Lucha Underground 1×24: Trios Champions

#0m
this spinning DDT is Pentagon’s biggest weakness

the matches

Sexy Star beat Pentagon Jr. (7:01, spinning headscissors into a backcracker)
Angelico, Ivelisse and Son of Havoc defeated Cage, Texano, King Cuerno and Big Ryck, Mack, Kill Shot in an (retroactive) Lucha Underground Trios tournament semifinal
– 8:03, Killshot top rope double stomp on Texano Jr.
– 13:50, Angelico Fall of the Angels Killshot
Angelico, Ivelisse and Son of Havoc defeated the Crew (Bael, Cortez Castro, Mr. Cisco) to win the Lucha Underground Trios tournament, become first champions (6:38, 20:28 total, Angelico top rope double stomp Cortez Castro + Son of Havoc shooting star press on Mr. Cisco)

the developments

the Mack says hi

The focus was on the trios tournament, but there were a couple of non-tournament segments:

Black Lotus has now been training with Dragon Azteca for eight weeks and believes she’s ready to take on Matanza. Dragon Azteca believes her anger will cost her. Lotus is able to dispatch assialnts in the dark, but Azteca gets the better of her in the lights.

Johnny Mundo and Alberto el Patron had another testy exchange. Alberto poked Mundo about losing in the trios tournament and not winning the singles title. Johnny Mundo made a slap joke. They will not be hanging out.

The one non-tournament match was Pentagon Jr. taking on Sexy Star. Melissa Santos, with a foot taped, announced much more positively for Sexy Star and rooted for her from her chair. Pentagon dominated the match, but maybe took Sexy Star too lightly (or his run of success too highly) and didn’t really try to put Sexy Star away. Sexy rallied back at times, and eventually caught Pentagon with a headscissors into a backcracker for the upset win. Pentagon was beside himself.

The Cage, King Cuerno, Texano Jr. team lost when Texano Jr. collided with a front row seated Daivari after being hit by a Havoc dive. Daivari spilled his drink on his shirt and went mad, beating up Texano and posting him. Ryck’s team took advantage to beat Texano. Cuerno & Cage looked annoyed.

Ivelisse was limping early on and never came much in. Announcers belived it happened on a silla, but it appeared she might have suffered the injury earlier. She struggled thru the match, and Angelico spent a long time trapped in the ring 1 on 3. He was eventually able to tag out. Havoc finally turned it around by giving Killshot a reverse huracanrana and knocking over Mack & Ryck with a tope after they had caught Ivelisse on a plancha. Angelico took out Killshot with his Fall of Angels crucifix powerbomb for the win.

Son of Havoc takes out everyone

Melissa did not finish her winner announcement before Dario appeared to interrupt. He congratulating the misfit trio on getting so far, but said the tournament wasn’t over. He introduced the Crew as the final competitors and made it a no DQ match. Announcers pushed the idea that the Crew had been recovering and relaxing fur four weeks, while the other team had been fighting each other and the the other teams. Second match was a total brawl, mostly out of the ring, and with Ivelisse very limited in what she could add. Mr. Cisco dragged Angelico upstairs to separate him from the rest of the team, and the rest of the Crew destroyed Havoc & Ivelisse. Ivelisse was able to escape away from a cane shot, and Angelico wiped out two of the Crew with a running giant plancha from a top Dario’s office all the way into the ring. Ivelisse took out the Crew with cane shots of her own, and Havoc & Angelico landed top rope moves for the victory.

thoughts

Show was very good!

Angelico has wings

The trios tournament story came across as well on TV as it did live. Maybe more so live, because Angelico’s big dive to end it came as a bigger surprise live, and Striker did a great job telling the stories of all the winners after the match. Still, it was really really good live – I got this week’s show and last week’s show in the course of a few hours, one of the best live experiences I’ve had watching wrestling.

One of the challenges with doing this show, which I’ve mentioned a few times, is they’re always going to be taping episodes months ahead and so they won’t quite know the TV crowd reactions to their stories while they’re filming it. It seems to have worked out great with the trios champions, something that might have looked unimpressive on paper but came thru strongly on TV.

I wonder if they would’ve made a different decision with Pentagon Jr. if they were doing it live; Pentagon got over strong live, but even more so with the TV audience. I think the Sexy Star story makes sense, and the match they had worked, but maybe that wouldn’t have been priority at other times. On the other hand, Sexy Star really needed a serious win if she’s meant to be taken seriously (and she is), and Pentagon didn’t feel hurt that much.

Both the taped pieces came off well. The Black Lotus story is being paced well for something that’s going to last 39 (or so) episodes. Mundo/Alberto will be big when they get to it.

CMLL on Fox Sports (Mexico): 2015-03-07

recap

taped 2015-02-27 @ Arena México

Blue Panther tope

Not going to go match by match, but this was a much less infuriating tournament than last week’s show. They wrestled normal matches with tension between the partners and no one was trying to throw their matches this week. Even Máximo & Terrible kept it together until they wont he block, and then immediately fought after that. The first two matches were long enough to resemble actual wrestling matches, though they appeared to use up all the time for the rest of the show. Still wouldn’t waste an hour on this but it didn’t make me want to give up watching the promotion.

Atlantis rides Conjuro
Maximo & Terrible put down their opponents
Shocker makes a bad decision
he was OK

Lucha Underground 1×23: Fire in the Cosmos

Puma’s dangerous feet

the matches

Cage, King Cuerno [O], Texano Jr. beat Johnny Mundo, Hernandez, Prince Puma [X] (10:57, thrill of the hunt after a Texano rope punch)
Cage [O] beat Son of Havoc [X] & the Mack (5:56, Weapon X)
Drago beat Aerostar, winning the best of five series 3-2 (10:16, Dragon’s Tail cradle)

All the gifs are here

the developments

welcome Hernandez

A man who looked a lot like Davari was watching the show from the front row. The announcers pointed him out and he was shown reacting to the show, but he was not given a name.

Texano used a rope punch to set up the win, but that’s pretty much clean for Lucha Underground. There was no internal problems on either team (despite some accidental shots.) Dario set up a three way match with one person from each winning team immediately following.

Son of Havoc nearly had the win on the Mack, but Cage pulled the Mack out of the ring to avoid the shooting star press, then beat Havoc himself.

Pentagon Jr. came to the ring despite not having a match, and demanded Melissa announce he was (again) dedicating his next victim to his master. Melissa did so uncomfortable, went to leave, and was attacked from behind by Pentagon. Pentagon attempted to break Melissa’s arm, but Sexy Star (again!) made the save. Sexy screamed at Pentagon, saying he’d gone too far that time. (Vampiro too moved to make the save, but Sexy got there first.)

don’t think Havoc thought it would go this way

Dario checked up on both Aerostar (hanging out on the roof) and Drago (in the same bathroom they first talked) and pressed them to give it all tonight. Melissa was hurt from the attack, so Dario took over ring announcing and watched the main event from ringside. Aerostar nearly won on several occasions in a no-DQ, no-countout final, but Drago planted Aerostar on his head with a DDT and cradled him for the win. The two men embraced after the match, giving either credit for their fights. Aerostar left as Dario came to the ring to announce the Unique Opportunity: Drago will get a shot against Prince Puma for the Lucha Underground Championship but is banished from Lucha Underground if he loses.

thoughts

pretty much my reaction too

One where there weren’t many developments outside the ring, but plenty thru the matches.  Opener set the final of the trios tournament and made it feel like a big deal with everyone who was involved, and Aerostar/Drago going on last and getting the big stipulation at the end caused the entire series to feel like big deals. The opener came off even stronger on TV than it did live, with so much incredible action in the latter half of the match. It turned into non-stop moves for quite a while, everyone getting in a big spot or three. Striker made sure to note it was Puma who took the loss, and it seems to balance the scales with last week.

Triangle match had a tough task following the trios, but the crowd got into a lot by the end. It was the most important match for the Mack, who’s still a new figure here and pulled off some stuff that might not have been expected from his side. Son of Havoc works better as a tecnico, and he and Cage were great in the dive catch brainbuster spot.

Aerostar taken out of orbit

Aerostar and Drago delivered in their main event. We know this isn’t Aerostar’s biggest match ever, but it’s way up there and way up there for Drago too, and they were on point. The plancha thru the table was so incredible live and looked impressive on TV, but there was a lot of great stuff here and some more storytelling from usual – Aerostar trying for cradle after cradle after the bigm ove to try and put Drago away but just not having enough, some of the finishes from the previous matches not winning, that sort of thing. The DDT near the end looked brutal. The no-DQ thing felt like something Striker made up on the spot because he figured out what was going to happen, but it also makes sense with Dario being Dario. (They got a lot of great reaction shots from him.) This felt like something where Aerostar ended up a much bigger deal even by losing the series, and Drago winning with that stipulation makes him a key character to come.

39 of these > 52 of pretty much anything else.