Smugly reviews all of Lucha Underground (or at least tries to before it becomes hard to find on the internet due to takedowns and capricious copyright holders)

[zendragon]

What about the video where he was wearing Jordan's (or was it a jersey) that wasn't released until after his alleged death?

[SirSmUgly]

On 11/28/2025 at 10:45 AM, zendragon said:

What about the video where he was wearing Jordan's (or was it a jersey) that wasn't released until after his alleged death?

The stars get that stuff in advance before it goes on sale to us peons.

If Tupac showed up in Canada trying to launch a new album called "Everyone, Look At Me" under the assumed name of Stupac Takur, okay, I could get there with you. Because that's what Cesar Duran is doing.

HE'S ALIVE

[tbarrie]

Another important distinction: this Tupac guy presumably was not a fictional character like Dario Cueto.

[SirSmUgly]

19 hours ago, tbarrie said:

Another important distinction: this Tupac guy presumably was not a fictional character like Dario Cueto.

Now I realize that I should have started here with my counter-argument.

Dammit, tbarrie, where were you when I needed you?!

[tbarrie]

1 hour ago, SirSmUgly said:

Dammit, tbarrie, where were you when I needed you?!

Probably playing Old World. Sorry. I do that a lot.

[zendragon]

21 hours ago, tbarrie said:

Another important distinction: this Tupac guy presumably was not a fictional character like Dario Cueto.

HE WAS AN INDUSTRY PLANT!

[tbarrie]

28 minutes ago, zendragon said:

HE WAS AN INDUSTRY PLANT!

...which one?

[SirSmUgly]

Season 4, Show 2:  “Darkness and the Monster” or Just like when you took your allowance money down to Blockbuster to rent Super Street Fighter II, but when you got there, you found that the only fighting game available was a copy of Ballz 3D

• Well, travel for the holidays > busy work period > travel for the holidays leaves far less time for writing about LU! It looks like a bolted-on “sometime in January, maybe February 2026” target date for finishing this thread (and then proceeding not to watch any post-2001 pro wrestling for a long time).

 

• Recap: Agent Winter clapped up Dario Cueto over Dario's inability to give the Gauntlet of the Gods to a host whom the Order can use as their Aztec-god-bringer-backer. Now Dario's father Antonio runs the Temple (we’re just going to pretend right along with him about his identity). In other news, Always Bet On Black are the new LU Trios Tag Team Champions (or at least they were for a very short while) and Pentagón Dark is the new LU Champion and the only wrestler to both enter and leave an Aztec Warfare Match as the champion. Next up: a defense against Matanza Cueto!

 

• Seedy trophy room interstitial: Catrina blit-blurts into King Cuerno’s house and locates the place where Cuerno previously displayed the Gauntlet of the Gods that he yapped from Mil Muertes…or at least where it was being displayed; she uncovers the case in which it used to sit and finds it missing. Cuerno saunters up and says that a gauntlet with the power to “strike down the descendants of the seven Aztec tribes” needs to be placed somewhere secure where it cannot be used for such a purpose. Catrina desperately needs it back to make a trade with her mother for that other half of the Piedra Immortal that she was hoping to make on account of she’s tired of being a half-alive sorceress wraith, basically (Season Three, Show Thirty). Cuerno, however, gave the gauntlet to someone for safekeeping and, without naming the person whom he gave it to, says that he “[doesn’t] know where or when [the person] hid it.” In other words, he gave it to Aerostar to safely tuck away somewhere in the timestream, far from Antonio Cueto or Agent Winter or any of these other psychos who want to unleash carnage on earth. Also, and Cuerno is extremely clear about this, he doesn’t “give a shit” about whether Catrina gets her life back. She blit-blurts away, but angrily. Seriously, this blit-blurt comes with a loud thunderclap.

 

• Matt Striker sits next to Vampiro, and is that his real hair? Is this a transplant? I have questions. They hype our LU Championship main event and then kick it to the ring for an opening LU Trios Tag Team Championship Match.

 

• Willie Mack, Killshot, and Son of Havoc (the latter replacing the departed Dante Fox, if you recall) are your defending champions; their opponents are Texano, Dr. Wagner Jr., and Famous B. (w/Brenda), going by the team name of Infamous Incorporated. B. walks to ringside and scolds Melissa for being inaccurate in her introduction of their team, insults the crowd, hits his catchphrase, and manages to get a nice pop for what should have been effective heel behavior. B. says that Texano and Wagner are booked down in Mexico and making his agency some money there, so he signed three new clients to be his trios tag team instead. So, uh, did Texano and Wagner ditch this company between seasons, too?

 

• Anyway, here’s the new Infamous Inc. trios team: Big Bad Steve, Sammy Guevara – SHIT, NO, FUCK, MASSIVE HEEL MOVE TO MAKE ME WATCH THIS GUY, B. – and Jake Strong. For the love of it all, you have to be kidding me. It’s two-thirds of the fucking Inner Circle. Fuck this team. Fuck this show. I think I’m ready for it to be canceled already. Killshot and Guevara face off to start this match and of course do a bunch of fucking cartwheels and backflips and other such nonsense. We'v reached the point at which LU is a bit too much like AEW or modern TNA for me to enjoy it, huh? Penta and Fenix are one thing; I do enjoy them in specific situations. Guevara and Strong and Jessie Godderz and other such wrestlers, though…fuck no.

 

• This show with its weird blue ring and half the roster going ghost in between seasons is sort of depressing. It’s giving me October of 2000 WCW vibes in a way, except that I’m stuck watching Sammy Guevara and Jake Strong instead of getting to watch Elix Skipper and Sean O’Haire. Otherwise, they align for me in that it feels like the whole roster got seriously gutted and thus the promotion feels somewhat alien to what came before it. That can be a good thing! My rewatch of 2001 WCW confirmed that, though uneven, it was fun television. Season four of LU isn’t exactly hitting those heights.

 

• This is a mediocre trios tag. They try stuff like Killshot launching Guevara into a Mack Pounce (period!), but even that spot doesn’t do much for me. Strong catches Killshot in an ankle lock and Killshot taps out, but B. is on the apron and, for reasons that I can’t possibly fathom, is distracting the ref by having a protracted conversation with him. That means the ref misses the tap and that Mack is able to knock Strong away, then land a Mack Stunner on Big Bad Steve. Son of Havoc follows with an SSP on Steve for three. Strong is heated at his doofus manager and his mediocre teammates; he destroys Steve and Guevara after the match, then tosses B. around and snaps B.'s ankle after hooking him in an ankle lock for good measure. OK, since I called the team of Killshot, Mack, and Dante Fox Always Bet On Black, I’ll keep up the race-focused name theming and call the team of Killshot, Mack, and Havoc the Ebony and Ivory Experience. It’s not a very creative double reference, but I’m just matching LU’s energy right now.

 

• Antonio Cueto exits his office to address the crowd. He goes on about how he’s smarter and better than his son Dario, but he’s got to hand it to his kid – the Gift of the Gods belt was a great idea. He decides to continue the concept and starts the process of disseminating the Aztec medallions again. The next match will be for the first medallion, and it will pit Drago (w/Kobra Moon) against El Dragon Azteca Jr. We get flips, counters to flips, and trips where they barely touch one another because they’re speeding through the spots; this opening tangle ends with two double-dropkick stalemates into a standoff. What if you just fought over a collar-and-elbow instead? Kobra quickly hops onto the apron to distract Azteca, but Azteca is able to dodge a Drago charge from behind and get two on a flash pinfall.

 

• This match is okay, I guess. Drago has a nice somersault plancha. He hits one, then puts Azteca back in the ring and unties Azteca’s mask to force Azteca to focus on keeping his face hidden while Drago kicks him. The crowd chants CULERO, and when Striker asks Vampiro to give an approximate translation of that term in English, Vamp says without skipping a beat, “Yeah, it means ‘Matt Striker’.” Mean! Also, funny!

 

• Drago next hits a suplex that sends Azteca into the corner before slamming Azteca face first into the match and wrapping on a La Magistral for two. Drago’s follow-up corner charge is dodged, however; Azteca goes up top, leaps to the apron when Drago tries to trip him, and leaps back up…only to hop down and run into a big boot. Drago gets on his bike, hits the cables, and lands that running layout neckbreaker that is a signature of his for two more. Drago tries another corner charge and then, after a series of counters, Azteca catches Drago up on the second rope, where he climbs the ropes and hits a second-rope sunset flip that keeps Drago down for three. Kobra Moon is bummed that her man lost yet again.

 

• Azteca walks away grasping his newly-won medallion; meanwhile, Johnny Mundo suddenly pops up at ringside and declares that if one of Kobra’s guys couldn’t even beat piddly-ass Azteca, how are any other of her guys going to beat Mundo for a medallion? I suppose that Mundo will be wrestling Daga or Vibora for a medallion at some point, then. That whole Mundo diatribe draws Kobra’s attention, which means that she doesn’t see Taya run into the ring and only realizes that Taya is there when Taya spears her. Taya punches Kobra while Mundo kicks Drago in the balls. Mundo and Taya then triumphantly smooch in the center of the ring. Oh yeah, as Striker reminds me, Kobra sent Vibora to beat down Mundo in last week’s Aztec Warfare bout because Mundo eliminated Daga. OK, I remember now.

 

• Seedy backstage interstitial: Antonio Cueto grabs the cell key from his desk and prepares to go downstairs to release Matanza when Catrina blit-blurts right in front of his desk. Antonio has never seen Catrina do this before, no sir, so he expresses surprise and then inquires as to why Catrina has teleported into his office. Catrina is still trying to get out of the shadow realm and fully back into the realm of the living, so she’s moved on to Plan B now that the gauntlet has been squirreled safely away by Aerostar. She demands that Antonio “give me what I want,” and of course Antonio basically says that he, like most men, is hopeful what she wants is a good dick down, but he says it classy-like, y’know? Anyway, what Catrina wants is a match: Mil Muertes vs. Rey Fenix in a Grave Consequences Match. I presume that since Fenix has multiple lives, she has some plan in which she can kill him and take one for her own use? That’s a cold way to treat a guy whom you claim is your true love!

 

• Antonio sees the possibility for violence and makes the match for next week. I don’t think they are likely to live up to their first season Grave Consequences Match (Season One, Show Nineteen), which was a great bout, but Fenix is elite at the “babyface fighting up from underneath” role, so who knows? In a funny exchange, after Catrina explains her plan to Antonio, Antonio is most enthused not by the potential for carnage, but by the idea that if Catrina is once again a living being, she’ll have to knock on his door to enter his office instead of being able to blit-blurt in at will. Oh, and when Catrina blit-blurts away, Antonio sits back in his chair and clutches a chrome bull that otherwise looks exactly like Dario’s old red ceramic bull. I’m going out on a limb and guessing that’ll be an important prop as we move along this season.

 

• It's main event time! Pentagón Dark defends his Lucha Underground Championship against Matanza Cueto, a defense that starts on the floor as they tangle before Matanza can even reach the apron. Striker reminds us of the past two matches in which Matanza and Penta met, noting that Penta came close the second time around, but still wasn’t able to beat the monster. He also asks Vampiro about Penta’s progression, and Vamp mostly praises him, but notes that he’s a bit too in love with the adulation of the Temple crowd. Meanwhile, Penta opens Matanza’s shirt and slaps the shit out of his chest. That was cool! He tries again and slaps the post when Matanza moves.

 

• Matanza takes over and smacks Penta around, still outside the ring. He whips Penta into a bunch of chairs, then back suplexes Penta onto the apron. Only after hitting that move does Matanza take the proceedings back into the ring, where he gets two on a fallaway slam and two more on a pumphandle deadlift suplex. Penta makes a comeback by turning a whip to the ropes into a couple of Sling Blades for two, but he attempts a Canadian Destroyer that he can’t lift Matanza for. He can, however, dodge Matanza’s follow-up charge and land a Backstabber and a Codebreaker in succession for another two count.

 

• Penta’s problem is that he loves taking time out of his offensive onslaught to do taunts, which allows his opponents to rest and then hit big counter suplexes, which happens. However, Penta makes another comeback. He tries a second Canadian Destroyer, but has to give it up and hits a Shining Wizard variation instead. It’s only when he’s able to ward off a Matanza top rope move and use his momentum diving from the second rope to land one on Matanza in his third try that he is successful; he then bounces off the ropes and lands another one. The idea here that they worked part of this match around Penta struggling for that big move is an objectively good one, but it didn’t feel like a huge success to me. Is it that they needed to have the first attempt earlier in the match and do a slower build to Penta finally making it happen? Yeah, I think that’s it. It seems like they really rushed from “Penta can’t do it on his first try” to “Penta does it on his third try,” and of course, he also had to hit a second one immediately because LU’s house style is all about overkill. Put this one in the “good concept, poor execution” pile for me.

 

• The crowd is excited about it though, and Penta followsup with a package piledriver to earn three and put Matanza down for only the second time in the Temple, and for the first time by one person on their own. This felt like a bit of a let-down. I feel that Matanza should have lost on a big show in a longer match; this loss almost felt cursory. I didn’t keep up with Superman comics after dropping in for the Death and Return of Superman storyline as a kid, but it’s like if at some point in some random monthly issue outside of a big event, Doomsday got his ass whipped by Blue Beetle because DC wanted to give Beetle a higher profile or if he were utterly destroyed by some new big bad of Superman’s that needed to be established. It felt so cursory, this Matanza loss, and that bums me out.

 

• The crowd is hopeful that Penta will snap Matanza’s arm after the match, and he tries, but Antonio Cueto makes the save by stepping outside the office and raising the key, which causes Matanza to power out. The key has exactly the powers of the Undertaker's urn, it seems; it's not just a lazy comparison. Antonio then slaps the shit out of his kid for losing, and Matanza reacts to the abuse as he likely did as a child: by cowering. If only he were more like Roddy Piper, who COWERS OVER NOTHIN’.

 

• Seedy backstage interstitial: Antonio Cueto paces around his office angrily; Jeremiah Crane storms into the office and demands to be inserted into the Grave Consequences Match so that he can hopefully kill Mil Muertes and bang Catrina. Antonio is like, Oh yeah, makes sense, who wouldn’t want to risk it all to bang Catrina? like he’s some kind of Spanish Gene Okerlund or something. Geez. Anyway, that’s how they’re going to *ahem* freshen up the Fenix/Mil Casket Match that we’ve already seen three seasons ago; make it a triple threat and add Jeremiah fucking Crane to it. I mean, it does make storyline sense in that two of these dopes are trying to impress Catrina while Catrina is focused on taking the renewing lifeforce of the third dope who also happens to be the only one she actually wants to have sex with, though not so much that she’s going to give up on the whole “steal his lifeforce” plan. It’s just going to be a worse match in the form that they’ve booked it.

 

• This show was - and is - such a tepid affair. It’s every sitcom that tried to renew itself by adding a baby to the cast. It’s every drama that attempted the “dream season” canard after Dallas (and maybe actually also Dallas; I don’t know how that twist was received). It’s a show that has had too many cast changes over too short a time and now feels like a faded facsimile of that show you used to enjoy (in other words, it's Sliders in its fifth season, if you've seen that show). It’s Ballz 3D for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. I suppose you could have just read my alternate title for this episode and skipped the rambling comparisons at the end of this review, huh? 2 LU-CHA chants out of 5.

Edited December 11, 2025 by SirSmUgly

[Ramo2653]

Yeah, from my memory, Season 4 was rough. My only good memory from it is Ricky Mundo's character arc.

[Gorman]

On 9/27/2025 at 2:36 PM, Ramo2653 said:

The other guy in the Snake Tribe is Vibora aka Luchasarus. 

Vibora worked a couple of shows for us in Cleveland Knights Championship Wrestling.

[Gorman]

On 10/15/2025 at 3:56 PM, tbarrie said:

That's always been my assumption. But I'm also curious if anybody reading knows for sure. That was before my time.

Yes, Pat Patterson won the North American title from Ted DiBiase before he upgraded to the IC title in Brazil.

[SirSmUgly]

On 12/12/2025 at 7:03 AM, Gorman said:

Vibora worked a couple of shows for us in Cleveland Knights Championship Wrestling.

As Vibora? Not as Luchasaurus?

[Gorman]

1 hour ago, SirSmUgly said:

As Vibora? Not as Luchasaurus?

He was Vibora for us in CKCW!

[tbarrie]

1 hour ago, SirSmUgly said:

As Vibora? Not as Luchasaurus?

How disappointing that must have been.

[Gorman]

On 12/14/2025 at 5:45 PM, tbarrie said:

How disappointing that must have been.

We were just glad to have Vibora on the team.

[zendragon]

3 hours ago, Gorman said:

We were just glad to have Vibora on the team.

Did it do anything for business? Kinda wondering how much reach LU actually had.

[Gorman]

Not really. CKCW was a Cleveland-based promotion that featured top talent from Puerto Rico. Hilariously, it wasn't the only Cleveland-based Puerto Rican promotion that I worked for. The other one included me getting chased by Abdullah the Butcher.

[zendragon]

If you can't out run a giant man who essentially waddles when he walks that's on you!

[SirSmUgly]

Season 4, Show 3:  “Rest in Pieces” or Single Kill! DOUBLE KILL! TRIPLE KILL!!!

• And we’re back! Christmas vacation is over, and I badly need a…

 

• Recap: Dario’s (allegedly) dead, his daddy Antonio is running things in a new Temple, and there’s all sorts of nonsense abounding in LU. Catrina wants to kill Fenix and take his rebirthing powers, Jeremiah Crane wants to kill Mil and take Catrina, and Fenix is just chilling out trying to live his life and enjoy his budding relationship with Melissa Santos. Oh, and champion Pentagón Dark became only the second person to pin Matanza Cueto in any context and the first to pin him straight up in a one-on-one match specifically.

 

• Seedy backstage interstitial: Ricky Mundo had a maimed doll with him a couple of shows ago (Season Four, Show One), and it seemed to make him act strangely. Well, more strangely even than the usual. The whole deal with the doll makes sense in context, though! In this interstitial, the show calls back to a previous seedy backstage interstitial that I completely forgot about (Season Three, Show Three) in which some anonymous weirdo sent Dario pictures of what seemed to be maimed people, but which were apparently maimed dolls from an island full of such dolls located somewhere in Mexico. Dario tossed the photos in his wastebin, but they blit-blurted right back onto his desk when he looked away. To permanently rid himself of the photos, he gave them to Ricky Mundo when Ricky entered his office to ask for a match. Wow, a whole season later, that bizarre little plot point is now popping up again. Ricky raves about his visit to the island and also about the doll, named Rosa, that he retrieved from it. He excitedly raves about this creepy doll which speaks in a suitably horror movie-ish tone, like a charred lady Chucky, while Jack Evans and P.J. Black listen with astonished looks on their faces to this guy Ricky as he rambles on.

 

• Johnny Mundo walks into the room with a woman who apparently is Taya, but who doesn’t look like Taya to me at all. Seriously, she never looks like the same person in two straight episodes. Johnny says that the Reptile Tribe is now openly at war with the Worldwide Underground on account of how they’ve been beefing since Mundo eliminated Daga in Aztec Warfare, which also occurred in the first season of this fourth episode. Johnny starts to order his troops around, telling Evans that he needs to get out there and call out a Reptile Tribe member, but Evans doesn’t like snakes and makes sure to explain that while he’s the Dragon Slayer, dragons and  snakes are two totally different species. Then he skips out on the group rather than fight a Reptile Tribe member.

 

• Johnny shrugs and tells everyone else in the room to prepare for battle with the Reptile Tribe. He also off-handedly asks if anyone has seen Angelico around since he’s got a receipt pending for Angelico’s attack on him at the final night of Ultima Lucha Tres (Season Three, Show Forty). Everyone leaves the room except for Ricky and Rosa; Rosa tells Ricky not to worry because “[Ricky’s] secret is safe with me.” Rosa laughs creepily, but actually what’s the creepiest of all is that the camera pans up to Ricky’s face, and it’s wearing quite the unsettling slasher smile!

 

• Matt Striker and Vampiro hype tonight’s main event, the Three Way to the Grave Match that is the multi-person version of Grave Consequences. Then, we shoot over to the first match, which pits Jack Evans against a young Sonny Kiss, going here by the name XO Lishus. Melissa Santos manages to make it through her introduction of Lishus, but Evans yanks the mic away from her and admonishes her for not giving him the proper introduction before doing it himself, all full of superlatives and self-aggrandizing phrases such as “Jack Evans from the heavens.”

 

• Lishus comes out on fire, lands a couple of headscissors, and hits a Muta handspring into a disrespectful slap. She then bridges over in the matrix for no logical kayfabe reason and eats a splash, but quickly regains control, scores a nice dive to the floor, and twerks, because c’mon, what else do you expect Lishus to do after hitting a nice dive?

 

• Evans catches Lishus in the knee as she charges him after he gets back into the ring, and he goes to work with an arm bar and his own Muta handspring into an eye gouge. Evans hits a couple of knees, shoots Lishus in, and then grapevines the arm when Lishus attempts a counter after bouncing off the ropes. Lishus gets to her feet and stomps Evans, but Evans double boots her into the corner. Evans gets up, yells YOU ARE REALLY ANNOYING, charges Lishus, and is trapped and headscissored again. Lishus rolls off offense culminating in a jawbreaker and a step-up legdrop for a close two count.

 

• Lishus shoots Evans in, but gets kicked in the head as she follows him in. Evans scores a standing corkscrew moonsault, but only manages to keep Lishus down for two. Evans goes up top to finish things, but Lishus manages to headscissors Evans to the mat, then goes up and hits a splits guillotine legdrop for two. Lishus climbs the ropes again, gets cut off, but manages to put a boot into Evans’s solar plexus and grab him for a super sit-out facebuster that manages to earn the debutant a three count. This match was decent. I enjoyed it well enough, but I’ll forget that it happened by tomorrow morning.

 

• Pentagón Dark has a mic, and he’s yapping into it about how badass he is for both defending his Lucha Underground Championship in an Aztec Warfare Match and against Matanza Cueto. He has zero fear of fighting anyone else for the title, which is when Brian Cage makes an appearance to sneak attack Penta and knock him out with his own title belt. Cage grabs a table from under the ring apron, sets it up, and then grabs Penta and powerbombs him off the apron and through said table. Cage grabs the belt, holds it up, and declares that he’s going to be the next LU Champion. No no, we’ve got to put the belt on Jake Strong instead, buddy.

 

• Seedy backstage interstitial: Melissa Santos is unhappy about Rey Fenix having to risk literal death against two people in a Grave Consequences Match, but Fenix is more than sanguine. He’s maybe a touch overconfident, actually. He’s basically like, Look baby, I won the last one of these matches that I was in (Season One, Show Nineteen) and I have more regenerations remaining than Dr. Who, so why are you even worried? Missy’s still (understandably) worried, though. If these two crazy kids had more chemistry, this segment would have landed better for me.

 

• The Three Way to the Grave Match is going to kill off two people. Let me guess: Fenix is going to die and be reborn, but something is going to go very wrong. Also let me guess: Crane is going to die and then somehow come back even more wrong than he already is. Meanwhile, I suppose that leaves Mil Muertes to win this match and help Catrina become a real live girl again!

 

• What is up with Crane’s shitty suicide dive? He’s doing it on purpose, like it’s a spear-style suicide dive, but it looks so awful. I don’t get it, man. Crane isn’t very good. Crane hits Fenix with this weak-looking signature move while Mil sits around for a minute or two, and we’re only like a couple minutes in at that point. Mil gets up and powerbombs Crane onto a coffin lid, and you know what, it’s just the same stuff we always get. The show opener wasn’t anything special, but it was a wrestling match in which the competitors had a reasonable back-and-forth exchange with counters and nearfalls. This just dudes throwing one another through or onto other things when they’re not hitting one another with plundah.

 

• Fenix manages to walk the rail and hit a rana in there; Mil works on him, but Crane won’t leave Mil alone because he wants Mil dead on account of he wants to move in on (who he thinks is) Mil’s girl. Crane actually powerbombs Mil onto a chair, which is amazing because Mil doesn’t often get manhandled like that; Crane then drags Mil to the top of the stands and hits Fenix with a piledriver up there, but, um, Mil takes the service elevator up in the meantime and attacks Crane from behind. Fenix pops up so he can climb something and then dive off of it onto Mil and Crane. The powerbomb and piledriver were sick moves, but they meant so little in the scheme of things. I think that it’s mildly depressing that Mil is taking a powerbomb onto an open chair for no narrative reason.

 

• Everyone but Mil rolls back down the stairs. There are still seventeen minutes in this show. I wish they’d just booked a third match and then cut this match down by eight minutes. At least then, they could pack all these brutal spots in and make the match come off as a bombfest in which each bomb goes supernova and kills the competitors off quickly. Instead, they’re doing all these huge spots and then slowly wandering over to the next part of the arena to do more huge spots. Late-stage LU is like late-stage ECW in that it has pushed the house style so far that there’s simply nowhere else to go with it.

 

• Crane piledrives Fenix through a table and tries to deposit him into a coffin, much to Missy Santos’s dismay, but Ivelisse jumps him from behind, using a hammer to take out Crane’s knee and hand while screaming DID YOU THINK I’D FORGET ABOUT YOU? Catrina quietly watches from a safe distance as her long-term enemy destroys Crane. Crane blades off the hammer shots; he also flicks Ivelisse off, unrepentant to the end. Ivie knocks him into the casket and shuts the lid, eliminating him from both the match and from waking life itself. Crane died as he lived: A total idiot who couldn’t think two steps ahead to consider the consequences of his actions. Did hitting Ivie with a hammer when he should have just broken up quietly with her and otherwise left her alone feel good to him in the moment? Yes. Who cares if doing so might lead to trouble down the road? Those worries are for another day. Like this day, upon which Ivie beat the shit out of him with a hammer and killed him by stuffing him in a coffin. 

 

• This leaves Mil and Fenix. Santos has to try and fire up the crowd, which chants the things that it’s supposed to chant for the big spots and quietly sits there watching this subpar match otherwise. They trade blows. Fenix almost manages to stuff Mil in a coffin, but Mil powers out. Fenix tries to follow up, but he runs right into a release overhead suplex into the coffin. Mil tries to pick him up and finish him off, but Fenix blocks the move, fights back with strikes, and handsprings right into a chokeslam. Mil hits the ropes and gets countered with a rolling cutter. The crowd sees both men left laying and realizes that it’s their cue to chant THIS IS AWESOME. I would disagree and counter instead that THIS IS MOSTLY DULL.

 

• Both men get to their feet, where Fenix tries a top rope move, but leaps into a counter Flatliner. Mil drags Fenix over to the casket and dumps him in it. Melissa is upset; her voice cracks as she announces Mil as the winner. Catrina, who rubs her mystical stone on Fenix's coffin lid, seems pretty jazzed about the result, though! This wasn’t a good match, but it wasn’t an abomination, so there’s that. That’s pretty much the story of this season so far.

 

• Seedy backstage interstitial: Antonio Cueto has Matanza chained up somewhere in the new temple, where papa apologizes to his son for sacrificing him to the gods. No, wait, actually Antonio apologizes to Matanza for sacrificing him to the gods, but leaving him with a sliver of his humanity that is apparently bound up in that big key that Dario and Antonio used to control Matanza. Antonio has assessed the problem: Dario cared for Matanza too much, and it made them both weak, so Antonio's going to just toss this soul-bearing key over to Matanza and have him destroy it and the humanity stored within it, thus causing Matanza to become one-hundred-percent unfiltered Aztec monster. Matanza does so, the shackles fall away, and in one respect, this is our third death of the show. In another respect, it’s not a permadeath until the body is as destroyed as the mind and soul are. Or until I see them dead on screen and they stay that way.

 

• This was a dull show, but there’s not much more that I can say about LU being worn out and well past its expiry date as it limps toward the end of its run. 2.25 LU-CHA chants out of 5.

[SirSmUgly]

Season 4, Show 4:  “Pain, Love, and Sacrifice to the Gods” or The main event had more successful parries than a Street Fighter III: Third Strike match between Justin and Daigo

• Recap: Because Aerostar and King Cuerno conspired to hide the Gauntlet of the Gods somewhere in time, Catrina couldn’t bring it back to Captain Vasquez at the LAPD and trade it for the other half of the Piedra Immortal which would have brought Cat back from the ghostly realm, so instead, she just conspired to murder her secret love Fenix so she could take his powers. In fact, this particular plot point about her desire to have Mil kill Fenix for his powers was set up a long time ago, as this recap reminds us: They remind us that Catrina smooched Fenix and then straight up told him that she liked him, but also that she especially liked his powers of rebirth and that she was sending Mil after him to kill him so that she could retrieve them (Season Two, Show Eight).

 

• OK, I need to pause this recap to heap praise upon what Lucha Underground has done these past two weeks with its utilization of deep callbacks. Last week with Ricky Mundo and Rosa, they called back to about forty episodes ago with a small plot point that was easy to let slip from your mind, but that mattered and that explained how Ricky ended up traveling to the isle of broken dolls to retrieve Rosa. This week, they've called back to Catrina swapping slobber with Fenix and explicitly telling him that she loved him, but also that she needed his rebirth powers to “bring [her] back to life.” These sort of deep cut, long-play reminders of current plot points that were set up thirty, forty, sixty episodes ago are incredibly effective for me, especially as a pro wrestling fan who becomes frustrated when plot points get dropped with no resolution (as a former WWF watcher, I was frustrated entirely too often with its plotting in particular).

 

• In other happenings, Brian Cage is now gauntlet-free, but he’s moved on to targeting champion Pentagón Dark, and Matanza Cueto has become one-hundred-percent monster after destroying the key that held a sliver of his humanity within.

 

• Seedy backstage interstitial: Catrina enters a crypt to retrieve the rebirth powers held within Fenix’s corpse. She sucks up those powers with a chaste kiss, becomes a full-on human again, proclaims that her life can now once again proceed, and even has an immediate blit-blurt of a clothing change from her ubiquitous black dress to a more lively red one. Well, Catrina has achieved her goal without the Gauntlet of the Gods, which is well-hidden away so that the Order can’t use it as a way to create an all-new vessel for the Aztec gods. However, Matanza seems like he could be that vessel now that he has zero humanity left, so we're not out of the woods yet!

 

• Elsewhere in the arena, Melissa Santos mourns the loss of her significant other by tearfully looking through photos of them in happier days. Catrina walks up behind her and taunts her: “Don’t cry, Melissa. He’s never coming back, sweetheart. Fenix gave his life for the woman that truly loved him: me.” Then, Cat leaves Melissa with the half of the Piedra Immortal that she doesn’t need anymore as a memento of Missy's long-lost boyfriend. Well, this interaction was extremely messy (and I’m here for it), but also, um, now Melissa can live for like a thousand years as long as she holds it since she’s a woman of (conceivably) Aztec descent. She could also end up investigating the pendant’s provenance itself and become mixed up with Captain Vasquez and her investigation of the Order. This is the first plot point all season that I’ve perked up about. What’s Missy gonna do with that half-pendant?

 

• Matt Striker sits next to Vampiro at the desk and reminds us about Jake Strong getting yet another undeserved mega-push upon entry into a wrestling company; he sells that Strong snapped Famous B.’s ankle so severely that B. might have to have his lower leg amputated. Fuck off, I don’t buy that at all. Vampiro tells everyone to call 423-GET-FAME and leave messages of support and well-wishing for B. Jack Swagger/Jake Strong/Jake Hager is one of those legit athletes that looked as though they should have made the transition to wrestling superstardom fairly easily, but didn’t on account of they just sucked, man, and that was all there was to it. Not every legitimate athlete can be Reed, Simmons, Angle, or Lesnar. Sometimes you end up with a Swagger or a Rawley.

 

• Brenda escorts Big Bad Steve to the ring to contest the opener against Jake Strong. Strong demolishes Steve with a mix of agility (;ike a springboard splash) and power (like a clothesline) before slipping on an ankle lock for the submission; he snaps the ankle anyway after Steve taps out, then drills Steve with a gutwrench powerbomb on the floor. This was an okay squash.

 

• Seedy backstage interstitial: Antonio Cueto guzzles a cerveza before addressing some unseen being in his office with an accusation that they have possession of something that doesn’t belong to them. The camera pans over to King Cuerno, who smirks and says that he had possession of the Gauntlet of the Gods, but that “someone stole it,” which is a slight lie (he gave it to Aerostar willingly) and that he “doesn’t know where it is” (the truth, since he gave it to Aerostar to hide somewhere else in time without knowing exactly where). Antonio tries to pretend that he’s simply concerned about where the gauntlet is since someone could use it nefariously; Cuerno says that he’s aware of its power, which is why he stole it so that Mil Muertes couldn’t use it, but he reiterates that someone stole it from him and suggests that maybe Mil was the one who yapped it back from him.

 

• Antonio tries a different tack; to convince Cuerno to give up the location of the gauntlet, he offers Cuerno a chance at an ancient Aztec medallion that specifically belongs to his Aztec tribe, and he throws in an offer to let Cuerno beat up Chavo Guerrero Jr. for eliminating him in Aztec Warfare earlier this season to earn it. Cuerno considers the offer, but before he can say anything, Brian Cage walks in on their meeting and demands a title shot against Pentagón Dark. Antonio scoffs and calls Cage an impatient man, but Cuerno scoffs even harder in response and points out in a mocking tone of voice that Cuerno is a man, but Cage is a machine. Antonio is unimpressed with Cage’s claim to a title shot; he tells Cage to win a medallion if he wants to get a shot at the title and books him against Mil Muertes for a tribal medallion from Muertes’s tribe. Antonio suggests that if Cuerno is right and Mil has the gauntlet back in his possession, Cage can get a bit of revenge on Mil for beating him and taking the gauntlet from him back at Ultima Lucha Tres, with the implication that maybe Cage can not just win a medallion, but maybe even retrieve the gauntlet for himself.

 

• Daga and Kobra Moon work a mixed tag match against Johnny Mundo and Taya Valkyrie in a bout that continues a budding feud between the Reptile Tribe and the Worldwide Underground. Taya and Daga start the match. They have a pretty decent opening exchange with trips and dodges that ends with Daga getting a quick crucifix pin for two. They square off again, and Taya controls with strikes; she hits a knee, then runs the ropes, but barrels right into a counter dropkick. Vampiro expresses bafflement that Taya seems to be embracing her given nickname of Fuera Loca, but I’ve known a lot of ladies who have also happily embraced the chaos that they’ve wrought as their very identity (at least until most of them settled down and got into stable long-term relationships). In fact, Taya is progressing in that direction with Mundo in kayfabe as we speak!

 

• Taya tags out after that dropkick to the mush and squares off with Daga, who is still sore about Mundo eliminating him in the previous Aztec Warfare. Daga lands a European uppercut and then kills a Mundo slide-under on a rope run by double-stomping him in the spine, but his cover only earns two, and Mundo turns it around after kicking out by shrugging Daga off, kicking him, and hitting a slightly-off standing press for two. Mundo and Daga trade kicks before Daga tags Kobra in; she dives onto Mundo with a diving top-rope rana, then a dropkick. She covers, earns two, then tags Daga and works a series of double-teams with him, including a pair of corner dropkicks followed by a lifted body press. Daga covers after all that, only earns two, and complains to the referee about the pace of his count.

 

• Mundo is in deep doo-doo as the FIP, but he works out of it wish a bit of escapology and a top-rope spinning body press for two. Mundo tags Taya, then leverages Daga up and just off the mat so that Taya can hit him with a legdrop that smashes his head into the mat. Now the Worldwide Underground members double up on Daga, but they do so less effectively; Mundo’s superkick attempt is wayward and hits Taya rather than Daga, who tags in Kobra. Kobra sizes up both of her opponents and lands kicks and knees on them, but she takes an awful lot of time to land them, so Mundo ducks her third kick and escapes the ring, leaving Kobra and Taya. Kobra manages a side Russian on Taya, but P.J. Black rushes the ring and kicks Kobra square in back of the head. The referee is down for some reason that I didn’t see even though I played the video back a couple of times, but suffice it to say that he totally missed the interference. There was an editing fuck-up there. The referee recovers just in time to view Taya curb stomp Kobra and laterally press her, and he counts to three on Taya's pin attempt. Good match, but the missing ref bump was distracting.

 

• After the match, Vibora shows up a mite late to save his Reptile Tribe members; he double-goozles Taya and Mundo. Black tries to save them, but Vibora knocks him away and then superkicks Taya after Mundo moves out of the way, then hits Taya with a rolling body attack in the corner after Mundo once again slips away and saves himself. Mundo doesn’t escape a Vibora chokeslam and standing moonsault, however. Vibora stacks Black and Taya’s bodies in the ring, where he is joined by Kobra and Daga. They wrap Black and Taya in holds while Kobra tells Mundo, safely watching from outside the ring, that he will bow down to her as his queen. Again, the match was legitimately quite good despite the editing botch (or the in-person ref bump botch since it apparently was so poor that they decided to edit it out in post), and the aftermath was strong and got Vibora over as the key member of the Reptile Tribe that the Worldwide Underground will be struggling to overcome. This is a nitpicky complaint, but the crowd, even after having a chance to see how it undermined Vibora’s aura (heh) last season, decided to chant LU-CHA-SAUR-US as soon as he showed up anyway. Maybe the crowd should stop prioritizing its need to show how well it knows indie workers’ past gimmicks and instead just react to what’s happening in the ring?

 

• Seedy backstage interstitial: Antonio Cueto opens a padlocked door, walks through it, and retrieves his son Matanza, who is punching the stuffing out of a hanging, restrained corpse that I assume is Rey Misterio Jr.’s since the last time we saw him, Misterio was taken captive by Matanza. The silhouette doesn’t read explicitly as Misterio, though, and therefore, I can’t make a confirmed update to the Permadeath Count. That's my headcanon until otherwise contradicted by this show, in any case. Antonio tells Matanza that it’s time to go kill a motherfucker in the ring.

 

• Mr. Pectacular is the motherfucker in the ring that Matanza’s gonna kill. Antonio Cueto walks out and tells the poor sap that his first singles match in Lucha Underground might well be his last because this singles match is now a Sacrifice to the Gods Match against Matanza Cueto. Well, that sounds ominous! As soon as this segment started, Matt Striker insulted Pectacular’s body composition; then, Antonio walked out and informed Pectacular that he was tonight’s sacrifice. Ouch! Pectacular hits a dropkick that Matanza ignores; Matanza then starts swinging Pectacular to-and-fro in the air before scoring a quick Wrath of the Gods for three. The sickos in the crowd call for a SAC-RI-FICE and they get one; the lights go out, and when they come back on, Pectacular has been transported somewhere that is probably unpleasant!

 

• I appreciate that we got two squash matches and two longer matches on this show; that’s nice variety, and the majority of the longer matches on this show don’t need to be as long as they are anyway. And we also got a couple of good seedy backstage interstitials besides! Anyway, this fourth match of the night - and our main event - pits Chavo Guerrero Jr. against King Cuerno, the latter of whom hasn’t given up any information about the Gauntlet of the Gods (not that he knows exactly where it is anyway unless he consults with Aerostar). I suppose that Antonio is going to let Cuerno have this opportunity anyway to try and curry favor with him. Speaking of Cuerno, he has become a favorite of mine and could be the worker who most raised my estimation of him after this re-watch. He can talk, he can work, he’s got a full sense of his character: He’s quite good. Not good enough to move me to watch modern WWE, but good!

 

• Chavo immediately hits Cuerno with a suicide dive as Cuerno steps to ringside, then tosses him into chairs and bashes him into a post. I wish we’d have gotten a short interstitial with Antonio allowing Chavo back into the Temple now that there’s a new leader, which is an example of how LU’s strength in putting down breadcrumbs for seasons ahead isn’t matched by its strength at adjusting to real-life departures that leave holes in their roster or their planned storyline.

 

• Once Chavo is finished tossing Cuerno around at ringside, he brings Cuerno back into the ring and goes up top to continue his dominance, but he’s cut off on a dive by a dropkick to the abdomen. Cuerno, in control for the first time this contest, slaps the shit out of Chavo’s chest, but he misses a running knee strike and is met with a Chavo forearm. Now both men trade control back and forth; Cuerno lands a counter lariat as Chavo charges at him for two before they trade punches while on their knees. Chavo wins out, but he once again runs at Cuerno while Cuerno is against the ropes and is backdropped to the floor. Cuerno seeks an Arrow From Hell; Chavo tries to catch him mid-dive with a chair shot, but Cuerno sees that counter coming, slides under the bottom rope rather than diving through them, and boots the chair back into Chavo’s face after Chavo whiffs on his swing. Hey, that was a good “two master tacticians think a move ahead of one another” spot.

 

• It's not shocking, considering the competitors, that this is a very good match, certainly the best of the season so far. Chavo backdrops Cuerno into the stands and then climbs after him, but Cuerno kicks him back to the floor as Chavo tries to suplex him, then gets help from the crowd to boost himself onto the railing for a successful diving crossbody. Cuerno dumps Chavo’s carcass back inside the ring and looks for the kill, but he takes too long to go up top, and Chavo has enough time to recover and cut him off. Chavo climbs up after him and lands a superplex as both men continue to counter one another when things look most desperate for them.

 

• Chavo’s cover after that big move gets two, so he tosses Cuerno headfirst into the buckles, then gnaws on Cuerno’s forehead and chokes him. I appreciate that at this point in the bout, Striker takes the time to note that while Chavo was banned from Dario’s temple, this is Antonio’s temple, so Antonio was glad to welcome Chavo back into the company. Thank you. That’s all I asked.

 

• Chavo continues to punish the head and neck of Cuerno, leveraging him throat-first into the bottom rope, but another cover only earns two. At this point, Chavo goes to the second of his three maxims for successful living – CHEAT – and tears a turnbuckle pad away before trying to slam Cuerno’s head into the exposed metal underneath the pad. Cuerno blocks it, wins a punch-up with Chavo, and throws a huge haymaker to put Chavo down that Chavo ducks. Chavo grabs Cuerno’s legs while he’s down there and attempts to see-saw Cuerno’s head into the exposed metal with a bit of leverage, but Cuerno counters by shooting forward, up, and over the top rope. Chavo gets to his feet and rushes Cuerno, who kicks him in the head from the apron and then tries a top rope sunset flip that Chavo rolls through, though Chavo can’t stop Cuerno from quickly hitting him with a follow-up knee strike. Chavo tumbles to the floor where he is finally disoriented enough from the accumulated damage he's eaten for Cuerno to successfully land an Arrow From Hell.

 

• Cuerno again makes the mistake of a slow follow-up move after he dumps Chavo back into the ring. Chavo is able to small package Cuerno for two after Cuerno gets back in the ring and advances upon him. Cuerno is up first after the kick out, though, and he lifts Chavo onto his shoulders; in desperation, Chavo grabs at the nearby ref and pulls until Cuerno can’t hold him anymore. Chavo slips down and hooks Cuerno for Three Amigos. He scores the first suplex, then rolls through to the second, but the third suplex is blocked, and Cuerno hoists Chavo back up and then down into what I’d call a Package Tombstone for three. Cool move, awesome match! This was the way that a match between two guys who have been built as master strategists should work. Chavo tried his regular counters; when they didn’t work, he tried cheating, but Cuerno was too clever to eat the exposed buckle and too forward-thinking to be denied his finishing piledriver by Chavo’s use of the ref for leverage. Cuerno was obviously excellent as usual, but I have to say that this is yet another match that I’d point to when making my case for Chavo Jr. being in my top-thirty-ish all time. It’s insane that Chavo was so good and had such excellent instincts for making a match feel like a logical series of moves for so long. He’s got a touch of Bret Hart to him in that I can watch his matches and fairly easily suspend my disbelief because I can find it within myself to buy that he’s genuinely strategizing in there.

 

• This was a surprisingly strong episode that had a bit of everything: Yes, there was an “epic” main event, but there was also a strong tag match, a couple of intriguing interstitials, and even shorter squashes to vary the match length. LU often gets into these ruts where they run a series of episodes that cram in lots of wrestling and little-to-no plot progression – that awful Battle of the Bulls series or the overlong Cueto Cup tournament from past seasons come immediately to mind – and these shows where they vary the types and lengths of matches alongside making sure to progress plot are always the best ones. I feel that LU should have done a better job of preserving the big, long, epic matches for Ultima Lucha shows rather than putting on so many on a week-to-week basis that Ultima Lucha ended up feeling less special (at least to me). Anyway, here’s to the first genuinely good episode of the season! 4 LU-CHA chants out of 5.

 

[SirSmUgly]

Season 4, Show 5:  “Sacrificio” or Leaping into the Chaos Gate to pay a blood price

• Recap: A long time ago in a season far away, the Rabbit Tribe kidnapped poor old Mascarita Sagrada (Season Three, Show Thirty-Three); Sagrada ended up telling the tribe members, once more, that he was not their king as they believed, but he claimed that he could lead them to their true king (Season Three, Show Forty). I genuinely forgot all these characters were still on this show! Elsewhere, the Aztec medallions are being re-circulated by Antonio Cueto; El Dragon Azteca Jr. and King Cuerno have earned two of the seven that have been put up for a prize so far. And finally, Matanza’s out here sacrificin’ dudes, which probably explains the formal episode name for this show!

 

• Vampiro and Matt Striker hype the show at the desk. We’re getting three matches for Aztec medallions, including the Mil Muertes versus Brian Cage main event. First, though: Officer Cortez Castro Reyes has been called back to the Temple to be sacrificed to the Aztec gods. Aw, I thought he might actually make it through this series without getting murked after he survived the first couple of seasons. Antonio Cueto lets Castro know that he knows that Castro is a cop (crowd: BOOOOOOOO) and that after considering Castro’s true profession, he’d like to let the officer know in advance that there’s about to be a homicide (crowd: YEAHHHHHHHH). Matanza walks out here, wins the match in thirty seconds with a Wrath of the Gods, and um, these sacrifices are permadeaths, I guess? You know what, I’ll add ‘em. I can always subtract ‘em if they come back as revenants or some shit.

 

• Permadeath Count: 15 (Bael, Konnan, El Dragon Azteca Sr., The Three Nerdsketeers, Trece, Barrio Negro, Mister Cisco, Siniestro de la Muerte, Councilman Delgado, Pindar, Dario Cueto, Mr. Pectacular, Officer Castro Cortez Reyes).

 

• All of Big Ryck’s flunkies from the first season have now been killed off (and so has Ryck in a LU comic book, for that matter)! On another note, if Reyes really is dead, this should trigger a response from Captain Vasquez, who has been conspicuously absent in any of the seedy backstage interstitials aired this season. I’d figure that we’d have least seen something about her anxiously awaiting Catrina’s return to her with the gauntlet. Like, what the heck is she up to over at the LAPD, anyway?

 

• I sure hope that Joey Ryan gets sacrificed to the Aztec gods soon! Alas, he’s still alive and in a match for one of the five remaining Aztec medallions against Ivelisse Velez. Striker points out that Ivelisse has never competed for an Aztec medallion, which I believe is true because Striker’s the kind of guy who would do his homework to accurately share this type of trivia, but which shocks me. I could check the records to confirm, but I don’t doubt Striker in this regard. Anyway, Ryan does his weirdo gross creep shtick that I don’t hate on principle, but that I hate when Ryan is doing it.

 

• Soooooo Ryan forces Ivelisse to motorboat his hairy, oily chest (sigh) and then she chops him before scoring a really nice springboard arm drag and follow-up headscissors, actually. Ivelisse usually doesn’t hit moves as cleanly as that. Honestly, they should probably make her the champ for at least an episode this season because the audience loves her and her gimmick of being a never-say-die fighter. She’s great at working that gimmick, too, so the love she gets is pretty well-deserved. Ryan gets back on top with an open-hand slap, earns a couple of two counts, complains to the ref about his count, and then goes to the chinlock. Ivie works up from it, tries a headscissors submission, and then sends Ryan to the floor; Ryan hops back in the ring and superkicks Ivie mid-suicide-dive attempt.

 

• Ryan’s cover only gets two; he decides to go for his penis lollipop rather than press his advantage. He reaches into his trunks and takes out the very same lollipop that he stuck down there before the match, which gives Ivie time to make a comeback. She cuts him off, earns two on a step-up enziguri, and tries to shoot Ryan into the corner. He reverses, but then takes forever to charge her. She kicks him as he rushes in, but she then rushes in and eats a counter spinebuster for 2.7. Ryan tries a waistlock in the creepiest way possible, but Ivie escapes, manages a go-behind, and hits a release German for another close two count. Ivie considers her options and hits the ropes, but Ryan follows her in and scores a knee to the gut. He attempts a powerbomb that Ivie escapes; she slaps him a few times, then bounces off the ropes and lands a sunset flip powerbomb to finally keep Ryan down for three. Seriously, crown her. Why the hell not? This was about the best match full of Joey Ryan’s terrible schtick that you’re ever gonna see, by the way.

 

• The LU Trios Tag Team Champions all face one another in a Triple Threat Match for an Aztec medallion: As a reminder, those reigning champs are Killshot, Willie Mack, and Son of Havoc. Before these fellas can pretend they’ve been transported into Smackdown: Here Comes the Pain, Antonio Cueto steps out of his office and declares that this match will be for two Aztec medallions; the man who is pinned or submits gets nothing, but the winner and the dude just standing around not doing anything to factor into the result earn medallions. OK, so why not just go sit in the stands and watch the other two guys fight it out? That’s what I’d be doing.

 

• Striker went out of his way to note that Killshot eliminated his own partner and buddy Mack in the previous Aztec Warfare; Killshot goes out of his way to fake a team-up with Mack against trios team interloper Havoc before kicking Mack and dumping him at ringside. Am I to suppose that Killshot might be on his way to a heel turn? That’s the most interesting thing about this match, which is indistinguishable from three teenagers slamming buttons on their PlayStation. There are dives, there are one-on-one matches that transition into other one-on-one matches while one dude lays around, there are chops. It’s not offensive, but it’s the emptiest of calories.

 

• Well, not entirely empty: Killshot styles on Havoc rather than being precise and direct in his attack as he normally is; then, he slaps Havoc and exclaims YOU’RE NOT MY BROTHER; YOU’RE NOTHIN’. I doubt that heel Killshot is going to be any more interesting than babyface Killshot, but there is theoretically potential for this annoying little flippy guy to be an irritating heel. Everyone does a spot where they stand there and trade kicks before Mack Pounces (period!) the absolute fuck out of Havoc in what was the coolest spot in this bout. Then, Mack and Killshot no-sell a release German and a huge lariat that both deliver to one another. Striker exclaims LET’S STAND UP AND APPLAUD THAT. Why the fuck would I applaud a bunch of huge moves meaning absolutely nothing, stupid? Is this pro wrestling or a floor exercise? I mean, Mack landed on his neck! Killshot did a full-ass flip bump! Fuck off. Anyway, the crowd thinks no-selling moves is AWE-SOME because they are extremely confused (except for when they’re booing the undercover cop).

 

• Eventually, after a few two counts, Havoc and Mack fight over a top-rope move; Havoc knocks Mack to the mat and signals for an SSP, but Killshot hops up from where he’s been resting and grabs Havoc by his beard before Havoc can launch and then DVDs him as Striker rightly points out the dumb logic of this move: Killshot would have earned a medallion if Havoc had hit the SSP and successfully pinned Mack. You might counter my critique by noting that maybe Killshot doesn’t want Havoc to get a medallion – obviously, Killshot doesn’t appreciate Havoc being his trios tag partner with the YOU’RE NOT MY BROTHER comment – but in that case, why wouldn’t Killshot help Mack target Havoc? In fact, he booted Mack in the gut after faking that he was going to execute that strategy. Killshot's motivation is completely incoherent, is my point, and this is a very LU type of incoherence in which they try to do too much with the intersecting stories and stakes of a match and end up with a muddled mess of an in-match narrative.

 

• Killshot double-stomps Havoc and is immediately met by Willie Mack with a Mack Stunner upon landing. Mack considers his options and chooses to pin Killshot instead of Havoc. Mack and Havoc are in the Gift of the Gods Match; Killshot is out. The latter isn’t pleased about this result! He shoves Havoc and then jaws at Mack before slapping the medallion out of Mack’s hand. Maybe Dante Fox was right about this prick!

 

• There have been zero seedy backstage interstitials on this show yet; we've instead had four straight matches. The layout of this show stinks. So, here’s Mil Muertes (w/Catrina, now dressed in red). Why is Catrina still hanging out with Mil now that she got what she wanted, which is Rey Fenix’s life force? Striker and Vampiro put over Catrina looking like a real live girl now! Brian Cage is Mil’s dance partner in this main event for what will be the sixth of seven Aztec medallions to be redistributed this season, if I'm counting correctly; considering how short the season is, these medallions are being distributed possibly for the final time in LU’s run. I suppose they could get one more medallion redistribution squeezed into the last ten episodes if they wanted, possibly.

 

• Cage and Mil get up close and throw first fists and then knees at one another. They club one another and no-sell lariats, but unlike in the previous match, two monsters shrugging off one another’s initial lariats is fine by me. I don’t want to see some shrimpy dude like Killshot ignoring a lariat from Mack that he flip bumped for upon impact, and I don’t think it’s hypocritical to treat these “no-selling a lariat” spots differently. You may disagree.

 

• Both men spill to the floor and brawl outside; Cage knocks Mil backward into a seat and makes the mistake of walking over and grabbing Catrina by her hair, which gets Mil fired up to cut him off and beat him severely about the head. The match re-enters the ring after Cage hits a superplex that brings Mil back in; his lateral press only gets two. Mil fights back and tries a spear, but Cage leaps over him and the ref, whose dumb ass is standing right behind Cage for some reason, takes the damage. A backup ref runs out and only counts to two after Cage drops Mil with a discus lariat. Cage, angered at the guy's inability to hustle down to the ring so that he could more quickly count, hits this backup ref with a discus lariat in frustration.

 

• Cage turns around from dispatching that backup ref and right into a Flatliner. Mil covers, and another backup ref rushes down and only counts to about 2.8. You can guess what happens next. OK, just in case you really couldn’t guess and were sitting there, baffled as to what happened next, Mil chokeslammed the backup backup ref. The crowd thinks THIS IS AWESOME, but I don’t know. It’s fine. Cage peaked as a worker back around the end of the second season, I think. He wasn’t great to start, got really good by the end of season two, and then regressed throughout season three. He’s not a guy trying to add much connective tissue to his matches anymore.

 

• The match goes back outside, where all three LU refs are scattered on the floor, writhing in pain, and both wrestlers introduce chairs into the proceedings. Cage, however, doesn’t get to use a chair because Pentagón Dark has been sitting in the crowd the whole time, jammed in between a bunch of sweaty nerds who probably smell like brie left out in the Arizona summer sun. Penta jumps him from the back and clatters him in the forehead with a chair shot, then dumps him into the ring, where he is an easy target for a Mil Muertes spear-Flatliner combo that the original ref wakes up just in time to count the three for.

 

• Mil takes his medallion after the match and then looks at Catrina expectantly, expecting (and then demanding) that she give Cage THE LICK. Catrina, however, doesn’t do any more licking. Uhm, wait, that sounded weird, but you know what I mean. Catrina walks out on a confused Mil; meanwhile, Penta retrieves a microphone and informs Cage that it’s okay that Cage didn’t win an Aztec medallion because he went to Antonio and set up an LU Championship bout between them for next week. He looks forward to snapping the absolute shit out of Cage’s arm after he wins.

 

• Seedy Alice-in-Wonderland-style room of strange proportions interstitial: The Rabbit Tribe waits in this room until Mascarita Sagrada retrieves them and tells them that it’s time to go meet their king. Sagrada brings them through some weird portal sort of deal to meet their king, who is a guy I don’t recognize. The Tribe wants their king’s guidance, but he won’t give it unless they sacrifice something for him. Specfically, this king wants the tribe members to sacrifice Mascarita Sagrada, who just sort of stands there waiting for it to happen. Are we not sure that this isn’t a drug-induced fantasy? I don’t know, blood spattered everywhere, so I am counting this as a permadeath unless I am otherwise contradicted later on and we find out that this is a drug-induced fantasy. This was a strange interstitial that made me less interested in this storyline, honestly.

 

• Permadeath Count: 16 (Bael, Konnan, El Dragon Azteca Sr., The Three Nerdsketeers, Trece, Barrio Negro, Mister Cisco, Siniestro de la Muerte, Councilman Delgado, Pindar, Dario Cueto, Mr. Pectacular, Officer Castro Cortez Reyes, Mascarita Sagrada).

 

• Aaaaaaaaaaaand we’ve slid right back into mediocrity. 2 LU-CHA chants out of 5.

[tbarrie]

On 1/1/2026 at 1:59 PM, SirSmUgly said:

This is a nitpicky complaint, but the crowd, even after having a chance to see how it undermined Vibora’s aura (heh) last season, decided to chant LU-CHA-SAUR-US as soon as he showed up anyway. Maybe the crowd should stop prioritizing its need to show how well it knows indie workers’ past gimmicks and instead just react to what’s happening in the ring?

Had he in fact wrestled as Luchasaurus in the indies prior to his Lucha Underground stint? I thought he only started using his true name after  the crowd had corrected LU's error.

[zendragon]

Maybe it was a drug induced fantasy that lead to Masacrita's real life murder

[Ramo2653]

14 hours ago, tbarrie said:

Had he in fact wrestled as Luchasaurus in the indies prior to his Lucha Underground stint? I thought he only started using his true name after  the crowd had corrected LU's error.

That's what I thought too. If we trust Wikipedia as a source and the reference being a webpage link that no longer works he started using the reptile gimmick after working in LU and used the Luchasaurus name after. 

[SirSmUgly]

23 hours ago, tbarrie said:

Had he in fact wrestled as Luchasaurus in the indies prior to his Lucha Underground stint? I thought he only started using his true name after  the crowd had corrected LU's error.

 

8 hours ago, Ramo2653 said:

That's what I thought too. If we trust Wikipedia as a source and the reference being a webpage link that no longer works he started using the reptile gimmick after working in LU and used the Luchasaurus name after. 

I genuinely don't know, but a review of the tape shows the Temple crowd chanting his other gimmick name upon his debut in season three, show fifteen.