the matches
Matanza won a 21 man Aztec Warfare match, becomes the 4th Lucha Underground champion
order of events
00:00 Fenix enters (1) 00:00 Rey Mysterio enters (2) 01:27 King Cuerno enters (3) 02:49 Argenis enters (4) 03:55 Argenis out (Rey Mysterio top rope splash, 1) 04:16 Johnny Mundo enters (5) 05:46 Joey Ryan enters (6) 07:03 Prince Puma enters (7) 08:05 Jack Evans enters (8) 08:14 King Cuerno out (Rey Mysterio cross armbreaker, 2) 09:27 Taya enters (9) 10:40 Cage enters (10) 11:54 Mascarita Sagrada enters (11) 13:02 Johnny Mundo out (Puma standing shooting star press, 3) 13:19 Marty Martinez enters (12) 14:48 Drago enters (13) 15:48 Marty out (Rey Mysterio top rope splash, 4) 16:03 The Mack enters (14) 17:17 Chavo Guerrero enters (15) 18:05 Máscarita Sagrada out (Chavo a la de caballo, 5) 18:37 Cage out (Taya pin, 6) 18:50 PJ Black enters (16) 18:51 Taya out (Fenix German suplex, 7) 20:03 Aerostar enters (17) 20:56 Jack Evans out (Aerostar top rope Canadian Destroyer, 8) 20:56 Drago out (PJ Black Black Diamond, 9) 21:10 Dragon Azteca Jr. enters (18) 22:15 Texano enters (19) 23:06 PJ Black out (Texano Jr. sit down powerbomb, 10) 23:32 Mil Muertes enters (20) 24:29 Mil Muertes out (Rey Mysterio top rope splash, 11) 26:09 Matanza (21) 27:07 Fenix out (Matanza spinning powerslam, 12) 27:30 The Mack out (Matanza german suplex Mack 13) 27:47 Aerostar out (Matanza german suplex Aerostar, 14) 28:10 Texano Jr. out (Matanza powerbomb Texano Jr., 15) 29:15 Joey Ryan out (Matanza gutwrench suplex, 16) 30:28 Dragon Azteca Jr. out (Matanza chokeslam Dragon Azteca Jr., 17) 31:09 Chavo Guerrero out (Matanza standing shooting star press, 18) 32:17 Prince Puma out (Matanza german suplex, 19) 34:54 Rey Mysterio out (Matanza spinning powerslam, 20)
the developments
Matanza debuted and destroyed everyone. Dario Cueto returned, declared the Temple was his again, and entered his brother as the special 21st enterant in the match. There were nine other people left in the match, and Matanza beat them all. Matanza was never dropped to the mat and rarely even shaken, with only Rey and Puma doing damage near the end.
Misterio and Azteca made their in-ring debuts – people reacted a lot stronger to Rey, but Azteca seemed to win them over a bit with his dive over the corner. Striker had no idea who Azteca was, while Vampiro spoke in myth. Argenis and Máscarita Sagrada made their returns, with Sagrada doing far better.
Pentagon Jr., Angelico, Son of Havoc and Ivelisse were all notably absent. All four are enemies of Catrina, and Catrina made it explicitly clear Pentagon trying to attack her was why he didn’t get an invite. Pentagon invited himself, coming out of the crowd to attack Mil Muertes with a chair before he could even get in the ring. Muertes was out of it and easily pinned. Catrina blamed Vampiro and screamed at him to leave, but they were interrupted by Dario’s appearance. (This meant Muertes and Matanza never interacted.)
Famous B & Brenda were in the front row handing out cards and trying to recruit both fans and luchadors. He was miced, and expressed interest in managing many people during the match.
Many of the feuds from the first set of episodes appeared at one point or other – Fenix/Cuerno, Mundo/Taya/Cage, Aerostar/Drago/Black/Jack, Chavo/Texano – along with issues from last season like Cage/Mack. Joey Ryan won a four way to get into the match, then handicuffed him to the railing to avoid being pinned. That backfired, as he was misted by Drago and unable to escape when Matanza came for him. (Matanza simply broke the railing to grab him.)
Mundo put Cage through the office window, only for Cage to return. Glass is ineffective on Cage, but a Mundo cinderblock shot worked fine and Taya picked up the pin. That issue isn’t over.
Marty and Mack weren’t in at the same time (and Sexy Star and Mariposa were nowhere to be seen), but Mack did give Marty a stunner before he could get to the back.
Thoughts
I’m winded from putting together the match results. There was a lot to keep track of, which was also a slight problem with the match. They wanted to keep as many bodies around for the final as possible, to give Matanza plenty of people to mow thru, but it meant fighting was all over the place at once and occasionally hard to keep track of it. There’s a moment where Cage & Mack are facing off, and off in the background you can see Jack tumbling down the stone stairs for who knows what reason. (You can say that about a lot of Jack things!) I’m sure it also allowed them to hide guys resting, which was more apparent with less people in early, but everything didn’t sink as much as it might had each thing gotten more time.
But maybe the rest of the match didn’t matter, because it was really all about Matanza’s destruction at the end. They put him over as strong as possible – he came off like Taz, a short wide guy just throwing dudes around. Taz didn’t do a shooting star press, best I can recall, but otherwise like Taz. It almost totally worked; they needed a little bit more of the menace Matanza showed when he was going after Joey Ryan and when referee Marty was reacting to him, but that’s the part that’s probably hardest to work on before you do the character. (And that’s also sort of on the other guys to show that fear.)
The Mil Muertes beatdown seemed weak considering what he took on previous shows, to the point where it seemed as though they were hiding an injury. I don’t recall one, and it may just have been trying to sped up things on a show where a lot needed to happen in a short amount of times. They were hardly ever doing 90 minute breaks in between entrants.
The upside to the fans not seeing the vignettes are the fans aren’t chanting “police!” at Joey Ryan. The downside is no one had any idea who Dragon Azteca Jr. is and he had about 30 seconds to get himself over. It’ll go better for him later on, I hope.
The first Aztec Warfare will be remembered as being better, because the show felt like it was making an unexpected leap. This show wasn’t really far behind, and I only wish they got a little more time or a second screen to watch it all.