Lucha Underground – Page 17

Lucha Underground 2×1: A Much Darker Place

January 27, 2016January 27, 2016 thecubsfan 3 Comments

the matches

King Cuerno defeated Fénix to win the Gift of the Gods Championship (7:46, unnamed piledriver variant, great)
Ivelisse defeated Angelico & Son of Havoc to win an immediate Lucha Underground Championship match (6:15, Ivelisse casita on Angelico, good)
Mil Muertes (c) defeated Ivelisse for the Lucha Underground Championship (4:31, good)

developments

It’s at least 180 days since the Ultima Lucha. The Temple has been shut down during that period, but Catrina & Mil have taken over and are resuming shows. (Catrina continually says Mil is the one in charge, but she’s the one actively doing things while Mil sits on his throne.)

Vampiro has been in a mental ward – the Youssef Floro Clinic – but is discharged at the start of the show after lying about his violent tendencies going away and promising to stay away from things which might bring them back. Matt Striker picks him up, and they head right back to the Temple. Striker got in the show title, which might be a trend.

Fénix wants to cash in his Gift of Gods immediately. Catrina is prepared, reminds him he must wait one week, and schedules him for a match against King Cuerno. Cuerno wins in an even battle. A brief segment in the locker room indicates he’s made a deal with Catrina and Mil, and perhaps he won’t be cashing in any time soon. Cuerno did look a little conflicted by whatever was going on.

I hope there’s one moment in my life where I’m as cool as King Cuerno is in this moment

Ivelisse, Angelico and Son of Havoc were also eager to pick up where the left off, getting a rematch for a trios championship. Catrina (& Mil) had a strategy for them as well, offering them a match among themselves with the winner would get a shot at the Lucha Underground championship. They quickly accepted. Ivelisse seemed to hold back the least of the trio, which might have been the reason she won. The title match was immediate (well, relatively), with Catrina calling out the Disciples of Death to take out Angelico and Son of Havoc and drag them away.

Ivelisse was competitive with Muertes, trying a different strategy then the flyers who had fought him before: lots of in close submission work, trying to wear Mil down and catch him in a vulnerable position. Her greatest chance came when Mil took out Catrina with a spear, but Mil kicked out of the cradle. Mil’s Flatliner, at least this time, now has a choke hold setup.

Catrina teased giving Ivelisse the Lick of Death, but instead ordered Mil to drop Ivelisse with the Flatliner again. Prince Puma returned to make the save, getting Ivelisse and himself out of the ring quickly. Mil Muertes started at them – and missed Pentagon coming in from the other side. Pentagon took Mil down and broke his arm. Striker briefly noted Vampiro was Pentagon’s mentor, but Vampiro’s feelings on all of this were not clear.

Meanwhile, 375 miles from Boyle Heights, Dario Cueto and Black Lotus seem to have set up a new Temple. When some yokels came by to look for the underground fighting, Dario let them in – and then revealed they would be doing the fighting, against Matanza. We didn’t see it, but it sounded like it ended well.

thoughts

A excellent start to a second season. They took what worked in from Season 1’s debut (having the owner set the stage, a really hot match that’ll get people talking about the show even if they’re not into the stories) and brought it back for another try. Vampiro said it was the first match between King Cuerno and Fenix and he’s right by those two names. It’s also a feud we saw in AAA last year have some hot matches, and this was a shorter (and a little edited) version of those. I was a little concerned they were going too much just setting up dives in early, but they found a good balance and those dives looked great. Fenix’s Brillo Cometa is a scene stealer. This one came off as a close match where neither man would’ve lost a lot by losing, but Cuerno had a little more to gain by winning. Fenix kicked out of the Thrill of the Hunter, and they put over the modified package piledriver like it was Cuerno’s new big move.

The three-way was much better than these guys were against each other back when this story all started. Ivelisse seemed to be less concerned with beating up her friends than her partners, which is consistent with her previous actions. Son of Havoc looked especially spectacular in this match.

Main event gets points for being worked smartly, even if didn’t have the action or time as the other two matches. They found ways where Ivelisse could maybe get a win – grabbing a limb and trying to pull it hard before Mil mauled her – and they got the crowd on the big near fall. The post match was great, giving a tease of one big match and then surprising everyone with a second. I’m sure I’m going to end up as a high score on this, but points for overcoming a challenge.

It was a good idea to get Dario on the first show, even if he’s not supposed to be around. (As promised, the show went far from the Temple!) The bit was funny this week, but they’re going to need to find more to do with him if he’s going to be on regularly. It was a little surprise not to see Rey in the first episode, but perhaps they really didn’t have him signed until later on.

They went long in the first segment, showing about a few minutes of Vamp at the mental hospital, a couple of minutes of Fenix setting up the title match, and the time for the title match and the entire Fenix/Cuerno match. That got the show off to a hot start, but the trade off is the show hitting a speedbump near the end: Ivelisse won, break, Angelico/Havoc dragged off, break again, and the bell rang about 14 minutes after the last match ended. It’s probably not going to happen that way most weeks. Maybe we’ll find the upside of not having a partner like Unimas means they can experiment more with when and how they do the commercial breaks, because something else would’ve been better here. Again, this is probably just a first episode problem – I can attest to it being a little slower when you’re getting everything started again.

This was a really good start. The scifi/fantasy stuff – Catrina pulled her vanishing act, Vampiro had some vivid dreams, Matanza killed 3 more people – is going to turn off people. They specifically had two intergender matches in the first show, including having a woman challenge for the main championship, sending a message about not being afraid of criticism of those. This isn’t Mid South, there’s an element of unrealness to the show – some people will be pushed away because of it, some people will be brought in for it. The clear message is Lucha Underground is not shying away from any of it, and maybe leaning into it more.. It may be A Much Darker Place, but it’s still going to be Lucha Underground.

what we know about Lucha Underground Season 2

November 3, 2015November 3, 2015 thecubsfan

(last updated 2015-11-03)

Lucha Underground is returning?

Yes! Lucha Underground announced they’d be return for a second season back on September 21st.

Is it still going to be good?

Sources say “yes.”

Is this mostly the already known info, just put in one place for ease of access?

Also yes. But if there’s anything else I’m forgetting, please ask in the comments. This’ll be updated until the TV debut date.

When will Lucha Underground be back?

We know some of this, but nothing everything.

The show began doing preliminary film work on November 3rd. These are probably vignettes and extra material for the show, and not everyone on the show is there yet.

The show will start taping on Saturday November 14th. They’ll also be taping on this month on 15, 21 and 22nd. All public tickets for these tapings appear to be given out at this point; you’d have to know someone to get it.

Lucha Underground will also tape on December 12 & 13 and on January 9, 10, 16, 17, 30 and 31. There may be days beyond those, but those are the only known ones. Ticket information for the shows are usually announced a couple weeks in advance and are closed out within hours. If you’re interested in going, your best bet is to follow @LuchaElRey on Twitter and set it up to get a notification every time they post a message, just to make sure you find out ASAP when the tickets open up again.

Lucha Underground has said they’ll start airing in January. El Rey and Unimas haven’t said anything about a return date (or anything else involving the show) yet. Assuming they’re staying on Wednesday, January 13th is the most likely El Rey debut date. It gives them a little space from the holidays to promote it, and it means they’d have about eight weeks of TV taped before the first one airs. We’ll obviously know this date for sure once it gets closer.

Will I be able to watch Lucha Underground this year? Read More

attempting to answer your Lucha Underground Season 2 status questions

August 6, 2015August 6, 2015 thecubsfan

(Information is taken from the Wrestling Observer, media appearances by various people, and other sources. Drop more questions in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer them.

Last updated August 6.)

Will there be a Lucha Underground Season 2?

We’re not sure. No season 2 has been officially announced, but people involved with the show say it’s still being working on.

Every group involved in Season 1 wants there to be a season 2. El Rey wants to bring them back and hoped to have them back on the air in October. Unimas is said to be happy with the show. AAA remains happy with the show. The luchadors were said to be signed to as long as seven year deals, so they’re all on board

The hold up is a funding gap. Lucha Underground’s main revenue stream is TV rights fees, and El Rey & Unimas alone aren’t enough to cover the expense of a season 2. Season 1 was more expensive than originally expected, the goal is to return for a second season without cutting back on any aspect of the show.

How expensive was Lucha Underground? Why was the show so expensive? What’s could be done to bridge the funding gap?

The Wrestling Observer Newsletter has repeatedly reported season one cost $20 million (or $500,000 per hour.) Lucha Underground personnel have disputed that number.

It’s not clear why the expenses were so high. It’s possible the cost of filming in Los Angeles and the level of production simply was more than they were expecting. Lucha Underground was filmed and produced more like a traditional TV show than a wrestling promotion, which meant a bigger and more expensive day of filming staff. Season one seemed to have a bigger special effects budget too. The trademark vignettes might also be a source of the unexpected costs. The original plan was for only the opening vignette with Dragon Azteca to be ‘movie style’, but the people in charge loved it so much that everything going forward was to be filmed that way (and early scenes were scrapped and refilmed to fit the new look.)

There have been speculation Lucha Undeground might cut back at production or move to a cheaper location to save money. The finale of the show indicated Season 2 would take place at a different location, and the Wrestling Observer Newsletter has said Texas is the most likely possibility, throwing out San Antonio and Austin as possibilities.

Moving may create more problems. Many of the production people took less than the normal because they were able to stay in their home of Los Angeles and film rather than relocating; those people would either look for a raise or may choose another project. (In his interview with Steve Austin, Eric Van Wagenen brought up those points; in the context of the season finale, it sounds like he was making the case against a move.)

Everyone involved has said they’d prefer to keep the quality of the show as is and are more focused on finding funding than cutting back on the show. They’re only really doing interested in doing season two of Lucha Underground if they can do the same or better as season one.

What are they looking to do to bridge their funding gap?

They’re looking at all options.

The most persistent rumor is a deal with Mexico’s Televisa. The giant network would pay for the show, which would begin airing along side AAA in Mexico, and would provide the funding for a second season. A deal between Lucha Underground and Televisa has been talked about for about the entirety of 2015, but nothing has ever been offiically said by Televisa.

Another frequently brought up possibility is Lucha Underground’s US Spanish broadcast moving from UniMas to big brother Univision. Univision would bring greater clearance in addition to a higher rights fee.

The problem appears to be ratings for the show haven’t been strong enough to draw enough interest. The English version is said to be doing ~~around~~ at most 100K viewers (PWTorch), good for a network the size of El Rey but not comparable to WWE or even the smaller wrestling promotions. The Unimas viewership is about 300K viewers, but the total current viewership hasn’t yet be enough to convince people to put more in. There’s clearly a significant viewership watching the show outside of traditional methods, but they don’t seem to count.

Beyond that, there’s been talk about literally every possibility: getting onto one of the internet based networks (Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, etc), selling the merchandise rights, or whatever other deal is out there. Lucha Underground hasn’t quite gotten to the Kickstarter level, but they seem to be exploring everything else.

(It’s unknown exactly how much they need.)

Is there any chance they’ll just go back on the air and figure out the finances later?

Nah. Mark Burnett, one of the people at the very top of the Lucha Underground pyramid and man in charge of dozens of shows, noted any show can run forever as long as it’s making money. They’ll do Lucha Underground as long as they can make money on it and, if they can’t, they won’t do it.

The people in charge essentially tried the “do it and figure out how to make money on it” for one season. It’s hard to expect the same for a second season.

When would a second season start? When do we know if there’s a second season? When do we know if there’s not?

The original plan was to run 39 episodes, take 12-13 weeks off, and come back for season 3 sometime in October. The start of the season one was delayed three weeks, so perhaps the ideal return date would now be November. It appears to take about three weeks to go from taping an episode to airing, which means tapings would need to resume in late September or early October. However, no tapings have been announced and wrestlers have been taking bookings in September and October.

It appears everything Lucha Underground related will roll directly back into action the moment the funding gap is closed. Everything will go from quiet to very busy in no time. The problem is no one has any idea when that gap might be closed, when the deal they need will be made. It could happen today. It could happen at TripleMania. It could happen on some random Thursday in September. It could never happen.

There is not a public drop dead date for the show either. People involved with Lucha Underground have floated the idea that it might be a longer than expected break between seasons, but one which wouldn’t necessarily mean the show is canceled. Lucha Underground appears to have long term deals with most of it’s wrestlers and AAA, so it’s possible the Lucha Underground machine could be restarted even after a prolonged slumber.

(This could set up a dreadful situation where wrestlers are tied to a show in near-permanent limbo, unable to move onto another group with television. The Hernandez situation displayed Lucha Underground would enforce their contracts, but also implied they’d be willing to let people out of them assuming they wait to get a full release and aren’t on competing television while Lucha Underground is airing. The latter wouldn’t seem to be a problem if LU is off the air.)

One more time: will Lucha Underground be back for a second season? What do you think?

My instinct says we’d know Season 2 is happening by the end of Season 1. The only reason you’re reading this post is because that didn’t happen. That’s not a great sign.

TripleMania (08/09) feels like the realistic endpoint for any major news. AAA’s on a kick of emphasizing it’s international aspirations and it’s be fitting for them to either announce a new show airing in Mexico or any new partnership as part of TripleMania. It’s a dismal sign if there’s nothing new to report after this weekend and Lucha Underground has so far only come up in passing as one of a number of AAA projects.

I would not believe there’s a chance of season 2 at this point if Lucha Underground people involved weren’t so relentlessly positive. The continued presence on social media and the media rounds prior to the finale also indicate it’s still alive, not abandoned. I’ve also been wrongly pessimistic on this project. In my head, this is a show holding out for a last minute miracle, but maybe I’d believe it was close to carrying on if I knew what others knew. I don’t want to say no because I would’ve lost my house if I bet on no before, but there needs to be some sign of action and there hasn’t been much.

Lucha Underground 1×39: Ultima Lucha, Part 2

August 5, 2015August 5, 2015 thecubsfan 1 Comment

the matches

Johnny Mundo defeats Alberto el Patron (fin de mundo, 13:35, great)
Pentagon Jr. defeats Vampiro (rock bottom thru table on fire, 11:08, good)
Fenix wins the Gift of the Gods (Fire Driver on Jack Evans, 12:03, great)
Blue Demon Jr. defeats Texano Jr. (pinfall, 3:00, below average)
Mil Muertes defeats Prince Puma to win the Lucha Underground Championship (super flatliner, 17:39, excellent)

49 gifs can be seen here.

developments

A few!

Johnny Mundo and Alberto el Patron has much more of a brawl this time around, with literal dirt being thrown in faces. After a long even fight, Mundo knocked out the referee with a kick. (No referee was calling a DQ on this show.) Alberto put Mundo in the armbar and Mundo taped, but there was no ref to count it. Mundo eventually slipped free. Alberto tried the armbar again over the ropes, but it was broken up by Melina. Mundo landed the Fin de Mundo for the win. Mundo & Melina made out in the ring until an enraged Alberto broke it up. Alberto smashed Mundo’s face into the glass window of a door (replacing the one Mack & Cage broke last week), gaining revenge for Mundo’s similar act and blooding Mundo badly. Melina tried to break it up, but instead was spanked by Alberto.

Pentagon Jr. almost beat AntiPope Vampiro very quickly, destroying him with chair shots. Vampiro rose from a stretcher to continue, and the two had an insane thumbtack and light tube filled brawl. Vampiro appeared to be imperious to pain at various points Vampiro brought a table and fire into play, but it was he who went thru it courtesy of a bloody and ripped Pentagon. Pentagon demanded his Master reveal himself as a reward for his win. Vampiro instead revealed he was Pentagon’s master all along, even unknown to Pentagon. Pentagon did not question this, and immediately bowed down at Vampiro’s feet.

The Gift of the Gods was a crazy seven person match which included a more than seven people. An obsessed Marty ran into the ring and attacked Sexy Star at one point, but tapped out to La Mistica. (Sexy Star disappeared from the match after taking Big Ryck’s urange.) DelAvar Daviari surprisingly attacked Big Ryck, possibly for Ryck’s failures of late. Fenix put an end to the craziness with a Fire Driver on Jack.

not exactly smooth, but Vampiro got in there

Blue Demon Jr. is now an aging legend, near the end of his career willing to do anything to hold on and was not residing in South Beach. The announcers pushed the idea that Demon was a guy lived off his family’s name, while Texano (Jr.) had surpassed his father. The match, made no DQ, saw Texano dominate until Mr. Cisco and Cortez Castro got involved. Chavo Guerrero ran in as if for an incredibly unlikely save, until to instead ally with Demon and attack Texano. (The announcers emphasized the symbolism of Chavo attacking Demon way back in episode 2, then helping him here.) Demon ended up with an easy iwn.

Konnan was not present for the Prince Puma/Mil Muertes match, still removed from the board after the attack in earlier episdoes. Catrina was there, but was actually used as a weapon by Prince Puma in her only physical interference in the match. The Puma match against Mil Muertes had aspects of Mil’s other post return matches, with a fair amount of brawling around ringside, but it also had a lot of in-ring fighting as well. Muertes escaped the first 630 attempt, landed the second but Muertes kicked out, and missed a third. Muerte seemed to have the win with a Flatliner, but Puma kicked out. Puma went to the top again, but was pulled off in a super Flatliner for the title change. Mil, Catrina and The Disciples of Death stood in the ring together with all the belts to end the season.

the real reason for a new Temple: need new high places to jump off of

Dragon Azteca did make it into the Temple to save Black Lotus, but it was too late. Dario Cueto walked in before Azteca could free Lotus, and noted their deal (?) meant Dragon Azteca would forfeit his life if he stepped foot in Dario’s Temple. Dario teased using the cage to free Matanza, and Dragon Azteca begged him to stop. Dario did, because it was a fake out – Black Lotus grabbed Dragon Azteca from behind and choked her one-time mentor out. Dragon Azteca told Lotus not to believe Dario, but Lotus instead gave Azteca the heart punch to the back, apparently killing Dragon Azteca. Dario freed Lotus, who now planned to leave this all behind, but Dario warned Lotus she started a war and only Dario could protect her. Lotus reluctantly agreed. Dario said they’d need a new Temple, and unlocked Matanza’s cage (with the Key) as they all perepared to flee.

The show closed with a scared Dario and Lotus cleaning out the cash, papers, and red bull from his office and leaving in a hurry. They were last scene escaping in a truck, pulling a horse carriage – where Matanza was breifly glimpsed inside.

Other characters also got individual epilogues.

Fenix left in a firebird (car), being stalked by King Cuerno in his truck.
Marty Martinez, more crazy than we’ve seen him before, threatened an apparently kidnapped Sexy Star that “you won’t like me when you meet my sister”
Angelico, Son of Havoc and Ivelisse vowed to win the trios championships back before driving off on motorcycles (Ivelisse and Havoc together.)
Aerostar and Drago shared an intense handshake before exiting the temple. Drago again appeared to turn into flame as he flew away, and Aerostar blasted off like a rocket.
Pentagon asked his master where they were going now, and Vampiro told him it was a dark place.
the white hoodie character was seen putting on the Dragon Azteca mask, and spray painting a question mark on the Lucha Underground billboard.

The season ended with the lights coming down on the Temple as Dario looked pained, then smirked.

thoughts

A fantastic finale. There were four strong matches, and an even stronger finale few minutes. We still don’t totally know if Dario was lying to Black Lotus, but we sure know she belives it. We even got a little hint on the behind the scenes of season 2: the Lucha Underground Temple we knew is the past, and they’ll be somewhere new next year. The question mark on the Lucha Underground sign struck people as a clear Rey Mysterio Jr. teaser during the filming. It may end up that way, but it seemed to be more about the mystery of where Lucha Underground would be next.

Michael Schiavello was the fill-in for Vampiro and did well in the role. It’s a different mix than Vampiro, but Schiavello was very prepared. He knew the characters, knew the backstory, and seemed as excited about the show as someone who’d watched the season to this point. It’d be strange, though not imposible, for Vampiro just to flip back to being Ian the Wacky Announcer after tonight’s match and Schivello would be fine in the role.

I assume Hugo’s calling the two hours on his own on Unimas. I hope he made it one piece.

Puma/Muertes was an epic title match. It had a good amount of brawling into the crowds, and super natural characters, but it also felt the most like something which would fit at Wrestlemania among all the matches on this how. It’d be the main event, a pretty strong main event, and they didn’t really kick out of finishers enough to be a recent WWE match, but they did pretty much everything else. Prince Puma looked incredible in this match, and Mil’s done the best possibly the best work of his career in this run. This match might not be placed above Grave Consequences, and Puma/Mundo might be the better Puma title match, but it also might not be. I could see it either way. It’s worth rewatching easily.

Mundo/Alberto was a great hate filled match which took surprising advantage of the dirty scummy nature of the temple. (Both men could’ve used a shower about 3 minutes in.) It’s a little hurt from being a out of control brawl on a show with a lot of out of control brawling, but it felt superior to their previous match up until the finish shenanigans. Crowd reacted well to Melina’s return, but having Johnny win and then be destroyed by Alberto was very 50/50. It’s a tough spot – Johnny’ just turned, Alberto needs to get revenge if he’s a top guy, and maybe the indecisive nature of the finish will set up a rematch in season 2. I don’t know what’s the blow off stip for putting faces thru glass – maybe it’s first blood, maybe Pentagon has some scarier ideas.

The Gift of the Gods match was last never ending chain of spots match to end the season on. Just a cacophony of moves by everyone. I think this did more for Bengali than any match he’s had so far, just looking spectacular on his giant tornillo. Aerostar has climbed to a lot of high places and jumped off them all this year. Cuerno got in his tope one more time. Jack didn’t seem to get as much time as everyone else, but he looked good in what he did. The match was built around a surprising amount of Big Ryck early on, and the urange on Sexy Star looked rough. (In real life, it’s said she was hospitalized. No idea what happened, but it looked like he didn’t do much to protect her at all on the move.) They tried to do the big guy fending off a lot of little guys bit with him, and there was some mixed success. The ending sequence with Fenix & Jack Evans was superb. This was the third different single elimination 4+ man match Fenix’s won this season (pre-Aztec Warfare & for the Medallion, plus also the three way in his debut), which feels like it should be a thing. On the tapings, they had done more teasing a Big Ryck/Davairi issue than had made the screen, and it really felt random. Marty at least is random, so his actions make as much sense as ever. Similarly, they teased Cuerno versus Fenix when the show was filmed, but only the briefest glance made air at the end of this match. The ending vignette made up for it.

Pentagon & Vampiro was less enjoyable for me than most because I was unhappy about how much it much it was about Vampiro – like, almost all about Vampiro’s heart for continuing, for taking the shots and for being tough enough to keep going. It makes sense for Striker to call it that way, Vampiro’s been at his side for the last eight months, but the point of this felt should’ve been to make Pentagon and instead he was a lesser part of his own match. I want to see Pentagon as a top guy, not as guy falling at his knees to salute someone else. This may be the long road to get to that point, but there’s still a while to travel. The match itself was the sort of insanity seen in the Mexican hardcore feds, with Pentagon pulling out the same gouging technique he used on Arez on Vampiro’s forehead this time. Vampiro’s zombie like no-selling worked for his character in this match and definitely worked for the crowd. The match itself was as strong as it could’ve been, and stronger than would’ve been expected, but it’s also something I don’t want to see more than once a year.

Demon/Texano was the weakest match by far. All the character stuff they threw in with Blue Demon and the suit wearing Crew was great, but the problem is it’s still Blue Demon in the ring and that’s not much. A Demon & Chavo union against Texano is the least interesting teaser for season 2. Chavo & Demon being part of the on screen part of the show made a certain amount of sense for season 1, when they were potentially recognizable faces to new viewers (and new investors) regardless of what they had to offer, but a season 2 wouldn’t seem to need those sort of crutches – or, maybe the given the state of things, they need more of those.

The epilogue was fantastic. It wrapped up a lot, gave a few needed teases (we had to see a glimpse of Matanza and we did) and it did a great job of setting up mysteries for the future. CHIKARA’s done bits like this at the end of their seasons with mysteries set up, but we got a bit of conclusions and a bit of spacemen blasting off to parts unknown.

I don’t know where Aerostar is headed. I don’t where any of this is headed. I hope we see each other again when we get there.

every Lucha Underground season 1 episode, ranked

August 4, 2015August 4, 2015 thecubsfan 2 Comments

Wrestling fans tend to look back at years in terms of best matches and best wrestlers. It’d be easy to do to rank those for Lucha Underground as well, but this promotion is different in the episodes themselves have cohesive identities. I can’t separate one RAW from another months later, but many of this shows episodes come together on a common theme or shared events. I decided to take advantage of that, and rank every hour of TV in this first season.

Worst to best, so I can again take unfair shots at the second episode right away. Order was determined by “which ones seemed better when I thought back about it quickly”, and can not possibly be wrong. Being near the top isn’t necessarily bad; almost every one has something watchable.

notes from a Lucha Underground episode 1 rewatch

August 1, 2015August 3, 2015 thecubsfan

I went back and watched episode 1! Seemed like a good idea. The first episode is Lucha Underground, but it’s a different Lucha Underground than will end the season on Ultima Lucha. Every show is going to change over the course of thirty nine episodes, especially shows which are just starting out. This show, with scripts being rewritten the day before the first show, was changing even as it was being filmed for the first time. It’s still the same same concept, but the differences stick out when you go jump back in time nine months. Some of them were even interesting!

The Temple.

It’s the same building in that first episode, only you’ll have trouble noticing it. The main lights are only on the ring. To keep with the grindhouse aesthetic, the fans have colored lights shined on them, but there’s a dark void surrounding the ring. (The Puma/Mundo brawl to the floor requires spotlights to be seen.) There’s a lot less fans too; just a couple sitting behind Vampiro & Striker, plenty of empty spaces on the bleachers, no one standing at the railing, and no seats at all on the floor. They’re careful not to show the section of seats on the hard camera side, so who knows what was happening there. It’s strange to see all that extra empty space; they’re a long way from turning people away. They’d start to add the floor seats and turn on the lights by episode 3, but it’d take until the end of the first run of shows before they hit capacity.

The Announcers

Matt Striker wears a vest, a dress shirt and a tie on the first few episodes. It turns out that Lucha Underground is not a tie wearing show, unless you’re Mil Muertes. This turned out to definitely not be a formal vest wearing show. Striker pushes the differences in the style of wrestling (asking Vampiro to explain a lot of history) and the style of show (“no kids in brightly colored t-shirts” – kids would actually be there by show #2) during commentary. Those theme setting commentators would mostly fade away when there were past matches and storylines to talk about okay. Vampiro is pretty much Vampiro. It’s impossible for him to be anyone else. That first episode had a lot of GoPro style shots of the announce desk, with Matt Striker’s pen taking up most of the screen. It was a technique to cover up edits, but done so much that it gave away the game. LU got a bigger and better responding crowd in later episodes, so they could use those shots as well, and they moved the camera to the center of the desk to show more of the announcements and less of their writing instruments. Even Melissa has changed a little bit; she seems to be hanging on to the last syllable of names longer.

the wrestling

The Blue Demon/Chavo Guerrero Jr. match was derailed by a Demon knee injury. It wasn’t well received when people were watching that first episode. It would feel totally out of place in one of the later episodes, where the style has become fast paced, high spot focuses, and often involving gimmicks or stunts. At least part of that change is due to building to Ultima Lucha and the show itself, but I imagine it would be the same way even as a second season started. Even on that first show, the Puma/Mundo match is a very different style of match. The stylistic change was inevitable once Lucha Underground got more of the people they wanted from the beginning.

Vignettes

It’s been mentioned that first vignette – the one with Dragon Azteca and what’s his name – impressed the people in charge of the promotion so much that all the other vignettes were reshot in that style. Not all of them: there’s a shot of Johnny Mundo doing pull ups backstage done in traditional wrestling single cam shot. The announcers can even see what’s happening backstage at this point, or at least it’s happening more concurrently with the action. This show also has the first of a few early Dario/Konnan sit downs. The two haven’t spent as much time together in the second half of the season, but they’re pretty instrumental in getting the character over. Dario had some in-ring segments on the show – opening it with a very un-Cueto speak emphasizing the importance of courage, honor and violence – and the turn at the end of the show, and both of those come of as more generic owner bits. Dario really shines in the quieter moments in his office.

Other random differences

Ivelisse is not with Son of Havoc, may not even be a person on this episode. Dario’s red bull is on his desk, but cropped out of the picture. Sexy Star’s well done introducion promo is done in English, which she never speaks English again. Big Ryck is wearing jeans, and not his ratty gym shorts gear. No one ever claims Prince Puma’s spirit animal is the jaguar, though I’m holding out hope for Ultima Lucha. There’s a segment where Dario forces Dorian Roldan to take money for the rights to five luchadors (Demon, Sexy, Fenix, Drago, Pentagon) to the disapproval of the TripleMania crowd which comes off as an artifact from a script a few drafts ago and doesn’t connect with anything. (When Fenix, Drago and Pentagon finally clear the border and make it to the show, Konnan claims he’s the one who found them.)

Strange moments of foreshadowing and unexplained phenomena

Dario brags about signing Johnny Mundo to humble him, saying Mundo disrespect this Temple and “is only hear for the money and the fame”, which seems to be closer to the truth than it seemed. Striker mentions Mundo & Puma can go “All Night Long”, which might only be meant as a theme song reference at the time but I’m giving him credit anyway. Dario is angry Chavo didn’t injury Demon into retiring, and that’s exactly what he has Chavo try to do when they next face off. The guy Dragon Azteca saves at the start is indeed a guy in a white hoodie; we see the top of his head and he’s got hair, but that’s all we know.