SirSmUgly

Season 2, Show 6: “Gift of the Gods Ladder Match” or Basically Jusant, but with only one artifact from an ancient civilization to look for as you climb rather than many It strikes me that we haven’t had Aerostar or Sexy Star show up in front of the fans at the Temple yet. Does this show have something against stars? Recap: Speaking of Sexy Star, she’s still being terrorized by Marty and Mariposa Martinez. Prince Puma is too nice a dude for Pentagón Jr.’s liking and Penta is too violent a dude for Catrina’s liking. Catrina’s got her attention split between punishing Penta and keeping the Gift of the Gods title holder the hell away from Mil Muertes and the LU Championship. Seedy backstage interstitial: Mil Muertes asked Catrina for a little meeting in which he questions her management strategy vis-à-vis Fenix and Cuerno and not letting Mil just beat both of them the fuck up already, broken arm be damned. Actually, Fenix and Cuerno be damned: That’s really what Mil wants. He’s got a few empty coffins and ain’t afraid to use them. He’s mad at Catrina’s game-playing, so Catrina reminds him that she’s been preying on him since she was a child and knows what’s best for him. She even calls him by his Christian name to remind him that he’s only Mil Muertes because she and her freaky Aztec priestess powers allow it. Mil does what any unreasonable human being imbued with strange powers of the underworld would do when having a heated argument with his freaky Aztec priestess partner: He goozles Catrina and lifts her off the ground. Mil basically says, paraphrasing: Give me Penta and Puma in a match so I can put them in the ground, or it’ll be you who gets put in the ground in their place. Catrina doesn’t back down from anyone ever, so of course she refuses and then teleports away while Mil yowls in frustration like he’s the supervillain of an ‘80s action flick who is seeing his big plans fall apart because Bruce Willis stopped them just in time. As Matt Striker introduces the show, Vampiro cuts in to note that Mil Muertes isn’t on his throne to oversee the proceedings. He muses upon where exactly our champion might be, not privy to the fact that Mil is somewhere in the building throwing a tantrum right now. Sexy Star opens the show in the ring, and I’m wondering what happened when Mariposa advanced upon both her and Willie Mack two episodes ago. We got a smash cut to the logo before we could see what happened. Star’s just chilling out here waiting for her opponent Kobra Moon to slither to the ring. There’s a gap in time there that I hope and assume maybe LU will fill for me at some point. If this were the Thunder Rosa of 2021 or whatever, I’d expect her to drag Sexy Star to a good match. However, this is the Kobra Moon of 2015, so she’s a part-time wrestler who is not really skilled enough to do that yet. Willie Mack walks out here to observe Star as she wrestles what is a pretty crappy match with Kobra, though Kobra lands a nasty package neckbreaker for two that looked pretty good. Star also manages to roll through Moon and lock on a nice pendulum surfboard, so I take back that “pretty crappy” part. It’s still not a particularly good bout, but at least it has a couple of good spots. Marty “the Moth” Martinez walks down the stairs while spotlighted; this vision distracts Sexy Star and causes her to drop the surfboard in terror. While she contemplates whether she should run from her kidnapper, Kobra uses Star’s considerable trauma against her to get up and quickly lock on a Snake Sleeper for the submission. Commentary is surprised that Star would tap out. This was probably complete garbage if you were sitting in the crowd without knowledge of all the interstitials, but if you’d seen them, well, it was still not of much decent quality, though elevated by the Star/Mack/Moth/Mariposa storyline continuation. Seedy late-night commercial interstitial: Famous B. once again asks you to call (423) GET-FAME if you need an agent to do agent shit for you, and he proves his knowledge as a pro wrestler by having the hokiest fight with two masked luchadores this side of the one Johnny Cage had on set in the 1994 Mortal Kombat movie. B. should have quipped “This is where you fall down” after missing one of them with a punch by about six inches. I can’t wait to see what sort of clients this guy picks up. Not-so-seedy dojo interstitial: We see nu-El Dragon Azteca watching the ad in real time when Rey Misterio Jr. cuts off the crappy old cathode ray tube television and tells Azteca that there’s no time for television when nu-Azteca has to fulfill his destiny. Then Rey spars with him. And wins. A lot. I guess he had a point about the television watching being a distraction. Hype video: King Cuerno sits in a cushy chair with his Gift of the Gods belt. Hanging above him is one of the many ten-point bucks that he killed for no reason other than it was fun, which is how you know he’s a heel. Cuerno monologues about how he loves hunting everything – deer, people, whatever – and claims that he will be not a mere hunter, but a god on earth when he beats Fenix in tonight’s ladder match and wins Mil Muertes’s LU Championship shortly after. Prince Puma meets Pentagón Jr. in a grudge match that could have just about any ending, and I’d buy it. I have no idea what’s going to happen here. So, over on commentary, Ian Hodgkinson and Vampiro are having a battle with one another in Ian’s consciousness right in front of us. This week, Ian’s fighting back based on Vampiro's reaction to Striker’s casual suggestion that Vampiro is the perfect person to explain Penta’s mentality to the audience. Vampiro: “Well, I’ve heard a lot of things being said, y’know, since you know when, but I’m trying to forget, but you seem to try to pull me back into it every time we gotta talk about him.” We get a shot of the desk in which Striker reacts with complete befuddlement at Vampiro’s response considering the past few weeks, he was cutting in on Striker to praise Penta. Amazing. Lucha Underground's producers producing Striker well enough to be an asset to these shows is maybe the most amazing miracle they pulled off. Of course, after that outburst, Vampiro then proceeds to talk about how great Penta is, using as many superlatives as he can muster up. This is an interesting matchup in that Penta is all smoke and mirrors, and Puma is best at fighting from underneath, but this match is worked more like two young aces who are both amazing at wrestling taking turns being amazing at wrestling. There’s a match between these two that is pretty good, but it’d need to be carefully laid out to make that happen. What we get is one of those typical LU matches with lots of spots lacking the connective tissue that would elevate it. I think the best thing about it is Vampiro trying to restrain himself from out-and-out cheerleading Penta. As these fellas trade two counts in the ring, a sling-wearing Mil Muertes makes himself seen for the first time tonight. He saunters down the stairs, contemplates his sling, and then rips it off. Penta’s attempt at a package piledriver on Puma is interrupted by Mil, who hits Penta with a uranage and then hands out a spear to Puma before scooping both men up and dropping them with a double Flatliner. At least this match wasn’t meant to do anything other than be a no contest that advances the story, so the lack of connective tissue didn’t mean anything. As usual when it comes to a Penta match, only the finish means anything (his match with Vampiro being a notable exception). Seedy backstage interstitial: Catrina smiles about the motivation she gave Mil by denying him, but Mil is laser-focused on his goal to let everyone know that he runs the Temple now, so he makes his own Triple Threat LU Championship Match for next week against Penta and Puma. Striker fills us in: It’s almost time for Aztec Warfare II, which takes place a scant three episodes from now! Prince Puma won the Lucha Underground Championship by winning our previous Aztec Warfare (Season One, Show Nine), but this time around, a title shot at the LU Championship is the prize rather than the title belt itself. Fenix meets King Cuerno in a Ladder Match for the Gift of the Gods belt. I’m not sure what to say about this match; there wasn’t much to say about this match type at the point that this match originally aired, much less now in 2025. It’s the thing that it always is. I suppose I’ll mention notable spots, but I don’t know how many times I can write “sets up the ladder, climbs, gets pushed over” or “powerbombs opponent onto the ladder” or “uses the ladder as a battering ram” before you know as well as I do that you’ve seen this match before. Of course, that’s true of every match to some extent, but there is simply something about ladder matches that seems particularly same-y. My hunch is that ladder matches were ruined by Edge Adam Copeland, Christian, and the Hardy Boyz. That No Mercy Tag Team Ladder Match and the follow-up TLC bouts turned every one of these things into a car crash. The best U.S. ladder match after the mid ‘90s WWF ones is probably Scott Hall/Bam Bam Bigelow on a random 1999 Nitro, but that’s because Hall actually tried to figure out little stories to tell within these types of matches. I liked Eddie Guerrero/Syxx, too. Eddie strikes me as a particularly good worker within this match type, but I need to watch him vs. Syxx and vs. RVD again to tell you why exactly. I think that commentary has a great discussion about Cuerno trying to pour on the pain during this match. Vampiro responds to Striker’s query about whether all the extra punishment Cuerno is inflicting is good strategy, and Vampiro responds that it looks more like Cuerno is trying to destroy Fenix than to win the match, which actually fits in line with the thing Cuerno was supposed to be doing when he wrestled that Last Luchador Standing Match against Fenix. They’re picking up that Cuerno, though doing so a bit late, is trying to achieve the goal Catrina set out for him of putting Fenix out of the Temple for good. Fenix does have mystical rebirths, though, so that seems a tall task even for an expert hunter like Cuerno. These fellas leap onto and around and over ladders. It’s fine. If you dig this match type as it is commonly worked, you will surely enjoy this bout well enough. Vampiro tries to pretend that this match is a “little too violent for [his] tastes” and Striker, who remembers the gorefest that Vamp wrestled against Penta, immediately coaxes Vampiro into admitting that he was lying. The wrestlers in the ring do a spot where they both hang from the structure holding the belt after “accidentally” kicking the ladder away; they both tumble to the mat, but the belt stays in place, swaying in the air. Boy, is this a long match, especially for this show! These guys beat the crap out of their bodies for this thing, I’ll give them that. Cuerno finally signals the finishing run by setting up a table, which of course he ends up going through after Fenix lands a top-rope rana. Fenix climbs the rungs and retrieves the GotG belt once more. He points threateningly at Mil Muertes as Muertes rises from his throne and holds up the LU Championship in response, but Fenix'll have to wait until Mil is done defending his gold against Penta and Puma before he can get his title match. This show had slightly better wrestling than last week’s show, but it also had slightly less exciting interstitials, so I pretty much felt that things were running in place. We need to move some of these huge plot points along, and we especially need to get Matanza Cueto back to Boyle Heights so he can beat the shit out of Mil Muertes already. 2.75 LU-CHA chants out of 5.

Season 2, Show 5: “The Machine” or Limbo Recap: Johnny Mundo and Brian Cage do not like one another! Chavo Guerrero Jr. doesn’t like anybody, but at this moment, he is especially focused on not liking Texano. Seedy dojo interstitial: Oh boy, Vampiro was not pleased with all the medications and therapy that Ian Hodgkinson was taking to suppress him within, so he clawed his way out of the recesses of Ian’s mind and has now totally taken over, and is Vampiro’s doctor watching these shows?! So many of LU’s employees need wellness checks! Pentagón Jr. bows to Vampiro as Vampiro explains in voiceover how he enlisted Penta to help break himself out of the mental jail that Ian had confined him to. Vampiro tells Penta these words exactly: “You do not stop until you get what is yours. Let nothing stand in your way. Not even her.” The “her” is referring to Catrina, who has a lot of problems on her plate right now, let me tell you! Cut to the Temple. Vampiro pretends to be okay over on commentary next to Matt Striker. This will be a wrestling-heavy show with four matches. Coming in, it seemed like a potential breather episode, and the announcement that this show will be wrestling-focused amplified that feeling to me. Let’s see if my instinct is right. Jack Evans turns babyface by taking the mic away from Melissa Santos and keeping her from doing yet another mediocre-to-bad ring announcement. Oops, then he turns heel again by going ahead and talking himself. He’s right that “we’re sick of amateur hour,” but then he implies that he is a “professional” at ring announcing. Evans sprinkles in a truth or two within his field seeded full of fertile lies. Evans is a magnificent heel because he’s completely unlikeable as a talker and I genuinely hate his ring work besides. He calls himself the “Dragon Slayer” once again, proclaims that he’ll make Drago his “little bitch” – who is this guy, John Romero? – and then shoves the mic back into Melissa’s hands and intones, “That’s how you do your job.” What a prick! Evans’s opponent is P.J. Black, which sounds like the sort of match that I’ll only be writing a handful of sentences about. Evans does classic heel shithousery from the jump, starting with a handshake offer that ends in him sending a boot to Black’s gut. He then proceeds to sprinkle that sort of thing in the midst of a mediocre flip-dive match, including an ugly-looking somersault handspring elbow counter spot into the corner that looked awkward. Evans finally takes control when Drago comes out to do a nunchaku demonstration while viewing the match from the roof of the storage room. This distracts the completely unhinged Evans, who ignores the downed Black, yells invective at Drago, then goes outside and grabs a chair and a water bottle. He drinks some water, chucks the half-full bottle at Drago, challenges Drago to a fight because he’s “the best,” and finally turns around right into a Black TKO that puts him down for 2.9. Drago comes to the ring for a closer look and tries to mist Evans when Evans is on the ropes, but Evans ducks and Black gets misted instead; Evans grabs Black in a quick backslide and a bridge for two. We almost cut to break, but not before Black grabs the nunchaku that Drago dropped on the mat while mistiming his attack and glares threateningly at the retreating Drago. Seedy late-night commercial interstitial: Famous B. borrowed someone’s classic convertible for a cheap ad shoot in which he pimps his new athlete agency: That’s 423 – GET – FAME. If you’ve ever wondered what Roc Nation Sports might look like if run by a goofy jobber instead of a multimillionaire entertainment and business mogul, then boy howdy, you should watch the clip of this ad! Fantastic performance from Famous B. in this thing, by the way. His claim that he can take any wrestler “from a jobber to a robber” got a genuine laugh out of me. The current Gift of the Gods belt holder King Cuerno is in the ring to face Killshot. These two wrestled one another before (Season One, Show Thirty-Six) for an Aztec medallion, but I’m guessing that considering Cuerno’s deal with Catrina to hold onto the GotG belt and block contenders for Mil Muertes’s title, this match won’t run it back with the belt on the line. On cue, Matt Striker notes that King Cuerno hasn’t defended his GotG belt even once since winning it and wonders why, of course not being privy to the Cuerno/Catrina deal for the sake of dramatic irony. I’m not going to spend a ton of time talking about this match on account of my complete dislike of Swerve’s work; I’d just be making the same complaints that I always do, and heck, even I’m tired of reading my whining about it. Cuerno hits a nice Arrow from Hell in there. Otherwise, this isn’t a particularly good match. Maybe I’ll be a bit stronger with my language; it’s aggressively mid. Killshot hits a facebuster that looks awkward and is visually unclear in terms of who actually takes the impact of the move if you’re sitting in the crowd, which is why they don’t really react. Killshot tries to finish Cuerno off by going to the top rope, but Cuerno rapidly rolls away from Killshot’s Sky Twisting Moonsault attempt and then pops Killshot with a Thrill of the Hunt for three. Cuerno stomps Killshot out after the match and then tries to package piledrive the guy – his version is called the Thrill of the Kill, according to Striker – but Killshot fights the move off long enough for Fenix to make it down to the ring for the save. When we return, Texano is in the ring to wrestle a Gauntlet Match against Chavo and Chavo’s flunkies Cisco and Officer Cortez Castro Reyes (which is his composite name in these reviews now since typing between Cortez Castro and Officer Reyes annoys me) Reyes, of course, is still being completely ineffective as an undercover cop trying to infiltrate the Temple. In a clever little bit of development, the desk talks up Cisco as the toughest of Chavo’s charges, maybe even tougher than Chavo himself. Cisco gets in the ring, takes instruction from Chavo at ringside, and turns around right into a superkick that puts him out for three. Vampiro’s chuckling at Cisco's quick loss over on commentary is a nice touch. Y’know, Vampiro is really on Chavo’s case about Chavo being a coward, and I remember suddenly that before Penta came under the tutelage of Vampiro, he was losing matches under the much shittier tutelage of Chavo. That’s a nice touch, Vampiro being disgusted that Chavo was too weak to unlock the awesome violence of Penta. Texano and Cortez have a nothing match that ends with Castro running himself right into a sitout powerbomb for three. Chavo quickly scuttles behind Texano like he’s Repo Man trying to sneakily repossess Macho Man’s hat and jumps Texano to start the final part of this match. It’s better than what came before it, but I don’t know. Texano seems like he should be more engaging than he is. Maybe he just hasn’t had the right opponents yet. Cisco distracts the ref so that Cortez can trip Texano on a vertical suplex attempt and use Texano’s bullrope to hold Texano’s feet down while Chavo laterally presses Texano for three. Well, that was a trip to Dullsville. Seedy “375 miles from Boyle Heights” interstitial: Matanza chows down on a few more hapless victims in an umarked warehouse that's probably somewhere between Sacramento and Stockton, which is really boring Black Lotus at this point. She wants to do something else with her time, but Dario Cueto's goal right now is to get Matanza in prime human-destroying form before bringing him back to the Temple. Dario plays down Lotus's desire to leave by blaming her for killing Azteca and triggering this whole series of events, which she did as part of a pre-ordained prophecy, dammit, so it’s not really her fault. Dario apologizes for his bluntness and then tries to explain it away by sharing info about his mommy issues. He claims that his mom was a physically abusive woman who almost killed him with a hot iron for defying her abuse. Matanza apparently grabbed that red mold of a bull that Dario contemplated thoughtfully in one episode (Season One, Show Seventeen) and made sure to grab as he hastily vacated the Temple in another (Season One, Show Thirty-Nine). Matanza apparently murdered Mama Cueto by striking her repeatedly in the back of the head with the bull. OK, so Luis-Fernandez Gil goes full comic book villain with his performance. After Lotus expresses how terrible that story sounds, Dario gets a faraway, somewhat crazed look in his eyes and responds, “No, no. For me, that is a happy memory. Because on that day, I learned just how much I loved violence.” Maybe we should shear off that whole branch of the Cueto family tree, huh? Seedy backstage interstitial: Catrina walks past the training ring, where Pentagón Jr. is standing as he yells at her that Prince Puma needs to be taught a lesson after Puma put him in a vulnerable arm-breaking position and then just let him go last week. That sort of mercy is an act of pure hostility to someone like Penta. Catrina teleports behind Penta and irritably tells him to go teach Puma a lesson, then; Penta wants to do so in a match, but Catrina retorts that she’s not making any matches for Penta after Penta broke Mil Muertes’s arm. Penta responds with a passionate explanation of his motivation for attacking Mil. Oops, how did I ever misreport what Penta did so thoroughly? What I meant to type was that Penta responds by trying to punch Catrina’s lights out. Catrina’s a badass creepy Aztec priestess, so she holds her own, but he eventually counters her counter-attack right into arm breaking position and suggests that maybe she should reconsider her "no matchmaking" position before she finds her own arm out of joint. Catrina says nothing, but her face reads as such: “Dude, I’m a badass creepy Aztec priestess and your threats mean nothing to me.” Then, she teleports away from Penta and into the corner of the ring. She makes the match pitting Penta against Puma for next week, but warns Penta that “putting your hands on me was the biggest mistake you ever made.” Yeah, it probably was! Penta is probably fucked! The last two interstitials made what was a super-dull show better. Story and character development once again digs a mediocre-to-bad LU episode out of the gutter! We’re probably going oh-for-four on "matches that Smugly will like" tonight. The Johnny Mundo/Brian Cage main event is up next. I like that Cage turned babyface just by being the type of wrestler that this crowd is into with his unique blend of squat dude power and surprisingly agile leapy-leapies. Mundo does some basic heeling in which he thinks he’s got one over on Cage with his dopey parkour moves, but Cage is just like LOL NO and mows him down in a decent start. Yo, shut the fuck up, Matt Striker: Sorry, but his Mike Tyson impression is so bad. Even a resigned Vampiro tells him to stick to comic book references. I’m not really all that aggy at Striker here, but this impression was next-level shitty and warranted some kind of, ahem, “recognition” in this review. Mundo dives onto Cage at ringside and beats him around the ringside area before rolling him back inside. He tries a headlock, then some knees, and finally a leg lariat to keep control, but Cage mostly gets back up and keeps ticking, landing a back body drop, a lariat, and a couple of back elbows. Mundo tries to leap over a corner charge, but Cage catches him and Alabama Slams him for two, then yells over at Mil sitting on his throne that [Mundo] AIN’T GETTIN’ UP FROM THIS, which Mundo apparently realizes is a signal that a Steiner Screwdriver is nigh. Mundo blocks it, hits a weak-looking backbreaker/neckbreaker combo, and then signals for an End of the World that Cage stops in its tracks. Cage, let me rate you here for what I believe is the first time. 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. Maybe I’ll only bust this scale out going forward when someone whom I haven’t rated before doesn’t score a Fenix. He superkicked Mundo in the balls as part of that End of the World block, and it would have been a neat spot except for the loud snapping sound and obvious thigh slap that took me out of it. I don’t know, these two trade 2.9s and I’m really bored by this match. The crowd hasn’t been that hot all night for any of these matches, so it’s not just me. Sometimes, it is just me! This time, not so much. Eventually, Mundo tries another End of the World that Cage avoids. Cage drills Mundo with a lariat and drops him with a Weapon X. That’s when Taya Valkyrie rushes to ringside and hops on the apron. This distracts both Cage and the ref while Mundo picks up the lead pipe that Taya surreptitiously placed on the mat before circling around and distracting the ref. Mundo retrieves the pipe and tees off on Cage, then covers for three. In a reverse Melina situation, this time it’s Vampiro who knows Taya and explains who she is to Striker. Taya and Mundo beat down Cage after the bell, capping things off with Taya landing double-knees on Cage before Mundo hits him with the End of the World. Seedy backstage interstitial: King Cuerno prefers being the hunter and not the hunted, at least not if he’s only going to be carrying the Gift of the Gods belt around. If he’s going to be hunted, he wants to be the big dog; he enters Catrina’s office and cashes in his GotG belt for a shot at Mil Muertes and the Lucha Underground Championship next week. Catrina reminds him of their deal, but Cuerno isn’t interested, so Catrina mentions that she, ahem, “accidentally” forgot to mention to him that she already booked him against Fenix in a Ladder Match for the GotG belt next week. Whoopsie! Yep, I was right from the jump: This was a breather episode. 2.75 LU-CHA chants out of 5.

I've never heard this telling of the story. I wonder who told it that way.

Cyndi was still going to be a huge star with or without Rock 'n Wrestling. "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" was popping off with or without Lou Albano sitting next to her on a plane, being part of her video, etc. She's So Unusual was a hit without the WWF.

I can't see Hogan agreeing to be locked up by Gagne even if Gagne promises to put the AWA title on him for the long run. Whatever else you might say about him, Hogan wanted to be a star and understood that New York had the money and the spotlight to make that happen in a way that Minneapolis did not. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's my instinct.

I think Flair gets worse at variation in his matches once the 1990s hit. He could still do something surprising with the right opponent within his formula every blue moon, but I feel like 1989 is about the last year where Flair is really capable of showing that type of variation on a consistent basis. And since the bulk of Flair on television is from about the 1990s on, that becomes more apparent. If there were more 30-year-old to 35-year-old Flair on tape, I think that would help his case. But the nationalized wrestling Flair we tend to think of is Flair from his 40s on, trying to do the same spots over and over, many of which he blows with increasing regularity as he approaches 50 (like the turnbuckle flip to the apron).

That looks like a neat multiplayer idea. I'm still in Chapter 3 of RDR2, which I have returned to playing. I'm trying to fish for the legendary sturgeon just outside of Saint Denis. The fishing mechanics in this game suck.

I'm sure it's been said before, but it really should be called the Gagne finish, especially since it sure helped make Hulk Hogan's decision to jet for New York a whole lot easier. That's even more company killing than Dusty bait-and-switching Road Warriors title wins or whatever.

They cut from about two hundred wrestlers down to about fifty wrestlers that year in preparation for a sale, so unfortunately the early Nitro Era gravy train was derailed by that point. It's more likely that one of them dies from salmonella poisoning after Terry Funk punches them while wearing a raw chicken on his right hand.

Thunder had just come into existence about two months earlier. I'll pull up the video of that episode after I get done listening to this JCP episode with Jim Cornette roasting Tony S. for calling a Bobby Eaton snapmare a hip toss. EDIT: Here's Tony S. word-for-word during that bout: "Fans, I think you've seen so far in the course of this matchup, and you've probably seen through the course of the week - you've seen many wrestlers being thrown over the top rope, and I want to say we have been in contact, constant contact with the WCW Rules Committee. We do understand that there is not going to be an over-the-top rope disqualification any more in our sport. So when you see that, and we talk about it so much, you know in the old days, over the top rope to the floor, the man gets disqualified, that is not the case now. They are relaxing the rules, relaxing the rules here, and I think it's because of the war that's intensified with WCW and the nWo, guys." Heenan adds that Kevin Nash doing illegal powerbombs is the real injustice that the committee wants to stop, not this petty over-the-top rope nonsense. That's half the reason I write reviews at this point. So I have a written record of what I actually saw that I can consult when necessary.

I did a quick search and found the exact date that Tony S. mentioned it, which was the 2.26.98 Thunder: But I wouldn't be surprised if they teased it at some earlier point.

I didn't mind having more '70s All-Japan grapfests on WCW television in 1992, but Watts centered that stuff (and the NWA Tag Team Championships even though no one in WCW's audience gave a fuck about them anymore) instead of adding it in to what WCW already had cooking. In truth, Kip Frye - excuse me, K. Allen Frye - was responsible for overseeing the bulk of what was good about WCW in 1992. Watts came in and did a better job of balancing out the big cards so that they weren't so top-heavy, but the big stars were already having great years creatively. Not until March of 1998, which they made clear by highlighting over-the-top rope spots on commentary and announcing that the rule was dead for the first couple weeks after they retired it.

Uh-oh. In that case, I boldfaced twiztor and zendragon in the WCW thread, and they're going to be pissed to know that they're part of the 2000 WCW roster. I don't need them showing up at my house and demanding edits. He came dressed in the unholy bishop outfit and it just got crazier from there. They got me fully into a deathmatch, which is incredible. The violence was commensurate with the build, so it wasn't shocking just for the sake of shock or gory just for the sake of gore. Perfect match, pretty much. What did Penta to do make you so disappointed? Is it bad human stuff or just bad worker stuff? I did a random MLW search last night and ended up watching a Willie Mack/Johnny Mundo match with what sounded like Matt Striker and maybe Disco Inferno on commentary, so the spirit of LU kinda lives on, I suppose. Striker isn't ever great, but yes, he's perfectly solid and is actually good whenever he's bro-ing it up with Vampiro. My expectations for him were so in the gutter before I started the watch that I'm probably also enjoying the bulk of his work more than I would have if I had higher expectations. If only he could just stick to making awkward comic book and video game references rather than awkward sex jokes...

At the very least, the story there was that WCW President Flair was cutting a heel turn and had recruited Charles Robinson as his crooked ref, explaining the bullshit finish. It wasn't particularly executed well and wasn't helped by the fact that no one was allowed to use the term "First Blood" on the television leading up to the PPV so the match suddenly ended up having that stip out of nowhere once the PPV happened, but at least there's a plausible reason that it ended that way. And now that I've spent multiple sentences defending the finish at Uncensored '99, I feel grimy and am off to take a quick shower.

At Uncensored five years later, Hogan beats Flair in a Strap Match with a legdrop and a pinfall. Forget it Niners, it's Hogantown.

Season 2, Show 4: “Cero Miedo” or War Gods Tonight, on the young and the remorseless… Recap: Ivelisse came close to dethroning a lackadaisical Mil Muertes, but no dice. If only Penta had broken Mil’s arm before she wrestled him for the title and not after. Anyway, Puma helped Ivelisse escape a further beating from Mil, and now he and Penta are at one another’s throats and will wrestle tonight. 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 Penta last week. Uh-oh. Vampiro continues to do insanely awesome character work, by the way. Seedy backstage interstitial: Ivelisse busts up into Catrina’s office that used to be Dario Cueto’s office. You can tell it’s Catrina’s now because of the fact that it has like a hundred lit candles in it. Catrina has a dagger in her hand; that seems dangerous! Ivelisse wants a trios tag title shot, and Catrina takes a shot of her own at the dub: “No. There are no automatic rematch clauses in my Temple. You wanna fight the trios champion? You have to prove your worth.” Does that company still run endless rematches for their titles? In any case, Catrina says there’s a different number one contender to the Disciples of Death’s belts, so Ivelisse storms out after declaring that she’ll get the trios tag titles back eventually, not to mention getting her hands around Catrina’s throat eventually. As Ivelisse closes the door behind her, we can see that Catrina has now replaced Dario Cueto’s name on the door with her name, written in some very lovely calligraphy to boot. Also, Catrina licks the dagger and then stabs it into the fine mahogany desk. Boy, Dario’s not going to be happy about that if and when he comes back here to reclaim his office. That table stab did as much damage as Hernandez putting a thousand frosty-cold beer cans directly on it without ever using a coaster! Let’s kick it over to Matt Striker and Vampiro! Uh-oh, Vampiro once again jumps in and takes over Matt Striker’s typical job of hyping the show. Striker can barely get a word in edgewise. You can likely guess why. Vampiro: “This is not church, but it is the Temple, Lucha Underground! I am Vampiro with Matt Striker. Tonight, we will witness one of the biggest main events in the history of Lucha Underground! Matt, ask me why!” Striker: “Well—” Vampiro: "I’ll tell you why! Pentagón Jr. continues to ascend to the greatest heights in the sky as he will beat, tonight, LISTEN TO ME, the former champion of Lucha Underground, Prince Puma!” Someone tell Vampiro’s doctor that the pills aren’t working and that he has to go get a job for another wrestling company, stat! Striker, your buddy isn’t okay! You have to help him out! Contact the mental health facility that Vamp spent the summer in! Dysfunction Junction isn’t getting a trios tag shot, but Catrina has decided to put them in a match tonight anyway. They open the show against Chavo Guerrero Jr. and Chavo’s flunkies Cisco and Cortez Castro. Officer Reyes going back undercover and tagging with Chavo and Cisco against Dysfunction Junction probably isn’t doing much to help him find Dario Cueto’s whereabouts tonight. Captain Vasquez is going to be extremely disappointed in you when she sees this on television, Castro! Vampiro is going through it on commentary right now: “You know what I like about Chavo is he doesn’t hide it. Excuse me for saying this because I do not want to ruffle any feathers but he’s almost afraid to stand on his own, and he’s always gotta go for the mercenary to watch his back. He’s a Guerrero, he’s dirty, yeah yeah, I get it. Do it yourself, homeboy! Am I wrong?” Striker, taken aback, declines to answer that last question. Of course, replace Chavo’s name in that rant with Vampiro’s and imagine “the mercenary” as an arm-breaking psycho who does what a certain beaten-up, broken down wrestler wants to do but physically can’t do anymore, and it’s pretty apparent that someone at the commentary desk is mired in deep inner turmoil! Vampiro is barely “hiding it" on commentary at this point. His sanity slippage came on strong as soon as Penta showed up to break Mil’s arm as tribute to Vampiro. I’m surprised that Mil has just stayed planted on his throne and hasn’t throttled Vampiro yet as a measure of revenge. Oh yeah, you might want to know more about this trios match instead of having me talk about all the plot and character narratives that this show is extremely successfully juggling! The match is fine. Ivelisse gets an extra loud pop when she tags in; I don’t really get it, but this crowd absolutely adores her. Ivelisse knees this undercover cop in his face a few times, but he stops that barrage with a forearm to the jaw and escapes the ring with a tag to Chavo Jr. Chavo has a nice move where he snapmares Ivelisse, then grounds a knee into her clavicle and hooks her leg; it only gets two, but I like the nastiness inherent in such a pinfall attempt. Soon after, Ivelisse uses a leg sweep to escape Chavo’s clutches and make a hot tag to Son of Havoc, who destroys Cisco until Cortez can distract the ref so that Chavo has an opportunity to illegally (and violently) yank Havoc off the top rope. Cisco quickly gets two on a floatover vertical suplex, but Havoc fights his way out of trouble as all three heels swarm him; he leaps and rolls and leaps again and rolls again until he can make a hot tag to Angelico, who comes in a house aflame. Yuck, Angelico: 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. You do know that the illusion is broken when we see you slap the shit out of your thigh, right, Angelico? Right?! Anyway, Dysfunction Junction is probably in line for a name change because they roll from there, leading to an Angelico top-rope double-stomp that pummels Castro’s solar plexus and keeps him down for a three count. After the match, an irate Chavo dresses down his flunkies for being bad at the fine art of pro wrestling. The crowd chants FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT, which yeah, that would be cool, but before they can, Texano hops in the ring with his bullwhip and takes the flunkies out while Chavo escapes. Hype video: Johnny Mundo does some shirtless parkour while talking about how he’s the biggest star in Lucha Underground, but he hasn’t earned the start treatment that he deserves. His gimmick is apparently “annoying modern worker who spends too much time scouring the Observer for Meltzer’s ratings of his so-called twenty-minute PPV 'classics' and who thinks that doing elaborate gymnastics routines make him worthy of a main event spot” as he rants about being subjected to the opening match of Ultima Lucha Uno’s second night rather than getting the main event spot. He makes sure to mention all the self-perceived five-snowflake matches that he puts on. I mean, I have to give him credit here. As a viewer who pretty much loathes modern wrestling, I would like to see Mundo get punched in the face repeatedly. It’s a good gimmick, and he wears it well. I also want to credit this package for showing Mundo pinning Alberto El Patrón followed by a shot of Mundo claiming that Alberto “will never step foot in this Temple again!” Exactly, let the viewer see that the wrestlers who won and who are still here completely ran the guys they beat and back to WWE or TNA or wherever. Do this for Drago beating Hernandez, please. Mundo thinks he’s such a star that he should be the LU Champion right now and that the title is his birthright, practically. If only Brian Cage wasn’t challenging him for that opportunity! Of course, Mundo expresses extreme confidence that he will dispose of Cage. Seedy backstage interstitial: Joey Ryan immediately attempts to blow Cortez Castro’s cover by walking up to him in the locker and calling him “Reyes” while opining on the ass whooping that Castro just took. I have serious doubts about Captain Vasquez’s ability to do her job right. Why the fuck would she try and put an obvious plant like Officer Ryan on this job? Is she a moron? That might be a rhetorical question. Ryan loudly jaws about how he’s a better cop than Reyes because he can actually fight well enough to pass as a wrestler, and he does so in this wide open fucking locker room that anyone can walk into at any time. Sweet fuck. This idiot is the biggest heel on the roster, and that’s only considering his kayfabe work. Ryan tells Castro to watch while he beats his first opponent, which obviously is the type of hubris that gets you destroyed in a pro wrestling story. Anyway, Joey Ryan does his dirty old man, um, gimmick? He slithers his way out here to face Brian Cage. Cage generally does a Dollar Tree Goldberg impression in this match, and it’s reasonably enjoyable. He even does one of Goldberg’s favorite bump spots: he misses a spear in the corner and posts his own shoulder. Ryan gets some control after that, but he’s an overconfident shit-talker rather than a properly-confident shit-doer, so of course Cage makes a comeback. He actually misses a springboard moonsault in the midst of that comeback and is covered for two, then misses a discus lariat and eats a series of kicks. Ryan tries another kick, but gets caught and powerbombed into a backbreaker. Cage declares HE AIN’T GETTIN’ UP FROM THIS and then murders Ryan with a Steiner Screwdriver, which is fucking GREAT. Ryan had better not get up from that, and he doesn’t. I have decided that I now like Cage if he’s going to be dropping dudes with Steiner Screwdrivers. Johnny Mundo backjumps Cage immediately after the bell, but he takes too long to try an End of the World and gets tripped by Cage, then hit with a Weapon X to boot. Cage declares himself to be a finely-tuned machine rather than a brittle and easily-injured man like Mundo. Fair! Not-that-seedy gym interstitial: The G.O.A.T. Rey Misterio Jr. pretty much trains the new El Dragon Azteca just as the old El Dragon Azteca trained Black Lotus; specifically, Misterio wins their sparring sessions and prepares nu-Azteca’s mind by questioning him about his motives as they train, particularly nu-Azteca fighting based on a desire for revenge that Rey finds distasteful. Rey also gives us some important backstory by telling nu-Azteca things that he doesn't quite know, but that we also conveniently need to learn at the same time. The story, according to Rey, is that 25 years ago, Dario Cueto’s dad came to Mexico and met the previous El Dragon Azteca; they agreed to work together to locate the descendants of the seven Aztec tribes so that they could do battle in the modern Aztec battle arena of lucha. As tbarrie rightly pointed out in the post before this one, there is an element of, er, bloodletting as human sacrifice in the Aztec religion, which is the part that Papa Cueto was really into. And then, we get a nice payoff: Rey tells nu-Azteca that Papa Cueto was so obsessed with the legends of the Aztec gods and their desire for human blood that rumor has it that he even sacrificed one of his sons’ bodies as a vessel for an Aztec god to inhabit. Well, that explains Matanza! Based on what we also saw last week about Aerostar waiting in the cosmos for a thousand years before coming back to Earth in a bid to stop the gods from inhabiting human form, Aerostar’s arrival at the Temple last season makes perfect sense in retrospect. Come to think of it, so does Dario putting Aerostar and Drago into a best-of-five tournament with the hope that he could force Aerostar into being banished from the Temple and away from any chance to deal with the threat of god-on-earth Matanza. The only question I have here, considering that Aerostar and Drago are clearly close friends, is how much Drago knows about this legend or Aerostar’s mission and whether or not Drago is also pursuing the mission of stopping Matanza Cueto. I digress. The point here is that the previous Azteca did not like Papa Cueto’s obsession with the dark Aztec arts and broke off their partnership; they agreed that neither would enter the other’s domain, though Rey surmises that Papa Cueto used certain magicks that someone like Catrina might use to make that agreement permanent upon pain of death. I suppose that Lotus killing the previous Azteca was prophesied, so I guess in that case I forgive her recent turn toward heelishness. She had no control over it and was a tool meant to fulfill an agreement sealed with dark magic. Poor Lotus. She’s been through a lot, hasn’t she? Anyway, nu-Azteca now understands why he shouldn’t go seeking revenge for previous Azteca’s death – as Rey notes, the previous Azteca knew full well that he'd be sacrificing his life when he entered the Temple and did it anyway. Azteca wants to know what his new goal is in infiltrating the Temple should be if not to exact revenge, and Rey tells him that he must find a way to do the “impossible” and unite the seven Aztec tribes. Aerostar would probably be glad to help you do that, buddy. Maybe consult with him on that goal. OK, this is immediately one of my favorite pro wrestling stories ever. It’s so good. Matanza Cueto has gone from a big bad to the big bad, and even if and when he is defeated, there is still a chance that the other Aztec gods might look to inhabit various willing luchadores of ill will. I also seem to remember that Dario Cueto does not survive the Temple through season four and that papa Antonio Cueto will make himself known – oddly looking just like Luis Fernandez-Gil, of course – late in the life of this show. How we get to that point, I can only imagine, and I love considering the possibilities. We’ve got the LAPD way in over their head because they don’t understand the power of the person they are looking for, we’ve got an Aztec god on earth in the body of a man, we’ve got Aerostar and Rey and nu-Azteca, among others, all desiring to stop that Aztec god before they can destroy everything, and then we’ve got people with their own intentions besides. Penta’s snapping arms because he wants to go darker than even Vampiro ever went; Catrina and Mil want to dominate the Temple, which seems particularly petty in view of the cosmic god-versus-man story that is happening around them. And there are a ton of wrestlers like Mundo, Cage, and Ivelisse who just want to be champ. There are levels to this shit, and I love all of the levels. Lucha Underground has reached true peak soap opera at this point. Whoever first thought that lucha Dark Shadows was a good idea should get some sort of an award. Striker announces that Brian Cage will wrestle Johnny Mundo on next week’s show. Meanwhile, Vampiro and Mil Muertes sit up in their seats, both men’s interest piqued by the upcoming main event between Prince Puma and Pentagón Jr. Puma stares down Muertes; like Ivelisse, he is laser-focused on getting a chance to win back some title gold that he once held. The crowd absolutely loves Penta, and Vampiro points out their CERO MIEDO chants as evidence that Penta is better than Puma. I’m not sure that Vampiro is going to be able to restrain himself by the end of this match. This is the perfect example of a matchup that, without all the context of their characters and the ongoing storylines, I would normally not be interested in at all. In truth, I’d probably get more pleasure out of this match if we just jumped seven or eight minutes ahead to the finishing run. It’s not a bad match; it’s just not my style. Penta is still a collection of spots, a great promo, an awesome look, and fantastic body language. It’s enough for him because he’s simply that charismatic, but it’s not going to land most of his matches on a list of my favorites. He seems like the perfect WWE guy in that their house style is all about emoting, landing key spots that are crowd-pleasers that induce chant-alongs or other audience involvement, and delivering in big matches with memorable spots that will play in video packages decades into the future. Penta was built in a lab for WWE style. Puma, on the other hand, is a perfect AEW guy with their house style built on video game wrestling and wrestling move aesthetics. As the match and the show near their ends, Penta tries a package piledriver, but Puma flips out of the back, lands a kick, and hits a rolling Northern Lights into a floatover vertical suplex for a close two count. Puma goes up to try and end it with a 450, but Penta gets knees up and quickly small packages Puma with a close two count of his own. Penta is up first, sizes up Puma, and lands a superkick followed by a successful package piledriver. Penta eschews a pinfall to instead go for a surfboard. He shifts Puma backward onto the mat, and, ugh, in a finish that is WCW-like in its execution, Puma gets his shoulders up at two while Penta’s are on the mat and wins it. Bleh. There has to be a better fucky-fuck finish than the ol’ WCW “pinned guy gets a shoulder up” finish. Penta attacks the ref after the match, but Puma kicks Penta and then locks him up for an arm snapping. Will Puma go to the dark side? Mil and Vamp both get out of their seats, leaning forward in anticipation…but Puma’s still a fundamentally good dude and lets Penta out of his predicament. That was probably a mistake, but I appreciate that Puma has moral values that he simply can’t ignore. Seedy backstage interstitial: Sexy Star has momentarily escaped the clutches of Marty “the Moth” Martinez and re-found the Temple. She staggers through the halls before bumping into someone and screaming, but we see that it’s only a concerned Willie Mack trying to help her out. Mack wants to know who abused her, and Star can only choke out the word “Moth.” Mack: “Moth?! I’ll kill him!” because he’s also a good dude. Star stops him, though, and explains that it isn’t Marty that did this to her, but Marty’s sister. She points behind Mack, who turns around and sees…well, whatever he saw, we didn’t see it because the Lucha Underground logo pops up. Suffice it to say that he set eyes on Marty’s sis Mariposa, the nastiest butterfly you’ll ever meet. The strength of this show was that it retroactively made a bunch of past episodes better by recontextualizing the characters and their actions. Really, the past two episodes, with their reveals of Aerostar as cosmic protector, Castro as undercover cop, and Matanza as god walking the earth have collectively done a lot to reframe a lot of the actions and motivations of various characters. I actually went back and raised the score of the previous episode, and I would consider this episode almost perfect…except for the finish of the main event. 4.75 LU-CHA chants out of 5.

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.