SirSmUgly

Season 2, Show 3: “The Hunt Is On” or Big Mythical Bird Hunter: Cuerno’s Challenge I am very excited to LUCHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA this morning, and I hope that you are too. Recap: King Cuerno stalked Fenix until he could make his move and win the Gift of the Gods belt, which he is holding onto in agreement with Catrina so that Mil Muertes doesn’t have a surprise challenger for the LU Championship. Meanwhile, Pentagón Jr., Prince Puma, and Mil Muertes are having lots of drama with one another. Lots and lots of arm-breaking drama. Vampiro just leaps right in and doesn’t let Striker get a word in as he yells about the INSANITY AND CONTROVERSY, as he puts it, that Penta has caused by attacking anyone and everyone, including the reigning champ Mil Muertes. Striker cuts a look at his partner that marks a bit of surprise after Vampiro was so stringent about avoiding the topic of Pentagon last week. Uh-oh. Vampiro continues to do insanely awesome character work, by the way. Bengala opens the night’s proceedings as the opponent for the debuting Kobra Moon. She slinks her way to the ring while dressed like the progeny of a peacock who had sex with an iguana. Her entrance was the most oddly arousing thing I’ve seen since, well, since the last time that Catrina did something slightly off-putting while looking like she does. So, I will say that I became a pretty big Thunder Rosa fan after LU, during that brief time that she was in Billy Corgan’s NWA, but I don’t know what’s happened with her career or her in-ring work since. I’m excited to see her here under this Kobra Moon gimmick, though. I think Kobra’s obviously still figuring out how to work effectively here. Some of her stuff looks good, and some stuff she needs to lay in better (like her kicks). After she rolls Bengala to start the match, hitting a slingshot crossbody to the floor as part of the proceedings, Bengala gets in the ring and explodes with a couple of leaping shoulderblocks that look really good. Bengala tries a vertical suplex, but Kobra blocks it by wrapping her legs around Bengala’s plant leg, so he knees her in the gut to break that and hoists her up; she is able to go behind and rake at Bengala’s eyes. This is a good opener. Bengala flips her forward and kicks her, and since I don’t think I’ve placed him on this meter yet, it’s the second season debut of On a thigh-slap scale where “least obvious” is Prince Puma, “most obvious” is Fenix, and dead in the middle is Alberto El Patrón, these thigh slaps score a…Fenix. I’ll let it pass because I’m enjoying this match. Bengala covers off the kick and gets only two, so he goes up for a moonsault, but eats Kobra’s knees on impact. Kobra hops up and locks on a version of the Dragon Sleeper that Striker calls a Snake Sleeper. Bengala crawls for the ropes, reaches, almost grasps them, reaches again…and collapses as Kobra forces the air from his lungs, feebly tapping out before he passes out. Wow, great little debut match for Kobra there. I’m a fan (as I already was, really). Seedy backstage interstitial: Catrina sits with her back to the door and senses someone entering her office. She turns on the seductive charm (“I have to admit, I still get a tingle of excitement when I feel your presence”) for Fenix, who ain’t got any time for that sexytime shit. He wants to get the Gift of the Gods belt back from King Cuerno. Catrina suggests that his powers of rising from the ashes won’t last forever and that Cuerno might extinguish his flame forever, but Fenix promises to finish off both Cuerno and Catrina herself before that happens. Ooh, spicy! Seedy back-in-time interstitial: A thousand years ago, a little Aztec girl makes a line drawing of our galaxy in the dirt while musing about the return of “the man from the stars.” Cut to an Aztec warrior, who talks about the death that will come from the seven Aztec tribes being at war with one another. Someone off-screen agrees that this must be stopped by uniting the tribes. It’s Aerostar, of course, looking rad as shit in his light-up suit. Aerostar says that the tribes must be united to combat the danger that is prophesied to happen: The Aztec gods will show up in the form of man a thousand years from now, which is bad for some reason if I’m understanding the tenor of this conversation correctly. Aerostar shoots off into the galaxy to chill for a thousand years and wait for the gods to fulfill that prophecy so that he can come back and help unite the tribes to stop this human with the power of the Aztec gods. So yeah, that was amazing. We know that Mil has the power of a thousand deaths and apparently Fenix has the power of a thousand rebirths if Catrina is to be believed from the previous seedy backstage interstitial (and in this case, I don’t see why she would lie). It could be anyone, really, who is linked to the number one thousand in some mystical way who is the fulfillment of this prophecy. Oh, and the little girl deeply doubts that anyone will ever be able to unite the tribes. Let’s hope she’s wrong or things are probably gigafucked far beyond the reach of the Temple, aren’t they? Seedy backstage interstitial: King Cuerno buffs his biceps when Catrina shows up all aggy and lectures him: “You took the title, but you did not destroy the man.” Cuerno says that he did what Catrina asked him and blocked Fenix from using the Gift of the Gods belt to challenge Mil, then points out that Mil is a “wounded animal” and should be pleased that Cuerno got him out of what would probably have been a LU Championship loss to Fenix considering what Penta did to Mil’s arm. Needless to say, these two disagree on exactly how effective Cuerno has been at neutralizing the threat from Fenix. Catrina demands that Cuerno kill off Fenix tonight in a Last Luchador Standing Match. She notes that Cuerno is undefeated in these matches, but I mean, he’s only 1-0 in those matches in LU (Season One, Show Eleven). This is like when the Mariners win the first game of the season, and I facetiously talk about how they’re on pace to go 162-0. Catrina sweetens the pot by not making that LLS match a GotG title match; all she wants is Fenix to be put down for good. Cuerno sniffs the air like some kind of freak and declares the hunt to be on. Our next match pits the person who fell to King Cuerno in that Last Luchador Standing bout last season, Drago, against the flippy little gnat Jack Evans. Evans does some heelish stuff like circling the ring to jump Drago and then slapping Drago disrespectfully, then flopping around like prime Shawn Michaels when he gets slapped back. He even bites Drago’s thumb to escape a submission hold. I’m not a fan of his MOVEZ, but his heeling is excellent. Striker talks about the momentum that Drago has in his first match back in the Temple since he won at Ultima Lucha Uno, but he doesn’t mention Hernandez’s name at all. You’d think that they’d want to explicitly claim that Drago ran Hernandez out of the Temple just to put Drago over a bit more, wouldn’t you? Anyway, those are the little things that I notice in this match or that I take some pleasure in watching as it unfolds. Drago dives from the top rope to hit a crossbody and splatters himself enough that Striker notes it on commentary. They make it back to the ring and trade flash pinfalls for two counts before Drago hits what Striker calls an “inside-out Blockbuster,” a flipping reverse DDT that looks pretty nasty, but that doesn’t really do much kayfabe damage considering that Evans immediately escapes Drago’s follow-up Dragon’s Tail and backslines Drago with his feet on the ropes for three. I feel like flipping reverse DDT looked nasty enough that it probably should be Drago’s finisher or at least more protected. Evans gets a mic, climbs up on the announcer’s table, and declares himself THE DRAGON SLAYER like he was Stunning Steve Austin back in 1994. This guy is very good at being very annoying. For all the heels that get babyface pops in this company, LU is still pretty good at building at least a couple of heels who are so deplorable that they can't garner cheers. Hype video: Texano lifts bulls on a ranch and beats opponents in the ring. Texano’s voice over lets us know that he hasn’t forgotten what Chavo Guerrero Jr. and Blue Demon Jr. did to him at Ultima Lucha Uno. Then, he beats up some masked lucha mooks in a bar, has the cute bartender give him his bullrope, and goes to work on using that bullrope to beat up the masked lucha mooks. He then tips the cute bartender, slams a drink, and demands to “keep ‘em coming.” OK, that made Texano look like a king right there. The double meaning of the “keep ‘em coming” line was pretty clever. Seedy backstage interstitial: Prince Puma quietly contemplates his visage in the mirror, then has a quiet prayer, kissing his ostentatious Jesus piece like the good clean-living babyface Catholic boy that he is. Catrina enters the room and, paraphrasing, is like LOL YOUR ABRAHAMIC GOD DIDN’T SAVE KONNAN FROM DYING WHEN WE STUFFED HIS BITCH ASS IN THAT CASKET. So, I guess we can add Konnan to the Permadeath Count: 6 (Bael, Konnan, El Dragon Azteca, The Three Nerdsketeers). Anyway, that was quite the rude thing to say, Catrina. Catrina even claims that Konnan asked for forgiveness before he died, and she wonders if he was asking to be forgiven for all the bad things that he did in his wrestling career, like forming the Filthy Animals, or if he was asking to be forgiven for failing Puma so badly. Puma overemotes from behind his mask as Catrina wonders what Konnan would say if he could be here to see Puma beat up Pentagón Jr. next week, suggests that Puma might want to make a sacrifice of his own to his now-dead “master,” and then delivers a mocking “God rest [Konnan’s] soul” as Puma walks away in a rage. She is a fucking dick, man. She is the worst. Amazing performance on her part, of course. Fenix and King Cuerno meet in the main event for Last Luchador Standing, which Vampiro points out is the only stip announced for this match. His point sparks Matt Striker’s disgust. Productiom gets a shot of the desk as Vampiro makes this point to Striker, and Striker’s shrug of disgust with Catrina’s booking nonsense is excellent. I feel that when I watched the first season back in 2014 as it originally aired and tapped out after about eight or ten episodes, I got the very worst of the Striker/Vampiro team and cemented in my mind that they sucked when in fact, they got rolling as a team about eighteen or twenty episodes in and are secretly somehow one of my favorite commentary teams on any wrestling show straight up. Striker’s occasional quirks are much easier to deal with when the bulk of his work is legitimately good and when his chemistry with Vampiro is so on point. As the match starts, Fenix immediately goes to work and puts Cuerno down with a back elbow, but knows that it won’t be enough and picks him up for a sequence that ends in a top-rope rana that gets a five count. Fenix gets to running as Cuerno rises and runs himself into a series of kicks that put Feni down for four. As Fenix stands, Cuerno is the one to run at Drago this time and gets back body dropped to the floor. Now, here’s my issue: Catrina wants Cuerno to put Fenix out for good, but Cuerno is letting the ref make his ten-count early on. It feels like Cuerno should bebreaking the count and trying to inflict as much damage as possible, not standing around and waiting to see if Fenix will rise. For example, Fenix wipes out on a suicide dive that Cuerno avoids by stepping to the side, but Cuerno lets the count happen instead of going directly into smashing Fenix around ringside. I mean, Cuerno does smash Fenix around ringside, but in between standing ten-counts. I would argue that Cuerno shouldn’t let the ref count until at least six or seven minutes into the match. So yes, I can say that as much as I like Cuerno, I don’t think this layout serves the story that Catrina’s been telling about wanting Cuerno to physically destroy Fenix. The match needs to be more brutal, more violent than it is, and it needed to get there earlier. I think this match could have taken a cue from Cage/Mack at Ultima Lucha Uno. Fenix makes a comeback as Mil Muertes sits on his throne and watches. Fenix scores a series of dives and tries to get a ten-count as quickly as possible, which does make kayfabe strategic sense from his perspective. Cuerno turns it around, hits a nice Arrow From Hell that knocks Fenix back into a bunch of vacated seats in the stands, and goes off in search of a weapon as Fenix staggers to his feet at six. Cuerno locates a ladder, which he puts over his shoulder and uses as a battering ram on the staggered Fenix. I don’t think that spot warrants a HOLY SHIT chant, Temple spectators, but okay. Alright, here we go: The ref starts a count, but Cuerno finally cuts in and stops it to do more damage, this time with a table. Finally, Cuerno is doing the thing that makes logical sense in the flow of this match. This whole deal ends with a true HOLY SHIT spot in which Fenix shoves the ladder with Cuerno still climbing it, and it topples Cuerno all the way backward and smashing through the set-up table, which earns Fenix a ten-count that ends the match and is a nasty fucking spot. If Cuerno struggled up at nine after that so Fenix could do a dive to finish it, I would have been annoyed as shit. Anyway, that spot was so good that it almost justifies the whole match. Almost. Seedy police station interstitial: Remember back in the first season when Chavo Guerrero Jr. suggested to Dario Cueto that there was a mole in his Temple who helped Azteca find out that Black Lotus was tracking Matanza (Season One, Show Thirty)? Well, Chavo’s instincts about there being a mole are correct: Cortez Castro is a cop! He’s the fuzz! He’s five-oh! He gives his captain an update of the progress he’s made so far: Catrina has invited both he and Cisco back to the Temple, and he got close to both Chavo Jr. and Blue Demon Jr. six months ago before Blue Demon Jr. gave up the Temple entirely and headed back to Miami. Cortez – er, Officer Reyes – is admonished by his boss, Captain Vasquez, for talking about these secondary dudes when all she wants to know is where Dario Cueto has made off to. Officer Cortez Castro Reyes says that he doesn't know and then argues that they should have brought Dario in on murder charges earlier on account of Dario feeding Bael to Matanza. Well, technically, you helped feed Bael to Matanza, my dude. Then again, you’re LAPD, so basically you can do what you want and get away with it. Captain Vasquez doesn’t give a fuck about the life of nothing little street thug Bael; she wants Dario in custody now, dammit. Vasquez is bringing in a new partner for Reyes as he attempts to infiltrate the Temple, and it’s this both kayfabe and shoot fuckboi Joey Ryan. Vasquez gives two orders: Don’t let anyone know that they know one another and bring down Dario Cueto. Easier said than done, sis. LU continues to pile on the intrigue and layer in a bunch of criss-crossing goals for the Temple’s characters. I’m feeling like Charlie Kelly trying to figure out if Pepe Silvia exists at this point, but you know, in a good way. 4.25 LU-CHA chants out of 5.

I was at the Mariners game last night. Seven innings of offensive ineptitude followed by an exhilarating home-run bail out in the eight and a save in which the closer worked three straight full counts and struck out the side for a one-run Mariners win is par for the course. This could be the least fun-to-watch baseball team that is also somehow pretty good. Go M's!

Sting as Luger's disappointed, fed-up dad was always a gem, so this would have worked out great with him in that role.

There's a trios tag match from a 1999 Thunder with a slightly different approach, in that Billy Kidman is the babyface who is abused by his heel tag partners Malenko and Benoit, but I do like the idea that Kidman's befuddlement with his partners and his straightforward babyface approach to the match pissing them off is exactly what you'd want out of the third man. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUOz5roSX2Q That could be a fun idea, as Russoriffic as it is. Some of Russo's ideas were actually intriguing; it's just that he's terrible at executing them or elaborating them in an interesting way.

Season 2, Show 2: “The Dark and the Mysterious” or Where Ian is Madeline and Vampiro is Badeline and the Temple is basically Celeste Mountain Recap: Things have gotten worse in the Temple, though Catrina is quickly finding out that it’s easier to scheme on the Temple’s leader from the shadows than it is to actually be the Temple’s leader. Meanwhile, Black Lotus has gone so far down the dumb babyface road that she’s now functionally a heel who helps Dario Cueto feed human victims to his brother Matanza, and the mysterious luchador who now dons the dearly departed El Dragon Azteca’s mask is planning something in response to Azteca’s murder at the hands of Lotus. In other words, it’s just another night here in Lucha Underground! Seedy backstage interstitial: Prince Puma pumps iron while replaying his loss of the LU Championship to Mil Muertes back at Ultima Lucha Uno. His brooding and his reps are interrupted by Pentagón Jr., who uncharacteristically thanks Puma. And no, he doesn’t “thank” Puma with an arm breaking or chair shot. He legitimately thanks Puma for serving as a distraction last week, when of course Puma saved Ivelisse from Mil Muertes and thus served as a diversion so that Penta could hop in the ring and snap Mil’s arm like a twig. Catrina is obviously on the warpath now and has apparently placed Puma and Penta in a tag team tonight. Penta would like Puma’s continued help in snapping arms to please his Dark Master, who is sitting in commentary desperately trying not to be thrilled by all the arm snapping and probably failing miserably at not being thrilled by about halfway through this season, if I had my guess to make. Anyway, Penta plans to get Puma’s help at snapping their opponents’ arms tonight as they face off with the Disciples of Death, and then, oh yeah, there’s the “thanks” I figured Penta would offer Puma: After that, Penta promises to snap Puma’s arm too. Then, he cackles like a murderous lunatic. Puma, who is not a fan of this guy and his arm-breaking ways, engages in a fight with Penta right there in the gym. He hits a cartwheel kick like he’s Sarah Bryant, which is enough to back Penta off. So yeah, that’s going to be a functional tag team tonight, I’m sure. The champ is out here on his throne to view the show again, but he's in a sling this week. Meanwhile, Matt Striker pushes the boundaries of sharing and trust in his friendship with Vampiro by calling Penta “[Vampiro’s] boy” and then interrogating Vampiro on whether or not Vamp directed Penta’s attack on Mil Muertes last week. Vampiro scoffs and, upset, wonders how Striker can even ask him such a question. I mean, well, there is that whole “you revealed yourself as Penta’s Dark Master who directed all the other arm-breaking attacks a scant six months ago” deal, Vampiro. Striker lets it go, but Vampiro has more to say: “Just because someone takes a dark path doesn’t mean there isn’t a light at the end of the tunnel.” Fair, though if I recall from when I watched a long time ago, the tunnel that Penta’s going down leads somewhere so dark that he actually appends the word “dark” to his name. Yo, is Vampiro’s doctor checking in with him? Has he not seen that Vampiro is on television and in close proximity to the evil dude that he was mentoring last year? Our opener pits Johnny Mundo against Killshot, which is the matchup of my nightmares. Hey, I don’t see Melina anywhere around, which is interesting. I also note that Striker doesn’t mention Mundo’s victory over Alberto El Patrón at all, which is less interesting to me because I know that Alberto went running back up north as soon as he could, and good riddance to him. I would look up Melina’s Wikipedia page to find out more about this point in her wrestling career, but I’m scared that I might spoil something accidentally. The match is what it is. Mundo is at least a passable heel. Tweener Vampiro is now a fan of Mundo, of course. Oh, if you wanted to know more about the action of this match, Mundo gets 2.9 on a C-4. So yeah. I will give this match credit for Killshot busting out a run of offense and desperately trying to steal a win, but only getting 2.9 on a 450 Splash. That got the crowd behind him and was well-worked. Then, there’s a heckin’ ref bump so that Mundo can mule kick Killshot in the balls without getting DQ’d, which leads directly to a Mundo End of the World that earns Mundo a three count. This match basically was like a crappy version of Bret Hart vs. the 1-2-3 Kid on ’94 RAW in that it was effective at helping a skinny midcard guy get over against a main eventer by coming close, but still losing despite the fact that neither Mundo nor Swerve could enter a coma deep enough to ever dream of being remotely as good at pro wrestling as either the Hitman or Waltman. After the match, Mundo grabs a house mic and addresses Mil directly, claiming that when he hits Mil with an End of the World, it’ll feel way worse than the notorious Mexico City earthquake in 1985 that kayfabe killed Mil’s family and shoot killed a whole bunch of people. I mean, that’s a good scumbag heel line. I’m disgusted on Mi’s behalf. See, Mundo has some value; it’s just value in very specific contexts. Mundo’s boasting is interrupted by Brian Cage, who gets a huge babyface pop. Cage says he’s back and one hundred percent healthy unlike “our champion” and promises to actually be a challenge to Mil unlike Mundo. He hits his catchphrase, which the crowd chants along with. Huh. Mundo claims that Cage isn’t in his league, but Cage says that he “whooped [Mundo’s] ass” the first time they met, which is mostly true in that he won the match with a little help from King Cuerno and Dario Cueto (Season One, Show Thirteen). But let’s not allow all the facts to get in the way of a proper challenge. Cage faces off with Mundo, who considers his options and his health and decides to exit the ring. Cage turns to Mil and points at him, which is when Mundo backjumps Cage. Cage gets the better of Mundo even after being blindsided, so Mundo scrambles away again. If you had told me that Mundo and Cage were going to have a mic battle, I wouldn’t have guessed that it would actually be a pretty solid one. I am glad that I’m at least somewhat open to being pleasantly surprised! Seedy unmarked basement interstitial: We pan over the contents of a room, including – most creepily of all – a slow pan over a spooled belt before we see the badly bruised, woozy Sexy Star still tied to a chair while Marty “the Moth” Martinez giggles. He brings her a “present,” which naturally is a dead butterfly. Marty inappropriately touches Star’s arm and lets her know that his sister says that Star is almost ready to re-enter the Temple, just as the caterpillar re-enters the world as a butterfly after time locked away in a cocoon. Boy, Star has been in quite the cocoon for the last half-year. The Moth does offer one caveat, however: Marty and his mysterious sister are going to be her escort. Boy, that was one of the most unsettling things I’ve seen in a long time. Curt McGirt mentioned offhandedly, if I recall correctly, that Marty was in a great match on the last show of this whole series, which really dashes my hopes that Marty is brutally killed off at some point. Dammit. It’s okay about the very minor spoiler. I just want this guy kayfabe dead even though he of course in real life is a major asset to this show and plays a fabulous villain, with his Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs ass. Hype video: We see a shot of the cosmos, and for a second, I think that Aerostar is about to come back from his trip to the stars, but instead we cut to a shot of a wolf and a shot of a guy who has an affinity with wolves. He rides at the head of a trio of motorbikes and pulls up to a motel, and oh, it’s only Justin Gabriel. Meh. He’s another one of these leap-y, flip kick-y guys, a South African carbon copy of Johnny Mundo. Gabriel has a well-choreographed fight against some dudes in the motel parking lot, including the guys he rode to the motel with. Anyway, Justin Gabriel’s name in LU is P.J. Black. A graphic lets us know that he debuts tonight, which is a promise to some fans and a threat to others. Guess which one it is to me! Alright, it’s Willie Mack! Unfortunately, he’s wrestling P.J. Black on Black’s debut, which is a real bummer unless LU swerves me and has Black lose in his Temple debut [Editor's note: Whew!]. Otherwise, why feed Mack to this guy? Why not, like, Bengala or someone? Better yet, why push a guy like Black over Bengala, for that matter? Striker knows who Black is (of course), but Vampiro does not. Vampiro also points out the stupidity of Black’s “Darewolf” nickname by merely questioning what it is and forcing Striker to respond with “I guess a cross between a daredevil and a werewolf?” Vamp also shits on Black's handstand kicks and calls out South Africans (so really Black and Angelico) for doing various kicks out of handstands. I’ve decided that it’s now kayfabe that all Boers are genetically driven to do handstand kicks, just like all wrestlers from the islands of Oceania are genetically un-headbutt-able. Anyway, this match is mediocre. The best parts are Willie Mack doing cool athletic chubby guy offense, particularly a standing moonsault that looks clean. OK, time for a recycling of an old section that I used for Kevin Nash in my WCW Nitro Era Reviews. Matt Striker Reads the Papers: This fella mentions P.W. Botha and F.W. de Klerk as two of the great South African Prime Ministers. No, sorry, I got that wrong; he mentioned them as two of the great South African dudes with stiff European uppercuts, right along with P.J. Black. Yeah, yeah, Striker, we all read Long Walk to Freedom, too. And might I add that Nelson Mandela was a boxer and probably learned to throw nice European uppercuts while being unjustly imprisoned. He deserved a mention here, dammit! Striker’s crazy ass next calls Black’s spinning sitout powerbomb Black to the Future, which is incredible. This is a white South African, with all the political history that such an identity entails, using a move called Black to the Future. I mean, this is the most audacious thing I’ve seen on this episode, and might I remind you that the Moth has kidnapped a woman, held her captive for six months, beaten her with a belt, probably sexually assaulted her…wait, no, sorry, that is definitely the most audacious thing I’ve seen on this episode by a distance. What a terrible misspeak on my part. OK, this Black to the Future thing is the second-most audacious thing I’ve seen on this episode. I will say this: You’ll note that I haven’t requested that Striker shut the fuck up during this match because his ramblings and random South African PM mentions have completely enhanced the proceedings for me, as have Vampiro’s sardonic comments on Black’s nickname and kicks. Thankfully, Black springboards himself right into a Mack Stunner that’s really more like an RKO for three. Good, I am so glad that LU didn’t put Black over Mack (heh!) on his debut. The best parts of that match were like two or three moves in isolation from Mack and, of course, the excellently ludicrous commentary from Striker and Vampiro. In-show ad: They’re now selling Lucha Underground merch, and in fact, I just bought myself an LU shirt a couple days ago, though of course not from LU’s now-defunct online store. Hype video: A masked lady walks into a dive bar, which is intercut with that same masked lady kicking the shit out of masked mooks in what is presumably the alleyway behind the dive bar. It’s Kobra Moon, who is kicking her way into our lives and into the Temple next week! The Lucha Underground Trios Tag Team Champions are up next: The Disciples of Death (w/Catrina) work a non-title handicap tag match against Pentagón Jr. and Prince Puma while Mil Kahn watches from his throne. Prince Puma and Penta both get babyface pops, which is amazing. At first sight of Penta, Striker makes the mistake of asking Vampiro to commentate on what type of guy Penta is. Vampiro starts rambling in a way that indicates his unwell mental state: “Well, making his way to this ring, man, I told you not to put me on the spot, you know what I mean? I had to go through a lot of therapy to get over that kinda stuff. But I have been in front of this guy, and I’m telling you right now, he might have taken a dark path in life, but he found a light. He’s a mysterious person, causes me nightmares, why did you ask me that, man?! OK, first of all, that was an amazing line delivery by Vampiro, who has at this point totally endeared me to him. I deeply care about his struggles with his mental illness at this point, and I can scarcely believe that LU has managed to get me there as a viewer. But second of all, this would never work without the tweak that I think Striker does actually care about Vampiro, but is somewhat careless about how he manages what he says to his still ill friend. You know what I mean? I’m not saying that Striker should be always walking on eggshells when he talks to Vampiro, but I also think he should be more mindful of the fact that Vamp’s association with Penta came from a place of being mentally unwell. I don’t think Striker fully realizes that, maybe? I guess their car ride together after Striker picked Vampiro up from the hospital didn’t give Vampiro a chance to really explain much of this. If only Striker could have seen Vampiro crack the mirror with his head last year like we did (Season One, Show Thirty), I feel sure that he would better understand, but I feel maybe that Vampiro has hidden some of what he’s going through from Striker, and Striker doesn’t quite get that he’s triggering harmful things in Vampiro by prodding him about his association with Penta. Honestly, if LU ended properly, it should have ended with Striker and Vampiro somehow getting their hands on a large sum of hidden Cueto money that was left behind in the Temple and using it to get away from all this fucked up Temple trauma. The last not-so-seedy recovery interstitial should show them moving to the Caymans to be bachelor bros together and to get some top-tier mental health care for Vamp. That’s what I want to see. We need more examples of dudes picking each other up and supporting one another on our screens like we have in this LU commentary duo, dammit! As this match starts, I once again return to thoughts of that dolt Vince Russo, who should love a show like this one. It’s full of adult themes, lots of talking, and a focus on characters with a little wrestling sprinkled in there. I suppose based on his past comments, there are too many dudes "talking Mexican" on here for his feeble all-American mind to enjoy, but I do wonder if he ever watched this show and gave his own thoughts on it. He really should do it’s that he can use it as an example of how he was right and a shield for his failed WCW creative stints (BRO, see, WCW just didn’t give me enough time to establish this type of story-focused booking, BRO!) Poor old Vampiro is still unsettled: “Pentagon’s a dark guy, I know better than anybody, I hate when you ask me about it, I’m not supposed to talk about it, I’m under doctor’s orders, you keep putting me on the spot, I love you brother, but what do you want me to tell ya?” Striker thinks he’s pissed Vampiro off and tries to laugh off the awkwardness of Vamp's response, but that’s not it, Striker. You haven’t made him mad, you’ve made him dwell on a period of time and a relationship that was extremely harmful to him. At one point, Striker mentions Penta just in the natural flow of calling the action, and Vampiro basically responds with, I love you like a brother, Striker, but you’re just trying to rile me up. Striker is absolutely not trying to rile Vamp up, dear reader. Oh yeah, there’s a match! It’s perfectly acceptable. The Disciples use the numbers game to get control after a bit of shine from the babyface and the psychotic arm-breaker who the crowd treats as a babyface. The babyfaces make a comeback after Puma escapes FIP Jail and tags in Penta. Penta hands out Sling Blades and loud chops for all. Puma hits a missile dropkick and then faces off with Penta, which allow the Disciples to regroup and jump them. One of the Disciples hits Puma with a hanging DDT; the other two Disciples spill Penta to the floor, where Barrio Negro hits Penta with a dive. Siniestre tries to follow up, but Penta moves and the two Disciples crash into one another. Meanwhile, Puma hits Trece with a 630 Senton Bomb, but Penta grabs a blind tag before Puma launches and quickly steals the three-count from Puma after Puma lands. Post-match, Penta attacks Puma, hits him with a Backstabber, and looks directly at Vampiro before trying to break Puma’s arm. Vampiro: “Don’t look at me, brother, you’re on your own!” Puma manages to scramble away from Penta’s grasp, and Penta rolls out of the ring before Puma can hit him with a kick. Hype video/seedy-yet-somehow-inspirational undisclosed location interstitial: YEAHHHHH It’s Rey Misterio Jr., the fucking G.O.A.T.! From outside the camera shot, he speaks to the young luchador who now wears El Dragon Azteca’s mask and commiserates with him over Azteca’s death. Rey says that the previous Azteca once offered him to be next in the lineage of Aztec Dragons, but that it wasn’t his path. Rey tells the newest El Dragon Azteca that he has much to live up to now that he has taken on the mask; then, Rey notes that the mask that he chose to wear worked out pretty well for him, and we pan over to a shot of the masked G.O.A.T. himself. Even if it’s only for a season, having the guy who for my money is the best wrestler to ever exist should be pretty fun. We got fantastic drama all throughout this show, a surprisingly interesting Cage/Mundo mic battle, and the promise of Rey Misterio Jr. in the Temple. If there was a wrestling match better than “perfectly fine” on this show, it would have gotten the full five from me. 4.5 LU-CHA chants out of 5.

Season 2, Show 1: “A Much Darker Place” or Like Taking a Trip From Hyrule to Lorule Who knows what’s going to happen on the second season of Lucha Underground, but I’m sure that with a roster which includes an amoral Aztec priestess and her death cult army, a skeevy pervert who kidnaps women when he’s not merely physically harassing them, and the lunatic cannibalistic brother of a shithead multi-millionaire who got into the pro wrestling business so that he could use his money to pay his workers to annihilate one another, everything’s gonna be comin’ up Milhouse! Seedy medical facility interstitial: Oh, and I forgot to mention an arm-breaking hyper-violent masked luchador and his equally hyper-violent mentor who is apparently suffering from something akin to unmedicated dissociative identity disorder when I was talking about LU’s roster. How could I leave those two out? Apparently, someone who cares got to Vampiro Ian Hodgkinson and found a judge to assign poor Ian to a mental health facility. My headcanon is that the judge was actually David Flair, who had gotten a taste back in 1999 for signing documents that send people away to secure mental health facilities. Ian has been assigned to the Psychotic Break Division of the Youssef Floro Mental Health Facility. We see a really artsy shot for pro wrestling of Ian (I think I should call him this in this context considering the nature of this storyline) reflected in multiple mirrors. The doctor questions Ian before deciding whether or not to release him from his six-month stay in this facility. Ian has flashbacks to the violence that he committed upon both himself and Penta as he lies about not having thought about violence much recently or at all. The doctor prescribes an anti-psychotic medication to Mr. Hodgkinson and tells him that he must avoid the people and places that trigger his violent impulses. Now, I should note that part of the footage is done from the perspective of a security camera that ominously has a “Days Since Last Incident” counter at the bottom of the video. You can guess what happens next: Vampiro loves the violent-ass Temple like Winston loves forgetting all about Julia and pledging fealty to Big Brother, so Vamp attacks the doctor and the attendants who rush in to stop him. He even bites a chunk out of the doc’s neck…and then we cut back to Ian, who has just fantasized this violent scene rather than actually perpetrated it. Ian dully comments that he can avoid the people and places that trigger his violent impulses and is released. Of course, he’s released into the care of Matt Striker (aw, what a good fucking buddy Striker is on this show), who works at the Temple, so Vamp’s already broken his promise to the doctor. Vampiro asks if he still has a job; Striker tells Vamp that they have received an invitation to return to the Temple, but he’s heard that he should do a title drop now. Whoops, sorry, he’s heard that “it’s a much darker place.” Vampiro looks at his bottle of anti-psychotics, but somehow, I’m not sure he’s going to take them. Note: Striker used passive voice and said that they “received an invitation to return,” with only a predicate and not a subject in that sentence. He did so for a reason. Catrina, who now has bangs that really suit her face, like this is a fantastic look for her, peeks through the blinds of Dario Cueto’s office. She senses that someone has entered the room behind her and remarks that she is surprised that they found the courage to return to the Temple. Cut to Fenix, holding the Gift of the Gods Championship and still having a lot of unfinished business to settle with Lucha Underground Champion Mil Muertes. Fenix did beat the guy twice last season, so he’s got as good a shot as anyone to take the gold from him, except for the part where it’s too early in Mil’s reign for a title switch. I am vaguely remembering, or maybe just predicting, that Mil’s title reign will get swallowed up by a bigger monster in Matanza. Not literally swallowed up, I should note, considering Matanza’s predilection for human consumption. I digress. The point is that Fenix has no need to hold onto this GotG belt for much long because he wants to get Mil in the ring for the title as soon as possible. Hold on, Catrina calls herself “the new ruler of this Temple” and, uh, books that match between Fenix and Mil for next week’s show, then implies that she’s going to be booking Fenix in a match to defend the GotG belt tonight because she’s a real dick, man. So, let me get this straight: Dario Cueto took off with Black Lotus and his brother and left behind a power vacuum that Catrina stepped into? Good God. There’s a Harry Turtledove alternate history novel titled Joe Steele in which Stalin immigrates to the U.S., Americanizes his name, gets elected president, and then wrecks up the place. OK, I can hear your objections through the screen, but trust me, there actually is something alternate history about the “paranoid dictator wrecking up America” thing. Please let me explain further. At the end of the novel, after Stalin/Steele gets yeeted from his position, there’s a power vacuum at the top, and who steps into it? J. Edgar Hoover. What I'm saying is that Catrina is J. Edgar Hoover. Well, except that she looks way better in that dress she’s wearing than he would. Anyway, Catrina lets Fenix know that King Cuerno has been hunting him since the end of Season One and puts them in a match for the GotG belt later tonight. Catrina also lets Fenix know that Mil Muertes will be watching him, and we cut to see this motherfucker Mil actually gazing down upon the ring while sitting in a throne. **Grover voice** You have got to be putting me on. Matt Striker and Vampiro welcome us to season two of Lucha Underground, but I have questions. First of all, how did the authorities separate Vampiro from Pentagón Jr.? Second, could Penta not have attacked the mental health hospital and busted Vamp out or something? Maybe he could borrow some of Catrina’s mystical powers for such a job? I don’t know. I do have an answer now, though, that the guy tracking Fenix in the cowboy hat from the final show of season one was King Cuerno. I don’t know how I didn’t realize that then. I’m going to update that review right now, in fact, with that info. Anyway, Striker hypes the show and kicks it over to Vampiro, who looks at him and simply responds, “I love you.” I did not have “Striker and Vampiro are caring commentary bros for one another” on my radar when I started this show, but frankly, I love everything about it. King Cuerno opens the show against Fenix in a Gift of the Gods Match. I have more questions: Where is Catrina getting the financing to keep the Temple running, for one thing? You know what? I’ll let it go. Fenix is very over as a babyface in front of this excited crowd. They have the sort of exchange one would expect from them, particularly considering that Fenix is working as an explosive babyface and not an overmatched fighting babyface. Cuerno escapes the ring and lures Fenix in, then pops him with a hanging DDT to the floor. He follows with an Arrow From Hell as Fenix staggers to his feet. Fenix gets to running again soon after, and we get a Fenix dropkick after a lot of rope running and then a contrived bouncy moonsault spot that doesn’t look great. Vampiro: “Forget that Cirque du Soleil stuff.” See, this man agrees with me, at least in kayfabe! The point of it all is that this match is what it is. They do a lot of decent counters and a few counters that don’t look that great. Cuerno escapes a Dragon Sleeper and locks his favored (and nasty)surfboard on Fenix, then boosts him head-first into the buckles. That was neat. Fenix gets 2.9 off a double stomp. He does some overelaborate rolling leaping nonsense and flips himself right up into Thrill of the Hunt position, but Cuerno only gets 2.9 when he hits it. BOOOOO. But then Cuerno manages to maneuver Fenix into a package piledriver that he drills for three and for possession of the Gift of the Gods belt. YEAHHHHHH! Mil Muertes looks wholly unimpressed from his throne. Seedy backstage interstitial: The members of Dysfunction Junction roll up on their bikes and re-enter the Temple. There’s a break, and then we see them run into Catrina back in the locker room. Ivelisse immediately demands a trios tag title shot, but Catrina denies them that opportunity and then says Mil told her to tell them that they have to fight one another. Yeah, somehow I don’t think Mil is running the show in this pairing-slash-couple-slash-dark perversity. Dysfunction Junction is irritated as they have spent the off-season trying to understand one another and becoming functional for once, but Catrina offers the winner of their Triple Threat Match a title shot against Mil. Ivelisse plans to win the gold (highly unlikely) and then destroy Catrina (equally highly unlikely). Catrina walks to ringside and beckons Melissa Santos over, then sexually harasses her before whispering an order in her ear. Melissa gets in the ring and announces the Triple Threat Match that we already know has been made on account of us TV watchers being privy to stuff that the folks in the Temple are not. Son of Havoc, Ivelisse, and Angelico face off in the ring, and I’m going to relax a bit with the negative critical commentary. Last season started out slow and didn’t get going until a few weeks in. I’m going to let LU cook and get its setup going for the rest of the season. The crowd audibly gasps when Son of Havoc and then Angelico are announced as competitors in this number one contendership bout. Striker guesses where Catrina is going with this match even before Santos can announce Ivelisse as the third competitor in the bout. Seedy backstage interstitial: Catrina congratulates King Cuerno on winning the Gift of the Gods belt, then reminds him about their pre-arranged deal. Cuerno confirms it, pretty much: “Tell Mil he has nothing to worry about.” Catrina smiles, then teleports away. Cuerno is like, Yo, where did she go? That’s what I’m asking, dude! Anyway, we come back to a three-person match that, as you will probably guess by now, I don’t enjoy very much. It’s whatever. It isn’t my cup of tea, but it’s not particularly objectionable. Everyone dives. There are a couple of three-person spots where the set-up essentially exposes that pro wrestling is a worked endeavor. You know the drill. I’ll just tell you the finish or if anything that I personally deem cool happens. Havoc tries an SSP, but Ivelisse trips him and then ties Angelico up in a La Magistral for a quick three count. No offense to Ivelisse, who is tough and all, but Mil and Catrina probably love the hell out of this outcome. Wait, hold on, she’s got to wrestle Mil next, no rest. Yeah, uh, wow. Just under four hundred miles from Boyle Heights, three nerds drive up to a neighborhood, where Black Lotus meets them and asks them if they’re lost. The nerds are trying to find the underground fight club they heard about, and Lotus tells them to follow her. Meanwhile, back in Boyle Heights, Mil Muertes (w/Catrina) defends his Lucha Underground Championship against Ivelisse Velez (w/Son of Havoc and Angelico). Mil gets off his throne like he’s Shao Kahn or something. Catrina raises her mystical stone, and the Disciples of Death show up and abduct Havoc and Angelico; Catrina grabs Ivelisse and shoves her into Mil’s arms. Mil deposits Ivelisse on the ground with a bit of force. Ivelisse uses her speed to run rings around the champ – no, wait, sorry, she tries to outclubber him like a doofus. She actually does manage a guillotine choke on Mil, who is half-assing it out there (in kayfabe, of course, not in reality). Ivelisse attempts a cross-arm breaker, but gets goozled out of it. She manages to kinda sorta hold on and apply a cross-armbreaker over the ropes, but Mil knees her in the head. He then picks her up and puts her in the corner, where she manages to shift her weight and hit a tornado DDT for two. Catrina sees things getting a bit out of hand for her guy and confronts Ivelisse in the ring. Mil lines up a spear on the distracted Ivelisse, but she steps to the side, and Mil spears Catrina. The crowd loves this utter pro wrestling nonsense, and in truth, it’s pretty fun pro wrestling nonsense! Ivelisse schoolboys Mil as he freaks out over his misfire, but only gets another two count. Ivelisse tries to follow up by charging Mil, but he hits her with a powerslam and drops her with a Flatliner for three. Striker: “You could feel the air come out of the Temple.” He’s not overselling it, either. That crowd got absolutely gut punched by Ivelisse eating that Flatliner. They really believed she could win, which proves one thing: They should push Ivelisse as their top female babyface and relegate Sexy Star to being the fighting midcard babyface who comes nowhere near the big gold. I think Ivelisse is some super worker, but Star is so bad in the ring that Ivelisse smokes her, and Ivelisse is a woman who was like the thirty-fourth best lady worker in AEW while she was employed there (at least as far as I could tell). Catrina teases a Lick of Death on Ivelisse, but of course she denies this horny-ass crowd. Instead, she demands that Mil hit Catrina with another Flatliner, but before he can do so, Prince Puma slides into the ring, lands a superkick on Mil, and escapes the ring with Ivelisse in tow. Then, at the point where I couldn’t think this segment could get any more hype, Pentagón Jr. (!!!) slides into the ring while Mil glares at Puma and hits Mil with a backstabber and breaks his fucking arm (!!!!!) This is the best shit on LU since the last best shit on LU an episode ago. Vampiro watches from his spot at the desk and tries to keep the bad thoughts away and his violent impulses in check as he watches Penta snap the champ’s arm. He’d better start sucking down pills is all I have to say. This ruled all the way from the match to the aftermath. Seedy somewhere-else-in-California interstitial: The nerds from earlier pull up to a brick building that has a crudely-scrawled graffiti of the Lucha Underground mask logo with the word TEMPLE written underneath it. Uh-oh, I think Dario has lured these three nerds in so that Matanza can wolf down a light snack. Then again, the nerds deserve it. They’re dismissive of Dario, who meets them outside the building, and also of Black Lotus. The lead nerd sneers about this hastily-assembled temple, “I’m not buyin’ it. And what’s the chick doin’ here?” The chick proceeds to kick the shit out of this nerd without even looking at him. Dario makes these dudes pay a Tubman apiece to walk in there and get eviscerated by Matanza Cueto. Dario uses his key to let them into the building, then locks them in for Matanza’s snacky-snack time. I mean, these dudes sucked, but making them spend their money to Door Dash themselves to Matanza is cruel shit even for those dopes. Permadeath Count: 5 (Bael, El Dragon Azteca, The Three Nerdsketeers). What felt a bit like a mundane opener was elevated by the last twelve minutes of the show, and I’m curious about what will happen to Dario’s Shadow Temple/Cafeteria that he is running in exile. Interesting hooks for this season. Though wait a minute, is Sexy Star okay? Did anyone hear the sound of a window? Did the Moth strike her a crescendo? Someone do a wellness check on her! It’s been six months! 4 LU-CHA chants out of 5.

Season One Recap Trending Up Vampiro – I already apologized in the Ultima Lucha, Part II review for getting him all wrong. That’s what my dumb ass gets for using 1999/2000 WCW as a marker of how good somebody is. Whoops! He’s a fun neo-Macho Man on commentary and a compelling character in his own right. Pentagón Jr. – I used to think he was a cool look and a great taunt/catchphrase combo. I’m still not sold on him as a complete worker, but he’s certainly more than I thought, especially as a promo. He’s consistently excellent with his delivery. Prince Puma – He’s got his flaws, but he’s a fine fighting babyface with very good body language that evokes all the feelings you’d want a babyface to evoke. King Cuerno – He’s a fun worker whose mannerisms and moves fit his hunter gimmick. He should probably be in and around the title picture more often. Willie Mack – This guy is just fun. Again, he has a lot of the same flaws that a lot of guys who are in love with big spots and not so much in love with logical connective work to tie together the big spots, but maybe I’m just into chubby dudes with great athletic abilities that much. Catrina – She toes the line between “creepy” and “seductive” quite nicely and comes off as the apex mastermind, even beyond Dario Cueto himself. Marty “the Moth” Martinez – He doesn’t toe any lines. He’s just creepy when he can mask a bit and sociopathic when he can’t. He’s the sort of true scumbag heel with no redeeming qualities that I’m not sure pro wrestling has had for a long time otherwise. Idling Brian Cage – He’s basically Willie Mack, but in shape and with enough good power spots that I have a hard time getting over his insistence on working like he’s in PWG most of the time (yeah, yeah, there’s probably a lot of overlap in the Temple crowd and the Reseda crowd, so he kinda is if you think about it). There’s more potential there than I remembered there being, though. Drago – I love the guy, but if he’s not fighting a more powerful wrestler from underneath, he’s not in the best position to have good matches. He seemed a bit inconsistent in his work toward the end of the season especially. Still, his series with Cuerno has me thinking that he’s ready to break out in season two if he can just get the right opponents. Fenix – Like Drago, he is actually fantastic working from underneath, is a plus-seller, is an excellent bumper, evokes sympathy with his body language…and spends most of his time as a flippy ace. Yuck. Matt Striker – He and Vampiro actually have good rapport. When he can reel himself in a bit, he’s perfectly fine. When he can’t reel himself in a bit, he’s one of the worst dudes to pick up a headset. I can solidly say that he blows away Scott Hudson on PBP, though, so he’s got that going for him. Can’t be the absolute worst if you’re at least better than the actual worst, Scott Hudson. Trending Down Alberto El Patrón – He Alberto El Pasucks. Can’t wait for this bum to go back to Connecticut. Johnny Mundo – He’s got a chance to trend upward the longer this heel turn goes, though. He’s much more suited to heeling, especially as a singles wrestlers. Killshot – Sure, he’s young at this point, but still, **Jay Sherman voice** he stinks! Melissa Santos – I just don’t like her cadence at all. In her defense, as I stated in an earlier review, I like basically Finkel, Penzer, and Capetta when it comes to ring announcing. That’s it. So really, maybe I’m just super picky. Five Matches You Should Watch (season, show, original air date ) King Cuerno vs. Drago, Last Luchador Standing Match (Season One, Show 11, 21 January 2015) Mil Muertes vs. Fenix, Grave Consequences Match (Season One, Show 19, 18 March 2015) Prince Puma vs. Hernandez (Season One, Show 29, 27 May 2015) Willie Mack vs. Brian Cage, Falls Count Anywhere Match (Season One, Show 38, 29 July 2015) Vampiro vs. Pentagón Jr., Cero Miedo Match (Season One, Show 39, 5 August 2015) Five Seedy Backstage Interstitials or Adventures in Interviewing with Vampiro You Should Watch (season, show, original air date ) Dario’s flunkies fail; as punishment, Matanza eats Bael (Season One, Show 29, 27 May 2015) Chavo Jr. betrays Black Lotus to Dario Cueto (Season One, Show 30, 3 June 2015) Vampiro goes all reverse Dale Cooper and tries to hide the monster instead of letting the monster come out when he cracks a mirror with his head (Season One, Show 30, 3 June 2015) Vampiro interviews Penta, looks as though Penta is goading him, is actually secretly goading Penta into attacking him with gasoline later that night (Season One, Show 35, 8 July 2015) Black Lotus falls for Dario’s lies, kills her former mentor El Dragon Azteca in cold blood (Season One, Show 39, 5 August 2015) Feuds Worth Re-living From Season One King Cuerno vs. Drago Mil Muertes vs. Fenix Vampiro vs. Pentagón Jr.

I should have seen this reveal coming, in retrospect. I relaxed because Vampiro was doing his "kinda off, but kinda cool weirdo tweener uncle" deal at the commentary desk and totally disarmed any suspicion I might have for him. When looking back at the season, though, he fits in as a likely suspect from the start. They even reminded us of all the things he said at the desk for emphasis when he cracked the mirror with a headbutt in that one episode! (I also love that in Twin Peaks, that scene depicted BOB trying to escape/overpower good guy Dale Cooper, but the context of the Vampiro scene is inverted: He's trying to keep Vampiro locked inside so that he can continue to outwardly present as Ian Hodgkinson until the time is right to reveal himself as Penta's Dark Master. The blocking of the scenes are visually inverted or flipped, too: Dale is facing to the left from the viewer's perspective when he headbutts the mirror, but Vampiro is facing to the right. The showrunners of LU had a lot of love for TV, movies, and high concepts, and I love that about them.) That guy also had the only good fan strap shot of the match. I was pleased for him. I do think he's even more effective as a heel now than he was then because of time and events. He works up genuine heel heat while I'm watching him, and then I have to retreat to my analytical mind to talk about why he's so effective. When I'm in the moment, though, I legit hate this dude.

As someone who has read both, absolutely you should chuck the Alvarez book and read the Evans book. Only the first Nitro book, though. Beyond Nitro isn't worth much, IMO.

Season 1, Show 39: “Ultima Lucha, Part II” or Grim Fandango: Act Two Who knows what’s going to happen on our season finale of Lucha Underground? Though once again, I predict that a certain Permadeath Count ticks upward. After the season is over, I’m going to post a Season in Review that will include a Trending Up/Trending Down section, a Five Matches You Should Watch From Season One list, and a Five Interviews or Interstitials You Should Watch From Season One list before I get started on the second season reviews. This will be a regular end-of-season feature through the reviews of the fourth and final season of the show. Recap: Here’s the fairly detailed info about what happened in the run-up to the Gift of the Gods Match, Texano vs. Blue Demon Jr., Johnny Mundo vs. Alberto El Patrón, Vampiro vs. Pentagón Jr., and Prince Puma vs. Mil Muertes! Also, who knows what will happen with the Cueto Bros., Black Lotus, and El Dragon Azteca, but we’ll surely get to find out by the end of the night. Vampiro is too busy getting ready to conjure up the beast within and cannot be here to lend his charming brand of commentary to tonight’s show, so Matt Striker is instead at the desk with special guest commentator Mike Schiavello. Striker does a WWE-style “changed the industry, thank you fans” opening that is unnecessary. Fuck that. WWE is a corporate entity focused on bland family experiences. On the other hand, the Temple hosts mostly illegal underground bloodsport. Know the difference, Striker. We open with this Johnny Mundo/Alberto El Patrón match, which is absolutely coming nowhere close to the nonsensically fun Cage/Mack match that opened night one of Ultima Lucha. Mundo should win this as he’s here for the long haul. I’m not sure why anyone would trust Alberto to stick around in AAA when WWE re-hiring him is a likely possibility, but maybe I’m speaking in hindsight. It’s sort of like Coach TK building around a mentally and physically frail guy like CM Punk – on one hand, I’m speaking from hindsight, but on the other hand, I and a lot of other people guessed that Punk would blow up his cushy spot in AEW as quickly as he could manage to when he first signed. Likewise, Alberto came off as erratic even by this early point, long before he started getting exposed for punching his life partners and sharing that publicly toxic relationship with Paige. Alberto comes out hot, chases a cowardly Mundo around ringside, and then tosses him into the commentary desk numerous times once he catches him. Mundo’s heel chicanery makes this match more than what it otherwise would be, to his credit. He scrambles under the ring, and after Alberto chases him, Mundo uses a handful of sawdust that he scrabbled up from the ground as he crawled for his life to blind Alberto, then tosses him around at ringside. Mundo’s work as a cowardly little shit is genuinely good. He still does that shitty-looking running knee, but I’ve given up on his offense improving to anything past sub-mediocre. If he can consistently heel effectively and bounce around for the offense of the righteous babyface, he’ll be fine. Of course, Alberto fights back as the righteous babyface, but Mundo has worked over Alberto’s knee and is able to attack it to stop Alberto from being as quick to rush him down and punch the shit out of him. The commentary desk isn’t very good tonight, the issue being that there are two PBP men at the desk and no color commentators. There are plenty of solid PBP people, but a shortage of good color commentators, is the problem. These fellas trade kicks and kick counters that don’t look particularly good before Alberto hangs himself up on the top rope and eats a hanging lungblower for what is a perfectly timed 2.9. Mundo goes up, dives, crashes, and burns when Alberto moves, then gets hit with a lariat that sends him to the floor. Alberto follows up and tries a suicide dive, but Mundo kicks him as he attempts flight. Mundo spills Alberto to the floor, then hits a slingshot corkscrew crossbody and tosses Alberto back into the ring. Alberto really isn’t long-term selling anything, though. Not the knee, not the arm that Striker carefully pointed out would be a long-term injury to watch during this match. Meh. Alberto is a wrestling idiot, full of sound and fury that signifies nothing in his matches. Does anything matter in these matches to him outside of hitting his spots? It’s like the guy has no sense of any of the important connective tissue that makes things mean something. I might shit on Johnny Mundo quite a bit – and I will certainly continue to do so, so my apologies if you like him, dear reader – but he understands things like the basics of heeling or how to at least sell an injury long-term when he’s babyfacing. Alberto just does shit, which doesn’t hold up when we have a bunch of guys who just do shit on this show, but who do far more entertaining shit. Brian Cage having a mindless spotfest is way more interesting than Alberto not holding up his end of the narrative while Mundo tries to infuse meaning into the proceedings. All that is to say that this match is better than I expected it to be, but would have reached actual goodness if Alberto could support Mundo’s work at making things interesting from a psychology standpoint. Mundo manages to double-stomp Alberto and land an End of the World, but Alberto kicks out at 2.9 again. Alberto is definitely great at timing kickouts. Mundo does a WWE-style shocked face, but I’ll forgive him that much. He’s worked his ass off. Alberto tries to make a comeback, but Mundo yanks ref Marty Elias in the way of an Alberto kick that slumps the portly ref. Alberto manages to get Mundo in a cross-arm breaker, and he initially taps out, but then decides to just leverage his way out of the hold instead. Alberto tries to reapply the cross-arm breaker over the ropes, but then, um, Melina Perez is suddenly at ringside holding Alberto’s AAA Mega Championship, and she whacks Alberto in the dome with it. Melina was in this company? I remember Mundo teaming with Taya Valkyrie, but I totally mindwiped seeing Melina enter the Temple. Mundo follows up with a second End of the World, and Elias revives just in time to count the three. These two crazy kids Mundo and Melina are back together and making out, and it sort of makes Mundo come off as low-rent to go back to his midcard beau from the Dub, but I do love the idea that he’s got a lady sidekick and love interest. It works for his heel character. Alberto gets his heat back by beating the shit out of Mundo after the match and tossing him through the window in Dario Cueto’s office door, BROTHER. Fuck this dude. Also, it’s time for a return of Yo, shut the fuck up, Matt Striker: He shares his plans to replay Alberto giving an attacking Melina a spanking multiple times on his DVR. Mundo sliced up his forehead after getting Jannetty’d by the way. It’s pretty gnarly. Seedy backstage interstitial: Holy shit, Azteca continues his request to break Black Lotus out of her cell, but Dario Cueto is there in his snazzy tux to remind Azteca that he has broken a treaty in which he agreed to stay out of the Temple. Dario’s ready to punish Azteca with death; he takes the key for the cell that holds his brother Matanza from around his neck. Shit is about to pop off, and I am here for it. Azteca, distracted by Dario and the key, doesn’t notice Lotus maneuvering into position within her cell and grabbing him through the bars. Azteca realizes that Dario has told Lotus a totally different story about her parents' death than Azteca would tell and implores Lotus to realize that Dario is lying, but it’s been a whole season and she’s ready to revenge herself on someone already, dammit! Lotus hits Azteca in the back, just behind the heart, with a technique akin to the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique, and Azteca slumps to the floor. Permadeath Count: 2 (Bael, El Dragon Azteca). Wild shit, folks! Dario then unlocks Lotus’s cell and implores her to come with him. Lotus is instead ready to roll out after her season long ordeal/quest for revenge, but Dario tells her that she has “started a war, and the only one who can protect you now is Dario Cueto.” Lotus buys it because she is a dumb babyface and takes Dario’s hand. Dario plans to abandon this Temple and create a new one, and of course, he’s bringing that sick fuck brother of his with him. He unlocks Matanza’s cell, and shit is going haywire, folks! Everything is absolutely fucked! But in a fun fictional fantasy way rather than a sad real-life way for once! Pentagón Jr. meets Vampiro in what is being billed as a Cero Miedo Match. Vampiro is announced as being “From the underbelly of Mexico,” but “Thunder Bay” is a rad wrestling town to be from. I get it, though. Ian’s from Thunder Bay, Ontario; Vampiro is from the seedy underbelly of Mexico. Vamp walks out here dressed like an unholy inversion of a Catholic bishop. This is absurd in the best possible way. It’s the sort of absurdity that only pro wrestling can accomplish in this very particular theatrical way. Penta gets things started by beating unholy hell out of Vampiro with a chair. Striker talks about all the neck injuries and surgeries that Vampiro has had as Penta targets Vamp’s neck, and yeah, I saw Mike Awesome break the guy’s neck with a wild Awesome Bomb from the ring to the floor on a nothing WCW show myself. It was nasty work. Vampiro is an out-of-shape, perpetually injured chubby middle-aged man, and that is what is so good about this match; Penta is clearly too much for him from a physical standpoint, but Vampiro has made me believe that he’s so naturally dangerous that I think he can pull this out. Of course, Penta then pulls up the mats at ringside and fireman’s carry drops Vamp onto the floor, then tosses chairs at the fallen veteran of the ring wars before beating his neck with a chair. The ref tries to call this one off, but Penta’s not done. He’s busy choking Vamp with a cable from a camera. We cut to break as the ref ends the match and Vamp does a stretcher job. Penta is still in the ring celebrating as they try to wheel Vampiro out, but Vamp fights his way off the stretcher, punches a couple of medics, and wobbles back into the ring. Vampiro is cooked, but he manages a punch and a wheel kick, and I can’t help but root for this in-over-his-head lunatic. This crazy son of a fuck gets out the thumbtacks and pours them everywhere. I hate thumbtack spots. I’m particularly squeamish about them for some reason. GODDAM, Vampiro successfully slams Penta onto the tacks, but then goes up top and misses a wild dive as Penta rolls out of the way and is studded with tacks. Aww Penta grabs a fluorescent light tube and pops Vamp in the head with it, then grabs a shard of the bulb and further opens up one of Vamp’s cuts…and licks Vamp’s blood as it soaks his tape. This is exactly the type of nutbar violent match they should be having. It’s a bit too deathmatch-y for me in its violence compared to what I normally like in my pro wrestling violence, but I can live with it only because the story that LU is telling with these two fits this type of violence. I’m absolutely not a “deathmatch for the sake of a deathmatch” guy, but in very specific situations where this sort of extreme violence has been properly built to, I am okay with it. Vamp gets his ass whipped and is bleeding buckets, but Penta is simply too casual about putting his prey away. He takes too much time to set up a light tube in the corner and ends up hip tossed into it; Vampiro then tears apart Penta’s mask by the eyeholes in what is somehow the biggest show of disrespect in this whole fucked up match. Vamp tastes some of his own blood before smashing Penta in the dome with a light tube. This match is too much. At the point where Vampiro hits a super release belly-to-belly that dumps Penta into the tacks, I’m about done, man. Please end this match before I have an excitement-based coronary. I’m overstimulated at this point. But of course, this crazy fuck Vampiro lights a fucking table on fire. He takes an awfully long time to do it and Penta grabs him and uranages him through the table, which is mercifully enough to end this match (at least after the refs put Vampiro out with extinguishers). The crowd is exhausted after that finish. They finally manage a weak CERO MIEDO chant and an even weaker competing VAM-PI-RO chant. Speaking of Vampiro, he still has his pride, and he yells at Penta to BREAK IT, MOTHERFUCKER. Penta does have a sacrifice to give to his Dark Master, doesn’t he? Penta obliges Vamp's request, then uses the house mic to inform his Dark Master that he did what he set out to do and would now like his Master to reveal himself and maybe come to the ring look upon his bloody works. Then, to top it all off, in the greatest pro wrestling reveal that I’ve ever seen in my goddam life, Vampiro reveals himself as Penta’s Dark Master. I am not fucking overreacting in the moment when I type this: This match and aftermath is one of the four or five best pro wrestling related-things that I’ve ever seen. Penta bows to Vampiro; then, they embrace. These bloody fucks throw up the CERO MIEDO taunt together. This whole thing was a goddam masterpiece. Hang it in the National Gallery right next to the Turners. I would like to formally apologize to Vampiro for shitting on him all through my WCW Nitro Era Reviews thread and would instead like to redirect that all that shitting toward Kevin Sullivan, Kevin Nash, Eric Bischoff, Vince Russo, Ed Ferrara, and anyone else in a WCW creative position during your time there for not managing to do anything with you. My bad, Vamp. I was a complete fucking idiot, I was not familiar with your game, etc. I’m exhausted. Do we have to have three more matches? I’m not even going to get mad at this seven-person Gift of the Gods Match. Who gives a fuck if five people lay around while two wrestle? After that Penta/Vampiro match, they could just have the rest of the roster come out here and figuratively or maybe even literally take a collective shit in the ring, and I wouldn’t complain about the quality of the show. This match is what it is, and it’s perfectly placed as a cooldown/bathroom break match. Aerostar dives off a roof. It’s neat, I suppose. Can we talk more about this Vampiro/Penta deal? Vampiro being a fan of violence, hinting that he sure would like to see more broken bones, being a heelish tweener, all pointed directly toward him having a hidden agenda that maybe we couldn’t see. I just relaxed because he was on commentary. Poor Matt Striker. What must he think? He’s been so nice and supportive to the guy, and now he’s got to come to grips with the fact that Vamp’s been the man behind Penta’s extreme turn toward arm-snapping darkness. Wait, hold on, back to this match. Marty “the Moth” Martinez suddenly jumps into the ring as it’s cleared of everyone but Sexy Star and goes face to face with her. She slaps the shit out of him and then tilt-a-whirls her way into position to lock him in armbar until he can scramble to the ropes. He tries to fire up, but she dropkicks him to the floor, where he scrambles up to Melissa Santos and backs right up against her legs as she attempts to get this creeper the fuck out of her personal space. Cuerno is eventually able to hit Star with a Thrill of the Hunt, but chooses to face off with Fenix instead of covering her. That turns out to be a mistake, as it allows Bengala to reinsert himself into the proceedings. Some more stuff happens while I consider how different things will be at the start of Season Two. Is Dario going to burn this version of the Temple down and collect the insurance money? Will Vampiro choke out his buddy Striker at the commentary desk when Striker questions his motives too closely? How do Puma and Azteca end up joining forces? I have to know! Meanwhile, Ryck murders Star with a uranage, but Daivari runs out and attacks him with a chair. Daivari sucks. No need to insert him into he proceedings. Jack Evans tries to pick Ryck’s bones, but Cuerno stops him and then locks him in a surfboard that gets broken up by a Fenix springboard legdrop. This match has gone on long enough, but unlike the previous match, that’s because it’s time to move on to the more interesting stuff, specifically the main event. Fenix manages to hit Evans with a Fire Driver for three and becomes the holder of the Gift of the Gods belt. I am here for another round of Fenix/Mil if that is on deck, though then again, I’m sure Dario will try to get that Gift of the Gods belt from around Fenix’s waist as quickly as he can. The other match that I’m not super into on this card is Texano/Blue Demon Jr. (w/Cisco and Cortez), but I am open to LU adding a few twists to the finish that make it interesting. I love that the flunkies have been passed along from Ryck to Dario to Chavo and now to Demon. Who knows which wrestler they will end up ineffectively seconding by the end of next season? Demon hands Melissa Santos a card; Santos announces that Dario Cueto has honored the legend’s request to make this match no disqualification. It sort of feels like every match in LU is no DQ unless the bookers are telling a story that requires a DQ finish, and then suddenly the refs are stringent rulebook warriors. Matt Striker is still very logically in the dark about why Demon would have beef with Texano. You know what? Chavo is injured, so maybe he would have been a) a better choice for the desk on this show to fill that color commentator spot and b) to allude to how he helped turn Demon toward the dark side. And then, as soon as I type that, I am rebuffed by LU’s bookers, who had a better plan for Chavo Jr. on this show. Chavo hobbles out to the ring, pretends to make the save, garners enthusiastic CHA-VO chants from the crowd, and then cracks Texano with the chair he's holding. Chavo demands that Demon do the same in a callback to the chair shot from Chavo that started this whole spiraling mess back in the second episode. Demon considers it for a second before fully going to the dark side, hitting Texano with a weak chair shot, and pinning him with a boot on the chest for three. OK, this was the sort of narrative twist that worked from a dramatically ironic standpoint. The fans and Striker are both shocked even though, of course, we viewers at home are not. It worked. Further, the match was suitably short and did its job nicely as more of an angle than a full-on match. The bookers worked around Chavo being injured about as well as a pro wrestling fan could ask. Seedy backstage interstitial: Prince Puma, alone, is prepared for battle. Mil Muertes (w/Catrina) wrestles the champion Prince Puma for the Lucha Underground Championship in our main event. Mil immediately tosses Puma into the stands and tosses him around, but Puma’s a gutsy fighting babyface and makes a comeback. They slam one another into the railing and the bleachers. Puma’s just out here trying to survive as the overwhelmed and outnumbered rookie. He does what he can, including grabbing Catrina and swinging her at Muertes as a human weapon. Muertes responds by clearing a section of the crowd and sending Puma crashing into the seats. It’s got to be one of the hardest things in wrestling to figure out how to get a little space for yourself to uniquely escalate a match after the crowd has already seen a ton of wild spots. I’ll say this: If you take the two Ultima Lucha shows and sew them together as a single show, it would actually manage to hold excitement throughout. And this is a show that escalated things from before the bell of the first match! A Puma fan near the house mic yells with some feeling in his voice: C’MON, PUMA. FIGHT, GODDAMMIT. Puma really is a sympathetic babyface. He’s easy to root for. Anyway, Puma struggles to FIGHT, GODDAMMIT and ends up powerbombed right onto the ring steps. He manages to get to his feet and dropkick a chair into Mil’s face, then attempts a suicide dive that fails when Mil swings for the fences and goes all Cal Raleigh on Puma’s dome with a chair. This show is exhausting, man, and I mean that in a good way. I should have left this second part for tomorrow so that I could come down from the first part. Then again, that Vampiro/Penta match was going to have me all fucked up no matter when I saw it. This is a pretty dang good match. Sure, there’s a lot of arena brawling and weapon shots, but Puma is so good at fighting from underneath, and Mil is a suitable nigh unstoppable monster. Puma has these bursts of offense that bring him close to victory, like landing a GTS for 2.8, but Mil continually cuts off all his running with weapon shots or power moves. Mil clubbers the shit out of puma in the corner and seems to be getting wiser about all of Puma’s shifty kick counters. He shuts one down, so Puma pulls another kick counter that ends in some sort of, uh, rolling heel kick that he’s never busted out before. Puma manages to hit rolling fisherman busters, but only earns two more. Both men sell fatigue, which they probably don’t have to try all that much to sell since they’ve been going hard all match. Then, in a fucked up spot that had to hurt Puma like a motherfucker, Mil hits Puma with a spear as Puma is on the apron. They’re supposed to go through a table, but they legitimately fuck up their aim and Puma just splatters across the corner of the table and onto the ground. Mil then gets up and breaks the table by powerbombing Puma through it. Nasty work there. Puma kicks out on Mil's cover though, and Mil has a little freakout because Puma won’t fucking lose already. Muertes hits a spinning uranage after hooking Puma by the lips (!!), but Puma hops over a spear attempt and lands a series of kicks that knock Mil into position for a 630 Senton Bomb. Puma goes up, has a verbal exchange with Catrina, and then lands the move…for only 2.9. Puma decides to do it again, but Mil rolls out of the way, lands a spear on Puma after Puma struggles to his feet, and hits Puma with a Flatliner…for only 2.9. What will put either of these dudes away? I don’t know, but it’s probably coming soon because the show is crawling toward its end. Puma goes right back up for a 630 Senton Bomb, but he’s relying too much on his money move; Mil cuts him off up top and climbs up there with him. Puma headbutts him to the mat, but as he tries to reposition himself, Mil gets up, runs up the buckles, and catches Puma with a Super Flatliner for the three and the Lucha Underground Championship. Boy, Catrina’s dark plan came to complete fruition this season. Mil’s got the big belt and the Disciples of Darkness have the trios tag belts. Speaking of, the Disciples walk out here to pose with Catrina, Mil, and all that gold as the credits roll. Seedy backstage interstitial to reveal what’s up on our next season of Lucha Underground: What, you didn’t think this show was over at the credits, did you? Black Lotus hastily packs up Dario Cueto’s office while Dario peeks through the blinds. He’s waited for everyone to get out of the Temple before rushing out of there himself. He almost forgets that red ceramic bull on his desk that seems important to him for some reason, but he rushes back in and grabs it. He and Lotus get in a car that pulls a trailer behind them. Through a hole in the trailer, Matanza Cueto’s masked face peeks outside, seeing daylight for the first time in what we can presume has been a long time. Meanwhile, Fenix gets in his car while holding the Gift of the Gods belt and rolls out. He doesn’t notice a guy in a cowboy hat King Cuerno sitting in a truck, watching him. The guy in the truck cuts on his lights, starts his engine, and follows Fenix. Marty “the Moth” Martinez has fucking kidnapped Sexy Star and promises Star that she won’t think Marty’s a joke after she meets Marty’s sister. Then, he giggles maniacally. What the actual fuck? Son of Havoc and Angelico promise themselves that they will get the trios tag titles back. Havoc walks over to Ivelisse and drives away with her on a motorcycle; she’s in front, of course. Drago and Aerostar, who had a strong rivalry at the middle of the season, depart one another as friends. Drago shakes Aerostar's hand and then disappears in a burst of flame. Aerostar watches him go, then himself lifts off into the stars. Penta asks his master Vampiro where they will go next. Vampiro's response: “To a dark place.” The luchador who tried to bar El Dragon Azteca from entering the Temple puts on Azteca's mask and then tags a Lucha Underground billboard with a question mark like he’s Edward Nygma or somethin'. Dario, standing bathed in red light, grins sadistically, pleased that he has rid himself of that meddlesome El Dragon Azteca and taken the LU title off the babyfaces that he hates so much…at least for now. At the end of the review for Ultima Lucha, Part I, I typed the following: “Boy, that was a really good first night of Ultima Lucha to the point that I have a hard time seeing the second night live up to it, Vampiro/Penta aside. It was a near-perfect wrestling show.” Well, Vampiro/Penta alone was so good, and the culmination of Catrina’s dark plans to take over all the LU titles and the twists in the Lotus/Azteca/Cueto Bros. saga were so satisfying, that the show in fact managed to do so. It wasn’t a perfect show, but it hit actual wrestling transcendence at a couple of points, which is more important than being perfect in my opinion. Add the hooks for next season to the proceedings, and it isn't even close. Combine both shows into one regular-length PPV/PLE, and it's one of the best PPV/PLEs ever and probably a top-five PPV/PLE of the New Tens. 5 LU-CHA chants out of 5.

Season 1, Show 38: “Ultima Lucha, Part I” or Grim Fandango, Act One Season one of Lucha Underground is coming to an end, and this show has seemingly hit its stride. Recap: We get a lengthy reminder of the season-long events that led to Mack/Cage, Drago/Hernandez, and Disciples of Death/Dysfunction Junction. Seedy backstage interstitial: Black Lotus stays as in shape as she possibly can in her cell by doing pull-ups on the bars. Dario Cueto, who is wearing a tux and sipping champagne, jovially greets her. Of course, she flicks him off and then high kicks the sole light bulb hanging in her cell. Dario changes tack and instead says that his brother Matanza isn’t responsible for slaughtering Lotus’s parents; he says Matanza has daddy issues and compares him to pit bulls, who indeed have been historically bred and raised to be violent. Dario admits that their father exploited Matanza’s size to train him up as a ruthless pit fighter, but he denies that Matanza murdered her parents and says that the real killer was her trainer and ally El Dragon Azteca. I don’t know, Dario is giving me real “O.J. Simpson writing If I Did It” vibes. Dario weaves together a tale that Lotus’s father led the Black Lotus clan of Hong Kong and ended up in a war with El Dragon Azteca’s tribe somehow, and actually it was Azteca who killed Lotus’s parents. Cueto asserts that Azteca is a snake who delights in having lopped off the head of the Black Lotus clan and then bringing the daughter of the head under his wing. Dario’s words ring in Lotus’s head as she punches a silhouette of a man that she’s carved into the wall…and maybe punches her way out of the cell, who knows for sure at this point. That was a ton of story just dropped on us here. If I have one critique, it’s that they’ve gone away from mentioning Lotus’s detainment at all in like the past five or six shows. Maybe they should have doled some of this out across at least one show before this one instead of dropping a huge context bomb for the Dario/Matanza/Lotus/Azteca storyline here? While I’m here, I will note that we still haven’t reached the flash-forward from the first two shows in which El Dragon Azteca helps Prince Puma fight off a bunch of mooks. I’m wondering if we won’t reach that point until the start of season two, which would be some impressive forward planning from the creative team on this show. Matt Striker and Vampiro welcome us to Ultima Lucha, Part I (Season One). Let’s see if the wrestling can carry these final shows of the season. First up: Willie Mack vs. Brian Cage in a Falls Count Anywhere Match. Mack’s got two flash pinfall victories over Cage. Can he win a third, more definitive fall? Cage doesn’t even wait for his name to be announced; he jumps Mack as Mack makes his entrance at the top of the stairs. They fight right onto the roof of a storage room, then down the stairs. In a spot that had to hurt like a motherfucker, Cage clears out some of the audience members in the bleachers, but ends up caught and hit with an exploder suplex onto those hard ass bleacher seats. And that’s one minute in! I mean, that should be a match finisher, but it only gets two! That's the whole match, actually. They immediately take this thing up to eleven. There’s no escalation. If they’re going to go that direction – and let me be clear that this is an entertaining garbage brawl – then they shouldn’t be going for pinfalls off moves that should be match enders, at least not until they're headed toward the actual end of the match. These fellas are filled with the spirit of Raven; they add a fire extinguisher and a STOP sign to the mix. Mack is further filled with the spirit of Hacksaw Duggan and cracks a 2x4 over Cage’s body, then grabs a cooler full of brews and drills Cage in the head with it. Then, in a glorious instance of It’s Product Placement Time!, chunks of ice and cans of cold Miller Lite scatter across the floor as Cage flops unceremoniously to the ground. Mack does what anyone might do if they’re in or around the wrestling ring and have access to cans of cheap, shitty brews – he goes all Stone Cold and opens two, smashes them together, chugs them, and then lands a Stone Cold Stunner on Cage. I have a lot of time for this sort of nonsense product placement if it’s ging to continue being this entertaining (though Striker says that Willie is “pop[ping] a Mackweiser,” which is a different cheap, shitty brew from a different parent company, Striker! Dammit! Don’t fuck up LU’s beer money (heh heh) by alluding to inferior InBev products on commentary! Oh yeah, the Stunner only gets two. The crowd went absolutely insane for that spot, by the way. They are legit hyped. This is the rare THIS IS AWESOME chant that sounds genuinely and passionately overjoyed. The past two shows have had Pedigrees, Hulkster legdrops, and Stone Cold Stunners, and the crowd has eaten all that shit up. Anyway, Cage tries a comeback and fails; he instead eats a diving sitout powerbomb from the second rope and through a table…then kicks out at two, which is absolute fucking nonsense. This match is so comically stupid that I can’t be mad that pretty much every big move in this thing should have ended it. It’s a video game match with no logic or reason to it, but it’s entertaining, so I don’t give a shit. It’s the ‘80s action movie of wrestling matches. This match is basically Arnold Schwarzenegger in Commando. That’s what it is. These dudes beat the hell out of each other in between 2.9s until finally, Cage curbstomps Mack’s head through a gimmicked cinderblock for three, which actually is a comedown because everyone knows that the cinderblock is gimmicked, and therefore it was less impactful than all the suplexes onto hard surfaces and diving powerbombs through tables and such. The comparatively meek spot that led to the finish was the biggest mistake about this whole stupidly enjoyable match. Striker and Vampiro run down the longer second part of Ultima Lucha, which originally aired a week after this show: Gift of the Gods Match, Texano vs. Blue Demon Jr., Johnny Mundo vs. Alberto El Patrón, Vampiro vs. Pentagón Jr., and Prince Puma vs. Mil Muertes. A couple of notes: First, I guess Chavo Guerrero Jr. actually hurt himself and they seamlessly turned Demon heel in a reasonable way to take his place. It’s a bummer because Chavo/Texano would certainly have been a good match, and Chavo getting his comeuppance after attacking Demon way back at the beginning of the season (Season One, Show Two) would have ruled. Second, Vampiro keeps calling Mundo and El Patrón “former friends,” but a quick review of the seedy backstage interstitials that they were a part of clearly revealed them to be catty-ass frenemies at most. Dysfunction Junction attempts to survive another defense of their Lucha Underground Trios Tag Team Championships, this time against Catrina’s Disciples of Death. Ivelisse is still on crutches, which bodes poorly for the oddly-matched babyfaces. The Disciples jump the Junction at the bell; Ivelisse gets completely destroyed, as she’s wrestling on only one leg. I have no idea if Ivelisse is actually hurt or what. I assumed she was working this injury the whole time, but it seems that she must have been hurt shortly after the trios tag tournament, as I am pretty certain she was healthy during it. Here, a disciple uses a stretch muffler on Ivelisse, but not on her leg with a walking boot on it, which indicates that no, this is not a worked injury. Otherwise, he would have locked the injured leg in the stretch muffler. Well, I’ll say this much: Lucha Underground has done a fine job of working through injuries if I’m right about which injuries are legit. The Junction gets utterly destroyed; Angelico is suplexed onto the bleachers, which gets a muted response because we just saw that a match ago. He does then recover and climb onto the roof of the nearby storage room before landing a spectacular desperation crossbody from the roof onto all three Disciples. The Disciples are hurt until the point at which Catrina gets in the ring and raises the stone, after which they slowly rise to their feet. Ivelisse confronts Catrina in the ring and arm drags her way out of a Catrina goozle. Ivelisse throws a few punches, but when she gets fired up, Catrina grabs the stone, switches positions, and knocks Ivelisse out with it. One of the Disciples slides into the ring and covers the knocked out Ivelisse for three and for the LU Trios Tag Team Championships. Then, Catrina finally gives Ivelisse a Lick of Death. I’m just trying not to go full Cibernetico right now. Overall, this match was fine. I think it was hurt by following Mack/Cage, though. The fans couldn’t get super fired up for this one because they were still a bit tired out by that all-action opener. It’s Product Placement Time!: Matt Striker toasts to the health and success of his buddy and commentary partner Vampiro with an ice cold Miller Lite. Corona or Dos Equis should be stepping up here and assuming a sponsorship role. Vampiro looks like he had to choke his way through chugging that garbage beer, though I would guess he’s had practice choking down garbage beers by drinking at least a few Molsons in his day. I did not buy Striker’s “so delicious, so refreshing” comment about this beer, either. Some dorks with straps surround the ring. Look, if they came to me as an actual fan and were like, Yo, you wanna carry a strap for this match, I would be like, Hell no. I don’t need to be accidentally hitting Hernandez in his face and catching a shoot ass whipping on national television. I’m making the obvious assumption that there are at least a few plants mixed in there to take a few of Hernandez’s punches. Anyway, Part I’s main event of Drago vs. Hernandez is on deck. Hernandez manages to start by dropkicking Drago to the floor, but the fans help Drago up. Hernandez tries to pursue, eats a ton of strap shots, and then runs away and calls for time out. He looks a bit shook as one would be. Drago legitimately blows a basement dropkick, but lands a few kicks and covers for it. Drago clotheslines Hernandez to the floor where some legit fans hit a few weak (and one good) strap shot. A plant wanders over and swings, but Hernandez angrily rips the strap away. It's too bad that Hernandez ended up going back to TNA because he was still under contract there. He’s a pretty entertaining part of this company and possesses a lot of positional versatility. I feel like he can probably lose quite a lot and still come off like a legitimate title contender when necessary. He also cuts solid promos. This is a fun little back-and-forth match between the two. Drago is having a bit of an off night and isn’t as fluid as he normally is; his Dragon’s Tail roll-up looks like something of a mess, and as Striker points out on commentary, he also has a harder time fluidly hitting it on a guy as long as Hernandez. Hernandez kicks out of Dragon’s finisher and Border Tosses Drago into the arms of a few plants at ringside before the best spot since the opening match occurs: Hernandez tries to follow up with a suicide dive, but Drago steps to the side, spits mist into Hernandez’s face as Hernandez plummets, and watches as Hernandez smacks the protective mats below head first. Then a bunch of fans whip Hernandez with straps. He backs away from them and right over to Drago, who beats him with nunchakus before splashing him through a table. Drago then rolls Hernandez back in the ring and hits another top-rope splash for three. Boy, this match exploded into awesomeness from the Border Toss spot on. This was a spot-on Charming Uniquity match because it was disjointed and somewhat flawed, and I bet most people wouldn’t adore it as much as I would, but despite its flaws, it was something unique and fun and interesting. Seedy backstage interstitial: El Dragon Azteca makes his way to the Temple. He is stopped by a masked man who fights to a stalemate with him. The masked man reasserts that Azteca cannot enter the Temple due to some sort of prophecy, but Azteca insists on entrance: “[Black Lotus] is a prisoner because I failed her.” The masked man wants to enlist the help of Prince Puma to bring Lotus to Azteca – hmm, I see we creep closer to the flash forward that I mentioned earlier in this review – but Azteca wants Puma to focus on his own struggles. The masked man offers to go help Lotus himself, but Azteca insists. The masked man notes that the prophecy says that Azteca will die if he enters the Temple, but Azteca believes that he and his dope dojo master spirit will live on forever. The masked man steps aside as Azteca enters this cursed temple. The doors close and the lights cut out after Azteca crosses the threshold. I am super hyped to find out what is going to happen next with this storyline. Boy, that was a really good first night of Ultima Lucha to the point that I have a hard time seeing the second night live up to it, Vampiro/Penta aside. It was a near-perfect wrestling show. 4.75 LU-CHA chants out of 5.

Wait, Barnwell used to post here? Not surprised; he's one of the most talented American sportswriters, and I do miss reading his stuff as a former NFL follower.

Season 1, Show 37: “PenUltima Lucha” or Dario Cueto: Mystery of the Seven Medallions Recap: Six of Dario Cueto’s seven ancient Aztec medallions have been claimed so far. I sense that the medallion winners might be meeting at Ultima Lucha somehow, though Dario has not (yet) intimated as such. Meanwhile, Cage and Willie Mack still have beef as do Texano and Blue Demon Jr. (thanks for causing that last beef, Chavo Jr.!) Seedy backstage interstitial: Dario Cueto, sticking his foot in it while talking to Big Ryck in his office: “You and I lately haven’t exactly been seeing eye-to-eye.” He didn’t mean to make that faux pas; he winces and gulps a little bit. Dario resets and basically continues to stick his foot in it (“You’ve been blinded by Daivari’s money”) while essentially saying that Big Ryck hasn’t lived up to Dario’s expectations of him when he first signed Ryck to compete in the Temple. Dario wants to motivate Ryck to step up; he shows Ryck a medallion and offers it to him as a way to re-purchase his services from Daivari. Dario wants to know if Ryck prefers to keep collecting mere money or if he’d rather possess the power of an ancient Aztec medallion, but Ryck questions the binary nature of Dario’s proposition. In short, Dario not only gives away that seventh and final medallion to Ryck, but he also pays Ryck a fat stack of cash to get him back on Team Dario. Ryck has made a lot of money for very few kayfabe results this season, y’know? He’s the Joc Pederson of LU (yeah, I know I’m writing this after he just hit a walk-off home run the night before the original publication date of this review, but my point definitely still stands). We kick it to the desk, who hypes the plotlines leading up to Ultima Lucha before sending us to the ring, where Johnny Mundo opens the show against Texano. Both men come down a short ramp rather than the stairs, and I’m trying to remember if they’ve always done so or if LU has given these two special entrances. Vampiro says that pretty-boy gym strength (“always lookin’ for the abs”) like Mundo has can’t stand up to man strength (“liftin’ bulls”) that Texano has, and just in time for Texano to dominate with power inside the ring. I can’t believe how much this LU viewing has turned me around on Vampiro. You know, I wonder why this didn’t happen for me when I watched this about a decade ago. Something has changed in me and how I prefer my pro wrestling to cause my newfound appreciation of Vampiro in LU, and I’ll have to figure out what. This match is perfectly fine. Texano is a solid worker who hasn’t really been in there with wrestlers whom I enjoy yet, but I see the potential in his work. I bet if they threw him in there with a worker at least at the level of a guy like King Cuerno, we’d get a very good match between them. Mundo uses his agility and his newfound cheating skills to take over, but Texano fights up from a headlock and lands a few blows before monkey flipping Mundo, the latter of whom does a full rotation and lands on his face. The following pinfall attempt gets two. I genuinely enjoy your commentary, Vampiro, but there is no way that you are getting me to believe that Johnny Mundo is 6’3” and 260 pounds. None. The equally 6’3”, 260 lb. Texano (according to Vampiro) hits a leg lariat for two more. They trade two counts here. Mundo hits a leaping kick that triggers our recurring feature On a thigh-slap scale where “least obvious” is Prince Puma, “most obvious” is Fenix, and dead in the middle is Alberto El Patrón, these thigh slaps score a…Fenix, come on, Mundo. That shit looks terrible. This thigh-slapping shit is one of the most distracting trends in modern pro wrestling. I hate it. Just lay your shit in there and make it look good. Despite my complaints, this match is perfectly acceptable stuff. Texano, the better worker, lands here On a thigh-slap scale where “least obvious” is Prince Puma, “most obvious” is Fenix, and dead in the middle is Alberto El Patrón, these thigh slaps score a(n)…Alberto, so not great, but much better than Mundo. Ryck’s, no wait, Dario’s, oops, no, I mean Chavo’s flunkies get in the ring and attack Texano with a kendo stick before Texano can powerbomb Mundo. That earns a DQ win for Texano, but he gets stomped out until Alberto El Patrón can come to the ring, score himself on the thigh-slap scale, and beat the shit out of the flunkies as Mundo flees. Texano gets up and wears out his bullrope on the flunkies, then warily eyes his former rival Alberto, who just plasters a shit-eating grin on his face and leaves the ring without further incident. The next man invited into Dario’s office for a meeting is Hernandez, and It’s Product Placement Time! Hernandez prefers Miller Lite to hard liquor. Dario is Spanish and therefore should be giving Hernandez an Estrella Damm in kayfabe, but whatever, I’m a fan of LU making that money, honey! Too bad it didn’t help them survive for long enough to end the whole epic story in the long run. Dario appreciates what Hernandez has done to commit violence upon Drago, and this, along with a bunch of mean Tweets from the fans, has brewed up (heh) a new idea in that twisted mind of Dario’s: a Believers’ Backlash Match, which is basically a lumberjack match where fans in the Temple will be given straps to whip the wrestlers with, Hernandez of course being the prime target of said fans based on the mutual enmity between him and the fans. But let’s talk about this can of Miller Lite. First, Hernandez puts it on Dario’s desk, logo out, and Dario grabs it and gives it back to him because Hernandez didn’t use a coaster and this desk is made out of a fine mahogany, dammit! Then, Hernandez hears out Dario’s pitch and, after showing enthusiasm for it, ostentatiously opens the beer, logo out. We get a close-up of Hernandez cracking the tab and another one of him slamming it. Hernandez hopes for the opportunity to whip a few fans until their skin is raw. I mean, their chanting is annoying most of the time, but I think that’s going a bit far, my dude. Willie Mack and Brian Cage are in the ring to hook it up once more. Vampiro remains enthralled with Mack’s yellow-and-black attire. As the match explodes into pace from the opening bell, I must say that I am not surprised about zendragon’s info that Mack worked Cage in front of Tony Khan and got hired because I think Mack and Cage have a bit of natural chemistry together. Actually, I think they’d be a fun tag team. Cage gets overzealous a minute in, gets clubbed out of a move while trying to set up for something complex in the corner, and is quickly rolled up in a sunset flip for three. The enraged Cage jumps Mack after the bell, and then brawl at ringside (and toss aside a bunch of wimpy security guys while doing so). They brawl all the way up the stairs until Dario finally has to step out of his office and stop the brawl by telling them that they need to save their energy to fight one another on Ultima Lucha, Part I in a Falls Count Anywhere Match. Since he’s out here already, Dario decides to step into the ring and tell everyone about the awesome power of the ancient Aztec medallions that he’s been offering. He weaves together a story about these seven medallions and how, when put together, the form a Gift of the Gods belt that is basically like a Money in the Bank briefcase except that Dario is a promoter, not a corporate conglomerate that can make money hand over fist while shitting on its fans, so cash-ins aren’t instant; the belt holder must give Dario a week’s notice so that he can hype the thing and make money, which is what pro wrestling used to require before it went public, became the domain of billionaires rather than well-off-but-not-ueber-rich local promoters, and was thus financially insulated from consistently bad, stupid, or rushed booking decisions. Oops, sorry, went on a rant there! The other wrinkle to this deal is that, unlike the MitB briefcase needing to be defended within a year after winning it, the Gift of the Gods belt can be held for as long as one wants…except that other wrestlers can challenge for it, so you can lose your auto title shot to someone else in a match if you wait too long to cash it in. I actually like that idea so much that WWE should probably steal it for the MitB briefcase if they haven’t already. Once the Gift of the Gods belt is cashed in, the medallions are taken out of it and then once again redistributed until others can collect all seven and place them in the GotG belt, activating it once again for entrance into a match to win the belt. Cool, I like the improvements this GotG belt makes upon the MitB briefcase – there is a scramble for the medallions, which is better than the same six-man ladder match with the same high spots and the same “four guys lay around, two guys fight” structure of an MitB Match, with the bonus of not being able to rely on surprise cash-ins for cheap pops or to allow the bookers to avoid taking a direction that they don’t want to take even though the fans do (**coughcoughRandyOrtoncashinonDanielBryancoughcough**). We’re getting a seven-person match between the medallion holders to determine who will possess them all at Ultima Lucha. Dario calls all of the medallion holders to the ring, and I wonder if Fenix will make it or if this will be a six-person match instead. I’m rooting hard for Cuerno, though it wouldn’t displease me if Sexy Star won the belt. Anyway, I’m interested to see how the crowd and commentators react to Big Ryck coming out here since we television viewers know something they don’t. The crowd gets quiet and is obviously collectively thinking the thing that Matt Striker says on commentary, basically this: Hey, Ryck didn’t win one of those in a match, so Dario must have given him one; what are those two up to? That or the crowd was hoping for some amazing reveal for that seventh medallion and were bummed that it was only Ryck. Yeah, probably that second one. Dario demands that they put their medallion into a spot on the belt to confirm their placement in the Gifts of the Gods Match. They do, and we even get a snazzy sound effect when the medallion locks in. The crowd is extremely behind Sexy Star, by the way. They clearly want her to win. I’m expecting Fenix to show up any time now, but instead, Dario chuckles about Fenix not being here on account of Mil Muertes “destroy[ing] him.” Rude. Dario has somehow gotten the last medallion back from Fenix’s broken body, so he makes an impromptu Battle Royal to earn it where the last two people in the ring must win by pinfall or submission rather than by tossing one or the other opponent over the top rope. And here is where Fenix makes his reappearance in the Temple to a solid pop. The smile on Dario’s face is the same smile that a parent makes when their child is announcing an engagement to a partner that they don’t approve of, but they aren’t in a position to raise an objection about the proposal and are attempting to keep their bile down while feigning something that looks like joy. Dario: “Fenix, so good to see you, but you are a little late.” He does allow Fenix entry into the Battle Royal, offers Fenix a smarmy “Good luck” that he absolutely does not mean, and then leaves the ring. We come back from a break to see Fenix and a bunch of other dudes in the ring: Super Fly, Killshot, Argenis, Famous B., Ricky Mandel, Daivari, Mascarita Sagrada, Vinnie Masaro, and finally, Marty “the Moth” Martinez. Famous B. hits a DX-style crotch chop, a Pedigree, and then a legdrop, which is certainly a series of moves that are usually performed by sketchy human beings. He also tosses Ricky Mandel to the floor when Mandel rushes him as he hits the Hulkster pose. That counts as a good night for this jobber, huh? So many thigh slaps! So many obvious thigh slaps! Killshot’s dumb ass goes up top and poses, where he is easily eliminated when Daivari simply shoves him to the floor. Killshot being a kayfabe moron is hilarious to me, not gonna lie. Daivari then snaps Masaro’s neck over the top rope and eliminates him. Mascarita Sagrada must have caught a case of the stupids from being in close proximity to Killshot, for he lands a monkey flip on Super Fly from the apron that does eliminate Fly…but the momentum of hitting the monkey flip also rolls Sagrada right off the apron and to the floor as well. This battle royal is great solely for how ridiculous it is. It takes Daivari and Martinez to team up and shove Famous B. out; B. was over with this crowd after his performance by the way. Fenix is left with two heels, but he quickly tosses Daivari to break up the heel team-up and then faces off with the Moth. The crowd demands that Fenix KILL THE MOTH. I love that you can take even the babyfaces whom I don’t like and just stick them against the Moth, and I immediately and desperately want the babyface to win. There just aren’t many good true heels anymore, or maybe it’s that wrestling fans are too in tune with the meta aspects of wrestling and thus find it hard to lose themselves in a heel’s awful behavior. Martinez fakes a dive and bows after Fenix goes to the floor – remember, this match ends by pinfall or submission now, not by over-the-top-rope elimination – drawing the ire of the crowd. Vampiro, as Fenix hits an arm drag after multiple unnecessary rope bounces: “Cirque du Soleil here in Lucha Underground, no doubt!” He said it, so it’s okay that I say it, that’s what I’ve decided. The match ends shortly after when Martinez legitimately struggles to catch Fenix and totally botches the transition. Fenix still manages to wriggle around and manage a quick schoolboy for three. It was ugly, as Vampiro noted, but it gets the job done. Fenix locks his medallion into the Gift of the Gods belt; Dario steps just outside of his office and, watching Fenix celebrate, grinds his teeth in frustration. Dario’s facial expressions have been amazing tonight. Vampiro hypes Prince Puma speaking for the first time to end this show and then transitions to discussing Ultima Lucha, which will run three hours across two episodes. The first night will be an hour; the second night will run a full two hours. He and Striker run down the card once more, including the three matches that were confirmed tonight. Vampiro shows restraint by not hyping his own match against Penta at Ultima Lucha. I’m so excited about that match. WCW really had no idea what to do with Vampiro, did they? Prince Puma speaks in the center of the ring! He is sans Konnan; as you’ll recall from the previous show, Konnan got clobbered by Catrina’s powerful mystical Aztec stone, dumped in a coffin, and rolled out. Puma, who is sort of like Maggie Simpson in that he keeps getting cut off before he can speak, grabs a house mic and lifts it to his mouth…when he is interrupted by the entrance music of Mil Muertes and Catrina. Mil is wearing the lucha mask/well-fitted suit combo that is one of the best looks in the history of fashion for my money. That should be a Project Runway task right there. Design lucha masks and smart suits for the models. Anyway, Puma lays down his belt and gestures for Mil to step in the ring and cross it. Before Mil can get there, the Disciples of Death hop in the ring and attempt to beat down Puma, though at this, they are mostly unsuccessful. Puma clears them out while pointedly stealing glares at Mil, then dives onto them at ringside. That enrages Mil, who gets in the ring and tries to brawl his way to dominance. Puma uses his agility and speed to avoid damage, kicks Mil in the face, and locks eyes with Catrina before landing a 630 Senton Bomb. This is the first time all season that Puma has looked like a beast, so of course he’s likely going to lose the gold in a couple of shows. Really good go-home show with Dario working his magic and the rest of the matches set up for Ultima Lucha looking interesting and really improving what I thought was shaping up to be a somewhat mediocre card. 4 LU-CHA chants out of 5.

I totally agree that they are very different characters. I hate all of their promoing, though, and I just cannot stand their work in different ways (from my perspective, Moxley's deathmatch-adjacent stuff and terrible punches is different from Swerve looking like a goofball in there with a bunch of high spots that I don't like, but I dislike them both equally). AEW is so weird to me in that I want it to be successful as a promotion while at the same time, I hate pretty much everything about it from an entertainment standpoint. I probably watch an episode of Dynamite every year or two at this point to see if my opinion should hold, or else I watch a match that everyone at DVDVR is raving about, and yeah, I am not a fan of the house style or anything the wrestlers are doing, sadly. Except for Toni Storm. She cracks me up. In the defense of any reader of that thread, it got bleak in October of 1999 and didn't really let up until the back end of 2000. That's a lot of posts where I was hating on WCW!

I dig Mack so much, but I have an affinity for chubby athletes. If a dude looks like he shotguns beers on the weekends, but he can jump out of the gym, I'm rooting for him more often than not. Cage I complain about because he gets too in love with running and flying and overly-complex strongman moves when I think his best stuff is simple. He's a fun midcarder, though. I get on his case too much, probably. I always wonder if I talk too much more about what I don't like than what I like. I feel like I rave about the stuff I like all the time, but maybe not in proportion to talking about the stuff I don't like. I don't dislike lucha, for what it's worth. I don't like the flippy trios tag type stuff with dive after dive and contrived (to me) multiman spots. On the other hand, I love a good lucha brawl. My favorite stuff ringwork-wise in this season of LU has been stuff like the Casket Grave Consequences Match. That was a great lucha arena brawl, sort of a mix between some of the old school lucha brawls I've seen and an ECW-style arena brawl, with Fenix being forced to fight up from underneath and limiting his crazy but immersion breaking moves to sell beautifully. Anyway, here's some stuff that I've talked about liking at DVDVR over the past three or four years, either in passing or by writing entirely too many words about it: 1995 - mid-1998 WCW (People seem to think 1998 WCW fell off a lot earlier than I did, FWIW. 2001 WCW 1992 WCW JCP (even the 1988/1989 years where it seemed like a major star left every month) Mid-South (especially 1983/1984) Portland in the '70s and early '80s Broadly, the WWF between about 1984 and 1998 (I need to watch a lot more late '70s/early '80s WWF, honestly) 2014-2016 NXT (this is also the last WWF that I've ever watched) UWFi (I watched a lot of this, but didn't write about it. I should go back and do that) Memphis (oh man, do I love me some Memphis, even the bad stuff) That's just off the top of my head. I sense that I should talk more about these things so that it doesn't seem like I hate pro wrestling!

These are fair points. My only defense is that in a career so long and so consistently bad, I was bound to forget/block out at least a few of Trips's myriad low points.

I just found out what this means. I guess on the bright side, that one LMS match against Shawn Michaels is now only the second-most objectionable thing that Trips has been associated with.

Season 1, Show 36: “The Beginning of the End” or Immortal Kombat Our Permadeath Count still sits at one, but I’m expecting it to tick upward in the final few episodes of this first season. Recap: Dario Cueto has seven ancient Aztec medallions that he’s offering up. What will happen when someone collects all seven? Meanwhile, Sexy Star, Super Fly, Pentagón Jr., and Vampiro are mired in feuds with one another that have cascaded from Penta ditching Chavo Guerrero Jr. and finding a newer, darker, meaner master to follow. I guess you could technically blame Chavo for this, huh? Or Konnan for smuggling these guys across the border, but nah, it seems like Chavo is the guy to blame here in LU for a surprising amount of the bad stuff that happens. Seedy backstage interstitial: Dario Cueto seemingly monologues about the four remaining medallions in his possession. Three have been claimed, but four are left. As Dario says, if one collects them all, one can become on par with the Aztec gods, but what he actually means if I recall correctly is that if one collects them, they insert them into a belt that acts as a Money in the Bank briefcase. Anyway, we see that this monologue is a pitch to Penta to compete for a medallion. Penta is preoccupied with ruining Vampiro’s life and destroying Vampiro’s sanity right now, so he refuses. Dario even decides to maybe just give a medallion to Penta in appreciation for Penta’s willingness to snap arms and set people alight, but Penta speaks for his Dark Master in saying that they have bigger concerns. He even lets Dario know that if his Dark Master wants these medallions, Penta will just come into the office, snap Dario’s arm, and take them. Goddam, that's cold! Dario wants this violent nutbar to please take a medallion, no arm snapping needed, and in fact starts to bargain with Penta over what it will take for this guy to accept one of these golden disks of amazing Aztec Money in the Bank power. Penta, of course, wants to beat the shit out of Vampiro and snap his arm. He goes off to do so; as he leaves, Dario asks when he’ll get to meet Penta’s Dark Master. Penta says that his Dark Master will reveal himself after Penta has proven that he is the best arm-snapping disciple that he can be. Penta cut a dope promo there, and I say that having read the whole thing in subtitles. I really wish I had learned Spanish at some point. Vampiro seems okay again over at the commentary desk. Neither he nor Striker talks about that wild attack that Penta perpetrated upon Vamp last week. Instead, we get through the intro without incident and kick it to the ring, where Bengala stands awaiting his opponent for one of the Aztec medallions. As a reminder, Jack Evans, Aerostar, and Fenix possess three of them already, though Fenix hasn’t been seen for weeks after Mil Muertes powered up and beat the shit out of him. Anyway, Bengala’s opponent is Delavar Daivari (w/Big Ryck). Yuck. Bengala does some lucha stuff, including your typical "bouncing three times on the top rope before doing an arm drag" deal. I can accept rope walking moves like this if you give me an at least barely plausible reason – the Undertaker holding his opponent in zombie thrall, for example – but I’m finding that I’m just not gelling with the general bouncy aspects of lucha style even after nearly a whole season of watching it. It’s just not for me, man. Lucha brawls are incredible, though. Striker, on cue, notes that if you’re not used to the style, it can be jarring. I will give Bengala love for not slapping his thigh on a superkick, though. It looked great because he stuck that boot in there, no sound effects needed. Criticism aside, Bengala is actually pretty fun, and by the point at which he hits a suicide dive on Ryck at ringside, the crowd is entirely behind him. Daivari takes over in the ring and calls Ryck onto the apron to help him, but Ryck swings a forearm and hits Daivari in a spot that looked awful because by the time Bengala managed a go-behind and switched places with Daivari, Ryck still hadn’t swung. If this were a real fight, he would have had plenty of time to see this and wouldn’t have swung. Alas, he had a spot to complete, and it looked fucking awful. Bengala follows with a back suplex and a bridge for three. Fellas, is Daivari a shitty pro wrestler? I’m beginning to think that he is. We go back to the desk, where Vampiro suddenly steps away from the desk as Striker promotes a Prince Puma/Mil Muertes faceoff for later in the show. Vamp gets in the ring holding a house mic as we go to break. We come back to Vampiro struggling to consider the challenge that Pentagón Jr. has put before him, and the unhelpful fucking animals in the crowd chant ONE MORE MATCH at him. No! He’s trying to avoid one more match for his own safety and well-being! Vampiro says that Penta attacking him last week and pouring gasoline on him is something reminds him of himself. That is, of course, because Vampiro poured gasoline on Sting in 2000, and, of course, Sting had previously said that Vampiro reminds him of himself. Something something history repeating. This is the point at which Penta cuts in on this promo. Penta doesn’t want to hear all this bullshit about how much Vampiro loves lucha libre, but oh, Vamp's a changed man now. He wants an answer to his challenge to Vamp for Ultima Lucha or it’s torch-and-gas time! Of course, the complete reprobates in the crowd chant YOU STILL GOT IT at Vamp and then transition into chanting Penta’s name because they are as violence-loving as Dario Cueto is. Maybe more! Penta is really working hard on mocking “Ian” to get a response. Vampiro says that Ian Hodgkinson won’t face Penta at Ultima Lucha, but that Ian's unstable persona Vampiro is up for one more fight! Penta tries to attack, but Vampiro counters with a goozle and a chokeslam. Then he goes to stand in the crowd while they chant his name and go absolutely banana. May I impress upon you how much this segment and this feud as a whole has absolutely fucking ruled, dear reader? Seedy backstage interstitial: Sexy Star is getting suited up before her match tonight; she pulls equipment out of her gold designer bag (?!), where she finds Super Fly’s mask still stashed since she won it from him (Season One, Show Twenty-Two). She has a flashback to all the nonsense that has happened as a result of Dario Cueto hating it when babyfaces are friendly toward one another, then shakes her head sadly, puts the mask down, and leaves the locker room. Aw, Matt Striker is so proud of Vampiro as Vampiro sits back down at the desk. I have to say that Striker constantly being supportive of his desk partner is low-key one of the most heartwarming things on this whole show. Vampiro is out of Macho-saying-funny-things-on-commentary mode and is into Macho-agitating-to-get-back-in-the-ring mode at this point. We’ve got another Aztec medallion match up next: King Cuerno faces Killshot. They’d better not put Swerve’s sorry ass over Cuerno. Cuerno slaps the shit out of Killshot to start, but when he shoots Killshot in, the latter does a bunch of flips to then hit a dropkick. This dude Killshot hits a weak forearm, then does a dumb gunshot taunt before landing a kick with a thigh slap for emphasis. And of course, on a thigh-slap scale where “least obvious” is Prince Puma, “most obvious” is Fenix, and dead in the middle is Alberto El Patrón, these thigh slaps score a(n)…Fenix. There are many reasons that I don’t watch AEW, but the biggest one is that they’re a company running with Moxley, Swerve, Hangman, and MJF as four of their main event guys. Good god, that might be the least watchable set of main eventers in the history of big-time professional wrestling on cable/streaming. I don’t know. Who was Southwest running with on top in the short time that they were on USA? Actually, dying days AWA on ESPN might have had a competitively bad set of top-line stars. Then again, wasn’t Larry Zbyszko there most of that time? Larry Z. is far better on his worst day than any of the dudes headlining AEW today. Even post-Flair WCW in 1991 still had Sting and Luger. I can’t believe that I’m going to be subjected to multiple seasons of Killshot. God, that AR Fox feud might make me temporarily hate pro wrestling. Cuerno does his best, using his much better taunt where he draws a bow and arrow and then locking on a nice surfboard to earn a submission victory and a medallion. When Killshot was on offense, that match sucked. Our final match is yet another meeting between Super Fly and Sexy Star, which is a shame as Star needs to work with someone who understands how to make her look more fluid and hide her weaknesses, and Fly is not that dude. This is our final Aztec medallion match of the night, by the way, and it ends in like a minute after Star transitions from a headscissors into an armbar and gets a quick tapout. Huh. I’m glad that this was short for two reasons: One, they don’t work all that well together, and two, Star needed a dominant win if she’s going to be positioned as an upper-midard talent. Oh boy, here comes Marty “the Moth” Martinez. He has the nerve rip away Melissa Santos’s microphone at ringside for his own use. He gets in the ring and creeps on Sexy Star (“Can I call you Sexy?” “If you don’t mind, I would like to see that sweet **ostentatiously looks at her ass**…medallion.”). THIS GUY SUCKS. KILL HIM, SEXY STAR. Martinez challenges her to an immediate fight for her medallion, and she accepts. Marty doesn’t understand that Sexy Star won’t quit even though he hits body slams and shoulderblocks and even locks on a Figure Four in the middle of the ring. Star is able to turn the hold to break it, then spins her way out of a slam attempt and into another armbar for yet another tapout victory. YEAH! I don’t even like Sexy Star, but she’s booked so well that I find myself rooting for her! Matt Striker runs down the Ultima Lucha card, which honestly doesn’t look that great to me. Puma/Mil will probably be a good match, the trios tag title will be okay, and I’m very excited for Penta/Vampiro on the strength of what might be the best feud this whole season. It’s that or Fenix/Mil. The rest of it doesn’t look great, especially not that Texano/Blue Demon Jr. bout. Dario Cueto is in the ring garnering an EL JEFE chant before getting WHAT-ed by that same chanting crowd because these complete degenerates who attend these tapings are one of the worst wrestling crowds in history. I was watching some JCP the other day and decided that the best wrestling crowds (at least stateside) have a higher proportion of women who love soap operas in them. Ric Flair almost dropping a knee on Baby Doll before Magnum TA led some babyfaces out to save her in the nick of time got such an emotional response from the crowd, and I believe that’s because the women in particular were completely emotionally invested in things based on the pitch of the crowd's yelling and shrieking. They weren’t trying to get themselves over with a chant or ironically indicate their place or status within wrestling nerd culture like men often do in modern wrestling crowds. They were genuinely invested in the drama. The problem with the Temple crowds is that there are too many men in them who love chanting shit and consciously being a part of the show and not enough women who become a part of the show by actually caring about the characters and stories in front of them. But, much like Taz(z), I digress. Dario mediates a faceoff between Prince Puma (w/o Konnan…hmmm) and Mil Muertes (w/o Catrina…hmmmmmmmmm). Striker says that Dario only wanted the competitors and not their managers in the ring, which takes some of the mystery away. Before he said that, I was wondering if Catrina had kidnapped Konnan and teleported him directly into Matanza’s cell so that Black Lotus could watch Matanza have dinner or something. Dario is such a goof. As Puma and Mil face off, Dario interjects: “I can cut the tension with a machete, HEH HEH!” That laugh at his own quip was so silly. There is no way to capture it in writing. Anyway, Catrina walks down the stairs, distracting Puma so that the Disciples of Death can jump the champ from behind. Konnan comes down and fights off two of the disciples with his reinforced pimp cane, but the other disciple gets a hold of it and knocks Konnan down. Puma grabs Catrina, but gets jumped by Mil. Catrina knocks out Konnan with her mystical stone; the Disciples of Death roll Konnan into a coffin and wheel him out while Mil holds Puma in place; once Konnan is halfway down the aisle, Mil lands a Flatliner before grabbing the LU Championship belt and posing with it. I didn’t expect to write this at all, but here goes: The Vampiro/Penta feud is a major anchor for these latest shows and vastly improves their quality. 4 LU-CHA chants out of 5.

I assumed that it was because she was kidnapped suddenly by the bad guys the first time around. When she comes back for the post-game, I'd think she'd put some shoes on by that point (though there is one costume you can unlock where she has flats on).

I did. That was the only Christie book I'd ever read before this year. I read it when I was maybe eleven or twelve, so it hadn't been for quite a while. Totally agreed! It was better reading this time around because Christie has a lot of fun pointing to the solution.

Season 1, Show 35: “Fuel to the Fire” or Penta the Burninator starring in Dario’s Cool Wrestling Promotion for Attractive Luchadores and Luchadoras Recap: We careen wildly toward Ultima Lucha, where Catrina plans to capture a few titles for Mil Muertes and his disciples, and Alberto El Patrón hopefully, mercifully settles his feud with Johnny Mundo. On another note, Willie Mack looks to get back at Brian Cage. Seedy dojo interstitial: Pentagón Jr. bows to his Dark Master, who addresses Penta in a voice that is a cross between Dungeon of Doom-era King Curtis Iaukea and Ole Anderson as the Black Scorpion. Penta wants to get Vampiro in the ring so that he can snap the announcer-slash-legend’s arm, and his Dark Master suggests that Penta attack Vampiro’s ego to get Vamp to agree to a match. Penta, however, has a different plan: Make Ian Hodgkinson the sacrifice. Like 2000 Sting, 2015 Penta has realized that apparently Ian and Vampiro being two separate beings in the same body and that either can be a target depending on the context. I mean, Vince Russo tried something with potential back in 2000 WCW, but as with everything else he tried that Lucha Underground also tried, LU was the one to execute it properly. We hit the commentary desk and, oh no, Vampiro, you’re in danger! Anyway, he updates us on tonight’s proceedings (we're getting something called an Atómicos tag match) before Striker cuts in to talk about how Penta has challenged his partner on color. In fact, Vampiro and Penta had some adventures in interviewing together that I am extremely excited to watch! Willie Mack is in the ring. Let’s get this dude a win…especially over this bum Brian Cage. Actually, Cage isn’t bad or anything, but he really doesn’t do it for me. I hate to do this to a guy like Willie Mack, but on a thigh-slap scale where “least obvious” is Prince Puma, “most obvious” is Fenix, and dead in the middle is Alberto El Patrón, these thigh slaps score a(n)…Fenix, so much so that I feel like I should consider replacing Fenix’s spot on the scale with Willie Mack. These are two beefy dudes who also leap around more than one would expect beefy dudes to do, which is fairly entertaining. Cage hits a stalling vertical suplex on Mack that is legitimately the best move I’ve seen him do this whole season. That ruled. If one of them also gorilla press slams the other one, this match will be an unqualified success. Vampiro, about the black-and-yellow clad Mack: “He kinda looks like a big honey bear, a big bumblebee.” That’s the sort of weird neo-Macho-on-color observation that I appreciate from Vampiro. They throw a bunch of bombs at one another – exploder suplex into the corner buckles from Mack, discus lariat from Cage – before Mack steals the victory with a quick schoolboy on a rope run. That was a fun little opener. Seedy backstage interstitial: Catrina is teleporting around scaring the shit out of people again. She pokes Son of Havoc on the back of the neck, causing him to turn around, before then teleporting behind him. He is suitably spooked. She heralds the coming attempt of the Disciples of Death to take Dysfunction Junction's trios titles as well as heralding Mil Muertes’s meeting in the ring with Havoc later tonight. Ivelisse cuts in on this creepfest, and I feel like I should bring back the BITCH COUNT for Ivelisse’s promos. She’s not quite as big a fan of calling people BITCH as Shane Douglas was in, you guessed it, 2000 WCW, but she still stands out in that category. Before Ivelisse can wrap her hands around Catrina’s neck, Catrina teleports out and Ivelisse falls into – and on top of – Havoc. They stare somewhat intimately into one another’s eyes until Angelico, who missed this whole ordeal, walks in and destroys the mood by saying, “Oh God, please don’t tell me you two are getting back together.” Havoc and Ivelisse look at him and tell him to shut up at the exact same time. Heh. Anyway, Catrina is an agent of controlled chaos. Just the worst possible enemy to have in the Temple. I’m genuinely sad that there was never a chance for Catrina to steal the urn from Paul Bearer and then embed her mystical Aztec stone in it, causing her to be the one in control of the Undertaker and forcing Bearer to reveal that the scarred Kane is still alive before having Kane strike back against both Mil Muertes and the controlled zombie Undertaker while Bearer tries to retrieve the urn and cleanse it of the stone and the dark mystical powers that Catrina has imbued it with. I mean, come on. I would give all the money in my pocket to see that feud. We need some sort of quantum computer that can look into a universe where Catrina and Mil worked in WWE, Bearer lived past 58, and Kane wasn’t revealed until 2015 (and was instead portrayed by Drew Hankinson). I would watch the hell out of that alternate universe’s version of this very storyline. You know that it would be so bad that it was great! Matt Striker pimps Patron/Mundo and Puma/Muertes at Ultima Lucha, then kicks it over to… Adventures in Interviewing with Vampiro: Vampiro starts the interview by begging off and apologizing to Pentagón Jr. and the fans for getting physically involved with Penta in the ring a few weeks ago. Penta’s body language is hilarious. He’s leaning back in his chair in a way that screams Nah, fuck this dude and his apologies. Vamp gets right to it and asks who his Dark Master is, though when Penta doesn’t answer, Vamp takes it in stride and says he expected not to get an answer to that query. Vamp moves on and asks Penta why he likes violence so much, which is when Penta strikes: He says that actually, they’re both a lot alike in that they loved inflicting violence and pain, but now Vampiro is an out-of-shape, dusty-ass coward (I added some of that description for effect, but that’s basically what Penta says). The word “coward” specifically sets Vampiro off, who gives real “I can stop smoking crack whenever I want” energy with his response, reproduced here: “Don’t you ever say that to me again! Don’t get confused: a coward, I am not! Don’t push me, man, ‘cuz I’ll jump right now, if you wanna throw down, I’ll kick your ass so quick, you won’t even know what happened! But I’m not like that anymore! You get it? My time has come and gone, dawg.” He proclaims that he’s a better man now. Come on, man. Penta, of course, keeps pushing Vampiro toward a complete loss of control. He calls out Vampiro’s begging off as proof that he is indeed a coward, then tosses his chair aside and screams his catchphrase right up in Vamp’s grill before walking away. Vampiro looks murderous in a shot that is reminiscent of one of those Stanley Kubrick shots where a character leers into the camera with extreme malice or barely-contained mania (or both). Real A Clockwork Orange/The Shining vibes in that parting shot of Vampiro. The producers of this show sure do enjoy their classic films. This is probably needless to reiterate, but the interviews and interstitials have been fantastic so far tonight. Penta’s an excellent promo, and he’s not even speaking in a language that I fluently understand! He’s high up on my “promo guys who are great even if my monolingual ass doesn’t understand them” list. Mil Muertes (w/Catrina) is going to put a hurting on Son of Havoc (w/Angelico and Ivelisse). Havoc is game early, using his speed and agility advantage to manage a diving crossbody for all of a one-count. Havoc tries a handspring elbow, but gets snagged out of midair and tossed to the floor, where Mil clears a section of the audience and tosses the guy into the chairs at ringside. He then clears the commentary desk and powerbombs Havoc onto the tough table, which doesn’t even consider giving for a single, solitary second. Mil continues to destroy this guy, tossing him into any and everything around the ringside area, before putting Havoc back in the ring. Havoc is able to duck a Muertes charge that spills Mil to ringside and then hit a desperation suicide dive that really feels much less desperate when he walks over to celebrate with some fans in the crowd. Back in the ring, Havoc’s standing moonsault only earns one; Havoc takes a lot of time to go up top and leaps right into a goozle. He flips out of a Mil chokeslam attempt, but all of his rope-running machinations end up with him running into a straight right hand from Mil. The dominant Muertes puts Havoc up top and gnaws on his forehead. Havoc punches his way out of trouble, front suplexes Mil to the mat, and then fires off with a shooting star press that Muertes rolls away from. Meanwhile, Catrina decides to hit on Angelico. Ivelisse hobbles over and cuts her off. They double-goozle one another, but Catrina beat the hell out Dario Cueto and has no problems breaking Ivelisse's goozle and choking Ivelisse out. The Disciples of Death, meanwhile, have appeared behind Angelico and start beating him down, so Havoc diverts from fighting Mil to dive onto them at ringside. However, when he slides back into the ring, he eats a Muertes lariat and gets speared, downed with a Flatliner by Mil, and licked by Catrina in short order. That was another fun match, especially because all of the jibber-jabber and flim-flam that led to the finish. Texano Jr. continues his babyface turn by saying that he’s a complete prick, but a nationalistic one who will always stand up for his country. Real Hulkster vibes, in other words. Texano is a real Mexican, beatin' up Chavo Jr. who is less than a man. Texano promises to injure Chavo’s other leg at Ultima Lucha, but is jumped from behind by Cisco and Cortez. Blue Demon Jr. runs to the ring; Cisco and Cortez scurry away. Of course, the flunkies slide Demon a chair and Demon cracks Texano in the head with it. Commentary, not having seen last week’s final seedy backstage interstitial, is confused (as is the crowd, which also hasn’t seen it at this point). Striker speculates on why Demon is wearing out the bloodied Texano with a kendo stick, but all he has to do is wait for Demon to grab a mic and declare that he, not Texano, is Mexico. Demon further declares that he, not Chavo Jr., will fight Texano at Ultima Lucha. I must say once again that I love the division between what commentary knows (everything that happens in the arena or in interviews Vampiro conducted) and what they have no way of knowing (the seedy interstitials that only the home viewer is privy to). Lucha Underground practically runs on dramatic irony, and I think part of the fun of watching this show on television is the anticipation of seeing how an on-screen character will react to an event that they don’t yet know happened even if we do. For example, I was even more excited to see Vampiro interview Penta after the opening interstitial showed Penta and his Dark Master plotting to goad Vampiro into willingly becoming Penta’s next sacrifice. For that matter, I’m excited to see if Penta has bit off more than he can chew because Penta doesn’t know how volatile Vampiro is or that Vamp literally smashed a mirror with his head Twin Peaks-style when the division between Ian and Vampiro was at least briefly erased after their first confrontation. Because these shows are loaded with dramatic irony, there’s an uncommon amount of tension in a lot of the confrontations that happen in the ring, or maybe more accurately a different type of tension than usually exists in pro wrestling matches because of how loaded these confrontations often are with all that irony. It leads to such a unique dramatic feel for a pro wrestling show. OK, our main event is an Atómicos tag between Team Alberto (Alberto El Patrón, Sexy Star, Aerostar, and Drago) and Team Johnny (Johnny Mundo, Hernandez, Jack Evans, and Super Fly). I suppose this is just a four-on-four match to one fall. In a funny opening spot, Mundo circles Patron, then decides that discretion is the better part of valor. He tries to quickly tag in Hernandez and Fly, but they hastily hop off the apron. Evans, though, is preening with his back to the ring and gets blind tagged. Evans gets in the ring, yells C’MON PATRON, does a backflip, and is immediately slapped in the face. That was all solid comedy right there. I forgot until just now that Aerostar and Jack Evans have each won one of Dario's Aztec medallions. Striker and Vampiro awkwardly riff while promoting Vampiro’s then-new publication, and I honestly was unsure of whether this was a complete riff or whether Vampiro had a book on Amazon. It looks like maybe he was collaborating on a comic book around this time according to Slam Wrestling. The match! Yes, I forgot about this while I was looking for info about whatever Vampiro was promoting. After the opening comedy spots that I found delightful, it’s a lot of running and attacks without tags and dives and group dives and all the contrived stuff you get from multi-man matches in this style. After a series of dives where everyone ends up on top of everyone else at ringside, Aerostar ends up enduring as the FIP before hot tagging Star. Star actually manages to hold her own until Hernandez hops in and hits her with a backbreaker, which is when people just jump in without tagging and the match breaks down again. This bout isn’t really my deal. Let me just tell you the finish: Evans survives an awfully long time in Alberto’s cross-arm breaker so that Mundo can scramble up the ropes and break it with an End of the World. Mundo then continues on and rolls up Star with a giant grab of her pantaloons for three. That match wasn’t very good, but what comes next is! As Striker and Vampiro close the show at ringside, Penta steaks up through the crowd and kicks Vampiro right in the fucking ear from behind. That was amazing. I thought the kick was even more violent than his follow-up chair shots. He lays Vampiro out, then grabs a house mic and promises his Dark Master that he will destroy Vampiro as sacrifice, and then – OH, COME ON, this guy Penta is absolutely calling back to 2000 WCW! He grabs a tank of gasoline and pours its contents on Vampiro as though he were 2000 Vampiro attacking 2000 Sting. I suppose Vampiro probably used gasoline elsewhere in his wrestling career, but for this American fan who doesn’t follow lucha but definitely followed WCW, Penta is 2000 Vampiro and Vampiro is 2000 Sting in this feud, and they’re matching some of the actual events that happened between Vamp and Sting in 2000 here in 2015 Lucha Underground. Penta says that he will burn Vampiro up, and also maybe Vampiro’s family, if Vamp doesn’t accept his challenge for Ultima Lucha. This absolutely ruled. What a great way to end this show. No Dario, no problem. I wonder if his actor was filming something else for this latest batch of shows and was thus unavailable. Anyway, any LU show that calls back to something Vince Russo did while also proving that in fact Russo’s broad ideas were solid and that the difference between Russo and LU’s bookers is that the latter are talented gets at least a bonus partial LU-CHA chant from me: 4.5 LU-CHA chants out of 5.

Agatha Christie, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd - This is one of the best-plotted things I've ever read. Readers who were mad at Christie after the reveal of the murderer were really just subconsciously mad at themselves for not putting together the very obvious motives, opportunities, and discrepancies in the murderer's alibi almost immediately. It's the rare book so clever that I wish I had been clever enough to write it. Larry McMurtry, Boone's Lick - This was basically a shorter, much more comic version of Lonesome Dove with a generally happy ending. That is to say that I liked it. Perfect beach read. Mike Medavoy, You're Only as Good as Your Next One - This is a cheat as I'm at the point where he's just waiting to get fired as head of Tri-Star when Peter Guber eventually gets around to it, but this was a pretty good memoir as far as self-aggrandizing memoirs go. Best read after or in conjunction with Kim Masters and Nancy Griffin's Hit & Run, which I have also been re-reading at the same time as this. Or just read Hit & Run. Everyone who enjoys the business of Hollywood should read Hit & Run.

I am in the post-game of Donkey Kong Bananza, and boy, that is a game that absolutely fell off in quality in the back half. After the layer with the elephant elder, they introduce a bunch of un-fun level gimmicks and the lack of precision that DK has when platforming compared to Mario in Odyssey becomes clearer. Odyssey had a few side moons that were just good old difficult platformer challenges where I died quite a bit, and I knew that it was my fault every time. Not so much in DKB. This game is about twenty hours too long. I love the DK/Paultween friendship and all the music, but boy, this game is not very good after about ten levels down into the planet! I'm still going to 100% it and get all three stars on my file, but unlike Odyssey, I won't be starting a new file and doing it again anytime soon. In fairness, this is the first 3D platformer DK game that EAD has actually released, so I'm sure the sequel will be flames after they figure out how to iterate on the concepts in this game properly. I expect a BotW -> TotK level jump in quality when the sequel comes out in the 2030s or whenever.

Season 1, Show 34: “Gold and Guerreros” or If this ep were reviewed in GamePro, it would score dead in the middle for Fun Factor I am so glad that we are getting back to… Recap: …all the fuckery Chavo Guerrero Jr. has gotten into, what with the backstabbing of Blue Demon Jr. and the resultant backlash from Mexicans who respect Demon’s family and Chavo countering that by backstabbing both El Dragon Azteca and Black Lotus by delivering Lotus into the hands of Dario Cueto. Chavo Jr. just seems completely in over his head. If I had an “evil plan scale where ‘least in over their head’ is Catrina, ‘most in over their head’ is Chavo Guerrero Jr., and dead in the middle is Dario Cueto,” well, it’s obvious what Chavo Jr. would be scoring, isn’t it? Also, this ice cold Texano/Daivari feud unfortunately **Howard Finkel voice** MUST CONTINUE. Finally, poor Drago won his way back into the Temple, but lost his title shot to Mil Muertes. How will he rebound? Seedy backstage interstitial: We are starting this show out in my favorite way – with Dario Cueto-focused plotting! Dario counts his dollars before stashing them away as Chavo Guerrero Jr. comes in. Chavo has one more request from Dario, which Dario pretends to forget until Chavo presses him. That final request is a No DQ Lucha Underground Championship Match against Prince Puma. Actually, beyond that, Chavo has one mini-request, which is for Dario to mitigate the effects of Konnan and Konnan's pimp cane at ringside. I guess Chavo doesn’t trust his flunkies to get the job done (nor should he). Dario decrees that if Konnan gets involved, Chavo will win the title automatically. The evil guys laugh evilly. Tonight’s house band is very good. It’s the band with M. Bison in it – Mexican Dubweiser. Interestingly, LU is going to burn Drago vs. Hernandez off tonight and not save it for Ultima Lucha [Editor's note: As a seasoned pro wrestling viewer, I should know better than to type something definitive like that before the match even happens]. Delavar Daivari (w/Big Ryck) is in the opener against Texano, which they also aren’t saving for Ultima Lucha. That’s fine with me. This feud has been bad. Put Texano over Daivari and let’s move on from this, please. Texano comes out hot; Daivari scrambles to the floor after a back body drop, where he is pursued by Texano until Big Ryck blocks off Texano’s path. Daivari uses that distraction to catch Texano coming back in the ring, but he rapidly loses control of the match until, again, Ryck alters things by grabbing Texano’s leg on a rope run. We get a shot of Ryck jawing at the crowd and Daivari putting Texano in a leg grapevine. Go back to the first shot; that was more interesting. Daivari tosses Texano to ringside so that Ryck can get a few boots in before putting Texano in a Figure Four back in the ring. Texano manages to endure the pain and turn the Figure Four, but Daivari simply breaks it and then gets right back to attacking the leg. Ooh, here’s a dropkick to Texano’s leg, and On a thigh-slap scale where “least obvious” is Prince Puma, “most obvious” is Fenix, and dead in the middle is Alberto El Patrón, these thigh slaps score a(n)…Fenix. I mean, the production truck didn’t help him at all. Or for that matter help Texano, who clearly double-slaps on a missile dropkick that cuts off Daivari’s offensive burst. These two just stand there and chop one another for a bit before Daivari runs into a leg lariat. Both men trade two counts in this mediocre-ass match that hopefully will be over soon. Daivari directs Ryck to grab Texano’s bullrope, but when Daivari pushes him over in Ryck’s direction, Ryck misses with a bullrope-wrapped fist. Texano slaps his thigh, and also there’s a superkick in there, and Ryck goes plummeting off the apron. Then, Texano returns to Daivari and hits a sit-out powerbomb for the win. Not a good match whatsoever, but hopefully we are done with these two having anti-chemistry together. Seedy backstage interstitial: Konnan contemplates tonight’s title match while Puma pumps iron. And here’s Catrina! She does her Aztec teleport thing right into the weight room and expresses confidence that her man Mil will destroy Puma at Ultima Lucha before Mil teleports in and faces off with Puma…then disappears after the lights flicker. Konnan has watched this whole thing calmly, and as a veteran of the lucha game, he’s totally relaxed. He’s just like, Yo Puma, it’s just mind games, bro, don’t worry about the mystical teleportation powers your opponent apparently wields. As much as I personally would love cowardly Chavo Guerrero Jr. winning the LU Championship and then desperately cheating, ducking, and dodging to keep it, they needed to get this belt on Mil about at the point where he came back from the dead and beat Fenix. Seedy backstage interstitial: Konnan is talking to a long-time friend backstage. We don’t see that long-time friend, but Konnan basically says that this friend has been waiting to attack Chavo ever since Chavo did what he did to Blue Demon Jr. Konnan exhorts this friend to finally get Chavo tonight and fulfill the payback that apparently all of Mexico wants to exact on Chavo for attacking the Demon family. Hmm. Drago is over as a babyface in the Temple, and it’s well-deserved. He’s had a good first season overall here in Lucha Underground. Drago makes his way to the ring to face Hernandez. As with his match against Mil Muertes last week, Drago is undersized, but Hernandez doesn’t have an Aztec stone imbued with the power of a thousand souls like Mil does, so he’s probably got a better shot at winning here. The match starts with production cutting eighteen times on a corner charge like this is your typical WWE show. I assume that after all the obvious thigh slaps, someone halfway through the post-production process decided to hide some of the looser or more obvious work in this show (Drago slips while flipping out of a Hernandez move attempt at one point), but they went HAM on it here. Seriously, the most notable thing about this match is the strange choices about camera cuts. This match is fine, mind you, and Hernandez’s cocky heeling is always fun to me, and Drago is solid as usual, but I’m not sure that this bout lives up to its potential. I like Drago an awful lot, but as good as he's been overall, his best matches were against King Cuerno. Maybe it’s a sign of how good Prince Puma really is that he had such a good match with Hernandez a few weeks ago. Again, I like Hernandez, but he’s not a guy who typically has matches as good as he did with Puma. The match does pick up a bit when it goes outside, where Hernandez hits a Border Toss that slams Drago’s back against the apron. That's a wicked spot. Unfortunately, there’s a silly spot with a plant right after that where Hernandez accosts him for his belt. It’s just a bit too goofy for me, and unfortunately, it saps some of the heat from the Border Toss. The planted fan way overacts, and Vampiro’s “Dude, what is that? That’s prison love” as Hernandez bear hugs the guy doesn’t help, either. Anyway, Hernandez whips Drago with the belt, then hangs him by his neck with it and gets disqualified. Alright, they are going to carry this out to Ultima Lucha, in fact. Hernandez, on the house mic after the match: “You dumbass fans do not realize: DRAGONS ARE NOT REAL.” Basically, he doesn’t believe in Drago’s lucha-based, um, dragon…powers? I don’t know. Chavo Guerrero Jr. shadowboxes in the locker room when the lights flicker and Catrina zippy-zaps behind him and tells him that even if he wins the title, he’s pretty much fucked shortly thereafter at Ultima Lucha. Mil zeeble-zobbles into the room and faces off with Chavo, who pretty much blows him off and expresses supreme confidence in himself. This, of course, enrages Mil. Probably don’t want to do that, Chavo! You might find yourself a part of the Permadeath Count! I hit pause to finish up that last couple of sentences right at a point where Marty “the Moth” Martinez is leaning forward and trying to slurp a few stray strands of Melissa Santos’s hair. I mean, wow. Melissa actually tries not to crack for a second, manages to avoid corpsing, and then looks suitably creeped out as she ducks away. Hilariously, there’s another shot of her from the side as she resets, and I’m pretty sure that she’s still trying not to crack up. Well, the fun is over, as Alberto El Patrón’s aggressively mid ass comes out here. Patron beats the shit out of this creeper (which, incidentally, is what the crowd has started chanting at the Moth when he appears). Patron laser focuses on Marty’s arm and quickly locks on a cross-arm breaker for the easy squash victory. Patron cuts a post-match promo in which he thanks Johnny Mundo for re-focusing him by tossing him face-first through a window like he was named Marty Jannetty (Season One, Show Twenty-Seven). It goes on much longer than that sentence seems to indicate because Alberto keeps reiterating the same thing a few times. Vampiro hypes the main event, which isn’t of note except for the fact that Dario has just gotten word to Vampiro about what Vamp calls “the freshest stipulation ever" regarding the Konnan non-interference clause. Hilarious descriptor on Vamp's part. Speaking of said main event, here’s Chavo Guerrero Jr. (w/Cisco and Cortez) versus Prince Puma (w/Konnan). I know that this match is going to end with someone attacking Chavo, so I’m obviously not going to get into the journey there as much as I otherwise might. I’m just waiting to see what happens at the end. Vampiro is confused about why he hasn’t seen Bael in the past few weeks, which is excellent continuity. Well, about that, Vampiro, Bael was literally eaten by Matanza Cueto (Season One, Show Twenty-Seven). I wonder if he ever will find out what happened to Bael. Melissa Santos announces the stipulation w/r/t Konnan, and whoever is sitting near the house mic cracks me up by yelling WHAT! HE’S A MADMAN! about Dario as a response. This guy has been sitting there the past few shows and yelling stuff occasionally, and it hasn’t been annoying or anything, but this is the first time he’s made me flat-out laugh. Did you know that Prince Puma and Chavo Jr. are good at wrestling? If not, the opening of this match would indicate as much to any close observer of the pro graps. Unfortunately, it goes off the rails pretty quickly after Chavo fakes that he blew a hammy so that his flunkies can jump Puma, not that he needed to fake an injury since this match is no disqualification. Chavo still sells a hamstring injury even after his flunkies attack the champ, though, so maybe there’s something else to this injury. I’m curious about why Chavo is selling it. He slumps in the corner and watches his flunkies put in some work on Puma in the ring. Chavo slowly limps toward the corner and climbs the ropes for a Frog Splash as the flunkies hold Puma in place, but Konnan calls Texano out, who runs in and attacks the heels. To understate things, that was a disappointing reveal. Puma follows Texano’s attack with a 630 Senton on Chavo for the win. Konnan, taunting an annoyed Vampiro over at the commentary desk: “Did I prove you wrong again, Vampiro?” Honestly, Konnan vs. Vampiro and Penta vs. Vampiro are somehow two of the hottest feuds in this company for me. Texano promises that he is Mexico and that Mexico is hunting Chavo Jr. over the house mic. Chavo is still selling the leg to the point that I briefly wonder if he actually did blow a hammy. Seedy backstage interstitial: Chavo continues to work his injury, nursing his leg in the locker room after the show, where Blue Demon Jr. walks in on him. Chavo gets up and prepares to fight, but Demon assures him that unlike Chavo, he doesn’t attack people who are already injured. Chavo taunts Demon for needing Texano to fight his battles and then suggests that Texano “is Mexico, and [Demon] is just some has-been who lives in Miami.” That remark convinces Demon to attack a person who is already injured; Demon goozles Chavo and yells YO SOY MEXICO before storming out. The look on Chavo’s face suggests that he might have got his opps to fight one another just with one cutting remark. Chavo rules. And is evil. But still rules. This show didn’t have much good wrestling and still probably not enough Dario Cueto, but it was fine, if forgettable. 2.5 LU-CHA chants out of 5.

Season 1, Show 33: “Death vs. The Drago” or There Is No Escape Recap: Catrina’s plan, which was to have Fenix kill Mil Muertes and then resurrect Muertes using her mystical stone while also having Muertes steal a portion of Fenix’s Aztec rebirth powers to become stronger in preparation to win the Lucha Underground Championship, is coming to fruition! Also, that is a batshit crazy plan! You know the one way that Johnny Mundo using a crowbar on someone would logically work? If he used it on Mil. I would believe that Catrina’s mystical stone is more powerful than a mere crowbar. Matt Striker and Vampiro build the Ultima Lucha card to start our show. Our first match for that event is signed: Johnny Mundo vs. Alberto El Patrón. Sexy Star is in the ring, awaiting her frenemy Super Fly. Ooh, it’s time for… Adventures in Interviewing with Vampiro: This interview functions as a reminder of one of the multiple midcard storylines that were put on pause so that Johnny Mundo could stink it up in an Iron Man Match. Super Fly is aggy about losing his mask to Star, and he wanted her to lose the function of her arm as payback. Of course, he notes that the man who stopped that latter part from happening is his interviewer, Vampiro. Vampiro merely notes that Fly lost that match straight up, and he's got to live with how it shook out, but Fly thinks that Star should have walked away from the match and the Temple to save his mask. Or you could have walked away yourself, Mr. Heelish Heel. Fly warns Vampiro not to get involved in his rematch with Star and gets burned in return: “Dude, let’s be honest, man. She’s already beaten you and taken your mask, so instead of worrying about what I’m doing, why don’t you put your attention where it needs to be and focus on her?” Man, I wish we got casual shit-talker Vampiro in his WCW run. Fly promises to “put [Star] in her place” in tonight’s match. I enjoyed this. As for the match, On a thigh-slap scale where “least obvious” is Prince Puma, “most obvious” is Fenix, and dead in the middle is Alberto El Patrón, these thigh slaps score a(n)…Alberto on Fly’s part, though for accuracy’s sake, he’s a bicep slapper instead of a thigh slapper. You know, if the seller whips their head back on a strike, that visual is more effective than all the slapping nonsense in my humble opinion. This match is acceptable enough, I suppose. Star is having a solid night in the ring. Fly, I’m less impressed with. I’m not sure that he’s much good, actually. Maybe the fact that he has one eye painted like 1994 Crush has me making unfortunate singles work connections between the two. Just as I say that Star is having a decent night, she trips while trying to hit a crossbody from the top to the floor; Fly manages to catch her. Otherwise, though, Star looks way less awkward in the ring than she normally does. Star tries a legdrop and then a bridging vertical suplex to score three, but Fly kicks out at two both times. Fly takes over with a kick to the shin, then lands a double powerbomb and sits out on the second one for three. Fly continues to attack Star after the match and attempts to rip her mask off before tossing her to ringside. Striker “promises” me a multi-person match for an Aztec medallion. What’s he going to promise next, to come burn my house down? Okay, that’s a little extreme, but you get my point. Hype video: Drago is pretty rad! He preps to face death itself later tonight. Here are five wrestlers to have another LU style multi-person match. Hold on, though; Pentagón Jr. (w/threats toward Melissa Santos) is out first. He cuts a promo about how pleasing his Dark Master is more important than winning some stupid medallion and then promises to sacrifice Vampiro’s arm to his Master since Vampiro kept him from breaking Sexy Star’s arm a few weeks back as Super Fly previously discussed (Season One, Show Thirty). Vampiro refuses to get in the ring on account of he’s trying to leave that lifestyle behind, so Penta confronts him at the desk. Vamp tries to beg off, so Penta grabs his shirt, and Vamp finally shoves him away. They go face to face, and what the fuck, am I actually into the possibility of a Penta/Vampiro match? If they made it a bloody brawl, it could be pretty great! True to his words, Penta rolls out because he doesn’t care for Dario Cueto’s silly medallions. Vampiro sits back down at the desk and tries to control the weirdo rage that threatens to overwhelm his carefully medicated sanity. I think it’s awfully nice that Striker hastily kicks it to commercial and then immediately checks on his commentary buddy. I’m at the point where I think it’s time to blame WCW for making Vampiro seem like he sucked rather than Vampiro himself. OK, Aerostar, Marty “the Moth” Martinez, Cage, and Willie Mack are left to enter the ring and wrestle for the medallion. Cage is probably going to win this, which would be a bummer with the Moth and Mack in the ring. Mack and Cage go at it while the Moth and Aerostar act like chums, putting their arms around one another to enjoy the fight. Aerostar ends that by taking his arm from around Martinez’s shoulder and using it to roll up the Moth for two. This is a better match than most multi-mans in LU because everyone pairs off and there’s a lot of action going on at all times. Martinez eventually rids himself of Aerostar and dives over the top rope and onto Mack and Cage at ringside, then declares that he has AZTEC PRIDE. Vampiro, still a bit shaken, thinks the Moth was claiming to have something else: “Aztec Pie? What the hell is that?” I laughed. At one point, Cage fallaway slams Aerostar over the top and into Mack. This is a fun collection of spots and far more watchable than I thought it would be. The next step for LU is making these matches feel like complete narratives, but right now, I’m just glad that they didn’t always have two guys wrestling and two guys selling. They do actually have a bit of “two guys wrestle, two guys lay around” in the middle of the match, but it’s okay. Martinez is entertaining as hell. What a weirdo, man. I love his jawing at the ref as he attempts a series of pinfalls on Mack (“One-two-tres! I thought that was three!”) and his general strange-looking offense. Mack takes a ton of damage from the Moth and then Cage, but hangs on. There is a really good spot in here where the Moth and Aerostar team up to try and knock Cage down, but he runs through their double clothesline and hits one of his own. What I liked was Martinez and Aerostar selling that Cage ran through their clothesline with such physicality that it hurt their hands. Cage then takes a wild bump on the apron when Mack hoists him over in an exploder suplex. Mack follows with a Frog Splash from the top to the floor. That was certainly the most spectacular series of spots in the match. The Moth wants to follow, but he takes a long time to flap his wings and gets caught by Aerostar, who lands a rope-walk Frankensteiner and a springboard splash for three. That was a pretty fun TV match and included the bonus of Cage not winning. Seedy backstage interstitial: Boy, have I missed these. Son of Havoc and Ivelisse shadowbox while Angelico works his legs. Obviously, Ivelisse and Havoc throw harder punches than one would expect from trios champs, and Angelico tries to calm them down. That's when Catrina walks in and informs them that the Disciples of Death will be helping them out by taking their trios titles and allowing them to finally disband so they won't have to deal with one another anymore. Also, we get some horny straight dude fanservice as Catrina teases a Lick of Death on Ivelisse. Or you know, horny bi person fanservice. Or horny lesbian lady fanservice. Basically, if you are sexually interested in both women and cable TV-level erotica, this seedy backstage interstitial was for you! Of course, Catrina being all sexy is just a diversion so that she can use her mystical Aztec stone to call the Disciples of Death into the room with a spark of electricity; her minions teleport behind Dysfunction Junction and leave them laying, then teleport back out. Mil Muertes joins Catrina by speeding through the astral plane or something. He sure didn’t walk through the door, that’s for sure. Anyway, with one goal achieved for tonight, Mil and Catrina walk toward the ring to achieve their second goal: Destroy Drago and take his place as the contender to Prince Puma’s Lucha Underground Championship at Ultima Lucha. Drago enters that ring for the main event, but before he can do much more than pose, he is jumped by Hernandez, who whips him with a belt for, uh, taking advantage of the chance to win number one contendership when Hernandez failed to do so. I mean, look at the failings within yourself rather than lashing outward, Hernandez. Though I suppose if he could do that, he wouldn’t be a heel, now would he? Marty Elias way the fuck overacts as he checks to see if Drago can still go. Man, he is an annoying fucking referee. Mil Muertes (w/Catrina) enters the ring, and I can confirm that Muertes is too big for poor Drago. Drago fights and fights, but he can’t hit a back suplex on Mil. Credit to Drago, though, who is a fighter; Mil switches with him, and he fights off a back suplex and uses the ropes to leverage backward into a cutter. Mil manages to hit a release overhead belly-to-belly when Drago tries to run, however, and begins to assert himself by using his size and strength advantage. Drago tries to get on the move after eating quite a few lariats, and they have an okay exchange that ends in a pretty awesome spear. The spear was good enough to upgrade that exchange from “okay” to “good.” Drago finds himself even more deeply in trouble than he was when he was getting hit with tons of lariats. Muertes scores a handful of two counts before Drago manages to squeeze out of danger on a rope run and kicks a charging Mil to the floor. Drago then goes up top and hits a huge crossbody to Mil on the floor. Alas, now the match is outside the ring, where Mil Muertes can use the environment to assist in tossing Drago around. It doesn’t take long for Mil to clear the ringside audience out of their chairs so that he can toss Drago into them once vacated. Mil tosses Drago into the ring, but when he hears the crowd chant WE WANT TABLES, he considers it, then tosses Drago back outside and gives these fucking animals what they want, which is a powerbomb of Drago onto the unbreaking announce table. I like the called audible. Of course, the crowd then chants for DRA-GO, so maybe they just like chaos. I enjoy Drago, but he feels like a third party in this match. Mil and Catrina are way more interesting, and then the crowd actually is the secondary character that has been the most interesting. I feel like this is also Drago’s story and wish that his work came through stronger. Drago actually manages a Dragon’s Tail, but Mil wriggles out of it and clubs away at Drago, then goes right back to work. Drago tries to throw a punch, but Muertes catches it and pulls Drago into a Flatliner for the three and the title shot against Prince Puma. Muertes was very fun in that match. Catrina gives Drago a Lick of Death to put a fine point on the proceedings tonight. No, wait, Prince Puma (w/Konnan) arrives to face off with Muertes and Catrina as the show ends. That puts a fine point on the proceedings tonight. I’m bummed about the complete lack of Dario Cueto these last couple episodes (and the general lack of seedy backstage interstitials), but Vampiro did a lot of legwork this week to get the out-of-ring stuff over, the one interstitial we got was good, and the wrestling was much better than I would have guessed. I’m not surprised that Muertes and Drago had a good bout, but the undercard matches definitely surprised me with their quality. Good show! 3.75 LU-CHA chants out of 5.