Matches
Fenix, Drago, Aerostar b The Rabbit Tribe (Paul London, Salatador, Mala Suerte) for the Lucha Underground Trios championship (5:42, Fenix bridging cradle Saltador, good)
Killshot defeated Dante Fox (8:10, Foxcatcher capture brainbuster, great)
Johnny Mundo defeated Sexy Star (11:06, Fin de Mundo, OK)
Developments
Johnny Mundo is the new and 6th Lucha Underground champion, defeating Sexy Star in the main event. Earlier, Mundo revealed he’d gotten a restraining order against Angelico, and Dario confirmed Angelico would not be in the Temple tonight. Independently, Sexy Star asked the Mack to stay out of the match, wanting to prove her win last week was not a fluke and not luck. The match itself was contested one on one, without the numerous interference spots of the Gift of the Gods match, but still a match Mundo dominated early until Sexy Star seized on a mistake and could forced it to at least an even battle. The fight spilled outside, where Mundo grabbed a crutch from a masked Sexy Star fan and hit Sexy. Sexy tried to bring the crutch in the ring moments later, but the referee stopped that. Sexy decided to instead return the crutch to her fan, only for her fan to knock Sexy Star out with brass knuckles. Mundo pulled Sexy back in the ring, landed (or “landed”) the Fin de Mundo, and won the championship. The fan revealed herself to be Taya, of course, and Jack and PJ joined the post match celebration.
Drago, Fenix and Aerostar didn’t lose their titles. They defended them over the debuting Rabbit Tribe : a mad hatter like Paul London, the checked Saltador and the mohawked? Mala Suerte with a general Alice in Wonderland theme. The idea is the Rabbit Tribe are on some or all of the drugs, making them unpredictable opponents. (Striker seemed to back away from this idea near the end after both announcers spent the whole match talking about it.) The new trio was definitely unpredictable, but the champs were able to outsmart them in the end. Kobra Moon watched this match from the top of Dario’s office, and promised Drago that he would bow before his queen – which I assume is her, but I guess we’ll see.
The middle match allowed Killshot and Dante Fox to have it out. Killshot seemed to want to talk some sense into his friend, but Dante Fox wanted to fight and fight they did. In an extended and exciting match, Fox survived Killshot’s top rope double knee smash and used his capture brainbuster (Foxcatcher) to get his first win in the Temple. The announcers were certain this would not be the end of this.
The only other piece of business was picking up on Black Lotus’ return last week. Lotus explained she and the Black Lotus Triad wanted revenge on Pentagon for breaking her arm at Ultima Lucha 2. Dario, as a welcoming back gift to his former (current?) bodyguard, gave her a gauntlet match next week as a present. Pentagon Dark will have to face each member of the Triad, one one one.
(No sign of the Catrina/Crane bit mentioned in the preview.)
Thoughts
My general thought is I don’t want to make this 2000 words this week.
When the words put in Sexy Star’s mouth are her reign will be looked at as a fluke or just luck if she loses after one week, and she loses after one week, then what do I got to say? The championship was stolen away from Sexy Star because of Taya’s interference, but Sexy Star lost her last title to the same exact foreign object – she’s culpable for not preparing for the same thing to happen again. I didn’t like the idea of Sexy Star being the first women to be Lucha Underground champion but, if they were going to do, they should’ve gone all the way with it. This was doing the first women’s champion primarily as stunt, and a stunt that doesn’t seem to have particularly paid off. I’m sure I’ll like the matches better with Johnny Mundo as champion, but this two week stretch seems like a wasted chance.
At least the match itself came off noticeably better than the previous try. I have it as OK, but wouldn’t argue with anyone who rated it slightly higher. It was weird to see Sexy Star and Johnny Mundo wrestling as equals during the second half of the match, and I’m not sure it really got to a moment where Sexy seemed like she was going to retain, but the execution of the match was a lot smoother. The presentation is still just weird. This is a total nitpick, but Striker calling Sexy Star one of the most athletic people on the roster after the athleticism of the last two matches was one of the craziest things he’s said.
Dante Fox & Killshot killed it. They could go do anything with Dante Fox after that match and people would buy it; he fits to Lucha Underground’s style like a fish to water. There was this (accidentally?) hilarious shot before the match of a single man standing up and clapping for Fox as he came out for the match, with the people around him looking apathetic. About four minutes later, the crowd was loudly chanting Dante Fox’s name, so into him that they might have felt a little bad about abandoning Killshot and they gave him a pity chant after. Killshot kept up and these two have definite chemistry; the bit about this not being over was the best news on the show.
The Rabbit Tribe also fit in, as distinctively weird characters. It was tough to take them seriously because they were so heavily comedy, but LU has a way of making guys low on the totem pole interesting. They were definitely interesting.
This was a generally good show; the Fox/Killshot is a match to go out of your way to see, and I hope that’s the match that goes up on YouTube instead of the default pick of the title match. The title situation ended up in a way where it feels like a waste to have cared about it in the first place, and that’s not a great place for the title to be, but it didn’t hurt the rest of the show.
