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Robert

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Yep, that was brutal and I made a similar comment to my friend. And just after I put him over in the general discussion thread...

 

His nadir was the Blue Demon Jr. turn. It sounded like he was describing how he makes his sandwich to a friend. So boring, so emotionless.

 

They also should've had a live stream of Pentagon Jr. holding the lighter over doused Vamp for the entire week with obvious loop marks. My guess for the outcome: Vampiro uses his political powers to both win the match and undermine Pentagon's push. Junior will be wearing a loin cloth by Ultima Lucha's conclusion.

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Cubsfan finished the show before I did.  All credit goes to him.

 

EVW said:

 

El Rey has absolutely wants us back. They've given us an offer on the table, they want us back 40 more episodes, 'we'd love to have you start airing in October. We want you back.' Now, what we're trying to do as an organization, is we're trying to maintain this certain level of production value. There's the amount of money El Rey is giving us, and then there's this amount of money that we need to spend in order to keep the same level of quality that we've established. [...] It's a high production value, we put a lot of emphasis on the production value, we don't cut any corner. So now, what we are doing is, myself and the other El Rey executives and the investors and Mark Burnett and the people who work at the United Artist Media group - there is a combined effort to bridge that gap, between the money El Rey is giving us and the money we need. All options are on the table, whether that's Netflix, iTunes, a secondary broadcast partner, or DVD sales, merchandise, you name it, everything’s on the table. The money guys are trying to close that gap, and once we have that gap closed, we're announcing.

Austin asked who's the ultimate decision maker.

"This is a partnership, Lucha Underground is a partnership. There are about four key players, they all have to be on the same page at the same time. That's not always easy, they're powerful guys, they're used to having their way, they're important people in television in both United States and Mexico. As part of the United Artists Media group, which is a massive massive company, they handle the foreign sales, they handle the product integrations. I'm the guy who says - this company wants to come in, but you have to get rid of the man versus women matches, you have to get rid of the blood, you can't have any bad language, and I'm the guy who says 'let's fight for our differences, let's not fall victim to keeping it G rated, let's make an edgy product for adults.'"

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The podcast is really good so far and has some GREAT behind the scenes stuff you've never heard about.  Lots of stuff about the man behind Dario Cueto including one that made me laugh way too hard at work and people are looking at me.

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Cubsfan finished the show before I did.  All credit goes to him.

 

EVW said:

 

El Rey has absolutely wants us back. They've given us an offer on the table, they want us back 40 more episodes, 'we'd love to have you start airing in October. We want you back.' Now, what we're trying to do as an organization, is we're trying to maintain this certain level of production value. There's the amount of money El Rey is giving us, and then there's this amount of money that we need to spend in order to keep the same level of quality that we've established. [...] It's a high production value, we put a lot of emphasis on the production value, we don't cut any corner. So now, what we are doing is, myself and the other El Rey executives and the investors and Mark Burnett and the people who work at the United Artist Media group - there is a combined effort to bridge that gap, between the money El Rey is giving us and the money we need. All options are on the table, whether that's Netflix, iTunes, a secondary broadcast partner, or DVD sales, merchandise, you name it, everything’s on the table. The money guys are trying to close that gap, and once we have that gap closed, we're announcing.

Austin asked who's the ultimate decision maker.

"This is a partnership, Lucha Underground is a partnership. There are about four key players, they all have to be on the same page at the same time. That's not always easy, they're powerful guys, they're used to having their way, they're important people in television in both United States and Mexico. As part of the United Artists Media group, which is a massive massive company, they handle the foreign sales, they handle stuffing instead of potatoes integrations. I'm the guy who says - this company wants to come in, but you have to get rid of the man versus women matches, you have to get rid of the blood, you can't have any bad language, and I'm the guy who says 'let's fight for our differences, let's not fall victim to keeping it G rated, let's make an edgy product for adults.'"

tumblr_mkyb94qEFr1s5jjtzo1_400.gif

It's going to happen! Don't cheap out now United Artists. Make Charlie Chaplin proud!

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It's a high production value, we put a lot of emphasis on the production value, we don't cut any corner. So now, what we are doing is, myself and the other El Rey executives and the investors and Mark Burnett and the people who work at the United Artist Media group - there is a combined effort to bridge that gap, between the money El Rey is giving us and the money we need. All options are on the table, whether that's Netflix, iTunes, a secondary broadcast partner, or DVD sales, merchandise, you name it, everything’s on the table.

 

The fact that something as basic and well-established as "merchandising" for revenue generation is only "on the table" is ridiculous.  Lucha Underground is the best-produced wrestling show in the history of the sport and completely reliant on cable and internet presence, and they're still wondering if revenue streams that were well-recognized by Verne Gage are worth considering.  

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He addressed that problem later - he's as frustrated as we are about that. It's a small operation right now (five people!) and no one was really prepared for the reaction they were getting or and the people involved didn't have the infrastructure to handle it. He said something along the lines of "we're spending more time taking down fake merchandise than getting out our own" - that was frustration rather than bragging. He noted it was the smallest budget program he worked on.

 

Here's the big mission statement (and also the answer for 'when are tours going to start')

 

"The bigger goal for us is to create super heroes - we'd much rather be the Avengers than WrestleMania. Our end game is movies, animated series, comic books, cartoons - it's all the stuff, the Marvel world. So, we create a Marvel world, the Marvel cliffhangers, the sort of Marvel superheroes where women are just as tough as the men, and there are people with some special powers, and Mil Muertes defies death and he's sort of come back to life now, and Fenix who has a 1000 lives. We're slowly treading into the super natural, we're treading into a very science fiction/comic book world. We started with a magna which was written by one of Robert Rodriguez's writers, where he created some of the characters, and Son of Havoc was one of those characters. We've evolved those characters, you know, if you were to look at the original magna, Mil Muertes was in, Prince Puma was in it - there's a whole bunch more that were in that are still coming that we're going to be introducing in season 2 - but some of them come from super natural roots, and we base it on a lot of research that has been done by this PHD named Carl Tolb (sp?) who was a consultant for us early, who studied ancient Mesoamerican tribes. It's in the realm of fantasy, but it's based in historic research."

 

 

In this interview and the other ones, he really comes across as a honest straight forward guy. Maybe I'm too used to wrestling people and not enough to TV people, but I tended to believe everything he said.

 

It did seem like he's hopeful of being renewal, but has no more idea of when the announcement would be made than we do. If you want to look at a less optimistic (and that's my gimmick), saying they're looking any way possible to keep the show going suggests they don't currently have a strong chance getting renewed on any of those ways at the moment, and they're just fishing around hoping for a bite.

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You have to get enough people invested in your show to have them want to buy merchandise to SELL merchandise.

They have the stuff that isn't expensive to produce.  All the other shit people want has red tape attached or needs manufacturing deals

 

They don't own the rights to everyone themselves as LU, for example

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He said something along the lines of "we're spending more time taking down fake merchandise than getting out our own"

 

The only reason I've even perused the knock-off stuff is because I can't get any official merchandise.  

 

 

 

They don't own the rights to everyone themselves as LU, for example

 

Well according to the list of trademarks they own Mil Muertes, for example, and Johnny Mundo, King Cuerno, and even Dario Cueto.  Who wouldn't want a Dario Cueto shirt?  

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We've asked repeatedly for the Dario Cueto VIOLENCE shirt. 

 

The only merch they were able to debut mid season were LU hoodies and tanktops.  I already have a shirt, a hat, and a giant lucha mask sticker on my car.  I'm willing to buy new stuff once they get it out there.

Right now, Prince Puma is the only guy who has his own shirt or is featured on merch in any way.

 

Having slightly dabbled in this stuff it's a huge pain in the ass and they should just partner with ProWrestlingTees

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We've asked repeatedly for the Dario Cueto VIOLENCE shirt. 

 

The only merch they were able to debut mid season were LU hoodies and tanktops.  I already have a shirt, a hat, and a giant lucha mask sticker on my car.  I'm willing to buy new stuff once they get it out there.

Right now, Prince Puma is the only guy who has his own shirt or is featured on merch in any way.

 

Having slightly dabbled in this stuff it's a huge pain in the ass and they should just partner with ProWrestlingTees

 

Dude, I would LOVE it if Lucha Underground would make this Scarface spoof into a shirt:

 

iNMembeK.jpg

 

MILLIONS OF DOLLARS!!!

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I have the same concerns about Vampiro, but the one big thing he's got going for him is the strong editing team. If he can have like 8 solid minutes in a 16 minute match, they could make it into something that's good enough for a climax to this feud. (And my impression is there's enough there to make it.)

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I think he expects people to take his word on it because he's saying it. I would like to! but he's a professional wrestler. 

 

We'd be in real trouble if Konnan wasn't positive about it, so best way to read it is Konnan expects what needs to happen will happen, even if it's taking longer than people would want. No roadblocks in his mind.

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If you're looking for a specific jump in point to go thru Ultima Lucha, start with Episode 26 (May 6/Best in the Business). You should even just jump to the last 20 minutes of the show, because you get a really great main event (Alberto/Mundo) and then an important segment after the match. Both of those start the big plots for the end of the year. They'll make sure to remind you of everything else you might need to know along the way.

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