SirSmUgly Posted June 29 Posted June 29 (edited) Season 1, Show 1: “Welcome to the Temple,” or Super Dario Odyssey Let’s watch some LU-CHA UNDERGROUND! Even the stuff with Jake Strong as champ! My experience with Lucha Underground was that I watched the first few episodes on first run, decidedly did not like it, and then came back to it later and actually enjoyed it. Tastes change. I didn’t see all of its original run – I think I came back and watched most of it in about 2016/2017, but I missed some of the later unfortunate plot twists that I have only heard tell about, and it's been almost a decade since I've watched through it at all. Anyway, we’ll see how this goes. Hopefully, wherever this goes, it gets there before Cineverse loses the rights because while there is an archived backup, it’s a tenuous one as backups of copyrighted material often are! One big thing that Lucha Underground has going for it is that the episodes are short. Two or three wandering hours of endless show is not the best experience. There’s a whole cinematic to open. It’s a giant lucha fight, followed by a whole cinematic about the history of Aztec warfare and how the venerable institution that we call lucha libre can trace its roots back through this history. Skeezy millionaire Dario Cueto loves the lucha tradition so much that he bought a warehouse in an industrial district somewhere in Los Angeles and refashioned it into a modern-day Aztec Temple, which is a rad concept for a wrestling show, IMO. Goddammit, it’s Matt Striker and fucking Vampiro. Fuck. Whatever, I pledged not to watch this show on mute, and even though I’m regretting it right now, I’m sticking to it. Melissa Santos introduces Dario Cueto, who comes to the ring while Vampiro explains in brief the ethnic tension between Spaniards and Mexicans as a way to explain why this crowd would like Dario to get fucked. I appreciate the nuance even if a lot of the crowd is actually white dudes from America. The crowd is receptive to Dario’s love of violence, though, and TBH I also think violence is rad in controlled settings with consenting participants and the necessary health, etc. regulations. Dario quotes 50 Cent, then holds a briefcase full of bonus money that he shall give to whoever does the most enjoyable violence tonight or something of that nature. He introduces our first match… …which pits Blue Demon Jr. against the incredibly underrated and yes, I’ll say it, GREAT Chavo Guerrero Jr. I will say that Vampiro is useful for filling in history on the luchadores for the viewers, so maybe as that was less of a thing he needed to do as the wrestlers got established, he summarily got worse at his job. We’ll find out together. Chavo and Demon do some decent mat wrestling to a stalemate to start. I like how smudged and infectious the mat looks, which we get a good view of on an overhead shot. That’s a nice visual touch that adds to the “underground fight ring” feel. Chavo is so fun to watch. He’s in his forties and doesn’t have nearly the athleticism he had in 1996, but he still has a solid amount of it, and he’s just so good with his timing that it doesn’t matter. Chavo gets worked over until he manages to hit a counter tornado DDT that only gets two because the move seems to have lost its power since 1998. Chavo follows Demon to the floor with a slingshot crossbody, then rolls Demon back into the ring and gets far too ambitious, going up for a moonsault that Demon easily stops by casually getting up and tripping him. Demon misses his own senton bomb attempt and sells a knee injury upon landing. Chavo sets Demon on top and attempts a rana, but Demon blocks it, scores a diving powerbomb from the top, and follows up with a Scorpion Deathlock sort of move in which he also yanks back on Chavo’s arm while tying up his legs; Chavo taps out. That’s my loveable loser Chavo! Decent match. I will say that while it was wise to put Chavo in the first LU match since he’s well known to audiences from the States, this match was between two older, slower wrestlers that probably didn’t showcase the style of speed and big risks that came to be, in my mind, this show’s house style (at least when Mil Muertes or Matanza Cueto weren’t flinging smaller dudes around). Boy, do I hate Melissa Santos’s ring announcing. The syllables that she sometimes chooses to inflect make no sense! Dario Cueto meets with Konnan, the latter of whom can talk up a storm and actually holds his own with an actual trained actor in this scene, though then again, Konnan acted in Mexico and has more experience at it than a lot of wrestlers. Both men discuss the talent they’re bringing to the company in sinister tones. Konnan’s got a guy from East L.A. who he thinks is the best, and Dario notes he signed Johnny Mundo just because Mundo is a total dork who doesn’t understand the world that he’s stepping into; Dario suggests that maybe if Konnan’s dude beats some respect and knowledge about what lucha is really like into Mundo, maybe they can come to an understanding. And by “an understanding,” I mean “a cash settlement.” Hype package: Konnan speaks over video of Prince Puma, who is his guy from the barrio in East L.A., somehow. I mean, at least it’s not Chief Jay Strongbow actually being an Italian-American guy, I suppose. Konnan does a fantastic job of getting over the Aztec history that informs the modern-day Temple and makes clear the importance of the mask to these traditions. I do get a kick out of Konnan saying that Prince Puma’s spirit animal is a jaguar. Then why isn’t he Prince Jaguar? Those are two separate North American big cats! Anyway, good hypin’. How the heck did a character like Son of Havoc find his way into a grungy warehouse in Los Angeles? That’s some backstory that I’d like to be filled in upon. Anyway, he’s wrestling Sexy Star… Hype package: …who gets her own sympathetic backstory about how becoming a masked wrestler lifted her up from a life of abuse and punishment and gave her purpose and confidence as a woman who can hang with the dudes by kicking the crap out of them. As a guy who agrees with Ted Turner on the value of, and note I am merely using his words here, getting “a broad to whip the hell out of all the men” on my wrestling shows, I am super into it. I don’t have an issue with intergender matches at all if they’re worked like any other match and don’t delve into weird sexual assault-teasing spots or anything of that nature, though I know that the topic of intergender matches was a bone of contention for some folks who spent a lot of time online talking about wrestling a few years back (and yes, some of the criticism was for good reason, like suggesting that companies bring in more women to wrestle one another). The thing about Sexy Star is that she sorta stinks, though, and I wish there was a better wrestler to take this spot and do this girl power gimmick. Anyway, Havoc is a sexist douche and refuses to wrestle a woman, so she pretends to leave and take a count out before hopping back in the ring and jumping a celebrating Havoc from behind. Havoc’s sexism is his downfall, though. He has a size and power advantage, but he doesn’t take his opponent very seriously at all. This is a well-worked match, though: Sexy Star comes close to victory with a diving crossbody, but she tries to follow up bulldog and gets countered with a backbreaker; Havoc covers and makes sure to pull the tights to earn a three count. Star’s progression over the years probably counts as one of the better “fightin’ overmatched babyface” character stories in the past couple of decades. Dario Cueto excoriates Chavo Jr. for tapping out earlier, which Dario considers to be very un-Guerrero-like behavior. Dario says that Chavos who don’t put Blue Demons out of wrestling don’t get paid and promises to bring in a man next week who will do what Chavo Nintendon’t. Johnny He Nitr Mor Mundo comes to the ring to face Prince Puma (w/Konnan). They throw speculative kicks at one another before Puma goes on the run, gets shoulderblocked to the mat by the bigger Mundo, and kips right up at what is, indeed, a sort of impressive pace. They do some nice work in an exchange that ends with a Mundo arm wringer; Puma attempts an elaborate escape that Mundo kills, then attempts another one that ends in a Mundo spinebuster for two. After that kickout, they continue to keep the pace up, with Mundo dodging strikes and foot sweeps before landing a dropkick. There’s a standoff so the crowd can self-indulgently chant LU-CHA, which is annoying, but they get back to pacey work, at which point Puma sends Mundo to the floor with a couple of elaborate headscissors and a dropkick. He fakes a dive, backflips, and poses. The crowd self-indulgently chants THIS IS AWESOME *clap clap clapclapclap*. Almost needless to say, I prefer the chant of young women yelling BREAK IT, BREAK IT while Ole Anderson pulls back on an arm bar to whatever this crowd is doing. Still the video game style of work here is fun, even if all the overelaborated moves don’t do much for me. Why does Mundo have to do like three rotations in the air before landing a kick? It made his kick look weaker, actually. Mundo is a good tag worker and a decent enough midcard babyface working from underneath, but LU exposed his limitations as an ace, I think. Maybe I’ll change my mind on this watch through, but this match isn’t making me think that I’ll budge off that belief. Puma, on the other hand, is a very good athlete. I haven’t watched him basically since LU; I didn’t see any of his WWE run and I don’t watch AEW, so I wonder how much he has improved on gluing matches together between spots. They do some parkour shit over at the announcers’ table before going back to the ring for a Mundo chinlock. I think I’m remembering why the first few episodes didn’t do it for me when I first watched; the house style isn’t necessarily my favorite when LU's bookers are pitting two smaller guys against one another, so the A-, B-, C-, and D-stories needed to kick in for me to become more engaged with the show. Also, Mil Mascaras Muertes (dammit, I'm going to do that a whole lot, aren't I?) killing dudes is fun. I’m looking forward to that. Anyway, Puma works his way to his feet and eventually scores a standing shooting star press for two. He tries a back suplex, but Mundo blocks it and then rams Puma into the corner, opening up with right hands until Puma is slumped to the mat. Mundo follows with two clotheslines and a back kick, then lands a knee to Puma’s chest and covers for two. One thing I do like is the overhead shots that production favors tossing in there. It’s a neat view of the action. Puma blocks a Mundo End of the World attempt with a schoolboy for two; both men run and run and eventually, after a number of counters, Mundo rolls through a sunset flip and scores a kick, then tries another End of the World that Puma escapes. Mundo lands on his feet, but eats knees on a Puma springboard; Puma covers, but only earns two. Puma signals that he’s about to finish Mundo off, but he takes too much time to attempt his springboard 450 and whiffs. Mundo quickly lands his Moonlight Drive flipping neckbreaker, but that only gets two. Puma tries to fight back, but misses on a wild swing, is hooked for a C-4, and ends up as food for a third Mundo End of the World attempt that actually lands and ends the match. That was a decent enough bout, though it felt like a collection of spots without the connective tissue that makes for a great match. The babyfaces show one another respect after the match, which disgusts a scumbag like Dario Cueto. He can’t be having all this love and respect in his temple! He pulls a fakeout on giving Mundo the prize money and then has his boys, led by Big Ryck, destroy the babyfaces, setting a certain tone for his character. Of course, we the viewer know that Dario’s a scumbag because we got to see the backstage interstitials, but the crowd at the time couldn’t know that. Anyway, this show probably needed a two-hour debut to have time to introduce the wrestlers coming stateside for the first time with packages and to set up some of the running storylines that would come to dominate this show, but what we got was good. I do think that this show proves that Kevin Nash’s “do a wrestling show like The Larry Sanders Show where the in-ring stuff and the backstage stuff is shot differently to signal what the in-arena viewer is and isn’t supposed to see” idea was a good one in general. The hype videos and introduction packages were good, too, and in general, the production of this show is so interesting and creative that it already has me interested to see more LU. I expect that the wrestling, which was fine on this show, will catch up to the story and production creativity by about halfway through this first season. 3.25 LU-CHA chants out of 5. Edited June 30 by SirSmUgly 3
zendragon Posted June 29 Posted June 29 I'm excited for this. I watches about 2.5 seasons of LU on Netflix and then all of it on TUBI during the pandemic so it will be fin to go through again. Lucha Underground is made by wrestling fans from Hollywood. So they "Wrestling Larry Sanders show" works cause they actually know how to make a tv show. This is like what Vince was going for with his "room full of tv writers" forgetting that they needed to be wrestling fans first! Its also why this show is shot so so well compared to the ADHD cutting of Kevin Dunn. Also hiring an actual trained actor to play Dario was a stroke of genius. Funny watching SuperBrawl Revenge when Chavo smacked Rey with the chair I was like "Shades of Amigo!" The announcing; At this point in my life I've become so anti-Jerry Lawler that anything sounds good. (food for a starving man), If you've ever had a public speaking job you know its easy to feel like "Silence in the enemy" when in actuality its really good to let a comment breath sometimes. This is the problem in my opinion, Strike tends to talk things to death, try to make too many points. Women's wrestling; I'm on record as not being a fan of intergender wrestling. I'd much rather watch a well booked women's division (I'm actually a big fan of women's wrestling and thought for a period of time when the men's main events in WWE where all Suplex City and finisher spam the women's matches where much more enjoyable do to layout and execution). To my point LU has Io Sky, Kari Sane, Chelsea Green, Sexy Star, Ivelisse , Mayu Iwatani (it can be kinda fun to play who's under the make with LU) but by my recollection none of them wrestler each other! finally one hour wrestling shows. To butcher a quote from Lou Reed, One Hour is all you need, Two is pushing it, and with three now you've got Jazz (not the wrestler sadly) 1
twiztor Posted June 30 Posted June 30 oh man. i watched season 1 of LU with my wife a few years ago. She's not a wrestling fan but has always enjoyed the more lucha elements she's been exposed to. So i had full intentions of watching one episode each week with her, but that plan quickly fell away and we only made it though s1. The production and completely different presentation is nothing short of revolutionary. I still can't believe that it's been how many years and nobody else has really tried anything like this since. This thread might be what forces me to soldier on and get her back on track with this. (i'm still undecided on whether to include s4- i've heard nothing but terrible things). King Cuerno was a personal highlight. He really blended the character of a hunter into everything he did- yes the holds he did, but moreso than that it was the way he moved around the ring and his body language. 2
SirSmUgly Posted June 30 Author Posted June 30 Season 1, Show 2: “Los Demonios,” or Chavo Jr.: A True Firebrand There’s a whole rad choreographed fight scene to start this show, and a dude in a lizard mask jumps in and fucks everybody up, and it rules! Hey, it’s the dude from the previous week’s fight scene opener, and I think he was talking to Puma in last week's scene, actually, and was the one to explain to Puma the whole Aztec warrior history behind lucha. Hold on, these opening fight scene vignettes that started the first two episodes mean something, don’t they? I totally forgot that these shows are being framed by these opening vignettes. Hmm, something to keep my eye on. Recap: Chavo Jr. tapped out, Sexy Star fell juuuuuuust short, and Konnan wants to use Prince Puma to make that scrilla (which unfortunatey for him didn’t happen last week). We get these great exterior shots of Los Angeles to set the mood that in this giant city of millions lies a secret Aztec temple where there is much bloodsport. Things pick up where they left off last week: Big Ryck, Cortez Castro, and Cisco crow about destroying Johnny Mundo and Prince Puma. Wait, here’s Mundo doing the prideful babyface thing and jumping both guys…and he actually clears the ring. Big Ryck just rolled out without engaging at all. I don’t believe in Mundo in this role. Ryck deciding to go chill in the stands, smoke a cigar, and let his flunkies take care of things is amazing, though. What a boss! Puma soon joins Mundo in the ring to back him up, and Dario Cueto sticks his head out of his office and declares that they might as well make this an official tag match, calling for an official to get to the ring now. Hey, I just noticed the giant key that Dario is wearing on a chain around his neck. Foreshadowing! If I recall correctly, that key is later used to release Matanza Cueto from lockup, and that only happens when Mil Muertes goes rogue on Dario at one point. This dude Dario must have gotten an A+ in Multilayered Villainous Plots and Schemes 101. As much as I don’t enjoy Vampiro on color, you know who he reminds me of in that role? Randy Savage circa 1993 WWF. Though I did enjoy Savage in that role whereas I don't enjoy Vampiro in this one, Vampiro is a new-millennium version of Savage on color, and I can see how someone might enjoy his work here. Anyway, Cortez is mesmerized by a bunch of flips and double-teams to start the match. The crowd enjoys this extended shine segment, which ends when Mundo whiffs on a kick, gets rolled up for two, and eats a Cortez dropkick after kicking out. The heels don’t last long in control; Mundo quickly counters Cisco after the latter tags in before hitting an ugly legdrop in that shitty-looking parkour style that he does. Cisco tries to regain control, charges Mundo in the corner, leaps, and wipes himself out on a nice bump to his head and neck area. Mundo lands a couple of elbows, including a slingshot elbow that also looks ugly, though his follow-up cover only gets two. Mundo keeps trying slingshot and springboard shit, which finally catches him up when Cortez trips him as he tries to leap off the ropes. I do think this match is well-laid-out, particularly that Puma’s the guy who is going to get the hot tag. Mundo was established as babyface ace last week with Puma as his 1B, and now Puma will get to shine in that role as the hot tag the very next week, establishing two dangerous babyfaces to stand against the array of monsters and dickheads that Dario will be bringing into the Temple. It’s almost like someone is thinking logically about how they position these wrestlers, which you’ll have to forgive me, but I haven’t seen a lot of in the pro wrestling that I’ve lately been watching, which is why I find such a simple concept so notable. We get a shot of Big Ryck puffing his cigar while sitting in the stands, and I think WWE missed a trick by not putting Big Show and Big Ryck into a tag team called Big Tobacco and letting them smoke cigarettes and cigars on their way to the ring. The babyfaces seem to have things under control as the match breaks down, but Mundo completely whiffs on a plancha to the floor, leaving Puma alone to get double-teamed by the heels. There’s a nicely timed nearfall on a heel team kick/neckbreaker combo that I bit on as the finish. The heels set up for some sort of 3D-ish team finisher, but Mundo yanks Cortez out of the ring and Puma escapes for a roll-up. That only gets two, but Puma hits a running cutter and Mundo follows up with a Moonlight Drive that should have gotten three, but only gets 2.8. This match is maybe a touch too long at this point; if the heels are winning, they should have won with that kick/neckbreaker combo, and if the babyfaces are winning, it should have been there. Instead, we get an athletic dive from Puma that takes out Cortez and then Cisco and Mundo working a nearfall cheating rollup spot and another match breakdown in the ring that leads to a dual 450 spot and a double-pin for the babyfaces that ends the match. They wanted that visual and sacrificed what I found to be more logical ending spots to get it, and it was probably a fair trade even if it wasn’t my preference. This was still a pretty good tag bout in any case. Big Ryck’s finished his cigar up in the stands, by the way, and he isn’t happy! Not over being cigar-less, I don’t think. Over his flunkies failing to beat Mundo and Puma, especially because we know Dario probably isn’t paying him shit as a result. Which I guess means that with no money to pay for more of them, he will be cigar-less, so I guess he probably is mad over both, actually. Backstage plot advancement: Konnan gasses up Prince Puma after the tag match, but also warns Puma away from Mundo and basically tries to keep Puma under his strict influence. Mil Muertes has been brought in by Dario to finish off Blue Demon Jr., and does this mean Catrina is with him? It does! I’ll just say it now and get it out of the way: Catrina is the best and my T-levels are incredibly healthy. We get her voiceover on a short debut vignette for Muertes here. Son of Havoc and Ivelisse Velez stand in the ring, awaiting the arrival of their opponents Chavo Guerrero Jr. and Sexy Star. While I agree with zendragon that signing enough women to have their own division is ideal for any televised wrestling promotion, I enjoy a good mixed tag or intergender match if it’s worked competitively and not creepily. My attitude on promotions having dedicated women’s divisions versus putting on intergender matches is por qué no los dos? Vampiro puts the intergender match idea over as equal opportunity for women, which honestly is kayfabe true in wrestling. As an analogy, it’s not like there are weight divisions, and even when WCW semi-strictly kept them, the cruisers wrestled the heavyweights (and super-heavyweights) all the time. Why not have the same be true of gender divisions, which are largely analogous to weight class divisions between male wrestlers? Heavyweight males can't become cruiserweight champ or women's champ, but cruiserweights and women should be able to become heavyweight champ. I digress; Chavo and Havoc start things out. Chavo pulls Havoc around by his beard in a nice spot. Chavo tries to pick things up against Havoc, but Ivelisse puts a knee in the small of his back as he bounces off the ropes, and Havoc follows up with a big knee. Ivelisse tags in, stomps a mudhole in Chavo, and lands a series of kicks while Chavo tries to work his way out of the corner. The heels do a solid job of trapping Chavo in their corner, but when Havoc makes the mistake of whipping Chavo into the ropes and ducking down, Chavo kicks him and rolls toward his corner, making a tag to Star. She scores a series of kicks before running right into a Havoc back elbow. Havoc drags Star to the corner while Striker and Vampiro get over the idea of women’s empowerment in lucha generally and Ivelisse and Sexy Star proving themselves as the best on the scene regardless of their gender specifically. This is also around the time that Saint Stephanie McMahon fixed gender issues in WWE and practically the whole world by graciously ending the practice of calling women’s wrestlers “divas,” even allowing the women in NXT to have competitive wrestling matches like the men did, so a) all hail St. Stephanie, truly wrestling’s own Betty Friedan, and b) seriously, though, this was an interesting throughline or trend in televised pro wrestling at this time, re-evaluating how women are used or talked about on the card. I feel like most folks thought really positively about this back then, but in 2025, I get the sense that the narrative around women in pro wrestling might have regressed in some ways. Or maybe it’s just the narrative around women in general that’s regressed. Ivelisse tags in and has a decent sequence with Sexy Star before tagging Havoc back in. I’ll tell you this much; Sexy Star isn’t very good, but LU is doing a great job of making her look like she could legitimately be good. They stick her with good workers, lay out her matches carefully, and present her like an absolute star. I wish I could somehow show Kevin Nash and Dusty Rhodes tape of this in 1999 and convince them to push Mona like this with the bonus that Mona is a very good worker and would make the most of it unlike Sexy Star. Would it have ultimately worked in 1999? Probably not considering how edgy that time period was, but I still want to see it. Havoc loses control of the match once more when he eats knees on a casually-attempted standing moonsault. Man, he’s really letting Ivelisse down. Chavo gets the hot tag and scores two on a rolling heel kick, which is the point at which the match breaks down and Sexy Star struggles her way through a brawl with Ivelisse that ends with a seated senton off the apron and to Ivelisse on the floor. Meanwhile, Chavo dropkicks Havoc back in the ring, then drops a Frog Splash on Havoc and tags in Star to roll Havoc up for three. I didn’t like Havoc getting to his feet immediately after that Frog Splash so that he could get victory rolled, but that was a nice tag match overall and this is a minor nitpick on my part. Vignette: As Blue Demon Jr. prepares for battle in the dingy backstage dressing room, he doesn’t spot Catrina sneaking up on him. She licks him: “A taste before a thousand deaths.” And what a way to go, might I add! Don’t tell me to calm down. I am calm. *ahem* so here’s another vignette: Prince Puma trains while Konnan hypes him; Konnan says that a friend whom we might know introduced him to Puma. Hmm, whom might Konnan be alluding to? While Konnan puts over Puma’s lucha bonafides, I must note here that I’m in the middle of the latest Between the Sheets Patreon podcast, which covers a Konnan interview with Wade Keller’s Torch that was published in the mid-‘90s. It ended up being well-timed with the start of this re-watch, and I have to think that LU must have been an exciting prospect to Konnan considering that two decades before it started, he had successful tours of the United States with AAA and seemed to think that they were on the cusp of breaking into he country in a big way. And now in 2025, they sort of have finally broken all the way into the U.S. market in their own fucked up way, haven’t they? Blue Demon Jr. stands in the ring, awaiting Mil Muertes (w/Catrina). Muertes is a fun wrestler when he’s throwing around smaller dudes, which makes me wonder how wise it is to have his first match be against a guy almost as big as he is. They’re putting him over as a monster, and it makes me think that they should have flipped things around and had Chavo Jr. be the guy Demon’s position instead. Demon throws a bad front dropkick and claps his hands in clear view of the camera as he does it, so what I’m saying is that this match isn’t working for me at all. Uh, except for Muertes's valet-slash-Aztec priestess. She’s great. More of her, please. I said I am calm; please stop asking if I am. Demon is also taking too much of this match. It’s a wonder that Muertes got over as a beast considering this debut match. For as much as LU’s bookers (who are they – Konnan is one, I’d guess?) got right the first couple of weeks, they botched this Mil Muertes debut. Muertes hits a nice lungblower at one point, but lands a weak-looking spear and a Flatliner to win the match at another point, so the pro wrestling gods both giveth and taketh away, I suppose. Muertes beats down Demon after the match until a) Catrina gives Muertes something that commentary describes as a “stone” and b) Chavo Jr. runs down holding a chair to make the save. That last part is a fake out as Chavo cracks Demon with the chair and beats him up, knocking out a couple of refs and young boys along the way. Sexy Star runs out to try and reason with her tag partner from earlier tonight, so Chavo completes his heel turn by laying her out with the chair, too. OK, that was a pretty good way to cement a heel turn. I suppose that since a former WCW star is in the ring, it’s only appropriate that we get a stretcher job to end the show. Don’t mind the gratuitous stretcher job, though. This episode of television was much better than any episode of 2000 WCW. I think considering that this show has somehow made Sexy Star the most sympathetic and rootable-for babyface in the company (and maybe in televised wrestling at the time) by a wide distance, it deserves a ton of love, and damn the ineffective Mil Muertes debut that ended up with Chavo Jr. inflicting Blue Demon with more damage than the man of a thousand deaths did: 4 LU-CHA chants out of 5. 1
SirSmUgly Posted June 30 Author Posted June 30 21 hours ago, zendragon said: Lucha Underground is made by wrestling fans from Hollywood. So they "Wrestling Larry Sanders show" works cause they actually know how to make a tv show. This is like what Vince was going for with his "room full of tv writers" forgetting that they needed to be wrestling fans first! Its also why this show is shot so so well compared to the ADHD cutting of Kevin Dunn. Also hiring an actual trained actor to play Dario was a stroke of genius. This is 100% true, all of it. I also think it takes a huge swing on straddling the line between conventional scripted drama and pro wrestling show and mostly nails it. Probably the reason no one has tried again is because it's a miracle that a pro wrestling company pulled it off once. Quote Funny watching SuperBrawl Revenge when Chavo smacked Rey with the chair I was like "Shades of Amigo!" This man's psyche was eternally damaged by his uncle Eddie driving him to extremes in 1998. He keeps repeating patterns of goofball behavior (Pepe, Lt. Loco, Kerwin White) with breaking bad by chair shotting babyfaces (Rey in WCW, Rey in WWE, Blue Demon in LU). Quote The announcing; At this point in my life I've become so anti-Jerry Lawler that anything sounds good. (food for a starving man), If you've ever had a public speaking job you know its easy to feel like "Silence in the enemy" when in actuality its really good to let a comment breath sometimes. This is the problem in my opinion, Strike tends to talk things to death, try to make too many points. I addressed where I stand on Vampiro's color above, but Striker just sounds like a guy who is trying to emulate a good PBP man rather than just being an actual good PBP man. Part of that is over-talking, which makes me think he was really into WWF specifically since that's a big WWF/E trait for PBP, but also, part of it is that he comes off sort of like Crowbar doing a Gordon Solie impression, i.e., a guy who is lampooning or imitating someone else rather than finding himself. Quote finally one hour wrestling shows. To butcher a quote from Lou Reed, One Hour is all you need, Two is pushing it, and with three now you've got Jazz (not the wrestler sadly) Probably ninety minutes is best because as you can see in two weeks' worth of hour-long shows, LU has really only established the motivations and personalities of five wrestlers (Mundo, Puma, Star, Chavo, Havoc). They've also got Dario and Konnan's characters over, but yeah, Muertes, Catrina, Demon, etc., are still ciphers in a lot of ways. 2 hours ago, twiztor said: This thread might be what forces me to soldier on and get her back on track with this. (i'm still undecided on whether to include s4- i've heard nothing but terrible things). You know my taste well enough (which I think differs in a lot of ways from yours; we found completely different gems in the sewage that was 2000 WCW) that you can always make a guess about whether or not to watch S4 once I get there and review it. Quote King Cuerno was a personal highlight. He really blended the character of a hunter into everything he did- yes the holds he did, but moreso than that it was the way he moved around the ring and his body language. I remember Cuerno's name, but I don't remember anything about his work, so I'll be looking for this. I remember broad strokes, but not specifics, from my previous watch, so it'll be interesting to see how much I (mis-) remember from nine years ago. 1
clintthecrippler Posted June 30 Posted June 30 On the topic of Striker commentary, I am reminded at how audibly annoyed Jim Ross was getting at Striker when they called the one Wrestle Kingdom traditional PPV some years back, most notably when Striker noted someone as "swerving" their opponent, a former stable mate, and JR just goes "I dont know anything about a 'swerve'...what you are saying is that he is a LIAR!" I look forward to your reviews and recaps on this watch project. 1 1
zendragon Posted June 30 Posted June 30 I personally think S4 gets bit of a bad rap. Sure its a come down from the heights of Mil Muertes and Prince Puma and feels like "who we got that can make the show?" but I felt it was leagues better the endless Hogan promos and Russo booked crap of late period WCW, or the Kiss my ass club and horrible creative of mid-aughts WWE Re Chavo: is his story basically Hamlet in Wrestling? Fakes going mad to mess with his Uncle (Such as the Eddy trap consisting of a box with a string and a burrito) only to actually lose it? 2
SirSmUgly Posted June 30 Author Posted June 30 Season 1, Show 3: “Cross the Border,” or Penta and Fenix Shall Be Together in Paradise It’s summer and my workload is way lower as a result and I love it and it’s hot outside but it’s cool in this room and I got my morning workout in and now I’ve had a small lunch and I get to do whatever I want to do and what I want to do is watch, think about, and talk about wrestling, so let’s LUCHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA Recap: Chavo Jr.’s loss to Blue Demon Jr. in episode one (and Dario Cueto shit-talking him for it) leads to Chavo Jr.’s heel turn on Demon in episode two; Mil Muertes and Catrina join the seedy underworld that is the Temple; finally, Dario really has it out for Johnny Mundo, lemme tell ya! During that recap, Matt Striker says something silly on commentary that I missed when he originally said it during the previous episode. He queries about Chavo’s heel turn: “What is Chavo’s motivation?” I suppose that I can be a little bit charitable and assume that Striker isn’t privy to what goes on off-screen and away from the ring in kayfabe. Maybe he didn’t see Dario winding Chavo up for tapping out to Blue Demon from a kayfabe standpoint. Still, it might be that Chavo’s embarrassing tap out loss to Demon might be a clue to Chavo’s motivation, Striker, you absolute dolt. Matt Striker is just Scott Hudson with an annoying voice, and yes, I mean that comparison as the sickest of burns and gravest of insults. The sun is going down in Los Angeles, and that means it’s time for a grey market and probably illegal lucha show! Konnan peeks through the blinds of Dario Cueto’s office at the bloodthirsty Temple crowd and remarks on how well the Temple is packin’ ‘em in. He turns to Dario, seated at his desk, and informs Dario that he’s bringing more talent in from Mexico to join this underground lucha fight ring: real-life brothers Rey Fenix and Pentagon Jr. (though not presented as such on screen here) as well as Drago. In his inimitable style, Konnan vouches for them by claiming that their talent is “on point like a decimal.” It’s easy to forget that Konnan is an enjoyable talker when he’s just spamming his catchphrase roulette every Monday night, so I’m glad to be reminded about how engaging he can be when he’s being more creative in his gabbing. Anyway, Dario asks if the visa process went okay to get them into the country, and this is the United States we’re talking about, so no, it obviously didn’t, but Konnan confirms that he got them into the country. Now, he said exactly this: “There were problems at the border, but I took care of them,” so whether he got them into the country through legal means is blurry. Cueto decides to debut them all in a Triple Threat Match, which is a real bummer of a match type, but Konnan seems hyped about Dario’s decision. I'd rather they debut on the same side of a trios tag if we're going to get a lot of dives and speed. Matt Striker and Vampiro update us on Blue Demon, who is recovering in the hospital. Then, they kick it over to Melissa Santos, who in turn kicks it over to Dario Cueto. I may have learned something about this show, which is that it is shot two episodes at a time, and that’s because Striker says that “last week,” Dario Cueto put up a one hundred thousand dollar prize even though it happened, of course, two episodes (and therefore two weeks) ago. Unless, of course, this show debuted with two episodes on night one, in which case his call was correct, and I might be wrong. Cueto, accompanied by a masked man, pulls right from the heel Vince McMahon Jr. playbook in choosing to respond to derogatory chants by delusionally reframing them as plaudits: “Gracias, thank you, and welcome to my Temple!” That emphasis on the “my” in “my Temple” was Dario’s way of letting us know that he’s Vince McMahon Dario Cueto, and he can buy and sell us. Cueto mocks fans who want more high-flying lucha matches by mimicking their annoying little whiny voices, but he then acquiesces and agrees to promote more of that style of match, starting with a match featuring this masked guy named El Mariachi Loco. Cueto says he discovered the guy at his favorite Mexican restaurant down the street and jokes that maybe the guy will play a song for them after he wins his match. The crowd, as annoying as ever, chants PLAY A SONG, and boy are they detracting from this show. Loco is booked against legendary mini Mascarita Sagrada, and of course, Sagrata runs rings around this masked crazy musician doofus in a somewhat comical yet also technically proficient manner. Loco laughs at the diminuitive Sagrada, which is an obvious mistake that only an overconfident jerkass heel would make, then mocks him by getting on his knees and asking for a knuckle lock, at which point Sagrada hits an enziguri and then embarks upon an array of lovely flips, tilt-a-whirls, and dives. Matt Striker is super annoying on commentary, asking for the “politically correct” term for Sagrada and then claiming that everyone is too uptight. Who is this guy, Matt Walsh? Just call the match, you idiot. Mariachi Loco uses his size to bully Sagrada a bit and then plunks on a chinlock before working Sagrada back to his feet and shooting him in for a tilt-a-whirl slam. The heelish Mariachi covers, but lets Sagrada up in a bit of heel hubris that I hope will be narratively punished. Marachi kicks and swivels his hips and press slams Sagrada and taunts and disrespectfully pins Sagrada with a boot on the chest, but Sagrada survives and dodges a Mariachi senton bomb. Sagrada goes on the run and hits a GORGEOUS tornado DDT that I thought was going to get three, but it only got 2.9. Sagrada tries that tornado DDT again, and when Mariachi uses his standing base to halt Sagrada’s momentum, the mini wisely transitions his head hook into a submission hold, cutting off Mariachi’s blood to the brain and weakening him so that Sagrada can then transition into a small package for three. Solid little bout! Of course, that dastardly Chavo Guerrero Jr. is still on a rampage; he runs to the ring and backjumps the victorious Sagrada just to be a big meanie. Hype video: Chavo Jr. is breaking bad! Sit-down interview: Vampiro interviews former WCW running buddy Chavo Guerrero Jr. and unfairly (IMO) runs down Chavo’s many kayfabe accomplishments, including being two times the WCW Cruiserweight Champion and, uh, a former WCW tag team champion for about three minutes. He’s not riding anyone’s coattails, Vampiro, you jerk! Seriously, Vampiro is going full 2000 Mike Tenay here and riding Chavo for being not as good as Eddy. Chavo points out that Blue Demon Jr. is living off papa Blue Demon Sr.’s legacy and then complains that El Rey executives think that Demon is a bigger potential draw than Chavo Jr. Oh no, I don’t want to talk about what television executives are thinking or doing. Plus, it breaks the illusion that Dario Cueto is the only real executive who is paying for this TV time on a niche cable channel with his filthily acquired lucre. I didn’t like this interview because of that illusion break and because Vampiro isn’t what I’d call a good interviewer. I also have zero interest in a Chavo/Demon feud, so that doesn’t help. Backstage and beautifully shot on film: Konnan and Chavo Jr. have a semi-friendly conversation. Konnan warns Chavo that there are a few unhappy Mexicans who will be looking to get back at Chavo for what he did to Demon and Sagrada, and then, we get more Konnan being Konnan: “So I suggest you dip, disappear, like a comprehensive immigration bill or a ghost.” OK, new rule: Konnan is allowed to make political references and Matt Striker isn’t. Anyway, Konnan leaves Chavo in this dingy-ass hallway with that warning. The lights flicker, and Chavo turns around…right into the masked visage of Mil Muertes. Muertes passes, but Catrina, trailing him, stops to let Chavo know that Muertes was supposed to be the guy to put Demon out of wrestling. Catrina promises that Muertes is going to take Chavo stealing Muertes's valor out on Chavo’s hide someday. Then she gives him the lick of death. Ah, I see: Muertes and Catrina were on their way out to the ring so that ol’ Muertes can squash Ricky Mandel. Vignette: We get backstory into Mil Muertes’s background; Catrina, on voiceover, says that a young Mil’s family died in the big Mexico City earthquake in 1985 and that Muertes was changed by his near-death experience. That day, young Pasqual Mendoza was so changed in mind, body, and spirit that he became the Mil Muertes we all know and love today. Back to the ring, we get the match that Mil needed last week, including a much better spear from Muertes and the monster actually taking almost all of the match. Catrina yanks on Mandel’s hair and gets a pop from the crowd. I suppose she’s not a heel, just an amoral tweener. There’s nothing wrong with rooting for amoral tweeners; Jake Roberts is a prime example of why rooting for amoral tweeners can be satisfying. Muertes drops Mandel with a Flatliner for three, and sure, that probably hurt, but at least Mandel gets a lick for his pain. Backstage stuff the crowd doesn’t see: Johnny Mundo tries to get past the two guys guarding Dario Cueto’s door so that he can have an impromptu meeting with Dario. Dario thinks he’s getting an ass kicking for not paying Mundo after Mundo defeated Puma on the first show, but Mundo calms him down and merely asks for a match with Big Ryck next week. Dario, relieved, gives it to him, but Mundo lets Dario know that in fact that ass kicking is in fact coming after he’s disposed of Ryck. Dario blanches and immediately wonders: What to do, what to do? More backstage stuff the crowd doesn’t see: Ryck refuses to fight unless he gets paid in advance, so Dario hands him a couple stacks and demands that he put Mundo out of wrestling next week. Hype video: Prince Puma visits his barrio and shadowboxes while Konnan talks up not only Puma, but the mask he wears in voiceover. Konnan says that Puma’s mask finds warriors who are worthy to wear it over the generations, which makes it like the portal-opening cap that Mighty Max wears, if you needed a ‘90s cartoon analogy to better understand Konnan's claim. Our main event is next, pitting Drago, Rey Fenix, and Pentagon Jr. against one another. Drago’s got a tongue that could also give someone quite the lick, though I would assume that most people would choose Catrina over him in that regard. I’m going to stop here and tell (or remind) everyone of my biases: I don’t like non-ECW style Triangle or Triple Threat Matches, and I especially am not a fan of these matches that feel like a collection of high spots without much storytelling tissue to connect them. With that in mind, what we get here will be very good to a fan who likes this sort of thing whereas I find it watchable enough and a decent one of these types of bouts, but ultimately not particularly engaging on a personal level. Penta is on my shortlist of guys whose look, taunts, and catchphrase I dig the most while not digging their actual work at all. He looks like a guy I want to watch every time I see him, and then he wrestles, and I stop caring. I trick myself into thinking that this time will be different every time. In fairness, his arm breaking stuff and Pentagon Dark or whatever he called himself was the most that I’ve ever liked him, and I believe that happens in a season or two, so I am looking forward to that. Fenix is a great athlete whose stuff looks completely choreographed and leaves me cold. Drago is, uh, fine, I suppose. I think the best thing about this match is that it is on the shorter side, which it should be since everyone hits about a billion bombs right from the start. Fenix leaves the ring and limps up the stairs while Dragon and Penta work a sequence in the ring that is my favorite in the match because it’s just Penta trying to chop the shit out of Drago. Drago eventually reverses the momentum of the match and dives onto Penta at ringside, which is when Fenix reappears on the roof of Dario’s office and dives onto both of them. They get back in the ring and work more sequences like none of the past damage matters, including the big Fenix dive spot, until the point at which Fenix hits a reverse Frankensteiner on Penta for the win. That was a collection of pretty good spots, but as a match, it was nada. At least it got these three over with the live crowd. One more backstage event: Dario Cueto paces nervously in front of a cell and monologues about how he’s going to punish Johnny Mundo for trying to intimidate him. He considers his options; specifically, he considers the grunting one off screen that is his as-yet-unnamed brother Matanza. End show. The wrestling on this show was merely okay (with Mascarita Sagrada being the standout performer, IMO), and the show was actually weaker for not having Sexy Star on it with how well she’s been insta-built as a character, but it did a good job of establishing Mil Muertes as a killer and pushing storylines along, so ultimately it was a perfectly fine episode to help facilitate some of the fun plot stuff that we’ll get to experience later on. 3 LU-CHA chants out of 5. 1
SirSmUgly Posted July 1 Author Posted July 1 Season 1, Show 4: “Thrill of the Hunt,” or Master Hunter Challenge: Skin One Lizard As we LUCHAAAAAA once more, I wonder who is going to turn on whom first: Dario Cueto or Konnan? Recap: Dario Cueto and Big Ryck target Johnny Mundo; Konnan tries to steer Prince Puma away from getting involved in that particular feud. Somewhere in a dingy warehouse within a neglected industrial district in the Greater Los Angeles area, we start our next episode with Matt Striker and Vampiro opening the show and reminding us about Chavo Jr.’s rampages over the past couple of weeks, after which we go right to the ring so that Sexy Star can cut a promo in which she threatens that “stupid coward” Chavo Jr. with revenge for Chavo’s attacks on her, Mascarita Sagrada, and Blue Demon Jr. She even promises to end the Guerrero dynasty. Does she know about Eddie’s secret son? She might want to take care of him first while he's still young and weak. Ivelisse Velez interrupts and cuts an annoying heel promo in which she declares herself to be the finest of the lady luchadores as opposed to Star. Ivelisse, and I'm paraphrasing here, claims that Sexy Star and her mask are both ugly and also that Star sucks, unlike Ivelisse. This starts a brawl that is now a match, I guess. Vampiro mumbles something about this whole deal being “anti-Diva,” and we get it, you’re not like WWE. Then, Striker says there will be lots of “hair-pulling, punching, and kicking,” which is like the opposite of being anti-Diva. Anyway, these ladies actually do wrestling moves since they are wrestlers, Striker, you moron. Alas, neither of them are very good workers, so it’s a match done at half-speed and with just enough adequacy in the work to make it passable. The funny thing about the “divas” critique of WWE is that, even though it’s still true of their presentation on major television, at this point WWE had stocked NXT with better women’s talent than LU has, and while I believe that LU gets better at bringing in women’s talent, it never passes NXT in that respect. After Ivelisse has a short, dull heel control segment in which she can’t get more than a two count, both women get to their feet and have a chop-off, which Sexy Star wins and punctuates with a Codebreaker. Both women take some time to recover from that, but Star beats the ten count and ramps up her offense, scoring two after a trio of rolling verticals. Star pulls Ivelisse back to her feet, but Ivelisse slaps her, then hooks Star and takes her to the mat before getting a pair of two counts. A frustrated Ivelisse bangs Star’s head on the mat, but wanders over and barks at the ref instead of following up, which means that she turns around and gets caught by a revived Star, who wraps on a La Magistral and earns three. This match was the epitome of bang average, which actually might be a slight compliment given the low ceilings of the workers involved. Seedy backstage interstitial: Dario Cueto slithers up to Drago and asserts that since Drago neither pinned someone else or got pinned in last week’s Triple Threat Match, he’s got no idea how good or bad Drago might be. Therefore, as an additional test of Drago’s mettle, he’s being booked against LU debutant King Cuerno tonight. Pentagon Jr. is in the ring complaining about how he gets no respect from anyone in Mexico, which is a real point of pain for him. He’s glad that Dario Cueto, his new boss, seems to respect him though. He promises to make everyone respect him starting with Rey Fenix and assures us that he has zero fear of Fenix or anyone else. The Lucha Brothers PRE-EXPLODE next! Fenix makes his way to the ring where after a commercial break, he hooks it up with Penta in a singles match. It’s probably smart to have these two establish themselves for a stateside audience by wrestling one another considering they’ve done it all their lives. Anyway, forgive me for seeming flippant about their work, but they do the typical early standoff leading to a babyface dive thing that feels like a MOVEZ~ exhibition rather than a match, and it does nothing for me at all. It’s just two good athletes doing disjointed spots that mean nothing in context and are discrete athletic stunts with no interesting in-match narrative that I can really gather. Fenix does one spot that is essentially a statement of intent for this style in which he runs up the ropes and then feet-first bounces downward off the second rope and right back to the top rope in a standing position so that he can complete a missile dropkick. It was both an awesome athletic spectacle and total empty calories. Those extra bounces didn’t add any impact or momentum to the move from a kayfabe standpoint. It was just flourishes for the sake of flourishes. I got about as much pleasure out of watching him do this as I get from watching an elite gymnast on the balance beam or pommel horse, but the best pro wrestling matches go beyond the simple enjoyment of athletic feats. Fenix is an awesome athlete, but he’s a terrible worker IMO, at least at this time. I’m not sure if he got better by the end of his AEW run. Of course, if you appreciate his philosophy for how to wrestle a match, he’s a great worker. Penta’s work is far more watchable in my view, and he does a fine job as the base for all this nonsensical overcomplicated spot garbage that his lil’ bro is doing. Anyway, both men throw endless bombs at one another with no flow or sense of real struggle for longer than I’m interested in watching it happen. Finally, after what feels like about a decade’s worth of busy, noisy stuff thrown into this match, Fenix wins with a flipping C-4 from the top rope, which is too bad since Penta is the guy who should be getting the initial push here. I’m going to call it the way I see it even if the moves were generally technically crisp: bad match! Hype video: King Cuerno is essentially the Kraven the Hunter of Lucha Underground, right down to the fervent belief that there are merely predators and prey, and Cuerno aims to be the most apex of predators. Drago and King Cuerno face off, and I wish that we had more backstage stuff because the talking on this show has generally been better than the wrestling for the first few episodes. I think this is the first show with more than three matches because Johnny Mundo versus Big Ryck is also on this card. Drago and Cuerno trade holds and moves early before Drago finds out that he has less striking power than Cuerno does. Drago next tries a headscissors, but Cuerno is too strong and holds his ground. Hey, this seems like the sort of spots that Mil Muertes needed in his debut match; these spots where Cuerno is presented as a beast who is hard to knock down would have been perfect for Muertes/Demon. Drago picks up the speed and the quick strikes and actually snaps Cuerno to the mat with a trip, then follows with a rana to the off-balance Cuerno. However, his next headscissors attempt doesn’t work as Cuerno uses his strength to dump Drago face first to the match. He rakes Drago’s eyes and forehead casually – too casually, as it turns out, as he shoots Drago in, gets reversed, tries to toss the ref down in front of him to stop Drago’s run, and then is hammered anyway when Drago uses the ref as a launching pad to flip into Cuerno and complete another headscissors. Cuerno topples to the floor, where Drago follows with a pretty cannonball, but Cuerno quickly recovers when Drago dumps him back in the ring and scores and enziguri. Drago falls back to the floor, and Cuerno runs the ropes and scores a nice tope suicida. Cuerno chops Drago, then rolls him back in the ring and looks supremely confident while doing so. He again relaxes too much while shooting Drago in; Drago does a move I’ve never fucking seen before in which he springboards off the ropes into an armdrag, but then holds onto the arm, wraps himself around Cuerno's shoulders, and almost does an inverted Oklahoma roll to hold Cuerno’s shoulders to the mat for three. That finish ruled, as did this match. It got Drago over for me because he had to survive this bigger, stronger opponent in any way he could, and he used his smarts and speed to manage a victory. Meanwhile, Cuerno established that he can be dominant, but he also needs to maybe take his prey a bit more seriously because this prey is not afraid to fight back. Excellent bout! Seedy backstage interstitial: Prince Puma works out on some probably stolen gym equipment. I bet it fell off the back of a truck. Konnan walks in while Puma does crunches and exhorts Puma not to interfere with the main event, even if Mundo ends up being outmatched or outnumbered. Puma doesn’t respond because we’d all find out he’s a dude from the Midwest if he spoke, but suffice it to say that through Konnan’s increasingly frustrated tone and Puma’s good facial expressions, Puma isn’t promising Konnan anything here. Big Ryck (w/cigar) is in the ring, awaiting Johnny Mundo’s arrival. I remember enjoying Ryck’s ECW work, though he did work quite a few strong workers in what at that point was already a very controlled environment. Here, he does what he’s best at, which is be demonstrably slower, but much stronger than Mundo. As it turns out, that makes for a good short match in which Ryck clubbers and lands big shoulderblocks and splashes while Mundo dodges behind, over, around, and under Ryck, earning every knockdown he gets. I actually really enjoy Ryck just doing the basics as it sits in stark contrast to most of the flippy speedy dudes he shares this company with. And of course, when most of the guys you land shoulderblocks on are way smaller than you, shoulderblocks can be used like wear down moves instead of transitional moves. As the match winds down, Ryck tries a uranage, but Mundo slips away and hits a springboard kick for two…which is when we cut to the back and see Cortez and Castro attack Puma in the locker room, tossing him headfirst into a locker before running away… …and to the ring, where they attack Mundo in full view of the ref, drawing a DQ. This obviously will draw Puma into the fray, but I wonder: Did Dario Cueto tell Cortez and Castro to attack Puma, knowing that Puma would respond and thus starting a rift between Konnan and Puma to some end he's got in mind? Or rather, did he have Cortez and Castro do it simply as a preventative measure? Or did he not do it at all and just let Ryck be the one to give the orders? Anyway, Ryck hits a standing uranage on Mundo that sends him through a table to end the show. I’m interested in seeing where this goes if only because I trust Lucha Underground’s writers to take the thread of Puma getting drawn into Dario’s feud with Mundo and run with it. The second half of the show really saved the first half! 3 LU-CHA chants out of 5. 1
SirSmUgly Posted July 1 Author Posted July 1 Season 1, Show 5: “Boyle Heights Street Fight,” or HERE COMES A NEW CHALLENGER (dressed in black and looking all mysterious-like)!! It’s a lucha doubleheader! Recap: King Cuerno’s not the only one on the hunt! Sexy Star is looking for Chavo Jr. and Johnny Mundo is out for Dario Cueto’s blood. As someone who might be in the minority of finding L.A. to be a great place and having an almost romantic view of it, these exterior shots of the city as a transition from the recap to the start of the carnage always get me hyped. Seedy backstage interstitial: Dario Cueto and Konnan have a conversation in which Konnan seems to indicate that it was indeed Cueto who sent Cortez and Cisco to attack Prince Puma in the locker room last week. Konnan suggests that Puma wanted to come into Dario’s office and revenge himself upon Dario, but Konnan stopped him. Dario offers Konnan a drink, but Konnan declines because he also thinks that Dario sent the flunkies to attack Puma. Dario declines having sent them to attack Puma and says that they are under Big Ryck’s control, not his. Konnan doesn’t seem to entirely believe Dario, but does request that Dario book a Boyle Heights Street Fight between Puma and Ryck for later in the show. Dario says that he’ll drink to that, but Konnan steals the drink out of his hands and takes a sip instead. Dario is disgusted and throws the whole drink out after Konnan leaves. I see this ill-fated business relationship is already fraying at the edges! Let’s go to the ring, where our opener involves Catrina. Oh, and also Mil Muertes is here. I almost didn’t notice him there. Muertes is wrestling Drago, which I think is a great matchup because after Drago survived Cuerno last week, my kayfabe brain thinks he has a chance against Muertes even though my analytical brain knows that poor ol’ Drago is cooked. I really believe that Drago’s performance against Cuerno was a perfect fightin’ babyface performance. Muertes kicks Drago to the floor immediately and sets a tone, which is that Drago has to run and run and keep running. Drago does avoid a corner charge and hit a twisting bodypress from the top, but he gets caught on a rope run by a shitty Muertes floatover powerslam. Mil Muertes is coming off like Sexy Star’s male compatriot on this show: great presentation, but actually a pretty bad worker. Muertes tosses Drago to the floor; the camera cuts to King Cuerno perched on the top of Dario’s office, scoping out some prey. Maybe he just wants to see how Muertes avoids the mistakes that he made last week in his match against Drago. Back in the ring, Muertes scores a regular old powerslam for two and then embarks upon a slow and low-impact heel control segment. He chugs toward Drago and eats a superkick. Drago exchanges kicks with Muertes and actually wins a leg sweep for two; he follows with a nice springboard tornado DDT for two. That’s as close as he gets to victory, unfortunately for him. Muertes catches him with a spear as he tries another top-rope dive, then lands a Flatliner for three. What I got from this is that Drago indeed rules. Drago is basically carrion at this point, so it’s not very sporting that Cuerno leaves his perch, walks down the stairs, and drills the downed Drago with a sit-out fireman’s carry driver to amplify the pain. Hype video: Johnny Mundo cuts a shitty promo in which he blames POLITICS and NOT KISSING ASS for the lid on his WWE career rather than, you know, not being very good outside of working tags. I hate the whole HELD BACK BY OFFICE POLITICS thing that wrestlers loved doing whenever they jumped from the dub. Anyway, this got me anti-hyped. Turn Mundo heel sooner rather than later, please. Seedy backstage interstitial: Dario Cueto walks up to Mil Muertes and Catrina and congratulates them on their victory, but Catrina isn’t buying this friendly exchange and in fact lets Dario know that she knows about Matanza Cueto being held under lock and key by slinking up to him, tugging on said key around Cueto’s neck, and intimating as much. Son of Havoc (w/Ivelisse Velez) wrestles Mascarita Sagrada in our second bout, and I think Havoc is a good glue guy worker who is especially useful working big against smaller wrestlers even though he’s not that big a dude himself comparatively. As I’ve written in many reviews before, I think the most effective workers typically are good at working big against smaller wrestlers and making themselves small and vulnerable for bigger wrestlers. Throw Havoc in there against Mil or Ryck so we can see if he can effectively do the second one (which I bet he can because my belief is that it’s harder to work big against smaller opponents for guys under about 6’4 and harder to work small against big opponents for guys over that mark…and also because Cross specifically is a smaller guy who likely had to work that way for most of his career). One thing that I will critique is that a lot of the wrestlers who work as bases in this company are very obvious about feeding an arm or what-have-you to help out the smaller wrestler hitting offense. Havoc is a bit too obvious about that. Who are the best bases for intricate flippy offense? I bet if you put them next to everyone else and just watched them feed for smaller wrestlers, you could immediately tell the "solid" from the "elite" at that skill. Anyway, after a burst of offense, Havoc takes over and lands a standing moonsault, then pulls off the pin to gloat. A woman dressed in all black walks out and stands on at the top of the stairs to observe, and I vaguely recall there being an all-female assassin team on this show, don’t I, maybe? Back in the ring, Ivelisse lands a sneak strike on Sagrada while Havoc has the referee distracted. Sagrada kinda gets her back by diving onto her on a rope run, but boy, did he land short of her as Ivelisse desperately tried to catch him so that he didn’t spike himself. What ends up happening is that Havoc joins them outside; Sagrada chases Ivelisse around the ring until Ivelisse runs for safety into Havoc’s arms, at which point the spirited mini dives off the top rope and onto both of them. It's time for our first running segment of these reviews: Yo, shut the fuck up, Matt Striker: Striker jokes about watching porn with little people chasing women in it while this series of spots happens because he’s trying to ruin my enjoyment of this match. He stinks. Just awful. Please shut the fuck up, Matt Striker. Anyway, right after that, Sagrada manages to score a victory roll on Havoc for the win. I thought this was a decent enough little jaunt. Sexy Star seeks revenge on Chavo Guerrero Jr. in the third match of the show. I expect the vet Chavo to carry Star to something pretty good. Star is so mad that she’s not thinking; she tries to match power with Chavo, who shrugs it off and yanks her to the mat by her hair before grinding a boot on her temple. Chavo is enjoying being a bully, but he makes the mistake of forcibly kissing Star, which wakes her up. She slaps him and then fires up and scores a headscissors that sends Chavo to the floor. Sexy scrambles to ringside, grabs a chair, and waits for Chavo to roll back into the ring. The ref tries to stop her, so she pretends to acquiesce and then punts the ref in the balls. That causes an automatic DQ; meanwhile, Star tries to swing, but has the chair yanked away by Penta. Penta teases helping Star before agreeing to help Chavo destroy her, but Fenix makes the save. Penta standing there with the chair in front of his face and then clearly feeding for a Fenix flip is another example of what I mean about bases being a bit too obvious, and I say this as someone who thinks Penta is a pretty good base. In any case, the babyfaces clear the ring in what was more of a perfectly fine extended angle than a match. This has been another wrestling- heavy show, which again is not necessarily my preference for an episode of LU. Big Ryck (w/Cortez and Cisco) enters the ring first; Prince Puma walks out to meet him by his lonesome. Vampiro rightly points out that Konnan sent Puma to the wolves by requesting this match. Ryck immediately goozles Puma, who responds with fists before advancing too far and eating a knee to the gut that he sells by leaping way into the air before slamming himself face-first on the mat. Ryck proceeds to beat the shit out of lil’ ol’ Puma. Puma escapes momentary punishment with a low kick to Ryck’s knee, then fights off Cortez and Cisco when they invade the ring. Ryck gets to his feet and catches Puma as Puma tries a leapover on a corner charge, but Puma manages to twist his way into a tornado DDT; Ryck goes to the floor after that, and Puma waits until Ryck and his flunkies are grouped together before diving onto the whole mass of humanity. The heels do manage to regroup; Cisco runs a distraction and allows Ryck to hit Puma with a blindside lariat. I’m not sure that this match, which has been perfectly fine, is fitting the whole “street fight” stipulation very well. It feels like pretty much any other singles match so far. Cortez is split wide open over his eyebrow, by the way, which is the only thing about this match so far that screams “street fight.” Finally, Cisco finds a trash can and tosses it to Ryck in the ring, which screams more “garbage brawl” than “street fight.” I feel strongly that everyone should wear jeans and taped fists to a street fight and glass bottles and belts are a more appropriate weapon than trash cans. Ryck tosses Puma into the trash can after wedging it between the ropes in the corner, then presses Puma face first onto the trash can to boot. Ryck’s tired after all that work, so he sits in a chair and calls his boys in to beat Puma down while he watches. Of course, Ryck’s dipshit flunkies lose control of the match, eat a double DDT, and allow their boss to get dropkicked right off his chair. On one hand, this match is doing what it’s supposed to by showing Puma endure a one-on-three disadvantage and fight his way through the damage. On the other hand, the action itself isn’t very good. Puma wakes Ryck up with a kendo stick shot; Ryck catches the second one, then yanks Puma in and clubbers him to the mat. The trio of heels once again triple up on Puma, tossing him into a ladder and grab a table. They don’t set it up, though, instead preferring to hang Puma from the ladder and prepare a caning session. That’s when Johnny Mundo, like a goofy parkour-loving Batman, slinks onto the top of Dario’s office and leaps from there all the way into the ring. Mundo knocks Ryck away and holds off the flunkies, then grabs the ladder and wipes the flunkies out by tossing it on them. Ryck tries to attack Mundo with the kendo stick, but Mundo dives at him, knocks him to the mat, and then grabs a chair. He loads up a chair shot, but Ryck dives out of the way and Mundo clobbers Puma. The flunkies quickly score a team Codebreaker on Mundo, then set up the table so that Ryck can dump Puma through it with a uranage and cover for three. Meh. These garbage brawls do nothing for me. The best LU in my opinion is full of story that drives the matches, but this show had too much mediocre wrestling to drive the story. Drago rules, but otherwise, LU should have way more talking and maybe one fewer match than this episode did (or it should be ninety minutes long so that it can have four matches a week and fit in more seedy backstage interstitials). Maybe I’ll feel differently as more characters are added to the roster; as of now, I can see why I bounced right off of LU the first time I tried to watch it. 2.5 LU-CHA chants out of 5. 1
zendragon Posted July 1 Posted July 1 Was thinking about doing a watch along but don't know if I'd be able to keep up. As for bookers Christopher DeJoseph is listed as "writer" and Chavo and Vamprio (under his legal name) are listed as "producers. So I'd assume they are doing something like agenting 1
tbarrie Posted July 1 Posted July 1 3 hours ago, SirSmUgly said: Season 1, Show 5: “Boyle Heights Street Fight,” or HERE COMES A NEW CHALLENGER (dressed in black and looking all mysterious-like)!! Son of Havoc (w/Ivelisse Velez) wrestles Mascarita Sagrada in our second bout, and I think Havoc is a good glue guy worker who is especially useful working big against smaller wrestlers even though he’s not that big a dude himself comparatively. As I’ve written in many reviews before, I think the most effective workers typically are good at working big against smaller wrestlers and making themselves small and vulnerable for bigger wrestlers. Throw Havoc in there against Mil or Ryck so we can see if he can effectively do the second one (which I bet he can because my belief is that it’s harder to work big against smaller opponents for guys under about 6’4 and harder to work small against big opponents for guys over that mark…and also because Cross specifically is a smaller guy who likely had to work that way for most of his career). Who's "Cross"?
Curt McGirt Posted July 1 Posted July 1 There is a moment with Vampiro on that show that will be the only thing you will ever like him for and it's AWESOME.
zendragon Posted July 2 Posted July 2 11 hours ago, tbarrie said: Who's "Cross"? Son of Havoc is known outside of LU as Matt Cross Also forewarning to anyone watching this for the first time but a certain high profile speaking out character shows up in season 4 Spoiler Joey Ryan On 6/30/2025 at 7:30 AM, twiztor said: . The production and completely different presentation is nothing short of revolutionary. I still can't believe that it's been how many years and nobody else has really tried anything like this since. I've felt with all the streaming services today, someone should certainly try something similar (doesn't have to be sp00ky luchadores) but build a set on a sound stage and do some taping with a live audience. Your new take on studio wrestling, there's enough indy talent out there especailly with everytime AEW and WWE release people 1 2
zendragon Posted July 2 Posted July 2 as I catch up on these reports. 1 yes the announcers can't see the backstage stuff. and 2 they not only taped multiple episodes at once but apparently taped stuff out of order 1
SirSmUgly Posted July 2 Author Posted July 2 (edited) 14 hours ago, Curt McGirt said: There is a moment with Vampiro on that show that will be the only thing you will ever like him for and it's AWESOME. As excited as I am for this, I would like to note that there's something else I like him for: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAcmmQxn5us And also his "FROM THE STREETS OF DETROIT" rant on that one Nitro where he put over the JCW Championship in 2000. 15 hours ago, zendragon said: Was thinking about doing a watch along but don't know if I'd be able to keep up. You know me; there'll probably be at least one or two gaps in this thread. Plus, if you're so inclined, your comments contrast with what I realize is my very specific taste in wrestling, which is nice because this shouldn't be a thread of me shitting on Fenix as if most people feel that way about him (or whatever). Edited July 2 by SirSmUgly 1 1
Cobra Commander Posted July 2 Posted July 2 Just remembered the great story from the Austin podcast about how Dario Cueto worked the mic live at a show in Mexico and got mega heat as the fans quickly realized that he’s from Spain 1
SirSmUgly Posted July 2 Author Posted July 2 Season 1, Show 6: “The Key,” or Johnny Mundo grabs a key and risks rousing a monster with the tenacity of Phanto Recap: Let’s recap some lucha, including the burgeoning feud between Prince Puma, Johnny Mundo, and Big Ryck’s crew. Konnan is involved both in addressing that issue and in giving warnings to Chavo Guerrero Jr. over his heel behavior (and heel beatdowns) the last few weeks. Seedy backstage interstitial: Dario Cueto and Big Ryck sign a contract to secure Ryck’s services in the Temple, though Ryck wants his first bonus in cash. I’m honestly not sure when this was supposed to be shot; is this a flashback to before the first episode or did he just sign that contract tonight? [Editor's note: It was right before this show and not a flashback, as we'll find out later tonight.] Son of Havoc and Ivelisse are in the ring so that Ivelisse CAN YELL. HER PROMO AT. A WEIRD CADENCE! It sucks. Anyway, Ivelisse is annoyed that they signed a seven-year contract with LU just to fight little people and women, and I can tell you that contract is absolutely not going to get paid out, sis. You’ll get to go back to Nashville with Havoc soon enough. So Havoc demands that a real man to come out and fight him; who better to answer his challenge than Pimpinela Escarlata? OK, Havoc being a traditionally sexist and ableist dude who keeps getting embarrassed by the targets of his ire is a pretty funny running joke. This match is pure theatre, and how much you like it depends on how much of a kick you get out of a) Escarlata’s shtick and b) Havoc’s character getting humiliated for being closed-minded. Escarlata lands a rope-walk crossbody on Ivelisse, a couple of nice slaps and chops, and flipping body attack from the apron, and a Madusa-style missile dropkick on his way to victory. Havoc is once again hoisted by his own petard along the way because he spends time mocking Escarlata’s prancing rather than pressing his advantage and because he and Ivelisse were dicks to Mascarita Sagrada last week and in Ivelisse’s opening remarks tonight, which brings Sagrada out to chase Ivelisse around the ring, distracting Havoc and leaving him open for a kiss and a rollup that ends the bout. Sagrada and Escarlata dance to their shared victory after the match. Tough guy Son of Havoc getting rolled by people he thinks are lesser than him remains enjoyable. Seedy backstage interstitial: Dario Cueto really should purchase some lights around here, huh? Cueto, who for some reason doesn’t have his own personal restroom in his office and thus has to use the dimly lit, probably unclean public pisser, is accosted by Johnny Mundo right as he finishes up his business. I bet he didn’t even get a chance to finish draining himself and now he’s gotta walk around with piss-dampened underwear on for the rest of the night. That’s definitely going to up the heat in this feud, huh? Anyway, Mundo goozles Cueto and demands his money that he was supposed to get as the standout performer for defeating Prince Puma way back in the first episode of this season. Cueto promises that he can get that money for Mundo in cash, and Mundo snatches that big key that Cueto wears on a chain around his neck, which seems almost as dangerous a move as snatching the urn from Paul Bearer, doesn’t it? A dude named Famous B is out here to get steamrolled by Mil Muertes (w/Catrina). If you couldn’t guess what happens next, Famous B gets steamrolled by Muertes. It’s a decent, quick squash that ends with a spear and a Flatliner. It’s not quite spear, Jackhammer, SPLAT, but it’s effective enough. At least Famous B got a Lick of Death as a consolation prize. Alright, there’s a Drago/King Cuerno rematch tonight! This announcement leads to… Hype video: A bit of hype for Drago, whom I dig as an underneath babyface. Drago stands in the ring, awaiting the pretty cool entrance of King Cuerno. The trophy buck hat is a nice touch. Cuerno immediately explodes at the bell with a thigh-slapping front dropkick, but then slows it down because he likes to stalk his prey. This insistence on doing so is a good kayfabe reason for him not to press his advantage and also to sometimes pay for not pressing his advantage. Drago bursts up with running and a headscissords, but Cuerno puts him down with double knees to the chest in a nasty looking spot. We cut to a pretty East Asian lady wearing all black, and I know her name but can’t remember it right now. Angela something? She was the one here last week scouting a match. Hold on, she was scouting Havoc/Sagrada last week. But as I remember, she brings her own crew with her, so maybe she’s not scouting and is watching matches for some other reason? Anyway, back in the ring, Drago hits a flipping neckbreaker and covers for two; Cuerno needs a break, so he drags the referee to the mat to put space between himself and Cuerno and then escapes. It should be a DQ, but it never is in Cuerno’s matches, at least so far. Drago chases him outside with a dive and then tries his armdrag into a weird Oklahoma roll move that won him their first match. Cuerno kicks out at two, takes control, lands a suicide dive, and then scores his sitout fireman’s carry driver known as The Thrill of the Hunt for three. Ah, I see the hunter has learned from his previous encounter and successfully adapted his strategy. This was a good match that built nicely upon the previous match they had. Johnny Mundo has that key around his neck as he stands in the ring and demands that Dario come out here by the count of ten and give him that hundred thousand dollars’ worth of cash before, uh, something happens to that key. Big Ryck walks out and tells Mundo that he’s headed for another trip through a table if he keeps talking, basically, but Mundo hits him with a suicide dive to knock him down and then gets right back in the ring and continues his count. At about the count of eight, Konnan stands at the top of the stairs and yells ORALE! ARRIBA LA RAZA! It gets a big pop, and honestly, I kind of missed this dude yelling this catchphrase after gaining a bit of distance from watching five years of late-stage WCW programming. I feel like Holden Caulfield missing the guys he couldn’t stand at Pencey Prep by the time he gets done telling his story. You really do just end up missing everybody, huh? Konnan’s objection to Mundo’s monetary demands can be paraphrased as such: Mundo, you should be giving that hundred thou to Puma because your actions have drawn him into your feud that he has nothing to do with and also you cracked him with a chair and cost him the match against Big Ryck last week when you interfered. Konnan also declares that Puma isn’t going to be helping Mundo out anymore, but Puma has different ideas because when Ryck recovers and attacks Mundo from behind, Puma runs in and helps him out…and then once Ryck is dispatched, they fight one another as Puma is still pissed about Mundo’s wayward chair shot from last episode. Konnan walks away, disgusted with Puma’s intervention; LU security and referees have to break up the pull-apart brawl in the ring. Finally, security manages to back Mundo and Puma off from one another. That’s when Dario opens his office door holding a briefcase and pretty much says that he’s going to take Big Ryck’s cash signing bonus that Ryck requested in the first seedy backstage interstitial from tonight and hang it from the rafters next week, then let Puma, Mundo, and Ryck try to use a ladder or three to grab it first. The main event tag match on this show pits Chavo Guerrero Jr. and Pentagon Jr. against Rey Fenix and Sexy Star. Vampiro lets everyone know that Blue Demon is out of the hospital and back to training, promising that Demon will be back to get revenge on Chavo Jr. at some point. Weirdly, Vampiro speculates that Penta doesn’t like Chavo very much even though, um, Penta ran out and was about to help Chavo beat down Star with a chair last week. Fenix dispatches of Chavo and Penta dispatches of Star so that the off-screen (but not on-screen) brothers can have an exchange that Fenix wins. That settles the match down; Chavo and Fenix square off as Penta and Star step onto the apron. Chavo does nice heel work like yanking at Fenix’s eye holes in his mask while cinching in a headlock. His control doesn’t last long, however; Fenix gets to his feet, shoots Chavo in, drops down, and then slaps the hell out of his thigh while landing a dropkick. Is it that wrestlers are worse at hiding it or that I know that they do it, and now I can’t unsee it? Fenix tags Star in, but she immediately gets shoulderblocked to the mat and yanked by her hair into the heel corner, where she gets worked over as the babyface in peril. I get a wry kick out of Vampiro and Striker talking about feeling like they need to save Star from this ass kicking because it cuts against their whole deal where women can get it just like men can here in the Temple. Neither of them said this about Sagrada taking a beating from a larger man. If they were better commentators, I’d say that this is just a nuanced bit of commentary in which they need to gradually get over their instincts to protect Star from herself, but I think they’re just bad at talking and completely inconsistent in selling the anti-Diva thing. Anyway, Star escapes, but Fenix tags in and immediately is babyface in peril himself. What a strange match so far. Striker is trying his best, I think, with this whole “women are equal in the Temple thing” because he says this: “It’s almost valiant that Fenix is taking a beating for Sexy Star…not that Sexy Star asked him to.” This is a weird thing where it’s not a kayfabe struggle for Striker to work out his complex feelings about women in the Temple, but it’s just a shoot thing where Striker is consistently trying to remind himself not to hit the old clichés about women, men, and violence. I’m too wrapped up in how commentary approaches Sexy Star’s matches, probably, but LU set the tone for this by having Striker and Vampiro constantly point out that LU isn’t like WWE in how it treats female competitors in one breath and then Striker and Vampiro undercutting that somewhat with their commentary on her matches in another breath. Maybe I’ll be charitable and ascribe it to a kayfabe struggle for the announcers even though they actually just shoot stink. Boy, was that a digression! This match hasn’t been much of anything, really, with a short shine segment and then two separate FIP segments that were also too short to mean much. Chavo hits Fenix with a pretty dropkick for two, but after Chavo tags Penta in, Penta gets caught with a flipping cutter for two. Chavo tries to intervene and gets dispatched by Fenix, who makes a hot tag to Star. She goes right at Chavo, and Striker says that Star is fighting for the girls out there who were told to go away by the boys she wanted to play with, and actually I think the commentary is fascinating and I could write a whole paper on it. Anyway, Star controls the ring, lands a tornado DDT on Chavo, and then dives onto Penta at ringside in a pretty cool dive. Fenix tosses Chavo out there next to them and then hits a springboard, uh, is that a somersault plancha? I don’t know. It’s some wild shit, as is Fenix’s way. Star and Fenix make their way back into the ring; Star tries to hit Chavo with a crossbody, but is caught and slammed. Chavo makes his way to the top for a Frog Splash attempt, but Fenix is available to boot him to the floor. Penta is back in and tries a package piledriver on Star, but Fenix superkicks him, and Star uses Penta’s momentum as he snaps backward from the kick to turn her position into an advantage and nail a sunset flip powerbomb. All that is left is for Star to position Penta for a diving double knee strike from Fenix, then cover for the three count. An enraged Chavo backs away from the remains of what ended up being a fun match once the finishing run hit. I have a lot more to say about how LU is trying to position Star on commentary, but why not save some of that for later? I really do find it interesting how they’re trying to navigate Star’s push, though. I liked this show, actually. It had four matches, but one was a squash, one was a comedy match, one was a tag match, and one was a competitive rematch that built on the previous match. Add to that some interesting interstitials and character work, and I think it was both entertaining and successful in developing characters and plots. 3.75 LU-CHA chants out of 5. 1
SirSmUgly Posted July 2 Author Posted July 2 1 minute ago, Cobra Commander said: Just remembered the great story from the Austin podcast about how Dario Cueto worked the mic live at a show in Mexico and got mega heat as the fans quickly realized that he’s from Spain Speaking Castillian is a mega-heat getter in Mexico, as Gwyneth Paltrow once found out.
Curt McGirt Posted July 2 Posted July 2 2 hours ago, SirSmUgly said: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAcmmQxn5us Oh I'm dying This is a great coincidence because I heard a snatch of "The Great Milenko" on American Dad last night and went on Discogs to look at all the ICP albut inserts. Now I'm gonna have to do the Wiki. I'm sure there's gold on there. 1
tbarrie Posted July 2 Posted July 2 5 hours ago, zendragon said: Son of Havoc is known outside of LU as Matt Cross Thanks! 5 hours ago, zendragon said: Also forewarning to anyone watching this for the first time but a certain high profile speaking out character shows up in season 4 I think it was season two, as I'm pretty sure I haven't seen season three or four but distinctly remember the aforementioned character being in Lucha Underground. 2
SirSmUgly Posted July 2 Author Posted July 2 Season 1, Show 7: “The Top of the Ladder,” or Death Stranding: In the Rafters Are you hyped for more lucha? I sure am! Recap: Sexy Star and Chavo Jr. are continuing their beefing; Pentagon Jr. is jobbing way the hell too much for some reason; Dario Cueto is putting Big Ryck’s cash bonus up for grabs by hanging it from the ceiling tonight. I just saw Razor/HBK Ladder Match I on the WWF New Generation live channel, and that match still holds up and is better than like 95% of other ladder matches ever put on film. Actually, I prefer Bret/Shawn, Razor/Shawn I, and Razor/Shawn II to like every other ladder match out there by a wide distance. All this is to say that I should warn you in advance that I might be lower on this ladder match than most folks, though if they found a way to drag Scott Hall out here to conduct spots, it could surprise me! But before all that, we have a whole bunch of show to watch (as does Danny Trejo, who is chilling in the front row). King Cuerno opens the show tonight against the debuting Super Fly. No, it’s not a black dude doing a Youngblood gimmick. No, it’s (thankfully) not Jimmy Snuka either. It’s just a dude with an animal-themed name for Cuerno to hunt. Instead of using Raid and a swatter, Cuerno uses dropkicks and eventually a Thrill of the Hunt for the victory. Drago watches these proceedings while perched somewhere in the building, just spoiling for a rubber match against Cuerno. The match around those aforementioned spots is okay, and Super Fly hits a dope somersault plancha to Cuerno on the floor very cleanly. Gorgeous dive. Cuerno takes over after that with a series of running knees and kicks, leading to the aforementioned Thrill of the Hunt. Cuerno locks eyes with Drago while hitting that move and scoring the pinfall. Yeah, I’m absolutely into a blowoff match between these two, and they got me there through good work and smart progression from match to match. Hype video: Pentagon Jr. is zero-for-three so far, but let’s hype this man anyway! Mexico and Japan have a great synergy in sending wrestlers back and forth to vary their styles, and Penta apparently went to Japan to learn how to be a great hand-to-hand fighter, though weirdly, he doesn’t show any of this prowess in his matches except for maybe that arm breaker that this video gets over at the very end. Chavo Guerrero Jr. (w/Pentagon Jr.) faces Rey Fenix (w/Sexy Star). I’m going to be real, these feuds between Star/Chavo and Penta/Fenix seem to be running in place, and I’m not sure we needed another configuration of these wrestlers on yet another show. The slow burn isn’t working for me; we need to widen the cast of characters sooner rather than later. As for this match, it’s pretty good with Chavo’s heel control work being a solid way to make Fenix’s explosions of offense stand out and feel earned rather than just feeling like random spates of Cirque du Soleil-style flippy routines. Actually, there’s a rad spot here where Fenix tries his double-knees spot that pinned Penta last week, but Chavo holds onto a leg, rolls through with the momentum, and locks on a deep single-leg crab. That was so smooth that I almost wish it was the finish even though it’s obvious that Chavo’s not going over Fenix cleanly. Chavo continues working Fenix’s knee; Fenix fights up, but Chavo lays out Fenix with a nice lariat. It’s a pleasure to watch Chavo work, even if he has to stand right next to Penta and stare up at Fenix balancing himself on the top rope for a half-minute rather than moving out of the way of this obvious dive. Chavo does kill another Fenix springboard move with a counter-dropkick before wrapping Fenix’s knee around the rope, but Fenix just does stuff without selling knee damage anyway, so does any of Chavo’s work really matter? Fenix is out here springboarding around the top rope and landing top-rope superkicks because they look cool. Thankfully, Penta trips Fenix as Fenix effortlessly hops up to the top rope, and Chavo follows up with a quick Frog Splash for three. Man, as good as Chavo still is, Fenix fucking SUCKS. What an awful fucking wrestler. Chavo’s knee work looked so hurty, and Fenix didn’t even think about selling it for longer than it actually happened just so that he could do his overelaborate FAKE-looking offense. Yes, I used the “F” word, but Fenix insists on breaking my immersion with every movement he makes, so there! Sexy Star gets in the ring after the match and lets Chavo Jr. know that Blue Demon Jr. let her know that Demon’s coming back to see Chavo about that chair attack that Chavo perpetrated on Demon back in episode number two. Debut vignette: This Wolverine looking motherfucker Brian Cage kinda stinks, and in fact will be kinda stinking up my screen and joining LU soon. Well, I asked for a wider cast of characters, so I really can’t complain, can I? Wow, this ladder match is going to get a ton of time. Melissa Santos uses her idiosyncratic style of ring announcing to introduce first Big Ryck, then Johnny Mundo, and finally Prince Puma (w/Konnan). Let me give Matt Striker his props here: He notes that Stampede Wrestling innovated the ladder match and that Shawn Michaels, Razor Ramon, and Bret Hart successfully brought it into the mainstream (without, of course, mentioning WWF/E as the place in which they did this). I do appreciate the historical context for this match. Honestly, when Striker can restrain himself and pick his spots to appropriately set such context, I can find enjoyment in his work. Vampiro and Striker also talk about the former’s experience in ladder matches against X-Pac, and excuse me? This happened? I want to see it. Hold on, apparently they had a variety of matches in Mexico and in LU progenitor Wrestling Society X. Also, Reddit informs me that this happened: https://www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCircle/comments/hus480/vampiro_tombstones_xpac_to_an_exploding_casket/ Well, that is amazing. I clearly don’t watch enough wrestling. That’s what I learned from this search into the history between Vampiro and Sean Waltman. Meanwhile, Vampiro is talking about wrestlers from Wigan snatching ankles, and look, if I’m going to complain about the commentary when it sucks, I need to give the commentary love when I enjoy it. Even Striker growling out a Val Venis-like HELLO, LADIES when the camera catches a few young women sitting right next to the spot where a Mundo dive occurs isn’t going to make me take any of that praise back. Oh yeah, you’re probably wondering about this match! It is perfectly fine. What I think helps it is that Ryck has Cisco and Cortez enter the match, which makes it a one-on-one-on-three bout and which offers a further distraction for the babyfaces. At one point, Mundo is so focused on potentially putting one of the flunkies through a table that he forgets about Puma, an actual competitor in the match, and gets draped across the front rope. They do a dumb spot where Mundo tries to push the ladder onto Puma, but of course he’s standing in a spot where the ladder falls around him untouched, and the spot is really only dumb because of Puma’s strange reaction to it. I think he’s trying to indicate that he feels lucky about standing in the one spot that left him un-crushed by the ladder, but he didn’t nearly pull it off. Puma and Mundo do high spots off the ladder, but to me the most interesting thing is seeing if Big Ryck will somehow snake this match. Honestly, there isn’t enough Ryck launching the smaller guys around in this match. If you’re going to have a big dude matched with two flyers, there should be more of the big dude pressing the little guys onto and into ladders. The crowd starts a THIS IS AWESOME CHANT, which they do all the time for almost every even remotely interesting spot, so of course I’m so inured that I assume that the spot they’re chanting for isn’t really that awesome because they don’t seem to have very discerning taste! The spot that gets them going this time is a slingshot spot in which Mundo gets his face smashed into a ladder. It's a decent spot, but I’m not sure why it would spark that chant. I’m not a huge fan of that chant anyway. The best matches draw you in so much that you’re not thinking about offering meta-commentary on the well-worked nature of the match itself, at least in my opinion. This match goes on longer than I really care for it to. I am inured to multiple dives through tables and tumbles off ladders. I think the initial TLC tag matches between Edge and Christian, the Dudley Boyz, and the Hardy Boyz pretty much said all that needs be said about this sort of multiman car crash. And I suppose I should throw the Three Count/Jung Dragons match at New Blood Rising in there too because it happened around the same time and was also definitive even if practically no one saw it. But those bouts were about thirteen or fourteen years before this match happened and were much fresher and more interesting at the time. We slowly move toward the end of this match. Ryck seems to be taken out of the match after being hit with an End of the World and a 630 senton from Mundo and Puma respectively. Mundo and Puma fight it out, but how is Ryck back up so quickly? I feel like when you eat those two moves back to back, you should be out for way longer than Ryck was. Ryck tosses Puma right through a gimmicked ladder and then starts setting up multiple ladders; can a Rube Goldberg machine of ladders and maybe tables be far behind? Wait, this is interesting; a masked man comes out of the crowd and then attacks Mundo as Mundo tries to climb the ladder. He rips his mask off…and is a guy. I don’t know who the hell he is. Meanwhile, Ryck sets up a *sigh* Rube Goldberg machine made of ladders while Striker and Vampiro pull a Tenay-style I think we know who that is, maybe! without saying who that guy actually is. Mundo tosses the previously masked invader to the side, goes back in the ring, dispatches of all the heels, and grabs the briefcase. That finish was the encyclopedic definition of an anticlimax. Dario Cueto exits his office and congratulates Mundo, then asks for that key that Mundo took as collateral back now that Mundo has his money. Mundo says exactly these words: “So, give it to me Johnny, give it to me. Put that key around [my] neck where it belongs. Do it now!” You see where this is going, right? Mundo loads his fist with the key, knocks Cueto out, and then puts the key around Cueto’s neck. Wait, not even that much! He just dropped it on his chest. No, you’re supposed to a) knock him out and then put it around his neck or b) the better option of choking Dario out with the cord to the key, thus “putting it around” Cueto’s neck. BOOOOOOO, I feel robbed of what should have been babyface vengeance via doing the thing the heel demanded, but in a way that the heel didn’t want! This show basically ran in place and had a long ladder match that did nothing for me (as well as a Fenix performance that I once again actively hated). It wasn’t bad, but it was bland. I also want to know what’s up with the hitwoman ring, but they didn’t have the lead hitwoman show up on this ep, which was a bummer. I’m hoping that LU picks it up (hup hup) in the next couple of episodes from a storytelling standpoint. 2.75 LU-CHA chants out of 5. 2
Curt McGirt Posted July 2 Posted July 2 I went to see where Big Ryck was, forgetting he was Ezekial Jackson, and he's successfully retired and running a wrestling school. Good on him. Also, his first name is actually Rycklon! Now tell me how stupid it would be not to have that just be your wrestling name...
Cobra Commander Posted July 3 Posted July 3 Rick Long would have been a solid "generic enhancement guy name" for someone named Rycklon 1
Curt McGirt Posted July 3 Posted July 3 (edited) I fear that if Vince had ever seen DC's Cyborg in a movie or something and heard Zeke's first name he would try and pair the two Back to ICP, I read all the Wiki and boy that's a lot of stupid in one place. Then, I found the Squidbillies ICP episode just to watch their Gathering commercial. "AN ACTUAL MURDERER!" always makes me lose it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlO8GHVRLYg&ab_channel=JuggaloMedia "WRESTLING ON TACKS" also was so on-point as well haha Edited July 3 by Curt McGirt
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