I decided to do recaps this time around. At least so far.
You can see the full episode here. My thoughts after the break.
The show is back, as a web series. This is great. In theory, the last season would’ve been seen by more people because it was on a proper TV channel, but no one knows Fox Sports 2 exists and they were bouncing the show all around the schedule with no warning. It’s going to be much easier to follow this year, and since it’s starting about the same time as the matches, it feels more relevant.
Still, this was a slow start and a sign the series will still be lagging behind the actual action if it’s airing just once a week. (I’m not sure what the schedule is, since it was just quietly pushed out on Sunday afternoon.) Episode one spent most of it’s time recapping last week’s season and the press conference to set up this year’s cast. If you hadn’t been following until now, you would be caught totally up to speed – but then you probably wouldn’t be watching 22 minute shows on a random lucha libre tournament in the first place. This was done as if it was a normal TV show, with pauses between acts to insert (non-existent) commercials, so perhaps it will have a second life somewhere else where the introduction is more necessary.
The first segment was all a recap of last season’s adventures. We saw what appears to be clips from that one episode we could never find – something involving Titan & Franco Colombo training, and a brawl between the Guerreros and Puma/Polvora we would’ve been very excited about and then went nowhere. Titan’s shown drawing to Niebla Roja, losing two other times, then being in the final with Euforia – there’s no explanation for it. All of the big moments of last week’s shows are shown, but more in a highlight fashion than any recap context.
The second and third segments were all scenes from the press conference. After each participant explained why they would win, they cut to a bit with that team’s trainer explaining the good & bad points of that luchador. Negro just had the tecnico’s teams masks, but the rudo team was actually standing off in the background while Virus explained each one of their problems, and we could see them get offended in real time. Misterioso was especially dismissive. It begins! The press conference footage included a pre-taped bit with Shocker, explaining why he was unable to participate but naming a replacement designed to annoy Terrible, so we all have Shocker to thank about Rush. This led into a long continuing argument about Tirantes’ merits as a judge – Tirantes thought Rush wasn’t experienced enough to teach his team anything, and everyone thought Tirantes was a clown referee who had no business giving his opinion on anyone. Nothing new there. The show ended with Terrible and Rush both doing intense speeches about why someone on their team was going to win.
It was an opening episode. I’m just excited we get to see more of them – the quality of the outside the ring stuff varied, but there was some entertaining skits last time around and I hope there’s more to come.