increasingly vague match listing is updated here. I’ll have one more ‘how did it feel to be there’ non-spoiler post sometime this weekend.
LU (SUN) 02/08/2015 Lucha Underground Temple, Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, California
1) Big Ryck, Killshot, the Mack b Pentagón Jr., Sexy Star, Súper Fly [LU TRIOS, tournament]
A redo of the match from Saturday, for the 04/01 taping. Super Fly was back in his mask, and the announcers were back in their clothes for that day. Pentagon did the same promo prior to the match about not wanting his partners but winning himself. The match itself was new. The spot where Pentagon backed down from Ryck, and Mack/KS’s tag finisher were gone. It’s also not like they just removed them, this was an entirely different match – with the same outcome of Super Fly losing and Pentagon trying to break his arm with Sexy making the save. This replaced the usual dark match.
2) Cage, King Cuerno, Texano b Hernandez, Johnny Mundo, Prince Puma [LU TRIOS, tournament]
Start of 04/15 episode, set up by the main event from the 04/08 show. Davari (not introduced, probably has a new name) sat front row next to the entrance for all matches on the rest of the taping. He was well dressed – he’s probably here as a wrestler, but he came off looking like a rich man the likes who could also buy the show. Davari would get up and look at wrestlers as they came thru (which went mostly unacknowledged) and violated the ban on no cell phone usage. Long match. Texano eventually lasso punched Mundo and Puma to set up the win for his team. No Puma/Hernandez issues, though Hernandez wasn’t sure what happened with the finish. Dario Cueto appeared after the match to praise himself for putting these three monsters together. He declared he wanted a preview of the finals of the trios tournament (to take place ‘next week’), a three way match between one member of each winning team. After the cameras turned off, the rudos agreed on Cage being their rep without any issue.
3) the Mack b Son of Havoc, Cage
No other members of the teams were not at ringside. Havoc was the crowd favorite but it was Mack who got the win (on Havoc). In a separate segment following, Pentagon came to the ring and whispered something in Melissa Santos’ ear. Melissa unhappily announced Pentagon’s next victim was dedicated to Pentagon’s mentor. Pentagon shockingly attacked Melissa – she was his next victim! Pentagon set up to break Melissa’s arm when Sexy Star made the save and got Melissa to safety. Pentagon again said he was coming for Sexy Star next.
4) Drago b Aerostar
Final of the best of 5. Dario said Melissa was shaken up, so he’d take over ring announcing and amused himself in doing so. Crowd was already a little burnt out early but got into the match by the end, especially after a couple of big spots. Both men were aggressive but neither was outright a rudo. Drago won with the Dragon’s Tail cradle, taking the series 3-2. Drago & Aerostar made peace, shook hands, and hugged after the match. Aerostar left, and Dario came into the ring to praise Drago. He also explained the Unique Opportunity Drago had won: Drago gets a shot at Prince Puma and the Lucha Underground title – but if Drago loses, he is banished from the Temple and can never return. Drago had mixed emotions. End of 04/15 taping (ep 23).
5) Sexy Star b Pentagón Jr.
Start of 04/22 episode. (Announcers always change clothes between episodes – Davari got a new shirt and a refill on his drink.) Announcers had all three trios belts on their announce desk. Melissa returned to announce this match, but had an ankle injury after Pentagon’s attack and did not introduce Pentagon with any enthusiasm. She rooted for Sexy Star during the match. (The attack on her was also enough to get at least half the crowd to turn on Pentagon; he’d been pretty well cheered up to that point.) Pentagon nearly got Sexy Star in the arm breaking submission twice, but Sexy escaped to the ropes both times, then beat Pentagon clean to stop his run of violence. Pentagon was shocked and distraught to have let down his maestro.
6) Angélico, Ivelisse, Son of Havoc b Cage, King Cuerno, Texano and Big Ryck, Killshot, the Mack [LU TRIOS, Tournament]
Crazy three way match, with usually three people in but often more – the Cuerno team double teamed a lot and controlled the match early. The others rallied, and a series of dives knocked Texano into wiping out Davari, spilling Davari’s drink everywhere. Davari was furious and destroyed Texano, including Texano being thrown into a section of seats. Texano was thrown back in and beat to eliminate his team. Cage and Cuerno were unhappy with Texano for getting beat. Ivelisse also hurt her ankle doing a silla off the apron on Big Ryck and thought about walking (limping) out when it was just down to two teams, but turned around and came back. After a sudden change of momentum, Angelico beat Killshot (IIRC).
7) Angélico, Ivelisse, Son of Havoc b Bael, Cortez Castro, Mr. Cisco [LU TRIOS, tournament]
Dario congratulated the most dysfunctional trio on getting this far. Angelico motioned for the belts, but Dario revealed they had one more team to face, and it’d be no DQ just to make it interesting. Ivelisse and the referee protested she was too hurt to go on, but Dario ignored them and introduced the Crew. Cortez brought a Singapore cane which came into play during the match. The Crew destroyed the Havoc team in a brawl into the crowd for quite a while until the Havoc crew were able to make a comeback and beat the Crew to win in an epic match with Havoc and Angelico both getting the pinfall while Ivelisse held off the rest of the Crew. Angelico, Havoc, and Ivelisse still are not friends but worked well enough together to get the belts. End of 04/22 taping (ep 24)
Did I take enough notes? Not sure those paragraphs are dense enough.
Drago has to be winning? Drago leaving forever would be too sad, though there’s always more AAA wrestlers to cycle in here if they really wanted to do that. I think he’s winning. I hope he’s winning.
I joked to someone that I would come back Monday if Super Fly, Pentagon Jr., Sexy Star were going to face Big Ryck, Killshot and the Mack again. The Saturday match had a botch on the finish, but was not so terrible tome that it all needed to be redone. The Sunday match was still much better. Of note, Killshot was doing a targeting gesture to set up his finish on Saturday, but that evolved to set up a dive on Sunday. Super Fly being back in his mask again right he lost it again was a hilarious twist of fate.
Mack, Havoc and Cage had long days. Just like Saturday, there were no short matches and my biggest concern was how they’d fit all of this into one hour. Everything was very good; the resolution of the trios title match was the biggest moment of the tapings, but Aerostar & Drago had one of the greatest spots of the year. I don’t want to give it away, but it was something where I realized what was going to happen about five seconds before it did but also could not believe it was actually going to happen. Cueto watched the match mostly from Melissa’s ring announcer chair, but also walked around to cheer the violence. The man likes violence.
I think the trios title tournament comes off better live than it reads. I know it came off great live, but I’m sure it must look so random as a team. It helps a lot that Son of Havoc is beloved by the live audience (and they basically turned him tecnico during the course of April.) The issues between the Angelico/Havoc/Ivelisse team were always there and acknowledged, but it never really detracted from the action – even when Ivelisse is walking out, there’s other people there fighting. I was trying to figure out this tournament Sunday morning, in between shows, figuring it must be an eight team tournament but I couldn’t figure out who would be left to face the Crew. Of course, by the time the Crew had finally turned up, I had forgotten about them. That’s the Lucha Underground strategy – they put the gun on the mantle, everyone notices the gun and realizes someone’s going to get shot, they do a whole bunch of other things which distracts you from the gun, and then – bam! – someone’s shot. There’s a big spot in this match that’s the same way – something you know i’s going to happen from the moment they start to tease it, but timed to happen when you’ve lost track of it.
There was a hard to understand spot in that final where I guess the idea was Mr. Cisco was going to suplex Havoc over a guardrail, only neither man could quite get it and the end product was Havoc falling badly and Cisco looking very concerned. And then Havoc popped up about 30 seconds later and went back to beating up Cisco with a crazy spot. They’ll probably cut away from the whole thing on TV. They managed not to look at the crowd.
No idea how I’m going to make that tournament bracket on the wiki.
Cuerno & Texano worked as a team a lot in the trios match until they got eliminated by Davari’s rage. All these matches were put together carefully to give everyone their favorite moment. No one’s just along for the ride or just there to get beat.
Pentagon Jr. is basically a serial killer (of arms) in his storyline, and Sexy Star is the girl who’s friends have all been (arm) murdered and she’s got to slay the monster or she’ll be a goner too. I guess you have to imagine the Temple as a summer camp to completely make that thriller movie metaphor work, but that felt like the aesthetic they were aiming at. Notably: Sexy Star picks up two big wins in three weeks and Ivelisse is a key part of her team’s title win.
No signs of Black Lotus or “matanza” on any of these four shows. Konnan wasn’t on screen either – he was definitely there on Saturday and I’m not sure if he stayed or went to Ecatepec on Sunday. Hernandez may have taken his place as Prince Puma’s guidance, it’s not clear.
All the matches were fun on Sunday, all stuff I’m looking forward to seeing again when it airs on TV.