Lucha Underground 4×10: A Snake Scorned

bad things happen to Rick O’Sheas on this show

Matches

Matanza beat Saltador
(0:40, Wrath of the Gods, NA)

Dragon Azteca Jr. beat Killshot to win the Gift of the Gods Trios championship
(6:51, DDTJ, good) – second defense

Kobra Moon, Daga, Jeremiah Snake beat Killshot, Son of Havoc, The Mack to win trios championship
(8:53, Snake double underhook shoulderbreaker Havoc, good) – ninth champions

Status Check

Kobra Moon as a weapon

Champion: Pentagon Dark (3 defenses)

Gift of the Gods: Dragon Azteca (2 defenses)

Trios Champions: Reptile Tribe (Kobra Moon, Daga, Jeremiah Snake) (0 defenses)

Died This Season (10): Jeremiah Crane (casket)*, Fenix (casket/lifeforce absorbed), Mr. Pec-tacular (sacrificed), Cortez Castro (sacrificed), Máscarita Sagrada (murdered by Rabbits), Vinnie Massaro (sacrificed), Pizza Guy (sacrificed), Vibora (beheaded), Mala Suerte (sacrificed) , Saltador (sacrificed)

Resurrected (1): Jeremiah Crane

Developments

Killshot double stomp

It’s a rare Lucha Underground episode which includes two different titles on the line. Tonight appears to have been a first time ever where one person was involved in title matches for two different titles on the same episode. It could’ve been the greatest night ever for Killshot. It instead went very badly.

It really wasn’t Killshot’s choice to be in two title matches. He was only going to get a shot at Dragon Azteca for the Gift of the Gods title. The trios championship defense was added after Kobra Moon demanded the rematch her team never got after losing at Ultima Lucha 3. (All the members of that title-winning team being dead or out of the Tribe didn’t seem important.) Antonio mocked the idea at first but appreciated Kobra Moon fighting for it and granted the trios title match for tonight.

That gave Killshot a second title match, which didn’t make his partners too happy. Mack & Havoc slightly leaned on Killshot to abandon the singles title match, which aggravated an already angry Killshot. He explained his anger at Son of Havoc was for being handed a title, not earning it, and his anger at Mack for taking Havoc’s side. Killshot ended up angry at himself when he lost the Gift of the Gods match to Dragon Azteca cleanly. Killshot seemed to kick out right at three on Azteca’s flashy DDT, but the announcers didn’t make much of a fuss about it.

Killshot didn’t appear at the start of trios title match, which was suddenly announced as being tornado rules. It worked out fine, Killshot showed up right about when it would’ve been his turn to be in the match. The lack of team cohesion was the bigger problem: Havoc hit Killshot by mistake with a tope, and Killshot very much on purpose tripped up Havoc when he went for the shooting star press. Jeremiah Snake took advantage for the win, bringing the trios titles back to the Reptile Tribe. Killshot mocked and double stomped Havoc after the match.

It seemed like Mack was still trying to play it neutral post-match. A later bit in Antonio’s office revealed Mack was done teaming with Killshot, and wanted a match with him. Antonio refused because he’d already set up a match for Mack next week. (Maybe that’s why the two title matches had to happen this week?) Catrina demanded a Mil Muertes/Mack match, and it would be the first ever Haunted House match. Mack was scared of Muertes before, and now just seemed eager to fight anyone.

maybe it wasn’t time to do a headstand

Everything else was subplots setting up future bits. Cage & Pentagon Dark fought around the arena as a prelude to a last man standing match they’ll have next week. Big falls were teased, not yet delivered. A priest (“Father Rick O’Shea”) in the audience, shown a half dozen times during the episode, thanked Pentagon Dark for saving him from an accidental Cage attack. Pentagon broke his arm in a transparent attempt at a viral moment.

The Rabbit Tribe is down to just being Paul London. London insisted to Antonio Cueto that Saltador would do better against Matanza than Mala Suerte did. Saltador did not, despite wearing a lucky rabbit’s foot. (Wasn’t this group horrified by that concept previously?) There were no cartoon sound effects or much to do about Matanza in this match. It was more about making it clear Paul London had gotten his men sacrificed by design and was pleased about it working, though it’s totally unclear what that design might be.

Aerostar caught up with Drago on the roof top. Drago’s been in hiding since being freed, ashamed of what he did while under Kobra Moon’s control. Aerostar tried to convince Drago it wasn’t his fault. Drago could not forgive himself and decided he needed to leave the Temple for the time being. Aerostar told Drago they would meet again. Drago wasn’t sure as he flew off, but Aerostar’s a time traveler so he might know something.

To open the show, Antonio Cueto got an invite to the Taya/Johnny wedding. He didn’t express confidence about that marriage lasting. We’ll be seeing more about that wedding to come.

Thoughts

Dragon Azteca > Sin Cara

Hey, they got rid of the trios champions I was sick of seeing together, this week can’t be that bad. Havoc/Killshot might end up being good, but getting there took up half a season with a storyline that required you to just accept a major character change for no explained reason (and quickly swept under the rug another character vanishing with no explanation.) At least it’s maybe better from here? The two matches they had tonight were better. Killshot/Azteca was the strong Azteca performance that he needs to start stacking to get people to take him seriously, helped by being given much more time than last week’s blip. They had some good chemistry, built well to the finish, and made Azteca surviving the double stomp feel like it meant something. If Azteca has a few more of these, he’ll get something out of this reign even if it’s not the big title.

The trios title match got better as it went along. Though they gave no reals reason for it to be tornado rules, it did allow the match to flow thru unending sequence of people just coming in and out. Snake & Moon did the same double team headscissors here to the outside as they did last week, and then had a whole bunch more unexpected double teams. It doesn’t really make sense they’d be so good working together early, but it made the match fun. This felt like it a had a little more to it than the atomicos last week, even if the finish took away a bit from it too. The priority was on making sure Killshot came off as the rudo in all of this over the titles. It’s not a great use of the trios titles, but I suspect there’s another crazy Killshot gimmick match coming.

Everything else was fine. The Cage/Penta brawl was weirdly more exciting than the Cage/Penta title match. Hopefully they can find this groove again next week. Matanza squashes are happening too often for nothing to be happening with them. They made it work this time by at least having something going on with Paul London in the background. Antonio wearing a wacky Halloween hat to announce the Haunted House match was something spectacularly goofy that wouldn’t have worked with Dario and maybe didn’t actually work here either. This Haunted House match seems likely to be a response to WWE’s House of Horror’s disasterpiece. I’m fearfully expecting the goofiness next week to be much worse than Antonio’s hat.

One thought to “Lucha Underground 4×10: A Snake Scorned”

  1. At one time I loved LU, but there’s been alot and I mean ALOT of complete silliness this season. I couldn’t tell if Matt Striker was working or genuinely upset about the religious stuff at the end. It seemed real because his sign off felt to me like it had been added later. I do like that Vampiro always corrects Striker about Pentagon not being a babyface and not caring about the fans, but the fact that the lead announcer has not communicated with the creative about what to get over or not get over seems really strange. You can tell the reduced budget because of all the little things that seem cheesy or cheap (Big Ryk’s skull, Drago’s flying away effect, the sacrifice to the gods Non-effect, etc.) when these things look blatantly fake it really takes alot away from a show that it already asking alot of suspension of disbelief from it’s audience. I also don’t like that there were overarching plotlines from the last three seasons that were just POOF gone and not resolved. One last thing, to go from having Konnan, Blue Demon Jr., Texano Jr., Dr. Wagner Jr., Ricochet, Alberto El Patron, & Rey Mysterio Jr. (among others) as stars on the show to what they have now, it reminds me alot of the dying days of World Class Championship Wrestling in Texas. A promotion trying to hold on for dear life, but I fear this is just now the writers doing things they'[ve always wanted to do whether it makes sense or not and a bunch of silliness for their own sample reels when they work on other projects. They do have alot of talented people there still but the writing needs to get much better and alot less stupid.

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