Lucha Underground Season 2 sounds like it’s going to be fun. You’ll be able to watch it El Rey. You’ll be able to watch it on TLN in Canada. You probably will be unable to watch it on Unimas.
It’s hard to prove a negative; Unimas isn’t going to announce they’re not carrying a show. Lucha Underground and Unimas didn’t really announce they had Lucha Underground for season 1 either – it just showed up in their upcoming listings, and people started to spot the ad for the show. Unimas hadn’t said anything yet this time around either, but with King Cuerno, Mil Muertes and Dario Cueto appearing at the Univision Deportes Awards seemed to suggest the partnership was still intact. All we needed is to see that season 2 promo or it to show up in the listings at the same time on Saturday to confirm.
I recorded chunks of Unimas this weekend just to find that LU S2 commercial. It’s two weeks out, and it was airing two weeks out last time. I did find a Lucha Underground commercial, but not the one I was looking for.
https://youtu.be/QG-0zyFgsCI
To save you the 15 seconds, that’s a Spanish language ad for the show airing on El Rey. (I only saw it once in the eight hours I recorded over two days; it didn’t appear to be in the regular rotation and might have been a local cable system buy.) There’s no reason for that advertisement to exist if the show was still going to air on Unimas – it wouldn’t make sense to direct people off network to find it if it was going to air on this network. It makes sense if they’re hoping to move the viewers over to El Rey because it won’t be on Unimas any longer.
Starting this morning, you can easily find the the listings for 01/30 Saturday afternoon, where Lucha Underground was airing at 4pm Eastern last year. The season 2 premiere is not listed. (Instead, it’s the end of The Brave One & the start of Battle: Los Angeles.) Maybe that’s just a random commercial meaning nothing, and maybe the show just got moved to a different time, but add on Lucha Underground no longer doing Spanish language announcing in front of the crowd and it doesn’t look good.
I’d really like to feel dumb and have LU turn up on Unimas anyway. But, if they’re not advertising Lucha Underground, and they’re advertising other shows in LU’s spot, then it feels like a pretty safe bet the show isn’t airing.
I can tell you where Lucha Underground will be appearing. A reporter for EstrellaTV was at the Temple Sunday to do a feature that’ll air Monday afternoon. A different feature will air on LATV at some point. (Image includes a new character if you’re concerned about any spoiler.) Both of those networks are primarily Spanish language channels in competition with Unimas. It’d be strange for them to be running a feature on a opposition network’s show, but much less so if it’s only an El Rey airing. And it’d make since for Lucha Underground to invite them if there’s a large base of Spanish language fans they’re worried about losing.
While the Wednesday night El Rey airing is the one that gets the internet buzz, estimates had 2-3x times as many people watching it on Unimas (since it’s a channel far more available in the US.) There are a lot of people who simply can not get the El Rey Network where they live but could easily get Unimas – and unless there’s a surprise streaming or VOD deal to be announced, their only method of watching the shows will be to start paying Sling or Fubo.TV, or looking on YouTube for pirated uploads. (People will tend towards YouTube, but I’d suspect there’s a larger quieter group who just will watch something else.)
I’d presume Lucha Underground knew they wouldn’t be on Unimas from back when they restarted taping in November – they didn’t do Spanish announcing from the first day of the season. For all we know, it may even be the plan: Unimas as training wheels for season 1 and hoping to migrate the people to El Rey for season 2, because the purpose of this show to get eyeball on El Rey. I’m not sure. Not being on Unimas seems like a problem to me, but it’s not the first thing that seems like a problem, and the show keeps on keeping on. I like to think I’m intelligent, but I’m not nearly smart enough to figure out how Lucha Underground works on a spreadsheet.
Not being on Unimas shouldn’t affect the onscreen product (except the lack of reshoots in Spanish.) Lucha Underground Season 2 should be good, and all the information I have on season 2 sounds fun. You’ll just probably be only able to watch it on El Rey in the US.
This also kind of explains why AAA would be trying to get their own TV show on in the US in Spanish now. They wouldn’t be in direct competition to Lucha Underground on Unimas now.
The problem is El Rey wants eyes on them. Not really a problem, because they knew that when they signed on. If the show got on Syfy, no doubt it would be a ratings getter for them like Smackdown was. And if the show is becoming anything like the rumors suggest, it would make a good fit for the network. SyFy being the bigger network, it would only help the brand grow.
I wouldn’t not get your hopes up about SyFy. Universal owns Syfy and USA. USA is home to WWE. Therefore Universal is not going to air another wrestling programming on their networks.
Thanks Devilhorns, I was privvy to who owns what.
I watch the show on UniMas. I can’t get El Rey (an English language channel) without buying the Spanish speaking add on package for Comcast ( I don’t speak Spanish) or paying TWENTY BUCKS A MONTH for sling.
Looks like I’ll be watching the shows on YouTube or daily motion,allthough I only ever find them with a WWE logo watermark that covers the whole screen.
It’s so aggravating because LU is such a great product but they seem determined to not make money. I’d pay to stream it,I’d buy a DVD. Hell,who here WOULDN’T buy a Pentagon,Jr action figure?
The people behind LU had all these grand plans but all they accomplished was getting me to watch AAA on YouTube (free),watch some of the video posts on this blog (also free) and buy a PPV featuring a 14 hour Iron Man match between the Villanos and the Psycho Circus while Matt Striker said “can you hear me now?” (30 bucks).
Meanwhile I have no idea what they’re spending but the show looks more expensive than Raw.
There’s a 1 hour slot with infomercials at 11 AM on Saturdays on Unimas.in between regular movie prograrmming… maybe they’ll fill it in with LU… Hope Hope…
Make that a 2 HOUR infomercial timeslot on Saturday mornings at 11 AM on Unimas… Would LU get more ad revenue for Unimas than infomercials?…
That’s be great if they turned up, but I suspect those are truly just infomericals. Lucha Underground isn’t even hinting they might be on Unimas.
So, interestingly all of their Youtube videos are now not available in India. I wonder where else they region coded out? I thought I had watched the season 2 trailer when they first put it up, but maybe I had watched it on facebook instead?
I’ve noticed other people mentioning the videos are no longer available in their (non-US) country either, even Canada where the show will air. Something happened, but what/why is beyond me.
So, the youtube channel is an el Rey Network channel while most of the other social media is Lucha Underground specific. It’s possible that they are trying to limit content on the youtube channel to places where the network itself is available.
But, it sucks for those of us with limited ways to support the product and want to give them our clicks and views if nothing else.
It looks like they’re being shut out of international sales… The main reason El Rey was forced to cancel “Matador”, one of the best shows of all time… It appears that El Rey Network is up against the establishment…
Saturdays @ 4PM
http://uvideos.com/shows/lucha-underground
That’s the page from the first season. It hasn’t been taken down, but – if you look at their actual schedule – there are movies airing at that time now.
It looks like it’s still up, if you click on the video, it runs the Season 2 promos on the same page. We’ll see today @ 4PM 3 c… Hope Hope…
No Lucha Underground Season 2 on Unimas… Was worth a look…