2016 LUCHA UNDERGROUND DISCUSSION

[Tromatagon]

They used us quite a bit in the marathon match intros but not for the no mas match

 

Probably because I said that's also the answer to how much Sexy Star I want to see

[NikoBaltimore]

On 11/26/2016 at 6:57 PM, Tromatagon said:

They used us quite a bit in the marathon match intros but not for the no mas match

 

Probably because I said that's also the answer to how much Sexy Star I want to see

I at one point pointed it out to my wife saying "See this guy?  He's the one I keep telling you about."  So we found it pretty cool seeing you three on TV.  Definitely added something to the episodes we've seen many times before.

EDIT:  Watching the episodes Saturday, the first Grave Consequences and Cero Miedo matches are still my all-time favorite matches from LU.  The presentation, the story, the brutality in the matches themselves, and the aftermath all made for an insane time.  The Dia de los Muertos entrance for the former and the gruesomeness in the latter really took them to another level that sticks with me.  Great stuff all-around.

[Go2Sleep]

Overall, LU's presentation of their major gimmicks is one of their best attributes. The Dia de los Muertos aesthetic they do for the GC matches is one of the best ideas the company has had. The dancing Aztecs for AW are kind of hokey, but the war drum replacing the countdown for a new entrant is pretty boss. The magnetic GotG medallions are cheesy in a good way that fits the overarching theme of the company.

I doubt being so niche is a good thing for them long term, but it's refreshing to see a wrestling company with a truly unique identity.

[Tromatagon]

19 hours ago, NikoBaltimore said:

I at one point pointed it out to my wife saying "See this guy?  He's the one I keep telling you about."  So we found it pretty cool seeing you three on TV.  Definitely added something to the episodes we've seen many times before.

I feel like I get described like this a lot but usually with more motherfuckers in there

[NikoBaltimore]

11 minutes ago, Tromatagon said:

I feel like I get described like this a lot but usually with more motherfuckers in there

If it helps, I'll be sure to toss in some more motherfuckers next time I describe you.  I know a friend DVRed a couple episodes so I'll be prepared when I go up there.

[zev]

El Rey wants people like me to know that they have Ninjas on this show. I appreciate it.

 

[Jamal]

Very cool to see the Stardom crew do their thing. I'm so here for the Black Lotus Triad. Just a really cool show as karma visits Pentagon again. 

[NikoBaltimore]

I'll get the bad part out of the way:  At first with Vampiro being relatively quiet I feared Matt would talk more.  But the way Vampiro was going on in that third Triad match I wish he was quiet.  I love the guy, but I REALLY did not need to hear how this was getting him going in that way.  Ewwwwwwwww....

But the show itself was fucking AWESOME!  I don't know who was which Triad member, but if they're all in Stardom then I'm subscribing.  I loved all three so much, and looks had very little to do with it (admittedly it didn't hurt)  But there was progressing level of violence from each member that came out and it told a wonderful show-long story.  Even if the first two lost it wore down Pentagon Dark, and by the time he lost all three looked super strong due to their contributions.  I'm not a fan of intergender matches, but this was the way to go.  It was violent yet it was the Triad dishing as much of it as he was, and at times even more.  Just wonderful, wonderful stuff.

Non-match related, loved the cutscenes a ton.  Matanza punching out a ? led to one helluva visual.

[Sammo~!]

I'm really glad this wasn't an hour of Pentagon beating up women and they actually told a story with this. That could have gone either way.

[JML]

4 hours ago, NikoBaltimore said:

I'll get the bad part out of the way:  At first with Vampiro being relatively quiet I feared Matt would talk more.  But the way Vampiro was going on in that third Triad match I wish he was quiet.  I love the guy, but I REALLY did not need to hear how this was getting him going in that way.  Ewwwwwwwww....

But the show itself was fucking AWESOME!  I don't know who was which Triad member, but if they're all in Stardom then I'm subscribing.  I loved all three so much, and looks had very little to do with it (admittedly it didn't hurt)  But there was progressing level of violence from each member that came out and it told a wonderful show-long story.  Even if the first two lost it wore down Pentagon Dark, and by the time he lost all three looked super strong due to their contributions.  I'm not a fan of intergender matches, but this was the way to go.  It was violent yet it was the Triad dishing as much of it as he was, and at times even more.  Just wonderful, wonderful stuff.

Non-match related, loved the cutscenes a ton.  Matanza punching out a ? led to one helluva visual.

Yes, all of the women are in Stardom. Stardom World is a good service but the match quality has dipped from last year. Kairi Hojo was the first one and Io Shirai was the last one, which is funny cause Meltzer reported a month ago that they have been offered WWE contracts. Mayu Iwatani was the second one and is the future ace of Stardom. 

Its been a while since I've watched LU and I loved it. Home run of a show. I'm looking forward to Matanza and Rey too so they got me back in. 

[NikoBaltimore]

1 hour ago, Sammo~! said:

I'm really glad this wasn't an hour of Pentagon beating up women and they actually told a story with this. That could have gone either way.

I was pretty worried about that too.  The third match had a stretch of Pentagon kicking too much ass.  The cable choke especially was uncomfortable.  But the rest of that was great and it led to the right result.

[DreamBroken]

Awesome stuff and the Triad looked fantastic. I didn't expect one of them to actually get the win, knowing Black Lotus would be last, so that was a very cool outcome and Hitokiri was amazing there.. loved her roof dive and the finish. Good stuff throughout. They had me happy for Black Lotus getting revenge, but in the end still feel a little bad for Pentagon getting beat up even though they were just doing what he did to them. Great show-long match/story that felt like it got the three newcomers over right away.

[Hector]

I thought this was surprisingly good outside of second match with Mayu. You know Io is a fucking nut when the roof dive was probably not even her most cringe inducing bump in the match. That was a star making performance if I've ever seen one. Not really sure what Vampiro was doing on commentary, but he really took me out of the match a few times. I guess it was supposed to be a parody of the creeps who get off to this sort of thing? I don't know, but it was bugging the hell out me.

[Robert]

FUCKING. AMAZING.

So violent, so brutal, without using any garbage spots or blood. That's how you do it! My first exposure to those Stardom girls and they blew me away, especially Hitokiri. They dished it out just as well as they took it and boy oh boy did they fucking take it! Those dropkicks... the lawn darts into the chairs... the superkicks... the package piledriver... Wow. All of it. Wow.

Told a great show long story too since when Pentagon lost it didn't really hurt him & then it tied into him getting what was coming to him with all the arm breaking.

Fuck these people who cried about sexism when everyone was rightfully shitting all over Sexy Star winning. How do you watch these 3 women perform & then have any credibility left in defending the talentless & worthless Sexy Star? If you're talented, that's all that really matters, nobody notices your gender or race or whatever. If you're not, well you're gonna get shit when people see through an undeserving person being gift-wrapped something & a company trying to sell this person as a hero to a generation.

One of the best episodes of LU in quite a while.

[maciej]

3 minutes ago, Robert said:

If you're talented, that's all that really matters, nobody notices your gender or race or whatever.

I'm not pro-Sexy Star, I am very pro Shirai, Hojo, and Iwatani, and I'm not at all arguing that you yourself don't judge everyone based on their talent - I don't know you and am perfectly willing to believe it - but I think this statement applied to the world at large is very wrong.

[Robert]

Let me clarify then... I'm not saying that's how it *is*, I'm saying that's how it *should* be.

You know how much shit I get for being sexist just because I shit all over Sexy Star constantly? These people are so quick to toss out the sexism card, they don't even stop for a second to think maybe it's just the fact that Sexy Star blows fucking chunks and that's why the majority (most of which are men) hate her guts & resent her being called a hero to a generation.

A hero has the guts to get thrown into the chairs like a lawn dart and get right back up.

[Eivion]

Glad to see the former Threedom of Stardom look so damn good as the Black Lotus Triad.

[J.T.]

BLACK LOTUS TRIAD MOTHER FUCKERS~!!!!!!!!!!

[BrianS81177]

If you know a wrestling fan who isn't watching this show, slap the shit out of them until they see the error of their ways. Fucking amazing show tonight. I love this show so much. 

[Jiji]

My friend and I did a marathon of six episodes to catch up just so we could see this one. Fucking great work by all involved. Well played. Just one minor complaint though. Black Lotus is pretty fucking useless in the ring. She had one job: break Pentagon's arm, and she made it look like poo. Hojo sold her ass off, as she does, and Io brought the swagger, as she does. They are stars. 

Didn't hate Aztec Warfare (not Ultima Lucha, don't post at 3AM) nearly as much as the majority on here, though I went in with lowered expectations. I felt the match was fantastic, while not quite on the level of last year's, up until about Matanza's elimination. Then when it became the Sexy Star show, well... I'm just glad that experiment lasted all but a week. She really is horrendous.

Grave Consequences lived up to the hype and when paired with the insanity of Sagrada vs. Famous B, you have an all-time LU episode. It may have been topped by tonight's show though. I was a little worried around the 5 or 6 episode mark of this season that the show had lost its way but it really has turned the corner. And that's even with the blip of the Sexy bullshit. LU is my favourite wrestling promotion of all time.

Edited December 1, 2016 by Oyaji
I am still an idiot

[J.T.]

Grave Consequences has the only casket match that I have ever liked ever in the history of pro wrestling.

[Robert]

Yeah, even in that 30 seconds you could see exactly why they've kept Black Lotus out of the ring the entire time except for some dark matches.

[NikoBaltimore]

54 minutes ago, Robert said:

Yeah, even in that 30 seconds you could see exactly why they've kept Black Lotus out of the ring the entire time except for some dark matches.

You are correct, but that also works for the story they were telling.  She's the boss of the Triad, so why would she need to do the dirty work?  Her Triad wore him down to the point that she can be the one to break his arm.  Even if she was a fantastic wrestler I like the way they did this.

[Tromatagon]

10 hours ago, Robert said:

 

Fuck these people who cried about sexism when everyone was rightfully shitting all over Sexy Star winning. How do you watch these 3 women perform & then have any credibility left in defending the talentless & worthless Sexy Star? If you're talented, that's all that really matters, nobody notices your gender or race or whatever. If you're not, well you're gonna get shit when people see through an undeserving person being gift-wrapped something & a company trying to sell this person as a hero to a generation.

 

As someone who gets the same shit to where "Casey hates women" became a running gag on the podcast, you're right, fuck those people.  But I was so happy seeing them emotionally crushed and crying like little babies when she dropped the belt the following week, which I knew was coming since I went to the goddamned tapings and they didn't.

My problem is this-

When you have a wrestling product, you have to look premium.  If you sign a crowbar that can't fucking work and push them, no matter how much you try to Paul Heyman it to hide these weaknesses, it still shows on TV.  Shitty work is shitty work and shitty work makes it look like a jojo-ass inferior product, especially when you have so many blow-away awesome workers on the show.

Like we had Vinnie on the podcast and he said that she's good enough for the role she plays.  I respect his opinion as someone who actually has a career as a wrestler, but disagree, because good enough isn't really good enough for something that's capable of having shows full of blowaway matches all the fucking time with pretty much everyone on the roster that isn't Sexy Star.

I've been going to the tapings since about midway through season one and I've had to sit through more Sexy Star matches than all of you have because they've had to reshoot/scrap shit that she's done for being bad.  There's smoke and mirrors, and there's actively costing the company more money because you suck.

[Jiji]

You can only hide her so much though. They can't possibly keep the smoke and mirrors going for yet another full season. She's attractive and it's a neat character but there are more capable people out there to fill it. The triad deal makes it easy to replace her.

Whoa, Tromatagon just said a lot of the same stuff I was typing except about Sexy, who isn't easy to replace. Not directly anyway. I applaud what they've tried to do with the character but she's incapable of making it work. There are lots of women who could, which is the shitty part. 

I got to give Johnny props for really bringing it as the bone headed jock schmuck. He and worldwide have been excellent and their performance in Aztec Warfare was terrific. 

Edited December 1, 2016 by Oyaji