Lucha Underground Season 4 Episode 17: The Moth and the Butterfly

TL: Oh my God, the opening cinematic with Aerostar telling Melissa he's seen the end of everything was extremely bad. Cringey bad. Like the SNL guest who can't read the cue cards off camera bad. Melissa had to have been fed every line she said. Aerostar, bless his heart, is doing what he can with this.

XO Lishus/Joey Ryan/Ivelisse vs. Paul London/The White Rabbit/El Bunny

ER: The return of Mascarita Sagrada to LU can only be a good thing, and Killer Kross finally makes a TV match, a fun late addition to the fed. This was a jump up from last week's trios match. The Rabbit Tribe is a fun stable and the mix of London/Sagrada/Kross is a twisted WAR team that totally works. Sagrada vs. XO Lishus was not a match I realized I wanted, but damn was it fun as hell as it was happening. Paul London bumps around for Ivelisse as well as any man in the fed has, a nice recovery for her after a sloppy performance last week. We got a huge London dropkick to the floor and a Sagrada stopped momentum dive to Ivelisse that somehow looked good. And they did a fun thing all match long by having Kross glower from the apron, with it practically a known conclusion that he was just going to end things the moment he stepped into the match. He did, and they finished on an awesome visual, Kross choking out Joey Ryan with a mandible claw, wearing gimmicked gloves with bloody fingers, like he was gouging into Ryan's esophagus.

TL: I'm stoked to see what Kross does here as the White Rabbit. Mascarita and Paul bring it more often than not, but Kross is here to be brooding and explosive (supposedly). The London unitard/powder white face paint combo is the right kind of weird. Ivelisse getting the hot tag here was certainly a choice. XO LIshus and Sagrada paired off somewhat nicely, and Sagrada just in general came off really well here. One of the better examples of his size not being played up as something of a detriment. I agree that the match-ending mandible claw visual was awesome, and shows how presence and intent goes a long way. The stuff surrounding this was fine, but the Kross payoff was about as good as it's gonna get. It's so weird that they bring him in now with only a few weeks to go and he goes over that strong, but my thought is they take the trios titles...and then the company folds? Sigh.

Killshot vs. Son of Havoc

ER: So I forgot what had been going on between Killshot and Son of Havoc, or if they even had anything, but Striker tells me this is a big match so I'll go with it. They did work it as if it were more important than the #1 contender's match last week, so maybe this is a big deal. They use way too much sound sweetening, but there was good stuff here. Son of Havoc hits a big tope and he's always landing too close to the Temple steps, and I could see these two stepping up and having a fun mask match. They felt like they had big match formula down in a good way here, even if I don't like some of their offense.

TL: Seeing Strickland as Isaiah Scott now in NXT allows him to show off some more personality but the offense still doesn't work with me yet. He needs to tighten things up a bit, and this match doesn't bode well for two guys who like to try stuff that come off incredibly choreographed. And while this did have hints of that, they didn't try to do as much as I thought! It at least had good intentions, and I thought for sure there was going to be a few spots that got too cute. This was fine. And now we get to see it again as an apuestas. THAT'S probably going to be when they get too cute and I yell and scream, but whatever.

TL: Moth gets some promo time and looks way more comfortable in pre-taped segments than with a live mic. Reklusa is a great wrestling name for Chelsea, too.

No DQ: Marty The Moth Martinez vs. Mariposa

ER: This was great, easily one of the best LU matches in this cursed season. I think we'll have to do an actual ranked Season 4 Top 10 matches list when we're done with this. There's a strong chance that I won't have anything from this season on our MOTY List, and there have been strong representatives from the other 3 seasons. There were many reps from season 1, several from season 2, less in season 3, but none so far 17 episodes in to season 4. This came damn close, a really fun and violent brawl with Mariposa taking a cruel beating and firing back with some inventive comebacks. We built up to a couple of very strong nearfalls, more effective than anything I can remember this season. Martinez really beats her up, and I think it actually worked better because they have been presented as having a weird relationship for their entire time in LU. They've established that we could really expect these two to treat each other however, so the intergender thing worked for it. Mariposa took a great beating and bled, got slammed into walls and even powerbombed on the floor! Her comebacks were logical and violent, at one point burying Moth in about 15 chairs, all throwing hard at him, and late in the match she punts him right in the balls as payback for his shot to the crotch at the beginning of the match. I get the Reklusa interference (and love the name too) but I was enjoying the match so much that I was hoping they'd build to something more special for a finish. But this was good, and the postmatch beating Marty gave her felt edgier than LU has felt in awhile. Fans are super hot for the Moth/Pentagon title match, and even though Pentagon is probably the guy I'm least interested in watching on this current roster, I am now foolishly excited for that match.

TL: Oh HELL YES. MORE CHEERLEADER MELISSA. Low key, she's been one of the best match for match performers in the show's history, and I'm stoked to see her get a showcase match here. The start was great, the headbutt from Mariposa, the low blow, the vicious beatdown and mask ripping in the corner by Marty, Mariposa flying into the stands and then SHE BLEEDS ON THE CHAIR SHOT. And then Martinez whips her headfirst into the table like a goddamn madman and this has my attention pretty easily from the get go. Marty then powerbombs her into the grate and then sits out on the floor with it; a sequence that looks kinda blah in other matches, but because of the carnage on the outside so far, really fits in as Marty dominating her early on. They're going for it and it's like they woke this show up a bit. And then the madness of that chair pileup spot during the Mariposa comeback, and Vampiro literally jumping for joy as Mariposa rains down two dozen or so thrown chairs on Marty. I can't get over how much this rules, to be honest. When she set up the chair, I thought she was gonna go crazy and hit the Kudo Driver through it, but the Samoan Drop was nasty as all hell, too. Amazing near falls in this match on her two attempts. Then Marty retains with Pentagon's Fear Factor to retain after Reklusa interference to rub it in. Spectacular stuff, an absolute burst of energy on a show that has long needed it, easily the best match this season. Mariposa remains one of my favorite wrestlers in the history of the show, and even though for whatever reason they didn't give her much to work with in-ring, she absolutely crushed it every time she was given an opportunity to shine. Marty is gonna die for us in the Cero Miedo match (let's be honest: he ain't topping Vampiro from the first one) and that will be fun but man, even without spoilers, it's easy to see how things are going to end up. Five more episodes to go...

COMPLETE GUIDE TO LUCHA UNDERGROUND

Read more!

Lucha Underground Season 4 Episode 16: Kill Mil

ER: Weekly reminder of just how awful every part of the Antonio Cueto character is.

TL: Oh man. So...you are a show that caters basically exclusively to hardcore fans. You then have MATT STRIKER READ A PREPARED STATEMENT to set up the main even that night? Over a highlight package? I mean...I never thought I'd say this, but Vampiro saying, "You say something? We got things to do!" after that was the best. Thank God for Vampiro. Praise Vampiro.

Jack Evans vs. Matanza

ER: This was pretty silly. I'm not sure what kind of character Evans is working, as he did a bunch of dialed to 10 mic work where he was just yelling annoying sounds and acting like a real goofball. Cool? Then he does a comical Mr. Furley stumbly run up the stairs only to run away from Matanza and get tripped by Antonio Cueto's cane. They're going for Looney Tunes vibes but also very serious Evans-will-leave-The-Temple-in-a-body-bag vibes and it doesn't really work. Evans vs. Matanza is a damn fun pairing, but this isn't that. This is Evans wide eyed running from Matanza, getting tossed a couple times, coming back briefly to hit a fantastic 630...only to see Matanza instantly shrug it off and hit the Tour of the Temple. This could have been a the best possible style clash, instead we had to pretend Jack Evans was suddenly a guy who couldn't wrestle very well.

TL: Jack Evans continues to be awesome on the mic, Antonio Cueto continues to be a terrible caricature in place of an actual good on-screen authority figure. Jack plays up the horror movie vibes better than most by knocking on the door to the entrance ramp only to be out of luck. Jack getting to run around a bit and be evasive only to eventually fall after a valiant effort is at least a good version of this match, but I would have liked a more competitive match between these two because it would have been good to watch. Evans rag dolling for peak Samoa Joe back in the ROH days was fantastic to see; him doing the same for Matanza would have ruled, too. Alas, all this for a cheap pop to hear Antonio warble about human sacrifice. I mean, literally seven months ago on WM weekend, a dude has his throat slit on stage during the absolutely terrible Blackcraft show. If you're gonna kill someone on a wrestling show, at least make it campy as fuck.

XO Lishus/Ivelisse/Joey Ryan vs. Jeremiah Snake/Daga/Kobra Moon

ER: This was rough in just about every way. Sloppy as hell, not a lot of build, just a mess of a match. Xo Lishus was probably the lone highlight; I love the snap he gets on things like armdrags, and really I just love the snap he puts on everything. Ivelisse has one of the more embarrassing hot tags of recent memory and later hits a slow motion cannonball off the apron. Daga even trips on the ropes getting into the ring. Striker calls Jeremiah Snake "this generation's most controversial athlete", which does sound much more intriguing than "some guy that a lot of people wish would just go away because they don't dig his fucking vibe" which is the reality. This was as skippable as it gets.

TL: Killer Kross as the White Rabbit is a good fit for the promotion; hope he calls out Big Dave in a knock off Tower of Doom match by season's end. The match itself was basically a mid-tier trios pairing with folks thinking up "creative" spots only for them to not land clean. XO probably looked the best in the match, Joey's shtick continues to be tired, Crane's descent to complete irrelevance continues. Daga with a weird Toryumon double arm-bar to finish. Kross and London stand idly by for the most part while Bunny gets the offense post-match, and I'm baffled again. This fed, folks.

Nunchuck Match: Aerostar/Drago vs. Jake Strong

ER: I'm a big fan of stupid stips matches, and a 2 on 1 handicap nunchucks match would certainly qualify as stupid, but Strong isn't a good enough stooge to make the nunchucks portion of this match interesting. We get the fun visual of actual nunchuck retrieval at the top of the Temple steps. At one point Aerostar and Drago pose as two children trying to sneak into an R rated movie wearing a very long trenchcoat, beating Jake with nunchucks. But Strong just kind of stands there and takes a dozen nunchuck shots, like he couldn't go anywhere. Every other time he took nunchuck shots he would just awkwardly bend over to take them, just poking his butt out. To put over a nunchuck shot you really need that scaled dog reaction, needs some hopping, some yelping, some fleeing; Ol' Jake Strong just behaved like he was in a very specific BDSM video. There were individual great moments, like Strong's vicious gutwrench powerbomb, or Aerostar's no hands springboard splash, but this didn't work as well as it could have.

TL: NUNCHUKS MATCH. I need Sleazy E out here in an exhibition at least. Jake Strong being treated as a top guy in AEW right now is still absolutely baffling to me (and he hasn't even wrestled a match!!!) but he's been at least a little bit entertaining taking on all the low-tier juniors, which should prepare him well for AEW. It's at least something that uses the gimmick well, even if the gimmick itself is terrible. The crowd chants "This is awesome!" for some reason, possibly the nadir of the chant, or maybe they're in on the joke. But let's point out what these guys did in their seven minutes: They had huge bumps, they laid shit in, and they went out there to maximize an absolutely limiting gimmick. I'm writing this match up as it happens, not after the fact, and this is actually becoming one of the great shitty gimmick matches LU has ever done. The finish was awesome stuff. They also 100% went early on the bone break sound effect. I am going to look back on this fondly as one of the great examples of everything both bad and good about LU: The gimmick is terrible, the entire setup is basically shit. But guys went out there and killed it, did everything they could to maximize what they were given, and somehow, someway, production values made it look not nearly as good as it could have. I can't think of a single 15-minute segment in any LU show that captures all that. Amazing stuff.

Mil Muertes vs. King Cuerno vs. Dragon Azteca Jr. vs. Pentagon Dark

ER: This didn't add up to a ton, made everyone except Pentagon feel super marginalized, which is a repeat trend for PPP. We also got some more Fenix coming out to assault Melissa Santos, which is great because then he will still wrestle the same way and get cheered for his cool spots, so what is actually the point of doing that kind of storyline? It does lead to our no close second greatest part of the match, when Dragon Azteca hits an incredible tope con giro over the ringpost, crashing both of them into the announce table. Awesome, awesome spot. I have to assume the rest of this was mangled by hasty editing, because the only other option was that it was mangled by foolish match layout: Cuerno hit his big tope into Pentagon and Muertes, except Pentagon was back up to the apron as quickly as Cuerno, only for both of them to be hit by a Muertes spear to knock them off the apron. So either Pentagon sold a Cuerno tope - treated like a major move for much of the series - by immediately leaping up to the apron, while Muertes sold it by running to the other side of the Temple to get in the ring for his spear...or the editing was so trash that it just made the wrestlers look like trash. Neither is a good look.

TL: Things I knew were going to happen before this match started: Muertes was gonna rule ass for a few minutes, Penta was definitely going to be on the outside in a 4-way match when you shouldn't have any downtime due to the fact everyone can at least face someone, Cuerno was gonna hit his tope, Dragon was gonna out-effort everyone. AND THEN HE DOES THAT CORNER DIVE. HOLY SHIT. It's weird to think a match like this is so methodically paced, but that's LU for you. Willie Mack coming back to cost Mil the match was a cool twist. And then of course Penta wins. Muertes taking the fall was surprising but I guess if they're pairing folks off, Mack/Muertes in a deathmatch should be fun, at least. Match was 100% a mean multi-man LU match. Like Eric said: Production here was really off again, selling was off all around. Again, I feel like there's just a lot of things that are supposedly creative but done in a way that doesn't play to anyone's strengths. It used to be the hallmark of this show but now it seems like that's all gone by the wayside. Really rough to see at this point. Azteca/Fenix has a chance to be good, Mack/Muertes could be a defining match for two guys I thoroughly enjoyed in this fed, and Penta somehow ending up the last LU champ will be fitting in a way because they really had nobody else to go to, it seems. Maybe they'll still surprise me. Who knows.



COMPLETE GUIDE TO LUCHA UNDERGROUND

Read more!

Lucha Underground Season 4 Episode 9: A Match Made in Heaven

ER: This may be an odd question...but was that actually Melissa playing Mariposa in the opening segment with Cueto? Her voice sounded completely different from how I remember her sounding (not merely the absence of her minor speech impediment, her voice just sounded different), and the mask covers enough that I actually have no idea.

TL: Was that…a competent set up for the main event? Like, did they actually lay out the consequences in a cogent manner for us to understand? Wild, man.

Mala Suerte vs. Matanza

ER: So now we've established bunny hop "boings" and speed bags SFX to our LU SFX canon. This was short but nobody died. Suerte hit a great baseball slide dropkick to start, Matanza hit a nice headbutt to cut off bunny hops and hit the Wrath of the Gods. But again, nobody died, which seems important to point out now.

TL: I literally cannot add anything to what Eric said about this match when those SFX were involved. Peak pro wrestling production, that.

Joey Ryan/Jack Evans vs. XO Lishus/Ivelisse

ER: I really liked this, especially as a showcase for Evans and Lishus. I wasn't excited for Joey opposite another woman, but I liked the turn into Joey being a full blown sex addict, just wanting any kind of touch and contact with any human (at minimum, any human). I think him being into getting slammed into XO Lishus' juicy hot ass and liking it is an important thing to happen. Sex addict is far more interesting than overt pervert. Lishus is a ton of fun, a great take on an exotico. The splits legdrop is good, and I also realized with his outfit, butt stuff, splits...he's basically cosplaying as Naomi. That feels like a level of exotico we haven't had in wrestling, an actual drag routine paying tribute to a fan favorite. The cartwheel slap is great with the character, and there was a hilarious moment with he and Evans, where Lishus ducked a clothesline and landed in a crabwalk, Evans overran him with the miss, ran back, but was chased into the corner with a quick burst of crabwalking from Lishus. Evans played it great, the timing was down, a genuinely funny and unique moment played perfectly. They went way too heavy on SFX for Ivelisse, she had a couple weak shots that came off comical with the loud thigh slap sound, but stuff like armdrags and ranas looked fine and she ate Ryan's offense well. Evans is still finding his place without WU, and I hope he's featured more from here now that he's away from WU. But he and Lishus owned here.

TL: I want to be a part of the conversations Joey has had with other folks to try and figure out how he could evolve his character. As Eric said, the climb from pervert to sex addict seems like the natural next step for him and who better to bring it out of him than Lishus, who has the athleticism that makes it look like he can hang with Jack F’n Evans step for step. Evans’ athleticism never ceases to amaze me; his springboard moves look out of control but also look like they kill folks. Yeah, the Lishus/Evans stuff was terrific, which led to the absolutely disgusting finish with the omoplata that really looked like a chokeout as opposed to all the other loosely applied MMA finishes you’d see in wrestling today. Stoked to see this get a longer feud, too. Ryan and Ivelisse were definitely in this match.

Mariposa vs. Dragon Azteca Jr.

ER: This was so short and really a nothing match. It was presented as an obstacle for Azteca but he didn't have too much trouble with Mariposa. It's a Lucha Underground update on an old early 90s Wrestling Challenge squash match. In one of those matches the enhancement talent would maybe get a dropkick or a couple elbows that get no sold. In a Lucha Underground squash match the enhancement talent still gets to break out a Kudo Driver moments after taking a huge 450 splash. The times they are a changin'.

TL: Love the foul to start the match during the belt presentation, love the kick to the inside of the thigh even more. Also love how in 2018, a 450 splash and a fucking KUDO DRIVER get 2.9s, but crossing the legs on a rolling prawn hold? Can’t get out of that, no siree. But hey, I’ve never wrestled before, so I don’t understand psychology, I guess.

The Reptile Tribe vs. Worldwide Underground

ER: So Striker says that Vibora is "striking in his absence" meaning nobody else knows about Vibora's death, but you'd think his absence would be focused on a lot more if that was the case. Instead they're just immediately cool with lizard Jeremiah Crane being the replacement. Also, could we have maybe done a little better than Jeremiah Snake? Here are a few off the top of my head with similar vocal patterns: Jereboa Crane, Jereviper Crane, Jereconda Crane. They aren't rhymes, but the syntax is the same as his original name and they roll off the tongue similarly. Or, they could have embraced their ridiculous side and further have their cake and eat it too, and he could have been Janaconda Cobrane. Also, I like that even in a rare 4 on 4 match, Ricky Mandel still isn't good enough to make the cut. I want them do have a 10 man tag to see if he has a shot at getting some playing time.

And I really liked this match. It was the right amount of fun and action, and really the fed should run more 8 man tags. I've gotten tired of their go to singles match style, but throw any 8 people from the roster in a ring and they should all have enough material to work a fun 10 minute match. You get less reliance on kickouts and more reliance on saves at that point, and a well timed save is more exciting to me than a big kickout. We get a ton of big dives, some complicated (like Kobra Moon getting launched into everyone by Jeremiah) and a couple impressive Aerostar ones, and a huge cannonball into everyone by Jeremiah. The pacing was kept brisk, and the whole thing was kept light which is a good thing because serious matches typically feature Striker reading a bunch of lousy copy about the Fates of Worlds and the Calamity of Man. The post-match worked for me too, even though the Macho Man stuff was all really obvious, I loved the Pomp and Circumstance playing while Mundo had Taya up on his shoulder. Taya's reaction to the proposal was good and as I've been wondering the past couple weeks this surely throws WU into full babyface, which isn't a bad twist. I somehow didn't notice the relevance of the episode title, which now seems like it should be saved for the inevitable wedding episode of LU, and I also somehow foolishly never considered a wedding episode for LU. We're well over 100 episodes at this point, and if we actually want to pretend that this is an actual TV series and not wrestling, then we're already into syndication and we're overdue for a wedding and a baby. We've already gotten to the point of the show where it's consistently going downhill from its peak, so now we need a couple of classic ratings poppers!

TL: The graphic leading into this match looks like it was made for an ECW TV main event in 1997, which is terrific. Big wet fart for the return of Crane as part of the Reptile Tribe. Don’t care enough to even make fun of the name. Aerostar wearing the bandana over his mask is as goofy looking as Klay Thompson wearing the bandana during his 14 3-pointer game last week, which means I love it. Vibora had been getting better so I’m a bit sad he’s not a part of this, because this seems like the type of match where he’d really stand out.

More wild atomicos match than I would have thought with this set up, as I figured there would be more pairing off than a whole bunch of dives, but they wanted a frenetic pace from the start. PJ Black’s hot tag that began with a bunch of first week training offense after the springboard was amusing. Nothing like armdrags and shoulder blocks to fire things up. The more I hear “Jeremiah Snake” the more I cringe. He also gets a lot of the match here, which is disappointing. Would have loved to see more Moon and Drago, especially considering Aerostar was brought in specifically because of his past with Drago. Instead, Drago gets to watch Aerostar hit his second ridiculous dive of the match and then take the fall. Postmatch was actually cool for the fakeout, Johnny being magnanimous, and the two-bit Savage aping. It was ELIZABETH who did the “Ooooohh yeah” part, man. C’mon. I’m not sure what wedding day shenanigans will occur to hold it up before it actually happens, but I’ve been entertained by WU skits to the point where I’d at least enjoy it. Can’t remember too many happy RobRod movie marriages, but maybe they’ll make an exception here.

COMPLETE GUIDE TO LUCHA UNDERGROUND

Read more!

Lucha Underground Season 4 Episode 5: Sacrificio

TL: Vampiro Fashion Update: Palm Beach, Florida area retiree who spends every afternoon during the week at a Perkin’s knockoff for happy hour.

Cortez Castro vs. Matanza

ER: Castro's identity as a cop is now common knowledge (though it was amusing to see people in the Temple reacting to Cueto's news with shock). It feels like we've known this for several years now, and now we know that a Cueto knows, and really that should have lead to an in-ring murder. The fact that newly re-monstered Matanza did not murder an undercover cop in the Temple feels a bit like, ahem, a cop out.

TL: So, let me get this straight: Papa Cueto knew he was a cop? And had sources? And didn’t tell his son? Cold-blooded. But hey, it leads to Matanza almost over-rotating on a Wrath of the Gods. Pay windah. Don’t get paid by the hour. If you love something, don’t do it for free. (In this case, the thing Matanza loves is murder) These are all sayings that make sense for this match.

Joey Ryan vs. Ivelisse

ER: Glad we can edit in absurd sound effects for Ivelisse's strikes, but we can't edit out a guy trying to start a "Suck his dick" chant. Eva Lease pulls off the Eva Marie look much better than Eva Marie, looks cool on her. I'm over Joey Ryan's shtick, and I'm pretty over intergender matches, and I'm completely over intergender matches with Joey Ryan. So we get plenty of attention on Ryan's lollipop getting placed in his trunks, we get a zoom in on Ivelisse's during an armbar, we get Joey trying to make Ivelisse touch his dick and later we get Ryan trying to force her to lick his lollipop. Derp derp derp. The wrestling within the match was fine, I like Ivelisse's energy and there were a couple fun lucha spots, but the size difference stuff does make it a little silly. Eh, it was fine.

TL: I’m trying to think of a match I don’t look forward to more than a Joey Ryan intergender match in 2018. I know that amongst the wrestlers of today, he’s very much respected because of the business he was able to bring in while working a super safe style, but it’s also a style that gets old very quickly. Plus, penis druids. Penis druids. An actual line said by Matt Striker in this match: “Ivellise reminding me of Antonio Inoki!” If there’s anything to take away in this match, I liked the suddenness of the finish. That’s all I got.

Killshot vs. Son of Havoc vs. The Mack

ER: Tecnico trios champs forced to fight each other in a triple threat in Lucha Underground? This doesn't sound like anything we've seen before! I warmed to this as the match went on, especially once Mack went on a rampage. Mack really should be at world title level, and really should be in NXT, and really would get over on the main brand. It's only a matter of time. He was awesome here, wiggling his belly while doing a top rope headstand, obliterating Havoc with a pounce (great sideways bump from Havoc too), hits a big dive, awesome high kick on Killshot, really just adds a ton of excitement to a match when he's flying around. Killshot as a character and as a wrestler I don't really get, his stuff looks more awkward than cool to me, and the character is just underbaked. Havoc is a really good guy to have in a match like this, so he's probably an undervalued guy in that sense (since LU loves this type of match). Glad Mack got the win.

TL: I like the stipulation of two medallions up for grabs because it actually puts an emphasis on not getting pinned, which makes the match more aggressive as a whole. It also, hilariously, makes the three-way stuff start to make sense: Nobody wants to be the guy on the wrong side of anything. The only time I enjoyed an opening mirror sequence in LU. You can tell Eric and I think much higher of Mack than LU does, it seems. But hey, gotta make sure Callihan keeps getting chances, I guess. As he normally does, Mack is the highlight of the match, but this time, my cynicism with a splash of optimism is not necessary because Mack actually wins???? Really hope he wins the belt and gets another shot. Loved the ending, too. Weird for me to come out of a three-way thinking it wasn’t anything more than eh, but this wasn’t too bad at all.

Mil Muertes vs. Cage

ER: Looking at the current LU roster and there might not be another match I'd want to see more, and it's kind of nuts that these two have only matched up a couple times. We could have a total hoss feud, if this match and their trios last season (with Crane) are any indication. This felt like their take on a 1999 Attitude era match (though I guess this whole fed is their take on 1999 Attitude era stuff, so...), with ref bumps from multiple refs, man hiding in crowd interference, and garbage spots. The real meat of the match was both guys showing off how hard they could hit the other, showing off strength spots, and showing off flying spots. We get a bunch of cool full force shoulderblocks and lariats that get shrugged off, Cage shows off a nice rana and Muertes shows off right back with a cool headscissors. Cage hits a big flip dive, Muertes is great at flying into walls, and the powerlift suplex from the middle rope is always awesome. All the stuff with guys hitting the ref worked for me, because the refs all took an absolute freaking thrashing. Muertes wrecks a guy with a spear, Cage hits his fullspeed 360 lariat right into the neck of another, Rick Knox takes a Muertes' chokeslam in brutal fashion; googling Rick Knox to make sure I had his name correct, I saw that he had surgery due to a broken collarbone suffered during the tapings...and this had to be it right? For his sake I hope he didn't have to endure anything worse than this. Pentagon was hiding in plain sight in the crowd to jump Cage, which would have looked stupid in most other settings but I liked it here. Wouldn't mind seeing this match like half a dozen more times.

TL: Super weird to think this is the first time in LU they’ve faced off one on one, but I also hope this is more like a Muertes match instead of a Cage match. Then two minutes in and I regret saying that. They’re just full throttle from the get-go and nothing slows down. The way they trade stuff totally works, and when they show off the power stuff against each other, it’s really awe inspiring. Cage’s outside in superplex was effortless here. I like the ref stuff, and poor Rick Knox lands HARD on the awesome Muertes chokeslam. I loved the Pentagon crowd reveal, something that truly came off as surprising and cool. Don’t know if we need to be seeing unprotected chairshots in 2018 but Penta can swing it. Cage spikes himself on the finishing flatliner. This was really fun, top flight Cage match, and for me, right there with the Cage/PCO match from Americanrana earlier this year. Penta doing the Ciampa wave was hilarious, and I don’t know how they do it, but I’m with Eric: More Cage/Muertes, please.

ER: I liked the vibe of the Rabbit Tribe video, and apparently Mascarita Sagrada got back this season just to be bludgeoned to death by Paul London and a big wooden club. Castro is the dude that needed an onscreen murder, it's weird to waste that visual on someone like Sagrada. I'm sure there was a chance that "this wasn't real, the Tribe was on a trip," but it still spoils that visual. And I'm not sure how they want people to view London going forward: LSD-soaked goofball who still dies on bumps? or is he a dangerous PCP-charged murderer who police found eating his roomates lungs out of his chest, screaming? I'm going to need to know. I want to know if there's a chance of him getting booked in a No DQ match and just murdering someone. I don't think we've had that happen on a wrestling program (I have not seen some 80s territory stuff, so don't know for sure).

TL: I still don’t know why Sagrada just stood there and let it happen, but the visual of London’s white suit getting blood splattered all over it is classic grindhouse stuff and just makes Paul look even more crazed than normal. This very much could be a Kevin Sullivan-in-Florida situation, but the in-ring violence has been very much your normal wrestling fare so far in LU outside of some deathmatches. I don’t know if we’re gonna have an Invader 3/Manny Fernandez-type incident on this show, but London’s the guy to do it with.


COMPLETE GUIDE TO LUCHA UNDERGROUND

Read more!

Lucha Underground Season 3 Episode 34: Career Opportunities

ER: Slapbak is pretty much the house band at this point. Vampiro is trying to bang the girl in Slapbak, isn't he. Future Lucha Underground champion: Girl from Slapbak.

TL: Slapbak is no Tsunami Bomb, man. I’m all about Lucha Underground champion Emily Whitehurst, man. And then have Kristin McRory, mega-babyface, come after her for the belt. She can even be Agent M! This concludes our Petaluma, CA Phoenix Theater-based punk rock references for this review.

Drago vs. The Mack

ER: I thought Mack was really great in this. His armdrags and rollthroughs were really impressive, his throws look great, his demeanor is impressive. This is probably a really obvious observation, but this match just really opened my eyes to how underutilized Mack has been in LU. I know we've seen him used in higher profile spots, but we've mainly seen him as Sexy Star's best bud, and playing second fiddle to Sexy Star is just way below his level. The way he carried himself in this match made him feel bigger than most guys in the fed. I thought the ending was about as weak as you can get, though, with Drago hitting a dashed off kick combo and winning with his sloppiest ever rolling crucifix.

TL: A Mack showcase match that ends with seriously weak shenanigans to end the match leaves a sour taste in my mouth, no matter if he gets his heat back in the end. It’s obvious that he has basically found his niche as he has a true confidence to him that he didn’t have before. I have absolutely no idea how he hasn’t gotten any other ways to shine since the Johnny Mundo feud, and that’s one of the issues with such heavily pre-produced TV. You can’t really change things up midseason like that. Too bad. It’s almost like they have to wait until Season 4 to do something with him, and there, it might be too late.

Five-O Street Fight: Joey Ryan vs. Cortez Castro

ER: I'm already unexcited about this match, and almost immediately Striker has to turn it into a political statement, just wanting to make sure those boys in blue know that "some of us" really appreciate what they do for us. What a piece of shit. Vomiting all over a show with shoehorned references and blatantly overscripted jokes is one level of dogshit, but outing yourself as an All Lives Matter asshole is an even deeper ditch. I will just mute Striker for the rest of this. On mute these two do a pretty great job with a pretty goofy concept. I mean the idea that Dario just lets Castro still wrestle after finding out he is a cop trying to bring him down is just ridiculous. Dario has had far lesser people murdered just for not winning a wrestling match. But they make a body cavity spot more amusing than I would have thought, Joey breaks a riot shield with his head, Castro misses a crossbody and crashes through a riot squad guy, they do a well done missed sledgehammer shot into a cop car, Joey gets hot coffee dumped down his trunks, Castro smartly uses a riot shield to give him stronger shoulderblocks (I mean that really is a smart spot), a bunch of not-overly-clever moments. I actually think this was the best of the non-Muertes props fights in the series history, and I was NOT expecting that on paper.

TL: Cortez Castro being billed as from “The Streets” is laughably bad. Then Striker says his piece on respecting the police and I really want to reach through the TV and slap the taste out of his mouth. As the only one who watched this match with audio working, I can only add that the racial undertones of a Latino/Caucasian matchup surrounded by “police” on the outside was alluded to on commentary, and I’m ready to fast forward. Screw a mute. Vampiro asks Matt what he’d do in this match and I almost expect him to say, “Ask a cop to help.” Oh, wait. THEY HAVE SIRENS ON TOP OF THE RINGPOSTS. I’M LOSING IT. The setting for this match is such a damper on the match itself that it’s hard to really review it. Then Striker says he wishes folks would fight more in person than on Twitter and I’m out on this. Thankfully, we’re coming to the end of this one, and the match starts being louder than Striker on commentary. Lot of simple stuff looking really good. WHY DOES THE RAT COP WIN???? This was sure something else. I don’t know if I enjoyed it as much as Eric did on mute, which means I’m making terrible life choices.

The Rabbit Tribe vs. Matanza

ER: I would really love a London/Matanza singles match given 10-12 minutes. This was more messy than that made up match would have been, but that's to be expected in a 3 on 1 match where 3 of the people are on LSD. Cobb isn't really a bulldozer in the same way Andre was, so I don't think 3 on 1 is a situation that plays to his monster strengths. 1 on 1 throwing a guy around looks much cooler. He's already a shorter guy (though obviously stocky as hell) so 3 on 1 tends to dwarf him. I did really like the Tribe's rabid rapid rabbit dropkicks in the corner, just all running in on top of each other throwing dropkick after dropkick. It looked like a video of a bunch of bunnies just jumping all over each other in a pen. Still, I wish they gave London more of a platform to shine. After his quality big bumping miracle work in the year and a half long Cueto Cup, I think he's someone who could really shine when motivated. Give him goof off leash, and he'll take it and run. Treat him like an actual guy and he may still work big.

TL: Some cute stuff, but nothing overly great. I think it would have been cool to see this like a gauntlet like the Lotus stuff earlier in the season, but this should have had way more Matanza crazy power stuff to it. Instead, it was oddly more of a Rabbit Tribe showcase. If Festus can get off the craziness and go straight edge, Paul London can, too. Okay, maybe I wasn’t done making Phoenix Theater-related references in this review.

COMPLETE GUIDE TO LUCHA UNDERGROUND

Read more!

Lucha Underground Season 3 Episode 33: Havoc Running Wild

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

Son of Madness vs. Mascarita Sagrada

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

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

Marty "The Moth" Martinez vs. Argenis

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

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

Joey Ryan vs. Sexy Star

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

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

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

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

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

COMPLETE GUIDE TO LUCHA UNDERGROUND

Read more!

Lucha Underground Season 3 Episode 24: Macho Madness

TL: I want to want something in my life as much as Catrina wants a giant cup with ribbons on it. Also, I’m 1000% certain Vampiro never pronounced Sergio Arau’s name right once in all the shows he played.

1. Veneno vs. Mil Muertes

ER: Man, actual Veneno would have been so much more interesting in LU than Ricky Reyes under a mask. You've seen more violent Muertes squashes. I wonder who designed the cool Veneno mask for a gimmick they don't use?

TL: Man, I’m such a huge fan of Muertes absolutely mauling folks. Yes, there are better squashes, but it’s still worth it to watch him squash folks. He absolutely destroys Veneno Reyes in a way that seems like a waste of three minutes to some, but for me, in the year 2017, our Year of the Sprint, would watch 100 times more. That chokeslam with a twist that he throws looked nasty, like a uranage by the throat, and segues right into the Flatliner. Very much here for Mil Muertes squash matches.

2. Paul London vs. Vibora

ER: "Luchasaurus" has an admittedly better ring to it than "Lucha Lance Hoyt" but the end result is the same. London is an absolute psycho in this, really working vintage death wish London. He plasters Vibora with a couple stiff baseball slide dropkicks, eventually does a bonkers trust fall dive that Vibora has no clue how to catch, so London just topes en reversa to all the way to the floor, almost braining himself on Melissa Santos' seat on the way down. Rabbit Tribe holding Vibora's legs to prevent him from getting back in the ring was a nice way to limit his one on one ring time, and London will be much more interesting in later rounds than Vibora.

TL: Man. I’m definitely not here for a Luchasaurus singles match. I’m also really not here for a Paul London comedy match. Then London is out here bumping big for Vibora and I’m at least enjoying this. The Trust Fall absolutely got me into it due to its nuttiness, and at least they got the booking right with the finish. Alright, I’ll take it. Definitely looking forward to seeing how crazy London is going to bump for Muertes, and Muertes is gonna absolutely maul London. Should be fun.

3. Taya vs. Joey Ryan

ER: Have they dropped the investigation into Dario? I haven't seen any really bad cop vignettes in who knows how many episodes. Have they been doing an Instagram-only storyline tracking all of the movements made against Cueto? This was a perfectly fine first round match, and I thought Taya was really good at aggressively going after Ryan. Her punch/chop combo in the corner looked really good, and I don't think it needed the extra sound sweetening they gave her. Ryan's superkick to knock her off the apron looked good too, and she was smart for going after him with double stomps. Good match, and this was one of the few matches in the first round where I wasn't sure who would advance, and I'd much rather see Taya in the 2nd round than Ryan.

TL: Should have known they would have gone intergender with Joey Ryan. Now, yeah, this is a fine match, but has there been a deep dive on referee Justin Borden? Dude has two AA’s, two BA’s, three Master’s and a Ph.D. And he’s a pro wrestling referee!!! I just finished my first and only Master’s and am finding it hard to get a job and this guy is out here with all of the degrees he can keep himself warm with (Man, College Dropout was really good). And Joey asks him to count faster??? He’s a terrible undercover cop for not knowing how smart Borden was that he’s deliberate in his count. Calling BS on Joey’s cop credentials. Maybe if he got a BA in criminal justice. Anyways, Joey knows how to play off the preconceived gender notions very well and this is at least entertaining. Finish is a bit clunky, but nice to see Taya move on.

ER: I think I'm the only one who thinks these "pure sports build" Rey/Mundo promos have been really lame. It's already fast forward material for me as I cannot stand Michael Schiavello, but I think this kind of "real sports" build is completely pointless in Lucha Underground. They've established a weird fantasy universe where several of their wrestlers have recently murdered people, some people are actual evil time traveling spirits, several people are not 100% human, that trying to do an MMA style tale of the tape build comes off entirely silly to me. But, I really liked Crane's locker room beatdown of Mil Muertes!

TL: Lucha masks and suits will never not be cool. The beatdown was good, but hearing Callahan say “She’s mine!” after what’s been alleged against him is, well, problematic to say the least. Real sport build really needed Cage with his power glove beating up the interviewer. Absolutely over this and I can’t believe I was into this two episodes ago.

4. Jeremiah Crane vs. Killshot

ER: I don't really know what to say about this match. I got a lot more time than every other first round match so far, and they certainly made it their business to do everything they could with that extra time. They did a lot. LU used that one SLAP sound effect they have probably 35 times. So you know guys were hitting each other, because the SLAP sound told us. The problem I had with most of this revolved around Killshot. He's clearly athletic, and can do things that I wouldn't ever be able to do, but his entire tone never changes. He works the first second of the match the same way he works the last second. He doesn't sell, he merely occasionally lets the other guy do moves. He's not having a conversation with his opponent, he's the guy waiting for his opponent to finish talking so it's his turn to talk again. So while it looks awesome when Crane runs all the way around the ring and plasters Killshot into the wall and through several chairs with a cannonball, you also know it's not going to do anything to slow Killshot down (unless it's during those moments where he merely goes into shutdown mode before being reactivated). If instead of making him an army sharpshooter they had made him into a Six Million Dollar Man rebuilt half-robot, then his style would make a lot more sense. Crane eventually gets the pin by dumping Killshot on his head with an underhook piledriver/powerbomb, but Killshot bounced off his head a few times in the match already, and took a few nasty kicks to the back of the head. I'm not sure why this particular shot hurt him any more than those other shots. And I still don't understand what his finisher is. He jumps off the top and lands with his feet on either side of his opponent. I just watched 15 minutes of him landing strikes and suplexes and things that looked much more painful and all somehow had the same SLAP sound effect, so I truly don't know what that move is supposed to be, or why it is somehow worse than the other two dozen moves he successfully landed.

TL: The first six minutes of this match take place entirely on the outside and is done in a way that never got me into the match. When you trade dives like that to the point where none of them mattered, I have no idea how you’re supposed to convince me anything else matters in the match. Really over any spit-based offense from Crane, too. He’s no Haruka Eigen, damn it. And yeah, after that Cannonball, how is Killshot even up and doing any offense with force behind it? And then all his athletic based offense? It’s just spots for spots worth. He sells no pain. They only sell until the next spot, then everything is all right. Both guys hit their stuff as crisp as ever with as much force behind it that they’re essentially superhuman. The crowd eats it up because it’s a bunch of cool looking stuff, but the match itself had zero substance and really played into the worst possible impulses of both guys. When Vampiro talks about Crane selling his jaw and then he basically just goes over and grabs a Dragon Sleeper with suddenness two seconds later, you’ve lost me. It’s amazing to think that Crane thinks he’s a top-flight wrestler at this point when he’s had the Finlay matches under his belt and decided to go seemingly the opposite way of what made those matches great. Yeah, a lot of that was due to Finlay, but man, at least there was attention to detail there. Here, there was none. Strickland didn’t sell a damn thing.

TL: Wait, why does Muertes get the lights out effect and you can’t even let Cage pound his damn Power Glove into the mat??? Unreal.

ER: I don't know who Son of Madness is, but I know an impressive beard when I see it, and the guy has a legendary beard. I REALLY hope we build to a Loser Shaves His Beard match. It writes itself.

TL: Okay, please forgive my ignorance, but it literally took me three seasons of this show to realize that with the Son of Havoc/Madness stuff and them being from the “Open Road” that it’s a play on Sons of Anarchy. Man I feel dumb.

COMPLETE GUIDE TO LUCHA UNDERGROUND

Read more!

Lucha Underground Season 3 Episode 19: Gods Among Men

ER: Dragon Azteca is fully invested in reality sports competition mindset, because HE'S NOT HERE TO MAKE FRIENDS. But it's weird to do a "death match" without even advertising it ahead of time.

TL: Who’s on the other line with Dario on the red phone? Is it RobRod? Also, Metalachi playing literally the most played mariachi song of all time 100 episodes into this dang thing make me think they’re running out of songs. If they play “El Cucaracha” next week, they should just stop having house bands on the show.

1. Texano vs. Joey Ryan

ER: Boy, Texano sure is a guy who will come out and have a match on TV every couple of weeks. There were some nice things, Texano's elbow drop, Texano taking longer to flip over the ropes to the apron than 60 year old Flair, big slingshot senton, etc. But this was definitely a 2017 match featuring Texano and Joey Ryan. I did like the giant horseshoe punch finish. We're going to have big horseshoe finishers and power glove heart punches. I'm pretty okay with that.

TL: Joey goes right to the lollipop in the crotch and then does his best (more like worst) Toru Yano impression, and I keep wondering why Texano, who literally was one of the biggest stars in Mexico a couple years ago, is curtain jerking here. Texano with a big delay on the hilo, and then we get a very basic Joey Ryan control segment. Famous B makes his way down to ringside and he might be the best worker in the match now. He starts doing a dance that reminds me of the dance the cheerleaders did in BASEketball when the Beers traveled to San Antonio. Then Striker makes a “Blazing Saddles” reference and doesn’t even say the best line in the movie. Then a horseshoe gets involved. Sure. Best bump in the match was from Famous B when Texano shoved him to the mat post-match.

TL: Mundo says the words “upstart fight league” and I can’t stop giggling because it sounds like someone put in “phrase for opposite of ‘new sports entertainment company’” in a Google search and that’s what popped up first. I know they wanted WWE-type talent at the top for LU, but bringing along the way-too-long promo by Mundo only to have Mack come out and start stomping a mudhole, throwing out stunners, and beating up security guards is even too derivative for this company. One of the things that drew me in to LU in the first place was them doing angles just a little bit differently, and this was, well, not that.

2. Cage vs. Veneno

ER: Wow, what a let down. I hear Melissa Santos announce Veneno and I got really excited. I don't read any LU spoilers, and the actual Veneno is one of my very favorite indy lucha guys. I watched a 2017 Veneno match just a few days ago that was great! So Veneno gets announced...and we get Ricky Reyes under a mask. This is like when WCW had a jobber named Manny Fernandez. Not thee Manny Fernandez. You'd see a match list with Eddy Guerrero vs. Manny Fernandez and then it turned out to be just some tubby white guy. But this match was a fine competitive squash. Reyes snapped off a decent rana and some nice kicks, Cage obliterated him with shoulderblocks and the absurd screwdriver. Sexy Star runs in after to hopefully start a feud with Reyes. If they have to have her on TV (which, does anyone actually know WHY they have to have her on TV? Because it can't actually be their choice, right? They are being forced to, by someone, for some reason?), I'd be happy if she was feuding with someone I don't care about, away from the main events.

TL: Cage has the Power Glove and the only thing I want now is to see is him use it to play Excitebike. Ricky Reyes was definitely the least of the Havana Pitbulls to me, and while he does a few neat things in the match, Cage gets in the usual and finishes with a screwdriver that hits flush. It’s fall in my world, which means squash is welcome. Needed more glove work, though. Sexy Star run-in to boot down Veneno does nothing for me, as it shouldn’t.

TL: Catrina and Puma have talks about visions and I envision this not going anywhere constructive. Glad to see the absurd martial arts back on my television, though.

3. Death Match: Dragon Azteca Jr. vs. Matanza

ER: This was a blast, even though it went much shorter than I expected it to. I don't fully understand the reason to make it a "death match", and it wasn't really different than any other match where guys brawled around the Temple, but it was good. The Temple has plenty of areas that are ripe for creative crowd brawling, and they did some cool things with it. Azteca hit a mammoth flip dive that easily could have seen him smack a step, and Matanza lugged him up the Temple steps like he was carrying a dead body! Great visual. The brawling at the top was fun, with Matanza eating a rana that threw him into the railing, Azteca getting tossed onto a support beam and dropping down with a flip dive, and then Azteca getting backdropped through the bleachers in an abrupt but violent finish. Rey comes out wearing tight jeans, which is weird as my eyes have gotten so used to him with baggy kneebrace-covering pants the last 15 years, and we get more nice brawling. Matanza takes a huge backdrop through some storage building and Dario's flip out was great. "Everybody out of the Temple!" I kind of wanted 10 minutes of him ushering people out, like parents coming home early and unannounced to their kid's out of control party. Just Dario muttering to himself and checking every corner of the Temple for stragglers.

TL: Azteca has grown on me and my love for Matanza knows no bounds whatsoever so to say I was pumped for this one coming in is an understatement. That whipping back suplex Matanza has is such a sick move. The body control for all his stuff is absurd. That flip dive Eric mentioned was absolutely insane, like 1995 Sabu-level crazy. Then after the dead body carry, Azteca does the Spiderman flip dive near the balcony and this might as well be taking place at your favorite ECW venue. Then the chokeslam to finish through the bleachers by Matanza. If 2017 is indeed the Year of the Sprint, this is one of the best street fights you’ll see this year. The post-match stuff with Rey was great, as Rey, even three decades into his career, is still going to take the most ludicrous bumps ever to get something over. That powerbomb into the balcony was ridiculous. Then Rey backdrops Matanza through the roof of the storage shed in a transfer of ludicrous bumping powers and Dario CLOSES THE TEMPLE DOWN. I wanted some fans looking at their phones trying to get an Uber or a Lyft only for Dario to take the phone and chuck it to the floor defiantly. “Dario, I paid for this show AND the next, though! Here’s my ticket!” And then Dario takes it from the guy and rips it up in front of him. That’s how you get payback. More Rey and Matanza is fine by me.


COMPLETE GUIDE TO LUCHA UNDERGROUND

Read more!

Lucha Underground Season 3 Episode 14: The Bulls of Boyle Heights

MD: I could watch Dario backstage with people all day. Angelico doesn't portray a tough guy well at all, but there's enough weight built up in his grudge with Mundo from time alone that all of this works. I like that he has to go through one more hoop to get to him. I swear that 2017 WWE wouldn't think through a character enough to run with the Bull theme with Dario like they're doing here. It's obvious that his plan was having Angelico and Matanza in the 4 way next week.

1. Cage vs. Texano vs. Joey Ryan vs. Dr. Wagner Jr.

ER: Oh good, I was hoping we'd get some additional Cage/Texano interactions outside of their best of 27 series. And this got a decent amount of time. And was not very good. We did get a lot of Texano/Cage interactions, which we've already seen just...way too much of, and it's still not working. When Texano is announced, Striker said, "One word: GREAT." Texano may have the biggest gap in "actual output in promotion" versus "how promotion wants him to be perceived" in the fed...if it weren't for one TINYYYYYY person in LU illustrating that same thing times 10. Wagner is one of the most charismatic men I've ever seen live, and I'm wondering why it's not coming through on LU. Is it because they want you to think everybody is a big charismatic star? Is it the differences in lucha filming vs. professional high end LU filming? Is he just being portrayed here like "just another guy"? Is it because he was saddled with Famous B - who is amusing in his role but makes a legitimate star like Wagner come off as bottom rung? Wagner still moves like a star, still seems like he has that charisma, but the way they're using him it could really be anybody under that mask. Cage looked pretty impressive here, that moonsault to the floor was nuts (and everybody was nuts for standing right under it), and for what felt like a throwaway match (even though it's part of a larger match concept) Cage came off pretty big here.

MD: This was a typical Lucha Underground multiman. You can't help but contrast it to the match later in the night and while that one had more fun character interactions, this was less stilted and choreographed. I thought both Cage and Texano came off pretty well here, actually. There's zero hook to Texano in lucha underground and generally seeing him here just makes me wish he was teaming with Terrible in CMLL still, but he stood tall against everyone for a decent amount of time. I get what Eric's saying though. I think the problem with Wagner in LU is that he doesn't really get to be Wagner. Everything about this promotion plays against his strengths. He's not a guy who can just come in and hit spots endlessly and then get out of the ring so the next person can take over. It's those dead spaces between spots where he can play to the crowd and make things mean something (or not mean something in a way that makes him look good, which is a Wagner special) where he excels. Even Vampiro pointed out that this wasn't really Wagner's style of match. These things were made for Cage to hit spots though. He was physically astonishing in this match, to the point where I stopped really caring whether or not this was good. Catching Ryan in mid-air and jackhammering him is insanely impressive. It was nice to see the rope come back into play for the finish as it had annoyed me how little its use mattered in the match itself.

MD: The second she told Reyes that he had to go back to the Temple, I was rooting for her to put him under a mask. That they're actually going with that shows how on point this show can be at times.

2. Sexy Star vs. PJ Black

ER: "You can't help but get behind Sexy Star!" You might think that was the case, Striker, but I suppose I just despise poor downtrodden women. That's something about ME that needs work. After all, if I can't get behind this one brave woman, who am I, and what wrong steps have *I* taken as a human? But this match was probably upper tier for Sexy Star. She has no idea how to transition, and no idea how to make up the size difference, and sometimes it's pretty clear she doesn't know how to fall for certain moves, but Black at least knew how to build to her bigger spots and they crafted a nice nearfall off the Styles Clash kickout. I liked Star's rana, and I liked PJ bragging on the top rope to set up his huge nasty drop onto the turnbuckles, and yeah, this was fine. You know she's going to win, and you know the commentary is going to be ridiculously over the top while praising her contributions to the history of womankind, but the match overall worked.

MD: In general, I wish they just moved Star over to Taya. If this had to happen, hwoever, I'm with Eric that the match overall did work. Most of that was on Black, his arrogance (including cheating when he didn't even have to), and is general unwillingness to sell for her unless she really earned it. He seemed to be putting an extra bit of oomph into everything too, which is not something people do with her. I came out of this wondering if I haven't been undervaluing Black. It's a shame he keeps injuring himself on basejumps or whatever. All that said, I'll be honest: I tend to watch Sexy Star matches at 2x speed, so my views on them are suspect.

ER: So Kobra Moon of all people is getting her own stable of reptilians? They're now building her up as some sort of millennia-long leader, when up til now all she's done is lose short matches and flirt with boys. It's a long con, people.

MD: I was wondering how this meshed with her and Daga from last season too. I think the line is that she ate him whole? Still, I'm all for the expansion of the mythos, and even more so the fact that they rationalized spending the money to actually make a GiJoe Serpentor throne in 2017.

3. Marty the Moth Martinez vs. Dragon Azteca Jr. vs. The Mack vs. Mil Muertes

ER: This didn't end the way I was expecting it to, as with the participants I assumed this would be a guaranteed path for Mil Muertes. And Muertes looked pretty awesome in this, loved his big uppercuts, and the showdown with Moth. Moth standing up to him and getting clocked in the jaw, then later speared through the ropes was terrific. Azteca and Mack matched up nicely, and that tornado DDT Azteca hits is insane. The ending was pretty stupid, with Azteca getting almost a visual pinfall on Muertes, then goes up to hit something else, waits there forever for the Matanza run-in (couldn't they have edited that closer together), and then other people just kill time being inactive while Matanza does his thing. His ragdoll slamming of Azteca was cool, but didn't love how it played into the match, with Mack then kind of just vulturing the win.

MD: As much as I liked Marty interacting with everyone, there was a heck of a lot of him putting his head down for a while so Azteca could leap over him or just hanging out so that he could eat that big spear shot off the apron. Him staring down Mil like a madman was the best part of this. Mil looked a step above everyone else. The guy just exudes star power in this gimmick. He moves just a little slower than everyone but everything feels so deliberate and impactful. Again, I did like how Azteca hit his crazy spinning DDT the first time and then got destroyed on the second. The show uses blood relatively sparingly so seeing Dario come out with the gimmick was a striking moment. I can't wait for Rey vs Matanza. I can wait to see Mack and Cage up against each other again considering they just did that towards the end of last season.


COMPLETE LUCHA UNDERGROUND EPISODE GUIDE

Read more!

Lucha Underground Season 2 Episode 22: Fame & Fortune

ER: Having Voodoo Glow Skulls on every week really brings me back to high school. I had no clue those guys were still going. I wonder what the Pietasters are up to.

1. Daga vs. Mascarita Sagrada

ER: Striker keeps pointing out that Sagrada hasn't won a match since signing up with Famous B, but he's failing to mention that Sagrada is also getting far more opportunities than he did before. Yeah he was on the winning side of a couple six mans last season, but now he's getting into actual contender matches. I'm not sure how him losing those matches is any fault of Famous B. We might just have to come to terms with the fact that Sagrada is 65 pounds, and that *may* be holding him back. It's cute that Daga leaps way into ranas for him, but really either Striker is missing the point of this storyline, or more likely they have no actual idea what the eventual outcome of this storyline is going to be. And they probably should have picked a different fan to cut to than the girl who was laughing while Famous B was kicking the shit out of Sagrada. I know lucha cameramen are taught to look for cute girls in the crowd, but maybe there was a better time to show her?

2. Cortez Castro, Mr. Cisco & Joey Ryan vs. Killshot, Sinestro de la Muerte & Marty "The Moth" Martinez

ER:  Pretty hard for the LU crowd to muster a lot of energy for this one. Even Vampiro noted how quiet they were at one point. It wasn't a bad match, but it wasn't very good. I liked Moth and Cisco in this, but they were canceled out by Sinestro fucking up every single person's timing (man is he bad) and a few brief but epically goofy Killshot spots that required every person in the match to kill time standing in position so he could do some convoluted flip fuckery. "Killshot with the tactical advantage," says Striker. It's easy to get a "tactical advantage" when Castro wanders onto the apron near no other wrestler, and all the other wrestlers start to cluster in a specific spot, just so Killshot can then vault off of Castro onto everybody, but mostly his partners. It could not have come off less organic. Striker always talks about what an inspiration Sexy Star is, so it's weird to also talk about how much he likes The Moth. "I know Hank raped Debbie, and don't get me wrong I love Debbie....but Hank is kind of cool too! He invited me to a fun BBQ, let's me use his Hulu password and....I don't know I just like the guy!" I get it, Striker likes every worker on the roster and they all get him HYPED, but maybe the fed shouldn't have run a kidnapping/sexual assault angle so every person involved doesn't look like dumb assholes afterwards. Anyway, Cisco had a bunch of cool armdrags, Castro surprised me by bringing some nice strikes, and Moth really knows how to take stupid offense nicely. But this draaaaaggggged. At one point I thought we were well around the 15 minute mark, but we were barely 7 in. After the match Moth steals Killshot's stupid fucking dogtags again, and runs away, but Killshot is faster than Moth so has to do a Barney Fife run to pretend like he can't catch him. Ugh.

3. Sexy Star & Mariposa vs. Taya & Ivelisse

ER: This match wasn't very long, just 10 minutes, but boy did it feel long. It's like they went from editing things super tight to make all the matches seem as exciting as possible, to not editing them in any way and not piping in any sort of crowd noise. These last two weeks have had more stretches of silent crowd than any other episodes combined. These all just feel like quiet, slowly worked Smackdown matches. It's kind of a jarring change of pace. Taya is good at working opposite Sexy Star, though Mariposa and Star are horrible forced tag partners considering their past. I don't need them to be at each other's throats but they didn't even seem like they had a problem with each other. This whole thing was pretty dryly mechanical until it spilled to the floor and we get a couple of awesome bumps into chairs and a big Ivelisse dive. But even then the psychology was out the window as the winning pin would advance the winner to Ultima Lucha, but nobody felt like they were trying to scramble to get the pin. It felt like the wrestlers didn't know the rules and they just added them in after the tapings.

ER: Striker is now calling Prince Puma "The face of the franchise" which is weird since a few weeks ago he screamed "A new star is born!!!" after Puma got the pinfall in a six man. Both comments are weird, as Puma was clearly already a star, well before the 54th episode of the show. But saying he's now the face of the franchise doesn't sound right either, as up until this interview challenging Mysterio he hasn't felt like much of a focal point this season. Mysterio comes out and accepts the match, and I cannot deny that I'm excited for those two matching up in a singles. Curious if they'll work it tecnico/tecnico or if Puma will work subtle rudo. Actually, I'd flip out if Rey worked subtle heel, like a couple moments of Puma working faster than him leading to Rey landing an untoward kick or something. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I assume it will be tecnico/tecnico.


COMPLETE LUCHA UNDERGROUND EPISODE GUIDE

Read more!

Lucha Underground Season 2 Episode 18: Enter the Mundo

1. Joey Ryan vs. Mascarita Sagrada

ER: For some reason I didn't notice the other week that Famous B now has suit cuffs that match Sagrada. That's great. The match was harmless. Sagrada's big tope was killer, and he took a tornado DDT like a man. They milked a couple of decent nearfalls. Harmless.

PAS: I liked the tie with the Mascarita colors and the phone number on it. I was also a fan of Ryans flower tights and boots, the print looked very lush like the kind of thing Rag and Bone would put on a bomber jacket and sell for $1100.

ER: We get a Taya introduction video. Taya, who debuted over two months ago and has been featured every week since. Okaaaaay. I do like the reintroduction of Cuerno, who now has Muertes in carbonite. Hopefully they just erase all the stupidity they put his character through, because a Muertes/Cuerno big match can be goooood.

2. Chavo Guerrero vs. Cage

ER: Good match. I was hoping for an actual match but expecting a Cage steamroll, so was pleasantly surprised by a competitive match, and probably the best Chavo has looked in awhile. Chavo gamely took some of Cage's nastiest slams (that whip snap powerbomb off a suplex reversal was sick), got launched on a monkey flip, and I liked the nice false finish when Cage hit a big falling lariat but Chavo landed with his leg draped over a rope. I wish Cage hadn't no sold Chavo's big rolling kick as I really love that move, but whatever, this was good. Cage vs. Matanza could be wild.

PAS: Yeah this was really good. I am long time Chavo fan, and he has been really misused in this fed. Glad to see him actually get a chance to stretch out a bit and show what he can do. That monkey flip bump was really breathtaking, and that near fall on the frog splash was pretty great. I kind of hope Chavo gets a Rey match in Season 3, as those guys have always worked great against each other.

ER: Oh brother that Castro/Ryan segment was terrible. This awkward and shitty fusion of their non-existant comedy chops and their non-existant acting chops. Cisco's "You guys were robbing Jefe and didn't tell me!?" line attempted to save things, but then the scriptwriting yanked a rug out from under him by have him say he's going to tell Dario on them. What the fuck are these actual cop sketches supposed to be? Are they supposed to be engaging as cop action? Humorous? Amusing in their purposeful winking? Because nothing about them works. I just want to know the intent. If we know the intent we can at least figure out if they're succeeding in ANYthing they're attempting to do. But I really want to know who's baby this storyline is.

PAS: Eric pretty much covered it, but this undercover cop storyline is one of the single dumbest most poorly put together gimmicks in wrestling history. This is as bad, if not worse, than the midget speedboat stuff or amnesiac Cactus Jack or Beaver Cleveage. LU gets a lot of passes from folks who like the cool shit they do, but this is a bag of flaming poop, it is a crumpled coffee stained paper pulled out of Ed Ferrerra's trash can. Too bad, I actually like Mr. Cisco too, he deserves better.

3. Jack Evans, PJ Black & Johnny Mundo vs. Prince Puma, Dragon Azteca Jr. & Rey Mysterio

ER: Often sloppy, but almost always ambitious, so I overall dug it. There was a whole lot of things pulled off that seemed fairly physically impossible, so when some things weren't pulled of clean it made it easier to forgive. Azteca had a nice showing and damn did Evans hurl himself around the ring perfectly into position for him. Loved Black's superkick to a handstanding Puma, and I have no clue how Rey and Mundo tumbled to the floor with Rey managing to stay on Mundo's shoulders. I mean that was just freakish. We get some wild dragon rana attempt and reversal, Mundo awesomely catching an Azteca tornado DDT, stopping the momentum and tossing him overhead into Puma, tons of cool stuff here. Finish is pretty overblown with tons of kicks to the balls with a downed ref, Mundo celebrating a decade of overshooting his finisher, and a kind of anticlimactic finish considering some of the moves that landed throughout the match. Overall fun, but still feels like some of these teams have been underperforming and not churning out the classic trios matches I was hoping for and maybe unfairly expecting this season. So far none of the trios matches this season have come close to touching the big Crew vs. Ivelisse/Havoc/Angelico match from a year ago, even though most of these guys are better than most of those guys. I won't be surprised when we eventually get an all out banger, I just want it now!

PAS: Yeah this was a match which had some very cool moments but never got to that next level. We could have used more Rey and less Azteca. Rey was awesome for the moments he was in, that spot where he stuck on Mundo's shoulders was rewind worthy, but he only had a couple of moments, more of a cameo then anything else. Azteca had some cool stuff, but also was a step off in a lot of the things he tried, he is obviously the greenest guy in the match and it showed. Finish was really overblown and took away from the coolness of the match. Good but I think I liked Chavo v. Cage more.

ER: Good wrestling this week, which automatically makes it an easy step up from last week's trip to blandsville. This cop stuff is alarmingly terrible, though. Somebody please explain to me what tone they're going for. Also, reallllly excited for Cage/Matanza. I'm sure Cobb and Cage have matched up before, but never like this, in this environment. It should rule.


COMPLETE LUCHA UNDERGROUND GUIDE

Read more!

Lucha Underground Season 2 Episode 17: Crime & Punishment

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

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

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

2. Marty the Moth Martinez vs. Killshot

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

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

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

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

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

PAS: WILL DO!!!
LUCHA UNDERGROUND EPISODE GUIDE

Read more!

Lucha Underground Season 2 Episode 16: Graver Consequences

ER: "Running an underground fight club? It's exhausting." "Have you ever run a city?" I didn't realize Lamas would be back and damn am I glad he got to be in a low talking contest with Dario. I got silly excited for all the hints of the mayor.

1. Mr. Cisco vs. Cortez Castro vs. Joey Ryan

ER: I was surprised that this match is for the final medallion. I hadn't realized they were through all the medallion matches already. They should have had a couple onscreen graphics or something. And as I type that the match just ends with a Joey Ryan roll up. Well that's lame. I hope Dario finds out about he and Castro and feeds their faces to Matanza.

PAS: Yeah the undercover cop stuff is so stupid, and has some of the lamer workers in the fed. Mr. Cisco deserves better.

2. Ivelisse, Son of Havoc  & Johnny Mundo vs. Prince Puma, Dragon Azteca Jr., & Rey Mysterio

ER: Was hoping for more out of this one, but it wasn't bad. I oddly wanted to see Rey matched up with Ivelisse, but he was kinda stuck with Havoc the whole match. A lot of Havoc's offense looked pretty light and bad, but he was really good about getting into position for the 619 in some different ways. There was also a cool moment where Rey hops onto Havoc's shoulders on a knucklelock and Havoc tries to shake him off by dropping to his knees. Azteca looked really good and he does some cool little "extra" strikes that I like. It's not enough for someone to run into his boot in the corner, they run into the right boot and he quickly kicks them with the left. Azteca moves real quick and his quickness stands out in a match with Rey Mysterio, so that's pretty impressive. When Puma gets the pinfall Striker weirdly says "A new star is born!!" in one of those lousy "WrestleMania moment!" soundbites, as if Puma wasn't a top 2 guy in the fed the entire first season. Man Striker is annoying.

PAS: This was fine, but for spotty juniors carried by Rey, Havoc is no Super Calo. I do like the Superfriend trios team. I miss Angelico and that is something I can't believe I am saying.

3. Graver Consequences: Mil Muertes vs. Matanza

ER: These guys know how to to a big match, and they brought out plenty bells and whistles for this one. This was arguably one of Muertes' best performances. He was the guy taking it right to Matanza. His right hands were blistering, he hit a big dive, an awesome spear into a bunch of chairs, took tons of big bumps onto numerous caskets (one over the top onto one, getting powerbombed onto one, and more), and just moving things along. Dario was a real champ in this too. Him grabbing Muertes' foot, getting yanked onto the apron and then taking a wild bump onto the apron and floor (that the camera almost missed, get your act together Rodriguez). I was not expecting that. He also takes a tumble from a Catrina slap. I really loved all the bumps into caskets, and jeez were the guys doing some back breaking labor throughout all of this, dragging those caskets around and throwing them into and out of the ring. Matanza also threw some of the best punches I've seen from him, his headbutts were great, of course all of his throws, and I loved the powerslam into the casket. A bunch of great stuff here. Now I just want even more!

PAS: This was a match of insane moments, I don't think it was as great a holistic match as the other big time Muertes match, but man were those moments awesome. Matanza choking Catrina and getting speared into chairs was incredible as was all of the awkward janky bumps on the caskets and the fist through the casket lid was one of the coolest wrestling visuals I can ever remember seeing. They left some violence on the table for next time, and I am excited to see it ramped up another level.

ER: Oh man I loved that scene with Lamas in the back of a limo. Who the hell can the mayor be!?  I loved all of Lamas' stammering and the shot of him in line with the lit cigar. Please don't let the mayor be Russo.


LUCHA UNDERGROUND EPISODE GUIDE

Read more!

Lucha Underground Season 2 Episode 14: Cage in a Cage

1. Cage Match: Cage vs. Johnny Mundo

ER: This had some nice moments, but overall didn't do much for me. The best parts were easily Mundo getting chucked wildly into the cage, peaking with him being powerbombed into the cage and sliding all the way down, like Sylvester leaping into a wall and missing Tweety. But a lot of this wasn't very good. For a longer match it didn't really build anywhere. We get silly cage match stuff like Mundo whiffing on a corkscrew moonsault off the top of the cage, even though up to that point of the match he had been trying to escape over the top of the cage. I mean Mundo wants nothing more than an Aztec medallion...but I guess just couldn't pass up the opportunity to do some flips! We also get Taya interfering with maybe the worst Singapore cane shots I've ever seen. I know she had to hold onto the top of the cage, but damn those shots were embarrassing. The selling was all over the map as no matter how much offense Mundo took, he was always the one doing something preposterous off the top. Cage's square driver finish looked nasty, at least.

PAS: Yeah this felt a little like a Smackdown cage match to end a feud which already had a PPV blow off. Mundo does some crazy stuff, but it never really distinguished itself. Taya does take a big beating although her taking a beating as a heel on the same show that Ivelisse takes the big beating as a face, is the kind of repeat itself booking that bugs me about LU. Finish was feud ending for sure.


2. Elimination Match: Fenix, Jack Evans & PJ Black vs. Mr. Cisco, Cortez Castro & Joey Ryan vs. Rey Mysterio, Prince Puma & Dragon Azteca Jr. vs. Ivelisse & Son of Havoc

ER: This was really fun, often kind of a mess, could have been better, but was a totally enjoyable mess. Elimination style could have been good, but annoying that one pinfall meant the whole team was gone. And they shouldn't have made it 4 people in the ring at once. Just make it one on one with tons of dudes on the apron. Having 4 people in there at once means we almost immediately go to two guys lying around sucking wind after taking one move. The twisting springboard flip dive train was pretty great, although I feel bad for Dragon Azteca for somehow doing a twisting moonsault into 6 people and missing all of them. The cameras caught Rey's dive off the top perfectly, shooting it from behind so it looked like he flew 20 feet. Ivelisse hit a really great sunset flip powerbomb, Fenix had another stellar performance (man he makes that Azteca DDT look deadly), and this finally got really good once they got it down to two teams. Evans was en fuego throughout this whole thing, and it now officially the baddest bitch in the fed. Him vs. Rey is a bonkers dream match. Really wish we could have just gotten two separate trios matches instead of this jumbled, sorta rushed match, but there were too many bright spots throughout to get too down on it. I'm just grumpy we got robbed of two additional trios matches by them lumping the semifinals and the finals all into one match.

PAS: I dug this although it was very all over the place. Really dug the dive train, and the part of the match where everyone was taking nutty bumps to the floor. Thought the first two eliminations were kind of perfunctory, and we would have been better off with neither team in the match. Loved the final showdown fall, and Rey looks completely reborn in this fed.

ER: Loved the Pentagon/Vampiro final segment, with Vampiro burning him with evil candle wax (the melted wax looked killer on his mask) and Pentagon cruising out in some weird futuristic wheelchair while Vamp went back to his fat bloated zombie from the beginning of Zombie look. I like that depending on which way you view the segment you can see on man's exhausting rehabilitation, or also a man being harnessed for ultimate evil.

PAS: The hot wax reminded me a little too much of Body of Evidence the Madonna/Willem Dafoe BDSM erotic thriller.


LUCHA UNDERGROUND EPISODE GUIDE

Read more!

Lucha Underground Season 2 Episode 11: Bird of War

ER: So is the buddy cop Reyes/Ryan stuff supposed to be funny? There's some midi-sax music playing and they're cracking jokes about Matanza - a guy who Reyes witnessed eat a man's face - being released from the cage. I don't get it.

PAS: The cop stuff is some of the dumbest stuff they are doing in this fed (and they are doing some dumb stuff), it doesn't even make any internal sense and the acting in it is Spice channel bad. Joey Ryan is a pox on our house

1. Ivelisse vs. Kobra Moon

ER: I actually really liked this one. I guess it shouldn't be shocking as Ivelisse has been great so far, but Moon had a flat debut against Sexy Star and - even though any work against Sexy Star should immediately be discounted - it sucked some interest out of this one for me. And then they both went out and had a snug, nicely laid out match. Any pensiveness Moon showed against Star was gone here, as both ladies laid into each other with chops and knees. A lot of the rollups were held really tightly and there were moments were this felt like a mean fight, which I wasn't expecting. Ivelisse sold Moon's rope chokes well, and I kinda liked the hissing as a taunt to your opponent.

PAS: Yeah, Eric is riding alone on this one. I thought some of submission stuff was cool, and Ivelisse always works stiff, but Kobra Moon still looked in deep waters. Felt like a pretty decent WWE women's match from four years ago, and pretty good Alicia Fox v. Brie Bella level stuff doesn't excite me.


ER: Killshot video managed to be good and bad at the same time. Somehow they managed to incorporate his bad indy offense into him killing ISIS, and for that I love them. But who the hell was he shooting at? He fired upwards of 35 shots at ludicrous trick shot angles, practically doing an Annie Oakley Old West Shooting Show, but he would fire 5 shots in one direction, and then a terrorist from the same direction would burst onto the screen. For a guy who misses half his spots it would make sense for him to also have terrible aim. But having Killshot take down terrorists is a step up from showing somebody fighting three unnamed luchadors in a nighttime alley.

PAS: This was OK I guess, the gunshot special effect were really corny though and Killshot is a suck ass dude to get this sort of effort for.

2. Cortez Castro, Mr. Cisco & Joey Ryan vs. Marty the Moth Martinez, Mariposa & The Mack

ER: Fun trios match, if you ignore that Mack was mostly fine teaming with his "mortal enemies" who kidnapped and potentially sexually abused his best lil buddy. Mack was somewhat miffed when he didn't get the hot tag, but apparently didn't think to refuse to tag with the people who assaulted and held his friend captive. Does he just really want the trios belts that badly? Does he respect the spirit of competition so much that he will literally set aside ANY difference? Oh, that's right, we had a cooperative chop exchange between he and Marty. That should make his raped friend feel a little better.  So all of that shit is the stupidest shit possible, but right in the middle of it we got a great little Cisco/Mack roll around, a fun Cisco/Mariposa segment, Ryan dropkicking Moth right in the chin, and I like the way Moth and Mariposa work together. This was also the most work Cisco has gotten in a match and he looked killer. Post match Star at least shows some fire going after Mariposa, while Mack cheers her on. But why the fuck didn't Mack just do this himself if he wanted it for her so bad? Instead he just held the tag rope wanting the hot tag like a doof the whole match.

PAS:  Cisco is badass, and I loved his section with the Mack, but I totally agree with Eric that the Mack/Star v. Martinez siblings stuff in-ring is totally divorced from the back stage vignettes. In ring we have a testy little feud with some tag partners who don't get along. In the back Sexy Star is recovering from being stuck in a pit by Jame Gumb. It feels like they decided to film all the sexual assault stuff after the fact and retconned it in. It is pretty amazing that a show which can do so many thing so right, can do other stuff so blindingly wrong.

ER: Okay, Mysterio, Horus and Puma is a killer trios team. I am 100% on board for that.

3. Fenix vs. Matanza

ER: This was awesome. This is a monster I can get behind. Fenix just kept coming at Matanza and damn does Cobb just have some ridiculous strength. The way he caught Fenix on the tope was just unreal. He caught him with his side facing the ring! This was not a guy getting caught on a plancha, this was a man pulling a speeding bullet out of the air. all of his catches where he then adjusts mid catch, or AFTER the catch, before a slam are just incredible. That extra step to show you that Matanza has you now, and he can bend twist turn whatever while holding your corpse. He caught Fenix in mid air a few times, always pausing, turning his body in a new direction to show he was the one completely in control, and then just crushing him through the mat. This whole thing was just killer. And then full on tecnico Mil Muertes bursts into frame and I immediately get excited for a Clash of Famous Monsters. Killer stuff here.

PAS: Yeah this was the best Matanza has looked. Fenix got some offense in, but still got eaten alive. I also loved how Matanza was smashing his head against the floor like he was trying to open up a coconut, really violent looking and very different then you would normally see in a wrestling match. Muertes v. Matanza should be totally awesome. I love Clash of Titans matches and this has some of the coolest build up a match like that has ever had.

ER: Overall a good episode with the wrestling all delivering, which is all I can really ask for.


LUCHA UNDERGROUND EPISODE GUIDE

Read more!