverser ends up taking the full brunt of the move, then just rolls through to do his thing as if the move didn't happen. Here Chavo takes the double knees, then just grabs a half crab. It "looked cool" but it also made the double knees (which I thought was a pretty great spot) look like garbage. I get those moves being risky, but the risk shouldn't be "ah HA! You hit the move flush but *I* just chose to ignore that even happened!!"

PAS: I really enjoyed Chavo in this, as I think he is pretty good in the rudo base roll against high flyers, and I liked the double knee reversal thing, I buy if you know something is coming you can brace yourself and prep a roll through. Fenix is sort of a mess though, he has some cool highspots, but they aren't any cooler then Drago or Puma and he looks very lost in between them, and that is with a vet like Chavo and editing, he is obviously being built for bigger things in this fed and I am not sure he can live up to them

ER: We get a Cage vignette which is really nothing more than a throwaway UFC pre-fight video, with him flipping tractor tires and doing bicep curls. Brian Cage is a huge gassed up guy who 18 months ago was about 50 pounds of muscle lighter. This is an extreme case of wrestling body dysmorphia. He still has some surprising agility that occasionally breaks through the layers of mass, kind of like early super gassed era Scott Steiner. You know, how most of the time he looked like a guy who couldn't properly put his arms down at his sides, but would from time to time break out some impressive things the way he used to. I've seen Cage look good in matches, and I've seen matches hurt by his newfound physique. Curious to see how he does here.

PAS: I had kind of assumed the key was to unlock the Brian Cage, but him in this vignette seem to suggest that he is going to be used in a different way. With Cage and Big Ryck it is weird that this lucha fed has more roid monsters then the WWE.

3. Big Ryck vs. Johnny Mundo vs. Prince Puma ($100,000 LADDER MATCH)

ER: Ladder match is starting at just the 30 minute mark of the episode which seems kind crazy, but intriguing (but made more sense when the show went off the air at the 54 minute mark). But by the end of this match I was still just kinda bored. Everything I loved about the street fight a couple weeks back was lacking here. All of the run ins and garbage spots in that match felt very organic, and here the run ins operated much more on super obvious spot set up. All the garbage spots were integrated really seamlessly into the street fight, and here the set up for all of them was clunky and obvious. Plenty of great individual moments, such as Puma's cool dive through the ladder, and an ESPECIALLY  awesome Steamboat Bill  spot with Puma and a falling ladder. Never seen that before outside the magic of the cinemaplex and I fell in love all over again. Puma and Morrison both pulled out some pretty crazy stuff, with Puma breaking a ladder in half by falling through it on the way to the floor, Morrison making a slingshot spot look brutal by going in nose first. But I thought almost all of the run in moments were bad, as opposed to them being a strength like they were in the street fight. The match still had its strengths, and I really liked Big Ryck in this. While the set up for the crazy spots was at times bad, the crazy spots themselves all looked great. The worst thing about the match was the run in. Phil told me afterwards on the phone that it was B-Boy, who I have seen live a bunch (jeeeeez dating back over a DECADE!) and when he ran in Striker was all "who is this some sort of fan or something? Jesus get security out here" and I was rolling my eyes because it sounded like "That's Lance Storm!! HEEEE doesn't work HEREEEE!!!" but then all of this mystery man's strikes looked insanely bad , like he was fake fighting a little kid with progeria and had to be extra gentle, and then he took the worst ever bump off a Mundo superkick, kinda pausing for a goofy "Did I do that!?" look at a camera that wasn't there before falling the wrong direction. After all that I thought "oh shit that HAD to have been a fan, Striker was right!! because clearly a guy who had actual wrestling training wouldn't have looked that bad." But again, Phil told me it was B-Boy. Now, in fairness to B-Boy, maybe he's a method wrestler and really got into his character and thought "okay, you have to look bad. Bad enough for the announcer to confuse you for some lowlife fan. Wear cargo shorts. Pooch out your belly a bit. Throw punches that wouldn't break wet paper. Look like a man who has not had formal training in any sort of occupation, least of all pro wrestling. BEEE that possible fan, running in, confusing announcers." So that's a possibility.

PAS: I liked this but didn't love it. Mundo has looked pretty bad brawling during this entire show, and it was rough when he had to exchange punches. I also thought this went long, I like that give main events this long without commercial breaks, but this dragged a bit. Also kind of silly to have a surprise run in, have it be a guy nowone knows, in a match where there are already lots of non-surprise run ins. Did love all of the big bumps, which were totally crazy, that Puma fall into the ladder was bonkers, and Ryck was great, the set up for the nut shot where he tries to climb two ladders ruled. I always like Big Show in ladder matches and Ryck played a similar roll of a monster totally out of his element, but still dangerous. Nice bump by Cuerto in the post match angle too, that guy is just awesome.


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2014 Ongoing Match of the Year List

27. Sheamus v. Cesaro WWE Night of Champions 9/21

PAS: That was as nasty as you would hope it would be. Really felt like a modern version of a Valentine v. Garvin match, with both guys just unloading with shots 1/3 harder then anyone else in this fed (except maybe Lesnar, we will see). Started out with some pretty gritty amateur wrestling and it kept building and building until it finished with the nastiest version of a New Japan slap finish, Okada and Tanahashi need to watch the end of this match on a loop.

ER: Opening standing and mat scrambles remind me of recent Thatcher/Gulak stuff, which is appropriate as those guys always remind me of Cesaro. Feels like Sheamus is a guy who should get pimped more as a top shelf guy. Maybe people are put off by his goofy promos? I think he's doing a fine job of replacing the Irish asskicker hole in my heart that Finlay's retirement left. Sheamus doing a drop toe hold, with Cesaro fighting it and Sheamus finally dragging him down by yanking on his arm was beautiful. These guys mesh so well together and neither has a problem laying in nasty shots. Both guys take turns seeing who can do a nastier kneedrop to the others' temple. I loved Sheamus getting flashy and "skinning the cat" to pull himself up to the top rope, but because of it not going smoothly it allowed Cesaro to immediately catch him with a big time uppercut. Phil made a WWEDG reference up above, made even more apt with Sheamus breaking out CIMA's Iconoclasm on Cesaro. SHIMUS? Finishing run of this is awesome, with both guys tossing each other around in cool feat of strength ways. Cesaro deadlifting a butterfly suplex and doing a weird fireman's carry slam made me rewind. God Cesaro has a great thrust kick and then follows that up with cool punches that he hardly ever uses. Sheamus pulling out the counter Brogue Kick was a fitting end as it was nowhere close to a decisive victory, so should hopefully lead to more of these two. Great match.

40. Big Ryck vs. Prince Puma Lucha Underground 9/27

PAS: I thought this was about as good an overbooked ECWish match as I have seen in quite a while. Ryck looked way better then he looked last week, everything was really stiff looking, and he was great at knowing when to bump and when to shrug off his smaller guy. All the little beats of this match were great, Ryck catching the kendo stick, deciding to chill on a chair while his boys did the work, leading to Puma dropkicking him, that brutal looking KO forearm, and then the crazy Parkour leap from the rafters for the save. The finish felt a little telegraphed, but otherwise this was way better then it had any right to be.

ER: I thought this was pretty great. It was a great example of run-ins and interference actually adding to a match. I was expecting having to see a bunch of the massive Ryck taking a bunch of flipping armdrags. Instead Ryck got to break out a bunch of brutal offense, and Puma's comebacks were handled in really smart ways like having Cortez and Cisco interfere to take all the cool moves, which would lead to Ryck being taken off guard. The progression of the match is just really smart, with Puma fighting this monster, and Ryck actually coming off like a monster. Every one of Ryck's shots looked brutal, loved him flexing over the ropes while choking Puma, loved him pulling him into a KO forearm tug-o-war style, loved his big kneelifts. The spot where Ryck pulls up a chair to watch his goons take apart Puma, only to have Puma take them apart and then blast Ryck with a dropkick is just smart, fun, and unique. Poor props to the camera work for the way they filmed Mundo dropping in from above. It really looked like he flew 20 feet into the ring. This was a really impressive match, with a super smart layout that made every person involved look great.

Ongoing Match of the Year List

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Lucha Underground Episode 5: Boyle Heights Street Fight Workrate Report

PAS: I really liked the opening office scene between Dario Cuento and Konan. Konan is so good in this role, sort of the street gang elder dealing with the low level Columbian connect.

ER: Not sure if this is an idea that is going to stick around, but I dug the Antibalas-esque house band they had playing. I've been to a few music/wrestling shows that are always a bad idea, as they were "watch a match, then watch a bad metal band!" with the bands always playing a few songs in between matches. They were awful and killed the mood for both. But having more of a house band to play during down time is a kind of cool idea.

1. Mil Muertes vs. Drago

ER: I really liked this one. Drago got soundly beat, but he put up a good fight and it wasn't just him getting demolished. Muertes finally looked impressive in a LU match. Part of it was Drago bumping big for him, but Muertes' stuff really looked on point, from the power moves down to the simple stuff. His overhand rights looked nice, his shoulder blocks looked painful, he had a cool standing powerslam that dumped Drago on his shoulder, and spearing Drago out of the sky was an awesome finish. Drago still got to hit cool speed stuff like a nice corkscrew body block and a sweet tornado DDT. This was a high quality Worldwide match.

PAS: Drago might be my favorite guy in Lucha Underground, I haven't seen a ton of his AAA stuff, but he is just crazy fast and athletic and has an awesome look. This is also the best Muertes has looked that big right into a standing powerslam was nasty looking. He still needs better pants and a better finisher, but he felt a little more like Mesisas here, who is a guy I have loved in the past.

2. Son of Havoc vs. Mascarita Sagrada

ER: Striker: "What does it say about Havoc that he's willing to beat up a woman, willing to beat up a little person." I would assume that Son of Havoc does not control who he gets booked against. His employer tells him to wrestle, he makes the most of his opportunity. Having Sagrada go over here makes that first episode Sexy Star loss to Havoc look even sillier. Sagrada took like 60% of this match, too, which reallllly makes me lose interest kind of quickly. There's only so much I can watch of an 80 lb guy tossing around a 190 lb guy before I get bored. It approaches something more like Kenny Omega wrestling a blow-up doll at a certain point. Not to mention that Sexy Star couldn't beat Havoc one on one, and Sagrada was able to beat him while also dealing with constant interference from Ivelisse (which, incidentally, was my favorite part of the match. I thought her interference - especially her neat yakuza kick - was really good). So now I'm supposed to buy Star against Chavo, even though she couldn't come close to beating a guy who just got beat by a little person. They're really losing me with all of this.

PAS: I really think Sagrada should be working trios or tags rather then singles matches, in and out quick hits work way better then expect us to buy a head on victory. I did like his tope to Ivelisse, but otherwise this felt like a waste of time.

3. Sexy Star vs. Chavo Guerrero

ER: And this ends up being not too much of anything. Chavo tosses her around for a bit, goes for a kiss, gets knocked to the floor, then Star grabs a chair and goes crazy going after all of the male genitalia, starting with the ref for the DQ. We get a Pentagon/Fenix run in with Pentagon kindly holding a chair in front of his face for a long time so Fenix can kick it. I did really like Star's alley-oop rana, with Fenix tossing her up into it. But this was almost all angle, no match. We'll see what it sets up I guess.

PAS: I thought Chavo came off like a total sleazeball rapist here, that kiss felt like a UVA frat boy. This is the best character work he has done in a decade. I do wish I could see whether that translates into a real match. Hopefully the tag this sets up will be a great in ring Chavo performance.


4. Big Ryck vs. Prince Puma

PAS: I thought this was about as good an overbooked ECWish match as I have seen in quite a while. Ryck looked way better then he looked last week, everything was really stiff looking, and he was great at knowing when to bump and when to shrug off his smaller guy. All the little beats of this match were great, Ryck catching the kendo stick, deciding to chill on a chair while his boys did the work, leading to Puma dropkicking him, that brutal looking KO forearm, and then the crazy Parkour leap from the rafters for the save. The finish felt a little telegraphed, but otherwise this was way better then it had any right to be.

ER: I thought this was pretty great. It was a great example of run-ins and interference actually adding to a match. I was expecting having to see a bunch of the massive Ryck taking a bunch of flipping armdrags. Instead Ryck got to break out a bunch of brutal offense, and Puma's comebacks were handled in really smart ways like having Cortez and Cisco interfere to take all the cool moves, which would lead to Ryck being taken off guard. The progression of the match is just really smart, with Puma fighting this monster, and Ryck actually coming off like a monster. Every one of Ryck's shots looked brutal, loved him flexing over the ropes while choking Puma, loved him pulling him into a KO forearm tug-o-war style, loved his big kneelifts. The spot where Ryck pulls up a chair to watch his goons take apart Puma, only to have Puma take them apart and then blast Ryck with a dropkick is just smart, fun, and unique. Poor props to the camera work for the way they filmed Mundo dropping in from above. It really looked like he flew 20 feet into the ring. This was a really impressive match, with a super smart layout that made every person involved look great.


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Lucha Underground Episode 4: Thrill of the Hunt Workrate Report

1. Sexy Star vs. Ivelisse

ER: Based on Star's pre-match promo it sure looks like they're setting up a huge Chavo/Star blowoff which is one of the things I'd be least interested in seeing. She even said she'd be getting vengeance for what Chavo did to Blue Demon and Mascarita Sagrada. Really, the woman who lost to M-Dogg 20 in 90 seconds is going to be the angel of vengeance, taking down Chavo? Hmmm. Vampiro and Striker call this match "anti-diva" which is a bit rich as I think the divas division is arguably the most talented it's ever been right now. I don't think Lucha Underground should be openly inviting comparison to WWE. Just do your own thing, people will notice if it's better or not. Match itself was weird, as they were doing stuff, but it didn't really move me at all. I really liked some of Ivelisse's stuff here. I haven't seen much of her since she was on Tough Enough, but she added a lot of nice little ticks to the match, like rubbing out her chin after taking a drop toe hold. Sexy Star has not done a ton for me so far in these episodes. The crowd seems into her so that's good, but I wonder if at some point they start thinking they backed the wrong horse.

PAS: Not much of a match, parts looked ok, but other stuff looked like pre-Finlay training WWE women's matches. I really like what they have done with rudo Chavo so far, and an inter-gender feud with Sexy Star is one of the least interesting directions it can go in. I am with Eric on the stupidity of the "anti-diva" comment, especially because it was followed with Striker saying something like "don't expect to see a lot of armdrags and takedowns here, this is going to be a lot of slapping and hair pulling".

2. Pentagon Jr. v. Fenix

PAS: Mixed bag match, this is similar to the three way match, as we just had a bunch of crazy spots one after another. I would have liked to see Pentagon try to slow this down a bit in parts, a little more brawling or grappling would have made the bigger spots look bigger. It need some valleys to go along with the peaks. I also thought some of the kicks looked bad, either connect better or do a different move. Although I did think Fenix's jumping enzigiri was pretty cool.

ER: Pretty much what I imagine most people expected to see: A whole bunch of stuff that looked cool, and a whole bunch of stuff in between that awkwardly got them into position to do stuff that looked cool. The cool stuff did look really cool though. That counts for a helluva lot in this type of match. I wouldn't really care about 15 minutes of this, but 5 minutes of it is plenty entertaining and again, the exact type of thing they should be putting on TV every week to set themselves apart. I agree with Phil that it would have been nice to see Pentagon try and be a rudo more, especially considering his rudo pre-match promo. He does the promo, but really didn't work any differently than Fenix except that he was a base more often. Again though, these guys do a lot of cool stuff, and it was supposed to be 5 minutes of cool stuff. Points.

PAS: Thought the King Cuerno vignette was pretty great. They are just killing it with the intro vignette's, really the thing about the promotion which is just head and shoulders over anywhere else in wrestling. I hope we get one for Fenix, Drago, and Pentagon Jr. at some point, as their lack of character development is really lacking compared to everyone else in this fed at this point. Not a ton Dario this week although I did like his interaction with creepy Drago here, that tongue is awesome looking.

ER: Gotta second the love for both the vignettes which really are on just another level, and Drago's look. When I found out they were using the generic name "Drago" instead of the awesome name of Gato Everready I was against it, but the guy looks cool. He looks like a Guillermo Del Toro creation, which is pretty perfect for the El Rey network.

3. King Cuerno v. Drago

PAS: My favorite match on the show, Cuerno was doing what I wanted Pentagon to, slowing down the match so Drago's big moments had more of an impact. I also thought his stuff was pretty violent, and the tope was awesome looking. Liked the finish with the arrogant hunter getting caught posing, that flippy cradle Drago used ruled. A little short, but I hope this feud continues.

ER: Cuerno is Hijo Del Fantasma, who I haven't seen since he left CMLL. This match was really fun and it left me wanting much more from each guy. Cuerno had some cool stuff including leveling Drago with a big fast tope. His strikes looked really nice too which was a nice change from the previous match. I actually liked how Cuerno didn't bump for an early fast headscissors, just staying on his feet and shaking his head. Don't need it as a regular spot but I thought it was a unique way to establish the size advantage. Drago has dizzying speed and it was really on display here. Loved all his roll throughs on things and his big bumps. Loved how he stood his ground before getting blasted by that tope. He wasn't afraid to lean into any of Cuerno's strikes. Both guys came off really well here.

4. Johnny Mundo v. Big Ryck

PAS: I didn't like how Striker came out and called Ryck Suge Knight, you didn't see Gorilla Monsoon talk about how Razor Ramon was "just like Scarface", an homage is an homage only as long as it unstated. I thought Mundo did a fine job bumping around a big guy, but Ryck was worse then I remember him back in WWECW, some stuff looked stiff, but other stuff looked pretty loose. He looks awesome but they probably would have been better off with Uhaa Nation or No Limit Soldiers 4x4 in that role.

ER: Really wish they could have found something cooler for Ryck to wear than old sweat shorts and generic knee pads. I could see him pulling off a Big Bubba Rogers slacks-and-button-up looks in the ring. I thought Ryck looked better here than…well, most people commenting on the internet it would seem. He always had a nice shoulderblock and he breaks that out here, and Morrison is a guy who also makes shoulder blocks look good. Also dug the cravate he used here. Still the match kinda looked like it was waiting around for the run-in and sure enough that's what happened. Love Phil bringing up 4x4 as I always got sick joy out of seeing him in WCW. He had such an absurd build as he was 5'10" but like 400 lb., all in the arms and chest, and he always wore this spaghetti strap camouflage tank top that was so stretched that it always looked like a tube top. I really loved that one match he had against Knobbs where Knobbs blindsides him to start the match and then just stiffs him for 90 seconds before a run in.


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