Tag: Lucha Underground

The Matches

• The Moth defeats Willie Mack (3:24, middle rope curbstomp, good)
• Cage defeats Taya (6:58, weapon X, good)
• Mil Muertes defeats Prince Puma and Pentagon Jr. (11:58, double flatliner, excellent)

The developments

The Lucha Underground championship picture has been pretty crowded, but it seems to be thinning out going into Aztec Warfare. King Cuerno seems to have exited the scene after his ladder match last week. Prince Puma and Mil Muertes’s title hopes flatlined after an incredible main event, with Mil Muertes finishing them both off with the same move at the same time. The finish was dominant, though the rest of the match seemed to go equally between all three luchadors. Of note, Pentagon Jr. once again seemed to have Prince Puma beat with the package piledriver and instead went for the armbreaker. This time, he got speared out of his shoes by Mil. Mil has one more obstacle in his way: Fenix, who declared he was cashing in his Gift of the Gods championship for a title match next week. Fenix had a nice profile video earlier in the show.

That’s one of two title matches announced for next week’s show: a vignette revealed Ivelisse got Catrina to agree to give the ex-champs a rematch for the belts. There’s one slight catch: should Ivelisse, Angelico and Son of Havoc lose, they’re done in Lucha Underground. Angelico & Havoc weren’t really thrilled with the bargain, but have no choice but to win.

This week’s episode resolved a dangling plot point from last year’s Ultima Lucha. We finally met Marty Martinez’s sister: Mariposa, a masked winged creature. (Mariposa means butterfly, but Mariposa looked more of a scary threatening creature than Princesa Sugehit’s outfits.) Mariposa debuted during the Mack versus Marty match, which give Marty a distraction win. Mariposa also seemed to give Sexy Star a panic attack, and the Martinez’s had no problem attacking Sexy after the match as well.

There was one more plot brought back from that season finale montage, in a less expected fashion. Drago confronted (in the bathroom, of course) Jack Evans about his Dragon Slayer comments and challenged him to prove it. To Drago’s surprise – and maybe to Jack’s surprise too – PJ Black jumped into help Jack. A nunchucks fight broke out, with Drago first knocking down both opponents at once before the numbers caught up to him. Aerostar, time traveling with glowing nunchucks, made the surprise save for his old friends. Seems like a tag feud is coming up.

The middle match on the show was announced as being Cage versus Johnny Mundo in a no-DQ match. Instead, it was Taya’s debut, replacing Mundo. Taya explained Johnny didn’t see the point of this match after already beating Cage in their last match, so she was taking it intsead. Taya was far from helpless, but she was far from actually winning this match too. Even Mundo’s expected inteference wasn’t enough, though it probably really didn’t help when Mundo shoved Taya to Cage to safe himself.

The only other plot line of note was another Famous B vignette. In this one, Famous B used a wand (and his powers to make someone Famous) to turn around the life of Brenda. We’ll be seeing her again.

Aztec Warfare is two weeks away.

Thoughts

The main event was superb, and done at a crazy pace. They had a twenty-minute match in a twelve minute segment. There were huge dives, big moves, use of the scenery, and ever other trait of big Lucha Underground matches. There was even some subtle storytelling: Pentagon & Puma worked -ogether when they could (including four straight dives on Muertes), seemingly knowing they couldn’t beat him on their own. They were correct! It was a pretty daring result – maybe the most daring thing on this episode, which is saying something – by pinning the lead face and the hottest star in the company completely clean at the same time. I think it worked, it certainly makes Mil look like a killer. The rest of the match did that too, with him just destroying Puma and Pentagon when they weren’t destroying each other. It seemed like a slightly different take on Muertes before, with the Power of the Stone being played down compared to where it was last season. Catrina was definitely at ringside, but seemed like she had one of her smaller parts of the season.

Next week’s title match with Fenix is huge.

The episode needed that caliber of main event, just to save this episode to be another referendum on intergender wrestling. I thought maybe everyone would be exhausted on this argument, but then I saw the match and – yea, if you dislike the concept, you’re really going to hate that match and maybe this entire show. I didn’t need the match, but it seems unfair not to give them credit for the match they did have – Taya took an incredible beating, still got in just enough offense to look like a credible performer, and Cage came off as strong as he has since his feud with Puma. Taya getting put thru two tables and being up a minute later to do interference spots fine was the biggest problem for me, really – I though the work was OK (if sometimes too obviously edited) and didn’t have a strong emotion any other way.

Other people can provide hotter takes. I can provide some facts. This is the second to last 1v1 man versus woman match of the season, provided I didn’t miss a match, and that last one isn’t for a long way away and under very special circumstances. It’s definitely not the last time men and women fight each other on this show – there’s the trios title match next week, there are going to be multiperson matches with women, they are not siphoning off the women into their own division by any means – but the 1v1 seem to draw the biggest reaction and those pretty much go away.

And – I wonder about that. I don’t know. Could just be circumstance in feuds or types of matches. (This first part of the season has been very heavy on singles matches and that’s going to be balanced out later on.) It also might be the people behind the scenes listening to the criticism and backing off on this point to a small degree. If you’re against intergender wrestling, you’re probably believing LU is going hard against you based on this show. For me, looking ahead, it actually seems like maybe they were listening and maybe this was a breaking point. I also could be totally offbase on that. Those first Season 3 tapings should be interesting to see if they provide any clues.

I got nothing for the people upset about everyone losing in the first match. Sorry!

I liked the opener, probably more than most. Big guys throwing each other around was fun. I could’ve gone for a lot longer time, but it was fine for a TV match. The advantage of Marty being out of the ring for so long is that his period as a complete jobber is a distant memory, and he was good enough to take seriously on this show. Mariposa’s outfit seems totally impractical and over the top, but I bet people thought that about Drago’s gear too and it worked out fine.

The Fenix video was really well done. We got a lot of those type of videos early on last season introducing people, and it’s nice to see them still being used in season 2 – this one and the Cuerno one last week – to spotlight guys. The Famous B commercial was really well done too, although three is about the limit of how many you can do of them before bringing him back into Temple without tiring people of them. (That’s probably why we didn’t see Rey or Dario this week.) The Sexy Star/Mack opening vignette felt not so good – they didn’t even seem to trust Sexy to talk! Maybe her voice retired.

 

The Matches

Kobra Moon defeated Sexy Star (2:59, Snake Sleeper, below average)
Pentagon Jr. DQ Prince Puma (4:57, Mil Muertes interference, good)
Fenix defeated King Cuerno in a ladder match to win the Gift of the Gods championship (16:40, grabbed the belt, great)

The Developments

This was a less busy show than last week’s, since the main event took up a lot of time. (No show closing vignette either.)

Fenix winning back the Gift of the Gods championship was the biggest news. Cuerno seemed more interested in destroying Fenix for much of the match. There were relatively few attempts at climbing a ladder to win the match, with most of the time actually spent at ringside or in the crowd. Fenix won cleanly in the end, after putting Cuerno thru a table via springboard frankensteiner. He and Mil pointed at each other to end the show.

Mil had a busy night. He started out saying a quiet prayer and a loud threat to Catrina – he was tired of her manipulating everyone and wanted to destroy people himself. Their relationship seems stunted at the same dynamic it had when they met, Catrina still treats him like Pascal the kid, and Mil didn’t seem happy about it. Catrina again urged patience. The apparent solution was for Mil to reveal his broken arm had healed, and he destroyed both Pentagon Jr. & Puma to end their match prematurely. Muertes later declared he’d fight both of them next week in a title match to finish them off.

That wasn’t the only big Mil Muertes announcement. Matt Striker had revealed Catrina & Mil had decided to hold the second Aztec Warfare in three weeks (March 23^rd.) Striker made it sound as if it was invite only match.

There were a few other times, but it was more just keeping plates spinning. Sexy Star had her first match of the season, but lost when she was distracted by Marty. Willie Mack was at ringside. Whatever Willy and Sexy saw two episodes not revealed. Kobra Moon just happened to be the opponent. Moon is 2-0 with no obvious sign of a storyline, a remarkable situation in LU.

The episode also touched in on Famous B and Rey & Dragon Azteca, but didn’t advance their plots in any way. And that’s about it.

Thoughts

This was all about the ladder match. Again, like the last man standing match, it defying the expectations of a lot of leaping off high points or even falling off the ladder a bunch. Instead, it was a brutal fight, with Fenix taking some sizeable punishment. The fall off the balcony was the most painful looking moment, but there were other shots (like the fall from the hanging ladder holder) which were nearly as bad. Announcers always talk about ladder matches taking months off of people’s lives and careers, and that felt very true in this match. It was a slower match than I thought, especially in the early going where Cuerno went to set up for some spots and Fenix just was slow getting up or in the wrong position. Maybe it was a clever tease for later, but I wonder if Fenix might have got banged up early – he was definitely limping by the time they ended it. If there was one flaw, it’s the frankensteiner thru a precut table at the end didn’t look as nasty as a lot of stuff which came before it. Fenix crawling over Marty to get to the ladder was pretty great though.

Both men looked incredible in this match and Cuerno’s not really hurt much by losing, but it also came off as the definitive end of this issue for the time being and the moment to move onto something else.

The other matches were not much. The quality in them differed, but the end product was really not as far apart as you’d think. Puma & Pentagon essentially started in the middle of a longer match, and didn’t really get to the big near falls before Mil Muertes ran in. The first match was a much deeper match than between the two, and that one left you wanting more. It was for the best that they announced the three way for next week immediately after this match to stifle some of the disappointment. People really want that match, and weren’t thrilled with what they got.

Not sure people really wanted Sexy Star & Kobra Moon. It was better than Kobra Moon’s first match; the embarrassing strikes were more on Sexy Star’s side with whatever kneelifts she was doing at one point. The entire match felt like the production was trying to get thru it as quick as possible, with Willie Mack and The Moth coming off as as much a distraction of the viewers as the luchadors. Sexy Star’s reason for being at least is clear – there’s a mixed tag match or feud coming – but her opponent’s existence is a mystery. Perhaps it’s just an availability thing, but it’s strange they have Kobra Moon getting wins without giving her some sort of story – there are more experienced people they could throw out there to get wins for win’s sake if that’s the was the only purpose. Maybe there’s another shoe about to drop, but they’re not hinting at anything.

The two best matches this season have been Fenix versus King Cuerno. It’s time for other people to get involved. They’ll surely get there in three weeks, but hoping for more before then.

Edit: Here’s Famous B’s voice mail message

The Matches

• Jack Evans defeated PJ Black (3:50, Jack backslide PJ, OK)
• King Cuerno defeated Killshot (5:28, Thrill of the Hunt, OK)
• Texano defeated Mr. Cisco (0:09, superkick,)
• Texano defeated Cortez Castro (2:26, powerbomb)
• Chavo Guerrero defeated Texano (2:33, Cortez trip, entire segment OK)
• Johnny Mundo defeated Cage (7:53, lead pipe, Good)

The Developments

There were a lot of different plots moving forward tonight. Let’s see if I can get them all.

The main event saw Cage and Johnny Mundo have their rematch. It was a back and forth match and one of the longer matches of this season so far. Cage evaded the Fin de Mundo and dropped Johnny with Weapon X, which seemed to mean another win (and one step closer to Mil.) However, Cage was distracted by the debuting Taya, who argued with Cage from the apron while also slipping in some sort of pipe to Mundo. Mundo smacked Cage right in the face with the hard looking object, and Cage was knocked out. Mundo got the win, and he and Taya put the boots to Cage after the match. Taya is in her AAA persona and appears to be Mundo’s new ally.

The main event for next week was set up thru the night. King Cuerno got back on the winning side by beating Killshot with the Thrill of the Hunt. Announcers heaped praise on Killshot despite the loss. After the match, Cuerno went to add in his new piledriver move (called the Thrill of the Kill), but Fenix made the save. The show ended with Cuerno complaining to Catrina about being the hunted instead of the hunter because of the Gift of the Gods belts, and wanting to change things immediately – he wanted Mil Muertes next week. Catrina reminded Cuerno of their deal, but Cuerno wanted no part of that. Catrina switched tactics, revealing she’d already set up a match for Cuerno next week: he’ll defend the Gift of the Gods championship against Fenix, in a ladder match.

King Cuerno wasn’t the only luchador getting on Catrana’s bad side. Pentagon confronted Catrina, demanding a match with Prince Puma after being beat last week. Catrina and Pentagon actually fought, with Pentagon getting Catrina in the armbreaker but Catrina using her vanishing powers to escape. (This segment was a lot of video edits/Catrina vanishing.) Catrina gave Pentagon his match, while warning him he’d pay for attacking her.

The show also caught up with the old boss of the Temple. Dario Cueto and Black Lotus were still setting up people to be thrashed by Matanza, with Dario explaining Matanza had to get ready before they could return to the Temple (and blaming Lotus for this situation.) Dario talked about how much Matanza meant to him. Their mother was an awful person who beat them both. Dario tried to stand up to her one day and would’ve likely been murdered by his mother if not for Matanza making the save – by beating their mother to death with the red bull Dario had on his desk all last season. Dario still has the bull with him as a reminder of that day. Not because of his mother’s death, because that moment made him realize how much he loved violence. Black Lotus did not seem comfortable with this story.

There were actually matches on this show too in between the drama. The opener saw Jack Evans continue to win and PJ Black continue to lose. Jack Evans boasted about being the Dragon Slayer once again, which drew out Drago to watch from the upper level. A distracted Jack threw a water bottle at Drago. It missed, and Jack nearly lost to PJ in the process. Drago came down to ringside, but his mist attack got PJ instead of Jack, and Jack’s all powerful backslide got the three count. Jack escaped. PJ angrily stared at both Drago and the pair of nunchuks he brought to the match, but didn’t attack Drago.

Texano got his hands on Chavo Guerrero, though he had to go thru the Crew to get there in a gauntlet match. Texano beat Mr. Cisco (in a shoulder sling) in seconds, when Cisco was distracted by Chavo’s advice. Cortez Castro lasted longer, but taunted before running into the powerbomb. Chavo didn’t seem a match for Texano either, but Cortez used the bullrope to trip up Texano and hold him down while Chavo got the pin. There was still discord among the rudos after the win, but Texano ran them off before they could act on it.

To start the show, Ian/Vampiro explained his behind the scenes actions from season 1. Vampiro is a personality Ian had locked away for many years, but Vampiro used Pentagon to get out. Vampiro ordered Pentagon to make the sacrifices so Ian would feel no choice but to give in to his darkside, and Vampiro would be fully in control again. (This seemed to fit together with similar scenes in the comic book released today.)

A commercial during the show had Famous B giving out a phone number and promising to make the someone who called famous. It came off a bit like a used car commercial, but the message on the phone had Famous B explaining that he wanted to make the right deserving person famous – kind of like a manager or an agent.

I think that’s everything! No sign of Sexy Star, Willie Mack or any moth. Rey, Dragon Azteca and the ex-trios champs also had the week off. Puma was mentioned on the show but not seen. Mil was on his throne the whole show but didn’t react much.

Thoughts

This was a busy show! Lots of outside of the ring stuff, plus four different match segments. (I’ve got the gauntlet match listed as individual matches, but it was one continuous stream as televised.) It’s a lot of different plots to keep straight, but it felt like they were mostly successful in getting what they needed to get over. There’s so much stuff to get over that maybe some of the minor stuff might get lost, but the really important stuff – Puma/Pentagon, Fenix/Cuerno, Dario’s coming back at some point – went well.

All the different directions meant less time for matches than I’d like, but all the matches were at least OK. I’d like to see what PJ Black and Jack Evans could do with more time, but maybe doing a short match isn’t that bad idea when it’s going to end with a mist attack anyway. Black’s losing seems to have a direction, which is much better than losing for no reason.

Killshot looked better with Cuerno then he did against Mundo to start the season. Te announcers – or those feeding them their lines – are trying to do their best to protect Killshot despite the losses.

The Chavo/Texano stuff feels like a solid early 90s story and wrestling, a different time and place than the rest of the show. It’s not hard to figure out where it’s going – Texano finally defeats Chavo, but in a way where Chavo keeps his credibility – but I think it’s supposed to be a big positive feud for Texano and feels more like killing time until something better opens up for him.

Cage/Mundo was obviously the match of the night, better than I had expected it to be. It could’ve been these two guys doing a lot of moves, and they did do a lot, but it felt like more of a battle. The small bit of Cage taking a look at Mil before finishing his move was a nice touch. It’s hard to believe Cage is actually getting his hands on Mil, with Puma, Pentagon, Fenix and Cuerno (and now Mundo!) seemingly all ahead of him in line, but Cage doesn’t know that – Cage thinks he’s winning and he’s getting the belt that should be his, and he acted appropriately. I wasn’t thrilled with a distraction finish – especially after they seemed to go out of their way to point out those finishes don’t necessarily happen on their show in the opener – but Cage looked like he got destroyed by the pipe shot. I’m sure they had the good sense to protect Cage, but it looked convincingly brutal on TV. It’s too quick to tell how Taya is going to with Mundo, but her first big obstacle is definitely going to be overcoming the stigma of being Replacement Melina.

No one else in wrestling could’ve pulled off the Dario’s Red Bull story better than Dario. He had to go thru a lot of different emotions in a short period of time. The Pentagon/Catrina segment was not on that level, but the way they used Pentagon’s translation captions was effectively done.

Is that everything? I think that’s everything. This felt like the best show since episode 1. Next week, with both Puma/Pentagon and Cuerno/Fenix, figures to challenge for the best episode of the season.

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the matches

Angelico [O], Ivelisse & Son of Havoc b Chavo Guerrero, Mr. Cisco & Cortez Castro [X] (5:55, top rope double stomp, OK)
Cage b Joey Ryan (4:07, screwdriver ok)
Prince Puma b Pentagon Jr. (7:53, bridging escape of a tapatia, great)

the developments

The main event was the big thing. In a back and forth match, Puma survived the package piledirver and was able to bridge out of a double pin on tapatia to get the win. Pentagon had his shoulders down and did not realize it; announcers noted during the match that Pentagon was being too confident and not trying as hard to win as he should. Pentagon attacked the referee because of the decision, but Puma knocked down Pentagon and teased breaking his arm. Puma did not, but made it clear he was coming for Mil Muertes. Of note, Vampiro stood up from the announce desk when Puma was trying to break the arm, but did not get involved.

Everything else seemed to kind of place setting for things happening later on in this season.

Cage defeated the debuting Joey Ryan (who joined PJ Black with a loss in his first match.) Ryan had bragged to his reluctant ally Cortez/Reyes that he’d win in his debut. Ryan did better than you’d figure against The Machine before taking a screwdriver for the loss. Johnny Mundo, who earlier had some awfully familiar words about being disrespected by being put in the opener of Ultima Lucha, tried attacking Cage after the match. Just like last time, it failed and Cage got the better of it. Cage versus Mundo will happen next week.

Angelico, Ivelisse and Son of Havoc earlier won a trios match over the Crew. Ivelisse had demanded an an immediate trios title rematch against the Disciples, only for Catrina to tell her she wasn’t doing automatic title rematches for former champions. However, after winning, it seems like the ex-champs are the most (and only) logical contenders. Chavo blamed his partners for the loss, yelling at them and not realizing Texano Jr. was running into attack all of them until almost too late. Chavo got away with being hit, as he usually does.

In solely out of the ring action, a Rey Mysterio Jr./Dragon Azteca Jr. training session provided the cover for some back story explanation. Mysterio explained Azteca and Dario’s father had met in Mexico long ago, researching the prophecy of the seven tribes. Dario’s father got into the evil side of the prophecy, whatever that is, and using it for sacrificing people. That includes handing over the body of one of his son’s (Matanza) to an evil god. Dragon Azteca and Dario’s father split, but made an agreement that neither man may step on the other’s domain, or they’d die. Dragon Azteca did so last season and did die, so Mysterio understandable is not in a hurry to running back after Dario. However, Rey thinks they get around all of this by reuniting the Seven Tribes. (That was the same thing Aerostar set off to do last episode.)

The show closed with a disoriented and frightened Sexy Star escaping from something in the hallways of the Temple. Willie Mack stopped her, confused at what was going on and who was chasing her. Sexy told Willie “Moth”, but clarified that it was a her and not a him. Sexy pointed in the direction of her chaser, and the last shot of the show was Mack also being scared of whatever they saw.

thoughts

The first part of the episode kind of dragged. They’re pacing out their stories to pay off later, which left of this episode as moving pieces around the board to set up the big plays later. That’s not always a problem, there’s been inconsequential matches on this show which have been really good. (The Crew had the best one of these last year, when they faced Argenis, Super Fly and Aerostar.) Those first two matches just weren’t that good. They weren’t bad, they just served their purpose and that was all.

Angelico came off the best in the trios match, both by his moves and by layout – he’s the only one on his team who didn’t need to make tags. Chavo’s one of the least interesting characters on this show – the announcers spending a few moments in every match saying “you know the Guerreros? He’s a Guerrero!” is an active determent and this point – and he’s also one of the least interesting in-ring guys. RIP Bael.

Maybe the key to winning in your debut is wearing a mask? Joey lost, PJ lost, Jack Evans lost but Kobra Moon won. Considering it was Cage, Ryan did much better than I’d think. I was prepped for a one minute squash. Four minutes isn’t that long, but the expectations made it feel much longer. This feels hypocritical based on what I thought of PJ Black’s debut, but Ryan’s vignettes made him seem much more like a fool, and Cage was laying waste to people a season ago. He did again here, though it was much more trouble than it had been before.

The concept of Joey Ryan is more interesting than the wrestling of Joey Ryan. It’s also the weird storyline issue of Joey Ryan can’t be acknowledged as Joey Ryan, because this character is supposed to be an undercover cop who wasn’t a wrestler before this case, not a well traveled indie wrestler. (Unless the LA Police have a full time undercover indie wrestler.) It’d make more sense from a creative standpoint if he was named other than Joey Ryan, but you don’t get the attention you do when you have the actual Joey Ryan.

The Seven Tribes stuff sometimes comes off as a bit of mystical nonsense. It’s tough to slow down and explain what the deal is (and it’s unclear if they want to do a big explanation at this point), but it also feels like it’s a big pivotal point to this season. Rey laid it as if we have to see the Seven Tribes united before we see Dragon Azteca Jr. (and probably Rey) at the Temple and in the ring, and we don’t even quite know who’s they’re looking for, or that even if it’s a mystery to be solved or just a sort of McGuffin. I feel like I could spend the next paragraph speculating on the 7 Tribes (and may have before I deleted it), but I also feel like maybe me a 2% of the audience care at this point. Which seems like a problem for a central idea on the show.

The main event made the show worth watching. Those two have a longer, better match in them, but this was a fine sub ten minute match as a warmup encounter. I’m not sure if an unfocused Pentagon Jr. was supposed to be part of the story, but the announcers helped the match by bringing it in. (This was a good performance by Vampiro, who seemed not as into the rest of the show.) The match was impressive and the finish was close enough that Pentagon didn’t feel hurt by losing, it was just another amazing athletic display by Puma.

There were small touches that were nice. The Mundo vignette was great and fit with his character, even if you didn’t realize he was reciting Alberto el Patron real life complaints. The Mysterio/Azteca fight was a good way of getting thru the backstory without boring people. Sexy Star & the Mack felt like a scene out of a horror movie, appropriately so for their title match. And, this one really means nothing, but when Catrina was licking the dagger in the opening vignette, it finally occurred to me that she was channeling Angelina Jolie and that idea amused me.

the matches

Kobra Moon defeats Bengala (2:46, Dragon (Snake) Sleeper, below average)

Jack Evans defeats Drago (bridging backslide foot on the ropes, 7:19, good)

Fenix defeated King Cuerno in a last man standing match (11:19, great)

the developments

Where to even start with this one?

The Cuerno/Catrina/Muertes pact to keep Fenix away from the main title continues, though with some setbacks. Catrina, disappointed Fenix still had enough spirit to challenge for a rematch with Cuerno, demanded Cuerno finish him off in a last man standing match. Cuerno liked the challenge, but disagreed with Catrina’s notion that he would be no match for Mil. At any rate, Fenix got the win in a back and forth match, tipping over a ladder and sending Cuerno crashing thru a table. This was a non-title match, but Fenix has a good claim on a rematch.

The other matches did not have as much advancement, but served to introduce (and reintroduce) some characters. Kobra Moon defeated Bengala in the opener, in a match more memorable for the shape Bengala is in. He, uh, graduated from the cruiserweight division. We didn’t learn much more about Kobra Moon except she appears to be a snake. Jack Evans defeated Drago in a much better match, using a bridging backslide and a foot carefully placed on the bottom rope to win. Jack declared himself the Dragon Slayer after his narrow victory.

The vignettes stole the show, as they often do:

A skit with Prince Puma and Catrina dropped the bombshell that Konnan actually died last season when he stuffed in that casket. This didn’t appear to be news to the characters.

A vignette set “a thousand years in the past” had Aerostar meeting ancient Mexican people and insisting on the necessity of bringing peace among the seven tribes. Aerostar said the gods are returning in the form of Men. The ancient people seemed doubtful Aerostar could achieve this goal. The tribesman said Aerostar had returned, so this is likely happening (for Aerostar) after Season 1. It’s not exactly clear, and this was the hardest one to follow. It definitely appears he can travel space and time.

A character profile on Texano established him as a hard working, hard drinking cowboy who still had issues with Chavo Guerrero and the rest of those who attacked him on Ultima Lucha. He’ll be back next week. Texano handled the first section of the promo in English, which is coming along. It’s better than my Spanish, for sure.

The show closer changed what we though was happening for the entirety of season 1. The Crew’s Cortez Castro was revealed to be undercover police, an Officer Reyes. He’d gone deep cover to track down Dario Cueto, and had wanted to bring him in after Mantanza had murdered Bael. His commanding officer, Captain Vasquez, declined at the time (or was just annoyed Reyes brought it up now) and isn’t interested in Catrina or the rest – she wants Dario, who Reyes says hasn’t been seen in months. Vasquez agrees to send Reyes back to the Temple, where Catrina’s invited them back, but not alone. The other officer (who’s unnamed, but is Joey Ryan) will be going as well, though they’re told to pretend as if they don’t know each other and do what they can to bring down Dario. Ryan and Reyes don’t like each other.

The vignette briefly mentioned Blue Demon Jr. had retired back to Miami. Bael was said to be just a street thug. Mr. Cisco and Chavo were touched on.

thoughts

I think the feelings about tonight’s episodes are going to be heavily dependent on how interested your are in the Lucha Underground mythology (and maybe your feelings on Joey Ryan in general, since he’s a pretty polarizing figure.) Those last couple of minutes flipped some of season 1 on it’s head, and was totally unexpected at this point. Most of all, The Crew betraying Big Ryck to ally themselves closer to Dario makes a little more sense and seems much more significant. This is a pretty interesting deal if you’re into the storylines, and I am.

Even if you’re not, if you’re someone who’s just watching for the matches, that main event was a pretty strong match. They defied the expectations of what you’d expect from two flyers in a last man standing match, even bringing a ladder in play but not using it for a big dive while still coming up with a compelling finish. Cuerno’s running smash to Fenix’s head was pretty great too. Fenix was good, but Cuerno looked super impressive even in a loss. The pause for ten counts doesn’t usually work for me because it disrupts the flow of a lucha match too much, but they made it work by the end.

Drago & Jack was also good, though again not exactly in the way you’d expect. The announcers even noted it wasn’t until late in the contest before either man tried a dive, and it was much in ring strike battle than it was high risk out of it. Jack was also aiming for an over the top heel than a crazy move exhibition with taunting like his first match with Aeorstar. The eye gouging and thumb biting might mean less snowflakes, but it did his still kind of new character some good. His promo after the match was fun too.

Kobra Moon’s debut did not go well. The editing stuck out, and even then it was one of the least successful matches on Lucha Underground. Her offense looked light and unconvincing. It’s hard to put too much blame on her, because Bengala looked sadly out of shape. He’s been heavy in his entire AAA run and kind of got away with it, and seems to have added another 10-15 pounds since we last saw him and couldn’t get away with it. This is Bengala’s only TV match of the season. Kobra Moon has a cool look and will be back in a few weeks, hopefully it goes better then.

There were farewells to a few people on this show. The Puma/Catrina vignette seemed to only exist to get Puma on TV this week and declare Konnan well and truly dead. That was weird. (Since it came from Catrina, it’s also something that could always be revealed as a lie later down the road.) Blue Demon Jr. retiring to Miami seems to be his write off – he doesn’t appear on the tapings this year. People going in and out is the way of TV shows, but those were names pitched as being pivotal to the success of the show at the start and no one would’ve guess at them both being gone now.

I think I’m going to need to draw a diagram to figure out the Aerostar timeline. (It does bring back the Seven Tribes idea, which hadn’t been seen in a while.) With that, and with Captain Vasquez (who appeared to be a new reoccurring character and not a one off), the advisory that the season would start with a lot of material outside the Temple at first is correct. It’s not bad stuff by any means, but I suspect LU will continue to feature a few minutes of look-ins elsewhere each week until everyone makes it back to the Temple.

the matches

Johnny Mundo defeated Killshot (Fin de Mundo, 4:23, OK)
the Mack defeated PJ Black (Stunner counter, 6:45, OK)
Prince Puma & Pentagon Jr. [O] defeated the Disciples of Death (Siniestro de la Muerte, Barrio Negro, Trece [X]) (Puma 630 senton with Pentagon stealing the pin, 7:36, good)

the developments

The main plot followed up on the events from last week. Puma & Pentagon Jr. were paired up in two versus three handicap match. In the locker room, Pentagon thanked Puma for assist in helping him break Mil Muertes arm last week, hoped Puma would do the same with the Disciples so their arms could be broken, and then promised to do the same to Puma. Puma didn’t like this idea, and they fought to a quick indecisive finish. Puma and Pentagon Jr. did win the handicap match despite Pentagon being a poor teammate. They did get it together, and they were aided by two of the Disciples taking each other on a misaimed dive spot. Puma and Pentagon’s fight resumed after Pentagon Jr. stole the pin. Pentagon tried to break Puma’s arm, but Puma got away. Both men made it clear they want Mil Muertes, but equally have problems with each other. For his part, Mil Muertes was back on his throne this week, but his broken arm was in a sling. (There was no hint he might be giving up the belt.)

Vampiro appeared to be conflicted and confused by the Pentagon Jr. thing. He didn’t like it when Striker would ask questions about their relationship (and if Vampiro orchestrated the attack on Muertes last week – Vamp deflected that), but he also didn’t like it when Striker would say negative things about Pentagon.

Everyone’s gunning for Muertes. The opening segment of the night saw Johnny Mundo pick up a win over Killshot (though it took an unseen foul) and issue his own title challenge. Mundo was interrupted by Cage, who added his name to the mix of challengers. Mundo and Cage had an argument over this – and over Cage beating Mundo back in Season 1. Mundo backed off for a fight, tried to sneak attack anyway, and was knocked away. Cage came off as the less detestable of the two.

The night featured a lot of Season 2 characters being introduced. PJ Black, possibly inhabited by the spirit of a wolf, fought off luchador bikers in a vignette but didn’t have the same success with the Mack. Kobra Moon got her own debut vignette and will be on next week’s show. To close out the show, the hooded man from the end of last season (and from the very first segment of the first show) was formally revealed as Dragon Azteca Jr. His new mentor explained he was trained by Dragon Azteca as well, was off the mask but went a different path, but will pass that training onto Azteca Jr. That new mentor is Rey Mysterio Jr., making his first on screen appearance.

(Dragon Azteca Jr. seemed to change people in season one, but now is clearly Tijuana luchador Rey Horuz, the former second Hijo de Rey Misterio. That adds some metatext to this plot.)

There was also a check in on Marty the Moth and Sexy Star. They’re in a new location than the end of Ultima Lucha, with Marty in normal people (normal preppy people)’s clothes, but still obsessed with moths and Sexy Star. Sexy is still locked up. Marty did say “they” would eventually bring Sexy back to the temple, though Marty’s sister remained unseen.

Thoughts

The second episode seems to be the tough one. The second episode of the first season was one of the roughest of that season, and this felt like a marked step down from the first episode. That first episode set a high bar, but this one still felt off by normal measures.

The Killshot/Mundo match appeared to be heavily edited. There were abrupt jumps between spots, and Striker was pushing this as a great Killshot performance when the match was two minuted old and he’d been on offense for maybe 45 seconds on it. It only went about four minutes total and the announcers were reacting to a much longer match. Mundo had a few matches against guys who haven’t been in the big title picture during season 1 (Angelico and Aerostar are the first I can think of) and those matches felt more substantive and just plain better than this one. Killshot hasn’t really connected at all yet. It seems like there’s more plans for him – those military vignettes should air at some point – but he’s missing the match to go along with it.

PJ Black’s vignette was great in it’s over the top Lucha Underground style. The rival bikers taking off their helmets to reveal lucha masks was so ridiculous it was right in the usual style. (Like wise, the Kobra Moon vignette was fun – laser sounds for punches – though her character was less clear.) The match itself against the Mack was missing something. I liked it more than opener easily, but it never clicked for me and the character came off weaker after it. Vampiro being unimpressed with the Darewolf nickname and not knowing much about him only kind of works if Vampiro is impressed by Black by the end of the match. The Mack won, and Vampiro wasn’t impressed, so I dunno what we were doing here. (“Darewolf” is not great, but it’s better than “Black To The Future” – especially when you’re facing The Mack.) Black wasn’t helped by Killshot using Black’s 450 as a near fall in the last match. I understand they want surprises on this show, but Black didn’t get to do his big move (which some else did), he didn’t get any other memorable spot (Mack got that), he was billed as the ‘other’ South African whose cool nickname from the vignette was silly in the match, and he also lost. This was not a successful segment.

(Flipside argument: El Rey aired a very nice Black History Month video right before the Mack’s match, including clips of the Mack in action, and I was suddenly dreading Lucha Underground having their only two black luchadors be used as enhancement talent.)

Main event felt very WWE, with the feuding top guys beating the midcard tag team champions even though they’re still feuding. The difference here is it was even 2 on 3, though they at least set up a sensible finish where the Disciples took each other out and it was suddenly the Puma/Pentagon team that had the numbers. Still – felt like there should’ve been some talk about two guys beating the trios champions, who could’ve been trios champions had they just dragged a third person out of the crowd to stand on the apron all match. The announcers avoided that topic at all. The commentary for that match sounded very post produced, as if they were retaping it to try to get something (Vamp/Pentagon?) more in the direction they wanted. There was a lot more talk about Vamp being in the mental hospital in that match than the entire first episode too.

I did like some stuff on this show! Context aside, the main event match was fun and easily the best match on the show. The intro vignettes were good. So was the Pentagon/Puma bit to start the show. And ending with the Rey reveal felt like a big moment.

When you look back at it – this was not a show with a superb match and this was a not a lot happened that you needed to see. They added some new pieces to the game, but they didn’t advance most of the ones you were interested in last week. Cage/Mundo was set up for down the line. Mysterio debuted, but in a 20 second bit which is only important if you missed the hype for Mysterio debuting (and the plot there was covered better in the comic book last week.) Puma/Pentagon/Muertes is going on, but you knew that last week. The Fenix/Cuerno story and the Ivelisse/Havoc/Angelico stories took a week off. If you took a week off too, you’ll probably be OK. It’ll probably be better next week.