Lucha Underground 1×23: Fire in the Cosmos

Puma’s dangerous feet

the matches

Cage, King Cuerno [O], Texano Jr. beat Johnny Mundo, Hernandez, Prince Puma [X] (10:57, thrill of the hunt after a Texano rope punch)
Cage [O] beat Son of Havoc [X] & the Mack (5:56, Weapon X)
Drago beat Aerostar, winning the best of five series 3-2 (10:16, Dragon’s Tail cradle)

All the gifs are here

the developments

welcome Hernandez

A man who looked a lot like Davari was watching the show from the front row. The announcers pointed him out and he was shown reacting to the show, but he was not given a name.

Texano used a rope punch to set up the win, but that’s pretty much clean for Lucha Underground. There was no internal problems on either team (despite some accidental shots.) Dario set up a three way match with one person from each winning team immediately following.

Son of Havoc nearly had the win on the Mack, but Cage pulled the Mack out of the ring to avoid the shooting star press, then beat Havoc himself.

Pentagon Jr. came to the ring despite not having a match, and demanded Melissa announce he was (again) dedicating his next victim to his master. Melissa did so uncomfortable, went to leave, and was attacked from behind by Pentagon. Pentagon attempted to break Melissa’s arm, but Sexy Star (again!) made the save. Sexy screamed at Pentagon, saying he’d gone too far that time. (Vampiro too moved to make the save, but Sexy got there first.)

don’t think Havoc thought it would go this way

Dario checked up on both Aerostar (hanging out on the roof) and Drago (in the same bathroom they first talked) and pressed them to give it all tonight. Melissa was hurt from the attack, so Dario took over ring announcing and watched the main event from ringside. Aerostar nearly won on several occasions in a no-DQ, no-countout final, but Drago planted Aerostar on his head with a DDT and cradled him for the win. The two men embraced after the match, giving either credit for their fights. Aerostar left as Dario came to the ring to announce the Unique Opportunity: Drago will get a shot against Prince Puma for the Lucha Underground Championship but is banished from Lucha Underground if he loses.

thoughts

pretty much my reaction too

One where there weren’t many developments outside the ring, but plenty thru the matches.  Opener set the final of the trios tournament and made it feel like a big deal with everyone who was involved, and Aerostar/Drago going on last and getting the big stipulation at the end caused the entire series to feel like big deals. The opener came off even stronger on TV than it did live, with so much incredible action in the latter half of the match. It turned into non-stop moves for quite a while, everyone getting in a big spot or three. Striker made sure to note it was Puma who took the loss, and it seems to balance the scales with last week.

Triangle match had a tough task following the trios, but the crowd got into a lot by the end. It was the most important match for the Mack, who’s still a new figure here and pulled off some stuff that might not have been expected from his side. Son of Havoc works better as a tecnico, and he and Cage were great in the dive catch brainbuster spot.

Aerostar taken out of orbit

Aerostar and Drago delivered in their main event. We know this isn’t Aerostar’s biggest match ever, but it’s way up there and way up there for Drago too, and they were on point. The plancha thru the table was so incredible live and looked impressive on TV, but there was a lot of great stuff here and some more storytelling from usual – Aerostar trying for cradle after cradle after the bigm ove to try and put Drago away but just not having enough, some of the finishes from the previous matches not winning, that sort of thing. The DDT near the end looked brutal. The no-DQ thing felt like something Striker made up on the spot because he figured out what was going to happen, but it also makes sense with Dario being Dario. (They got a lot of great reaction shots from him.) This felt like something where Aerostar ended up a much bigger deal even by losing the series, and Drago winning with that stipulation makes him a key character to come.

39 of these > 52 of pretty much anything else.