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]

I understand JR use of sports references but I feel he really overdid, its a whole "legitimacy" thing he got from Watts. One thing I think LU really figured out was the idea of wrestling having a "season" like other sports. Its been argued on the internet whether this would be better or worse than running year round (health of the workers and not burning out the audience v losing the audience) and they did a good job of each season having an arch. 

[tbarrie]

11 hours ago, Ramo2653 said:

Cuerno/Santos Escobar

Wait, Santos Escobar was King Cuerno? I only know Escobar from the WWE 2K23 video game, but I often wondered why the computer kept booking this random goober fairly close to the top of the card. (I pretty much only play Universe mode and I generally let the computer book the men's division.)

Shame the 2K23 servers have been shut down; odds are somebody created King Cuerno's outfit as an alternate attire for Escobar. Would have been fun to use.

[SirSmUgly]

Season 3, Show 2: “The Amulet” or Where in Time Are Vasquez and Catrina?

• Recap: Dario Cueto got Councilman Delgado to get his Dark Lord to spring him from prison, but the Dark Lord pretty much is like Dr. Claw in that you can only really see his spiked gauntlet and he's so mad about Dario getting locked up that if it happens again, he threatens to get you next time, Gadget Dario. He doesn’t seem to have an evil cat, though. Anyway, to avoid retribution from the Dark Lord should Dario have to again shut the Temple down on account of being incarcerated, Dario needs to ferret out the rest of the moles in his Temple. Oh, and Famous B. released Mascarita Sagrada from his representation and wished him the best in his future endeavors with a superkick, then went out and signed Dr. Wagner Jr., who I just found out last night (I know, I know) is brother of the dearly departed Silver King. I think that Silver King ruled, so I will transfer my hopes and expectations for his wrestling matches onto Wagner. Finally, I am not looking forward to another Marty Martinez/Killshot match, but on the upside, at least this feud will be over soon!

 

• Seedy back-in-time interstitial: Captain Vasquez and her moron cop underlings Joey Ryan and Cortez Castro Reyes hear, on the night of Mister Cisco’s death, the audio in which Dario Cueto can be heard murdering Cisco with that red bull figure that really gets around when it comes to helping the Cueto kids deliver blunt force trauma to people’s melons. Reyes is thrilled that they have evidence of Dario committing murder and wants to bring him in tonight, but Vasquez says that the killing of “just some random street thug” is not enough of a trigger to bring a guy like Dario in. Reyes, who had actually bonded with Cisco, becomes irate and yells at Vasquez that she got him killed. Good thing Ryan is here to calm shit down. No, I was wrong about that last sentence; he instead enflames the situation by giggling at the idea that Castro is sad about his friend. Ryan then slapfights Castro after Castro shoves him. Then, Castro storms out of the room after declaring that his name was MISTER Tibbs – no wait, I’ve already probably written that dumb Striker-like random pop culture reference in reference to Cisco. The important takeaway is it’s almost kind of heartwarming that he insists on the honorific “mister” for the now-dead Cisco.

 

• We go to Striker and Vampiro in the Temple, who go to Melissa Santos, who goes to Famous B. (unwillingly going for that last one) when B. takes the microphone from her and declares her “not famous enough” to introduce Dr. Wagner Jr. (w/Brenda in a slutty nurse costume, of course). It’s too bad LU didn’t bring Silver King in too. Anyway, I dig Mascarita Sagrada, who is Wagner’s opponent. Wagner elaborately pantomimes that he’s going to punt this short little dude somewhere into the fifteenth row, which gets a chuckle out of me. The match itself, though, is brief. Wagner wins a quick squash with a Dr. Driver in about thirty seconds. Poor Sagrada. I deeply want him to be a trios champ before this show ends.

 

• Seedy back-in-time (but way farther back than the previous interstitial) interstitial: The Aztec warrior whom we saw talking to Aerostar about protecting the earth from the Aztec gods in human form (Season Two, Show Three) leads the little girl who expressed hopelessness that the Aztec tribes would ever join together to do any such protecting right up to her father’s deathbed. Her father tells her that she must lead the fight against the gods. She’s like seven or eight, dude! Whatever, this is Lucha Underground. I wish that they’d had the dialogue for these interstitials from the far past done in Nahuatl instead of Spanish, which is a minor quibble. Anyway, the young girl’s dying father gives her a golden amulet called Piedra Immortal – the Immortal Stone – and says that only the ladies can wield the power of this stone. The little girl asks how to use it, and her dying dad says that as soon as she hits womanhood, she will become immortal for as long as she holds it. Um, does this somehow explain Catrina? Did Catrina get her hands on this amulet somehow? The reluctant girl’s father impresses upon her that she must stick around for at least the next thousand years to stop the giant Aztec tribal-slash-Aztec-gods clusterfuck of a war, then dies.

 

• Seedy back-in-time (but not nearly as far back as the previous interstitial) interstitial: I get an answer to my question about whether or not Catrina somehow got a hold of the amulet immediately. She did not [Editor's note: Well...]. I know this because back on the night of Ultima Lucha Dos, Captain Vasquez had one cracked half of the amulet in her possession. She looks at it closely, probably wondering if she can find the other half hidden in the Shrine of the Silver Monkey so that she can rejoin the halves and ward off an extra temple guard. No, wait, wrong awesome show with amulets and cool indigenous American vibes. What Vasquez actually does is stashes it when Officer Reyes proudly walks in, having used the audio against Vasquez’s wishes to get the cops to come down on Dario Cueto at the end of Ultima Lucha Dos, and claims that WE GOT ‘IM, ‘IM being Dario. Vasquez sneers and says the only one who’s gettin’ got is Officer Reyes. Vasquez’s actor does some terrible overacting, like distractingly so, as she chews out Reyes for being so laser-focused on putting Dario away that he’s ignoring a giant Aztec tribal-slash-Aztec gods clusterfuck of a war that’s about to pop off and then suspends him for trying to put a cold-blooded murderer in prison since said cold-blooded murderer is a link to all this spooky shit that she doesn’t really seem to have filled Reyes in on with any level of convincing evidence. Then again, Reyes has probably seen weird stuff like Catrina blit-blurting in and out of rooms, as Vasquez suggests, so maybe he should be more credulous about Vasquez’s claims.

 

• A page ago, Ramo suggested that the showrunners might not have planned the whole LU story out. I think that’s a completely reasonable position and would definitely guess that they didn’t have all the tiny details in place, but stuff like the previous two interstitials suggests to me that they had the broader “modern-day Aztec war” stuff planned to an endpoint. There is just too much story, carefully doled out across the seasons, that slowly layers in the deeper, larger fantasy narrative arc, for me not to think that they didn’t have a broad ending involving the central characters planned out from the jump. I stopped for a sec to search and see if any of the writers or producers had anything to say about this and stumbled into a post and an audio interview (the latter of which I haven’t listened to) in which it appears that executive producer Chris DeJoseph and writer Chris Roach did have a long-term story plotted about the major arc and some of the minor arcs that fed into it. I also spoiled myself on two things that I immediately read without registering that I shouldn’t be reading them. This is what happens when your brain starts reading as soon as it sees words without considering whether or not the thing is worth reading or is something that you actually want to know. However, what I did read sounded kind of amazing, so I’m interested to follow the paths to those events.

 

• This has been a packed ten minutes in terms of narrative, and narrative is where LU really excels. What happened to the little Aztec girl? How did she lose the medal? Where is the other half? Is Vasquez the little girl?! No, can’t be. Besides, she’s missing half the amulet, though maybe half the amulet “merely” keeps you alive for thousands of years rather than making you immortal like the full amulet does. Nah, can’t be. Can’t be [Editor's note: Well...].

 

• Back to the ring, Argenis makes a rare Lucha Underground appearance. I’m not sure he’s been on this show since maybe the previous Aztec Warfare match. I love that the crowd doesn’t know who’s coming out to face him, but when Santos says “…accompanied to the ring by Catrina…” a small contingent in the crowd visibly pops with a sort of OH SHIT sound. Mil Muertes stalks out here and continues our ongoing big bully squash night by kicking the shit out of Argenis. Mil scores a nice powerbomb in the midst of the squash and endures an Asai moonsault, kicking out at one, then scoring a spear and a Flatliner for an easy three count.

 

• OK, after the match, Prince Puma jumps Mil while Catrina is giving Argenis a Lick of Death, but what I popped for is Vampiro’s fake ass surprised exclamation of PUMA?!?! like he didn’t go backstage and influence Puma to do this very thing last week. The nerve of this snake-ass motherfucker Vampiro. Amazing! Vamp is fantastic on color, keeping up the pretense of being shocked by exclaiming WHA-WHA-WHAT?! like some sort of cartoon character and then being unable to help revealing his true feelings when he mutters a pleased-sounding, “that was violent; that was vicious” after Puma lands a forceful baseball slide. Catrina yanks Mil out of the way of further damage and backs him off while he and Puma glare at one another. I suppose that it’s worth noting that tonight, Puma’s wearing his black-with-some-orange mask and not his typical orange-with-some-black mask, symbolizing that whole “much darker place” that Puma is going to.

 

• Seedy back-in-time (but not quite as far back as the previous interstitial) interstitial: Last week, we failed to see Dario Cueto re-entering his office after being released from custody and looking around, wondering where all the hidden mics are, probably. He caresses the red mold of a bull that has served both he and his brother well when committing violence in the past. As he finally relaxes and begins to take his seat, this moron Officer Joey Ryan pops in and outs himself as a cop and a mole. Ryan says that he’s flipping from the LAPD to Dario’s team if Dario will have him because he wants to be “on the right side of this war.” Then, he outs Officer Cortez Castro Reyes as a show of future loyalty and holds out his hand to shake on their new pact. Whoops, no, he’s pulling a Big Ryck (R.I.P.?!) and holding out his hand for money because he’s at least one woman’s past awful decision and now owes her child support. Am I now typing about actual Joey Ryan or just this fictionalized Joey Ryan? Who can even tell anymore? A disgusted Dario pays this idiot and then sits there, probably now wondering how best to add a certain former flunky to a certain Permadeath Count along with his other two former flunkies who are now on it.

 

• Seedy current time interstitial: Officer Reyes meets with Captain Vasquez for the first time since she unceremoniously suspended him about six or so months ago. He penitently says that he will support Vasquez in her greater mission, and Vasquez sends him right back into the Temple to be slaughtered by at least one and maybe both of the Cueto Brothers. I’m going to take a shot in the dark and guess that Dario rigs his Dial of Doom to select Reyes and then has Matanza murder him in front of the whole Temple under the guise of having a simple lil’ title bout. After Reyes leaves the room, Vasquez once again takes out her half of the amulet and looks closely at it. Can't be. Can it? [Editor's note: Well...]

 

• This show’s storylines have been so good that I don’t even give a fuck about having to watch Marty “the Moth” Martinez and Killshot have a trash brawl over some dogtags. Killshot jumps a grease-painted Moth on the stairs. Matt Striker Reads the Papers: “You don’t need Hans Blix to find these WMDs, and I’m tellin’ ya, they were in Syria the whole time.” Speaking of WMDs in Iraq, let me tell you a little story about the Reagan Administration that you might be interested in, Striker. But to stay on point, this guy Striker goes completely nutty with the current events references and goofily shouts BOUTROS-BOUTROS GHALI GOLLY! after Killshot slaps his thigh with a bit of extra pop on a superkick. There’s a model artillery gun out here for Killshot to pick up and hit Marty with. Is this the WWE? This is so dumb that I’m not even going to be mad about it. Striker has gone completely hammy on PBP, but it’s appropriate for a match as dumb as this one.

 

• These fellas do all the spots that you’d expect from the typical LU arena brawl. Fuck talking about this same-y ass trash brawl nonsense for a second; let’s go back to Matt Striker Reads the Papers: Mentions Dubya and Rummy; also screams SHOCK AND AWE after Killshot spikes Marty in the head with a chair. I’m disappointed that he hasn’t yet talked about the unknown unknowns that wrestlers have to deal with in a match like this.

 

• Marty grabs poor Melissa Santos and uses her as a meat shield to stop Killshot’s attack while Striker tastelessly screams about civilian hostages. Marty shoves her into Killshot and climbs into the stands; Killshot chases him, but Marty puts a Von Erich-style Claw on his balls. Killshot responds by slapping his thigh even harder than the last time on a knee strike. Some dude in the crowd stands over the fallen Marty and crotch chops him, which fits perfectly with the tenor of this bout. Striker: NO REFUGEE CRISIS HERE; EVERYONE WAITS FOR THIS CIVIL WAR TO END. My GOD, this is the trashiest thing I’ve seen and heard in pro wrestling in a minute or two! I love it! This series of spots actually worked to get the crowd way behind Killshot, too, as they vociferously chant his name after he hits a 450 seated senton from the railing to a bleeding Marty standing on the floor.

 

• Striker: “We’re a long way from Fallujah, but it’s certainly HOT here in Boyle Heights!” Keep going, Striker! I believe in you! You can’t be out of Iraq or Afghanistan War references yet! Feel free to also include more stuff you often hear in war movies! Yell SEMPER FI again a couple of times!

 

• You can tell how intense Killshot is because every kick he does is accompanied by an even louder thigh slap. Striker after Marty tosses Killshot headfirst into a ladder: “Just like Hitler’s army trying to come through the back door in Russia, they ran into a cold winter, and Marty ‘the Moth’ Martinez is right back on top!” Actually, the Nazis tried to come through the front door, just like Napoleon’s dumb ass did. If they’d circled around and tried to invade via Vladivostok or something, that’d be coming in through the back door from their locational perspective. But you know, we got a coveted Hitler reference from Striker, and I was waiting for one because I can now declare Striker’s commentary complete for this bout.

 

• Striker is finally running out of steam with the war references – he had to resort to talking about the wrestlers and the crowd ignoring John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s suggestion that we give peace a chance – so we can go ahead and wrap this match up, fellas. Killshot hits Marty with a DVD onto a ladder, which is a nasty bump that dents the ladder; Killshot follows with a top rope double stomp that only earns a two count. I thought that was it, but instead, we get Marty turning things around with a mule kick to Killshot’s junk and a powerbomb from the ring and through a table at ringside. Vampiro looks pained by that bump, probably because he took it (without the table as cushion) and legit broke his neck to end his WCW run. Killshot kicks out of that, of course, because we’re in Lucha Underground and none of these death moves kill even the regular humans, much less the mystical magical wrestlers.

 

• Killshot comes back and only gets two on a cradle piledriver, so he goes back to setting up a whole Lowe’s aisle-ful of hardware. This all ends with Marty using Mankind’s Mandible Claw to try and pacify Killshot for long enough that Mariposa can run out and try to help yank Killshot off a ladder and through a table. Killshot fights her off, and in a truly scary bump, her head almost snaps the bottom rope as she plummets through the table. Yeesh. Killshot then lands the Claw on Marty’s nuts, rips his tags from around Marty’s neck, and then double-stomps Marty off the ladder and through another table for three.

 

• I’m currently re-reading Susan Sontag’s landmark essay that defines “camp,” and some of her definitions don’t seem to immediately apply to professional wrestling, or maybe not as straightforwardly as they do to other forms of camp. However, I think that one of her big points that she makes at the beginning of the essay is akin to Justice Potter Stewart’s quote about obscenity: That like obscenity, camp can be a slippery thing to define, but that “I know it when I see it.” I know exactly what I just saw; this match was pure camp. It has to be the most American pro wrestling thing that LU has ever done. It wouldn’t have worked without Striker’s tastelessness on commentary actually fitting nicely with the nonsense that was happening on screen, though. I have to give him credit for basically applying the essence of topical 1993 WWF RAW commentator Vince McMahon to a much lesser version of a Hulk Hogan/Sgt. Slaughter Boot Camp Match. He saved this match by essentially shining a light on how tastelessly ridiculous it all was.

 

• Seedy backstage interstitial: Catrina calms Mil Muertes down as he destroys the locker room. Mil wants to beat up Puma, but Catrina tells him to be patient, and then in a complete HOLY SHIT moment, Catrina says that patience is indeed a virtue worth cultivating before pulling out the other half of the amulet and gazing upon it. Of course; Vasquez is the little girl and Catrina somehow got half of the amulet away from her about a couple hundred years ago. Makes perfect sense. Uh, I mean, for this show it does.

 

• If Vince Russo saw this episode, I wonder if his love of story-driven wrestling shows and completely trashy television would overcome his internalized racism toward Mexican people. If this episode of LU wouldn’t help him overcome the latter, nothing would. 5 LU-CHA chants out of 5.

[zendragon]

Those temple guards where completely terrifying to a young zen.

Have you seen the Vampiro Documentary? 

 

[tbarrie]

So Smugly - don't answer if it's a spoiler please, but is there any reason you don't seem to be considering the possibility that Catrina was the little girl? That was my first assumption upon reading your recap of the way-back-in-time interstitial.

[SirSmUgly]

18 hours ago, zendragon said:

Those temple guards where completely terrifying to a young zen.

Have you seen the Vampiro Documentary? 

 

You're not alone. https://www.vice.com/en/article/what-it-was-really-like-to-be-on-nickelodeons-legends-of-the-hidden-temple/

I got like thirty minutes through the Vampiro doc and then had to leave; I need to get back to this, though. This is a timely reminder post, so thank you! 

14 hours ago, tbarrie said:

So Smugly - don't answer if it's a spoiler please, but is there any reason you don't seem to be considering the possibility that Catrina was the little girl? That was my first assumption upon reading your recap of the way-back-in-time interstitial.

Yes. Catrina explicitly said that she'd been waiting a hundred and ninety-seven years for immortality. From Season Two, Show Sixteen:

Quote

Seedy backstage interstitial: Mil Muertes focuses his mind and soul while meditating in front of candles; Catrina walks up behind him and tells him (and us) that she has been waiting for this moment for “a hundred and ninety-seven years,” which is a “long time to be a prisoner of darkness.” Then, she encourages Mil to finish Matanza by once again reminding him that she saved him from his “mausoleum of stone and rubble” that he was trapped in as a child after the ’85 earthquake…and that she brought him back from the dead after Fenix buried him in the previous Grave Consequences Match (Season One, Show Nineteen).

Since the young girl was given the amulet by her dying father a thousand years before the show's events rather than only a couple hundred, I am assuming that Catrina's a bit too young to be the girl. 

Now, I could be wrong. There is room for, say, Vasquez to have somehow found her half of the amulet while investigating Dario, or the "a hundred and ninety-seven years" remark might be Catrina remembering when she lost a half-amulet and was no longer functionally immortal, but I find that unlikely for the following reasons:

1. In the past, the young girl is determined to stop the huge War of the Aztec Gods. In the present, Vasquez is determined to stop the huge War of the Aztec Gods. On the other hand, Catrina is determined to a) become immortal by using Fenix or the rejoining the amulet pieces or whatever and b) powering up Mil Muertes through constant deaths and resurrections. My semi-out-there guess about Mil is that he's also meant to be a vessel for an Aztec god and that Catrina is preparing him for such a situation, but there haven't been any actual on-screen clues to point to that. It's just a hunch. 

2. In general, Vasquez and Delgado are both presented as understanding way more about the Temple and its function than everyone else. Reyes doesn't seem to get it, and he's spent two seasons working under Dario Cueto. It's likely to me that Vasquez's knowledge about the Temple's true function, her being unnerved by Delgado visiting and telling her to drop her investigation, and her possession of the half-amulet point to her having a whole lot more knowledge than the typical cop in her position (even a captain) would have. 

I thought about how it would work if Catrina were the little girl. It would depend on more interstitials that show what that girl ended up doing after she received the amulet. At some point, she'd have to learn more and decide that actually, she wanted to spark the War of the Aztec Gods and would use her amulet to stick around until she found the perfect vessel, at which point she would prepare to imbue that vessel with the power of a god and then have him destroy all other vessels, thus controlling the most powerful being walking the earth. 

So I could be wrong. We'll see. I am almost certainly not anticipating at least a couple of twists and turns that make me re-evaluate what I think I know, which is the beauty of this show's running narrative arcs. 

[SirSmUgly]

Season 3, Show 3: “Ultimate Opportunities” or Rey Misterio vs. Rey K. Rool

• Recap: Dario’s Dial of Doom. Penta’s propensity for breaking arms. The Worldwide Underground jumping their opps in the parking lot and in the ring. What a nice place this Temple is. I feel safe here, you know?

 

• Seedy gym interstitial: Rey Misterio Jr. spars with El Dragon Azteca Jr. and implores Azteca not to get too caught up in revenging himself on Penta to lose focus on the big mission of uniting the Aztec tribes. Rey: “Penta has many enemies; let them destroy him.” Over the past year or so, I have been able to watch Misterio take the path from twenty-something Rey holding his nuts, Bronco Bustering people, and talking wild shouldn’t-be-aired stuff about the West Hollywood Blondes going down Hershey highway to forty-something Rey being a wise sage and thoughtful mentor. What a fantastic example of how people typically change when transitioning from early adulthood into middle adulthood. If I wrote a Lifespan Psychology book themed around pro wrestling, it’d get its own little example paragraph in a chapter.

 

• Azteca isn’t listening and spars with too much anger; Misterio easily wraps him up and pins him while continuing to try and remind Azteca to let that petty arm-breaking shit go. Who shows up but Chavo Guerrero Jr. to count the pinfall? Misterio looks warily at his long-time enemy and opponent in the last great WCW PPV match, but Azteca immediately calls Chavo a liar (well, yes, that’s true) and storms right up to him angrily (have you not heard anything that Misterio has just been telling you, young Padawan?), which of course ends with Chavo rolling through Azteca's attack and locking on a single crab just like he was Lance Storm. Rey implores Chavo to let Azteca up; Chavo does, but then seems to issue a challenge to Azteca for a proper match in the Temple.

 

• It's time to spin the wheel and make the deal; Dario’s got his Dial of Doom out again, and I note the “Dario’s Choice” option that is listed. Hmm. Let me guess. “Dario’s Choice” is somehow going to get chosen. Matanza stands in the ring waiting to kill someone else while Dario taunts the Son of Havoc-loving fans over Havoc’s loss to Matanza last week: “ Last of week, Son of Havoc was the *ahem* ‘lucky’ winner, and got his ass kicked and has had to spend the last two weeks at home being cared for by his mother. But let’s face it, Believers, none of you ever actually believed that Son of Havoc could actually be Lucha Underground Champion, did you?” Rude.

 

• I was wrong: Dario is going to slow play the murder of Officer Cortez Castro Reyes. The wheel lands on Willie Mack’s name. Dario claims that “it’s the return of the Mack,” and as someone who came of age in the ‘90s, I appreciate you, Dario. Mack sprints up to Matanza at ringside and immediately starts throwing hands with Matanza, winning a Mack Stunner right then and there. He rolls Matanza into the ring, who kicks out at about 1.5, and Mack’s next two immediate covers get the same count.

 

• Mack is wrestling this match the way most people should against Matanza in that he’s just unloading the whole arsenal in the first five minutes and trying to get a quick three count before Matanza can figure out what the fuck is happening to him. A Frankensteiner doesn’t win it for him, nor does a nasty back suplex. Mack slows the pace down and preps another Mack Stunner, which is a mistake in that he lets Matanza take some time to gather himself; Matanza cinches his arms around Mack’s waist as Mack turns and grabs the jawlock to drop down, then lands a huge release German suplex to counter it.

 

• Now that Matanza’s got purchase in the match, it probably means that Mack is fucked in kayfabe. Matanza lands trapped headbutts to the back of Mack’s head before scoring an impressive deadlift pumphandle suplex. Mack tries to fire up after taking a long choke – he slaps Matanza in the face and yells THAT’S ALL YOU GOT, BITCH?! – so Matanza kicks him in the face and laterally presses. He only gets two, though.

 

• Both men stand in front of one another and trade blows; Matanza lands a headbutt to Mack’s chin and Vampiro calls out Zinedine Zedane, which is a nice sports analogy. Mack ends up landing a plancha to Matanza standing on the floor at ringside, then scores a sweet leaping shoulderblock that flings Matanza backward. Mack goes up and tries to follow with a Frog Splash, but Matanza gets knees up, then quickly pops to his feet and hits a winded Mack with a Wrath of the Gods for three. I could get used to Matanza having energetic openers with random midcarders on these shows. Fun stuff.

 

• After the match, Striker hypes the contents of a note that Dario handed him: Dario’s planning to make another announcement about two other wrestlers in the Temple and has booked a “mega main event.” I’m interested.

 

• Seedy "Son of Havoc’s mom’s house" interstitial: Son of Havoc holds an ice pack to his neck and watches TV while sitting in the den; he sees the Famous B. commercial in which B. transforms Brenda from a toothless mess to a blonde with a huge chest. “I can’t stand those guys,” remarks Havoc to someone else sitting next to him, “How ‘bout you?” Mascarita Sagrada, who was nice enough to come by and check on Havoc’s health, nods in agreement and flicks off the screen. Ooh, and It’s Product Placement Time!: Both men have opened cans of Modelo sitting in front of them, which is a much more apropros beer sponsorship than Miller Lite. And much like Penta, Modelo is even better when it’s dark!

 

• Havoc’s mom Linda yells to “Sean/Shawn” that supper’s ready, and then HAHAHAHAHAHAHA It’s Product Placement Time!: Sean/Shawn of Havoc’s Midwestern mom’s idea of making supper is warming up a box of fucking Bagel Bites. She shows the box to the screen while a bit of harp music plays. Linda Havoc invites Sagrada to join them for this filling, healthy dinner that not only boasts IMPROVED PIZZA SAUCE! and BETTER TASTE!, but also is made with Real Cheese, includes Seven Grams of Protein, and has Zero – count ‘em, Zero! – Trans Fats Per Serving. There are eighteen bagels in one box, so that’s six apiece. Did she at least make a garden salad to go with it? Linda, do I need to come to your house and teach you how to make filling yet healthy dinners? If your son (of havoc) could become a trios champ and win the Four a Unique Opportunity tournament fueled on dinners full of Bagel Bites, imagine what he could do if he got a well-balanced meal full of unprocessed foods every once in a while!

 

• So far in this show, we’ve had stunners, cans of beer, and raised middle fingers, and it makes me wish that we could get 1998 or 2001 Stone Cold Steve Austin working in the Temple.

 

• Seedy backstage interstitial: Johnny Mundo and Taya bust into Dario Cueto’s office; Mundo demands a title shot. Dario’s like, Chill, you’re getting one, but it’s not a LU Championship shot; it's a trios tag shot with your buddies the Dragon Slayer and the Werewolf. Taya, unhelpfully: “Ack-shually, he’s a Darewolf.” He is, but I mean, do you think that you should provoke this lunatic Dario, Taya? Then again, Mundo’s dumb ass has already started the provocation with the whole “storming into Dario’s office” deal. Mundo says that the Worldwide Underground has one goal, and it isn’t the stinkin’ trios tag titles; it’s to make Johnny Mundo the LU Champion centerpiece of their douchebag Four Horsemen. Well, actually, the Four Horsemen were also douchebags, but you get my point. Mundo says that he’ll be at his very nicely furnished dojo working out instead of wrestling for trios titles before storming away. Taya, on the other hand, sticks around and immediately cuts a deal with Dario to replace Mundo in the trios tag title match for later tonight. She also tries to indicate that he’s got something in his nostriles, but boy does Dario just want her to get the fuck out of his office already. She leaves. Dario seems to wipe, um, some coke residue from his nostrils and quickly rub it on his teeth.

 

• We come back to the ring for Brian Cage versus Texano. At this point, Dario steps out of his office and addresses them. He mentions the similarities between them: big, strong, great fighters, and also first-round losers in the Four a Unique Opportunity tournament back at Ultima Lucha Dos. Neither man was able to win a Unique Opportunity in that tournament, but Dario claims that this match will be for an Ultimate Opportunity, and only the winner will get to find out what sort of booby prize they’ve won.

 

• The men start with a bit of matwork; Cage earns a backslide for two. They get up and grapple some more. Cage shoots Texano into the corner, but he flips over the ropes and hits a jawbreaker on Cage when Cage charges him as he stands on the apron. He follows with a slingshot senton, a running forearm, and an enziguri, but all that only earns him two on the lateral press. Cage gets back to his feet, wins a counter and kicks Texano off the apron, then scores a slingshot plancha to the floor. Cage yells out WHO BETTA THAN CAGE, which I think is a nice homage to one of his trainers.

 

• This match is mostly a your-turn, my-turn deal. It’s what it is. Lots of countering, worked at a good pace (especially for beefy dudes), but not much more than that. Cage tries a rollup, then transitions into a standing inverted Boston Crab, but Texano gets the ropes. Cage immediately grabs Texano and tries rolling Germans, but Texano does the Kurt Angle transition into an ankle lock that Cage breaks by grabbing the ropes.

 

• Texano lands a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker, but Striker just kills the poor guy on commentary: “Look, a very slow cover, and that hard breathing right there. Is Texano maybe in not as good a shape as Cage?” That’s some “Jim Ross talking about how washed Bret Hart looks against Steve Austin at Survivor Series ‘96” shit right there. It didn’t help that there was a shot of Texano was sucking wind like he was the Ultimate Warrior two minutes into a match when Striker said this.” Vampiro tries to cover for it by noting that both are heavyweights and that they’ve been going hard, but what was the point of saying that stuff about Texano? I mean, maybe if they’re going to turn Texano again and make his gimmick a cigarette smoking lazy heel or something, I’ll come back and re-evaluate that comment, but otherwise, what the fuck, Striker?

 

• Cage gets back up and is also breathing hard because these dudes have genuinely been going nonstop. He gets two on a spinebuster into a bridge; Texano counters when Cage tries to wrap on a Texas Cloverleaf with a small package in which he locks his fingers, but only gets two. Striker and/or Vampiro remember a dude from WCW: It’s not exactly challenging to remember Sting and Ric Flair, but I want to shout out Vampiro’s “Reminiscent, I remember when Sting did that to Ric Flair, remember that?...At the Great American Bash (1990), when Sting won the big one.” Great shout from Vampiro, with the only change in the spot being that Flair was (obviously) trying a Figure Four and not a Texas Cloverleaf and that Sting (obviously) got the full three count. Just in case you want to relive that again, here’s the timestamped link:  https://youtu.be/O1xLMapqbcc?si=jNHIgPler9j8c7dh

 

• Striker’s dumb ass doesn’t remember, though. I don’t think he started watching WCW closely until the Nitro Era based on his limited range of WCW references. Anyway, the two dudes in the ring trade moves and close two counts; they do a pretty impressive job of working at pace for such beefy dudes. Contrary to Striker’s commentary, I think they’re both quite well-conditioned. I guess I sort of enjoy this match from a meta-standpoint in which I appreciate the gym work that went into being able to be this pacey even if I’m meh on the match itself because it feels too back-and-forth without any struggle. It's really a showcase for doing quick counters and big moves for the sake of them. Cage finally wins it with a discus lariat.

 

• Here's bad boss Dario Cueto to pull a reprise of his Best of Five series between Drago and Aerostar from back in the first season; he tells both men that to get an Ultimate Opportunity, they’ll ultimately have to win three matches in the series first. Cage and Texano dap it up and prepare for more TV matches against one another in the weeks ahead.

 

• Seedy backstage interstitial: Warily, Dario shakes a box that someone sent to his office. He slowly opens it and pulls out a red cap with an absolutely disgusting slogan written on the front. If someone's wearing a red cap like this in public, you know to avoid them. You guessed it; in white text, the front of the cap says 4-2-3 GET FAME. Gross. Dario rolls his eyes and tosses it aside, then opens up a manila envelope that holds pictures of, what the fuck, maimed people? Pictures of the people Matanza killed, maybe, considering that El Dragon Azteca Jr. bursts in without knocking, glimpses the pictures, and then asks, “Is that where you’re planning on taking your brother the next time you take another vacation?” Dario sighs and tosses the pictures in his wastebasket, but I have questions about them that remain unanswered.

 

• Azteca wants a match against Pentagón Dark, but Dario says that he’s the boss and the booker and he’ll be making the matches around here before floating an Azteca rematch with Black Lotus instead. Then, as if remembering something suddenly, he notes that Lotus isn’t around because “she took a vacation back to Hong Kong.” Was Lotus that poor in the ring that they only had her wrestle one match in two-plus seasons and then had to stick her with a bunch of other wrestlers when they finally brought her back in? She seemed okay in the limited time she worked Azteca at Ultima Lucha Dos. Since Lotus is out of the country right now, Dario reconsiders and books Azteca against Penta, muttering that Azteca may be fucked when that match happens.

 

• Azteca leaves and oh look, it’s Ricky Mandel here to visibly disrupt Dario’s peace. Ramo has written earlier in this thread that Mandel has “an insane arc over the course of the series.” I assume that arc also includes being Trece and then getting killed. My headcanon is that Mandel was kidnapped by Mil and Catrina during the first season and brainwashed to become Trece, and when Siniestre ripped Trece’s heart out, that returned Mandel back to the normal jobber-ass human that we see before us today. Now, if I’m trying to guess where he ends up by the end of this season, I’m going to take a shot in the dark and assume that he becomes a cult member in Paul London’s (IIRC) Alice in Wonderland-themed group of weirdos that I broadly remember being a thing by the end of this season from the first time I watched it.

 

• Anyway, Mandel would like to get booked for a ma—hey, look at those neat weird creepy pictures! Dario looks at his desk; the pictures that he threw in the trash somehow ended up right back in front of him. Well, that’s disturbing. Dario’s seen far more disturbing things, though, and simply offers Mandel the “cool” pictures to get rid of them. Mandel happily takes them with an “Awesome! Thanks, Mr. Cueto! These are sweet!” I didn’t have Ricky Mandel cracking me up on my bingo card for today, but life brings us these small happy surprises sometimes. Mandel continues to make me laugh by whispering “Not a good time” to Chavo Guerrero Jr. as Chavo enters and Mandel exits.

 

• Chavo doesn’t listen, of course. He shuts Dario’s office door behind Mandel and demands, “We need to talk.” Dario rolls his eyes, but he sits back to hear Chavo out as the interstitial ends.

 

• The Super Friends (Drago, Aerostar, and Rey Fenix) are our Lucha Underground Trios Tag Team Champions, and they defend their gold against the Worldwide Underground (Jack Evans, P.J. Black, and Taya Valkyrie). Fenix picks up a kid in the crowd and celebrates with him even though Dario Cueto expressly declared that this Temple was absolutely not for children (Season One, Show One). Striker, putting things gently: “You know, there’s a lot of kids here at the Temple, and in about fifteen, twenty years, we’re going to have a group of some very very interesting young men and women roaming the earth.” Fair!

 

• As the match starts, Evans does a whole shadowboxing routine that reminds Vampiro of something from Mortal Kombat. Black blind tags Evans, who front bumps off of it. This team is full of morons except for Taya, who is a James Vandenberg Certified Competent Manager and a tough out in the ring besides. She ends up starting out against Drago, and they hae a decent sequence leading to a standoff. It sort of helps that she’s about as tall as her opponents and thus looks more legitimately potentially dangerous as a result, but she’s also cleaner through these complex sequences than someone like Sexy Star.

 

• Aerostar and Black tag in next and have a good sequence in which Aerostar hits a corkscrew body press, but ends up getting his headscissors countered into a vertical suplex for two. Black only earns two on the counter, so he drags Aerostar to the corner and goes to the second rope for a delayed double axe that Aerostar has time to get boots up on.

 

• Aerostar tags out to Fenix; Black tags in Evans. Evans thinks better of his situation and tags in Taya. Will Fenix find it in himself to wrestle this woman like a man? The answer is yes. He even fakes a kick to the ass and then lands one to the head in a reverse of what he did to Taya back in the Six to Survive Match (Season Two, Show Twenty-One). That's a very nice callback spot because Taya immediately covers her ass and shrieks, clearly not expecting Fenix to actually kick her in the head this time around. Taya tags Black back in, who fares poorly against Fenix as well.

 

• Evans finally tags in and deigns to actually wrestle Drago. Half the crowd supportively chanting DRA-GON SLAY-ER is a real bummer. If even Evans can’t be enough of a heel to turn half the crowd off, who can possibly manage it? Marty Martinez, I guess. He’s our only hope. Drago’s kind of an FIP for a bit, but the Worldwide Underground is falling apart, spitefully blind tagging one another, and having arguments that Taya keeps having to calm down as “the mom of the Worldwide Underground,” as Striker puts it. While I’m skeptical of the online gender war claims about broadly all women doing undue amounts of emotional labor in their relationships, here is a perfect example of that bullshit in practice. Get it together, Black and Evans. You're embarrassing our whole gender.

 

• Evans doesn’t get it together. He sits with arms crossed at ringside and pouts. Literally. That is not a short-handed metaphor for his mood or actions. Black, meanwhile, eats an ass whipping inside the ring. Striker notes that Evans does “his best Chief Jay Strongbow [impression] out on the floor [from] when the Strongbows lost to the [Wild] Samoans. If he’s referring to the 1983 bout, it’s a little different in that Jay got knocked to the floor instead of sitting out there pouting on purpose: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f70Af1ZYXgs. This is also a reminder that I need to start a 1975 – 1985 WWF thread where I review random matches in the upcoming months. I have a weird wrestling knowledge gap from that era of WWF wrestling. I’ll work on both that and a random World of Sport review thread while I wait to get the TV in place for my next complete show project. But that’s beside the point right now!

 

• Drago accidentally baseball slides Fenix while trying to hit Taya; she moves and then hits a top rope crossbody onto both men at ringside. Meanwhile, Black survives an Aerostar attack and tries a springboard attack, but in a genuinely cool counter, Aerostar pops up and gets on the top rope, then ranas Black as Black hits the springboard. Aerostar follows with a springboard Codebreaker for three. Wow, Aerostar really showed me something there. Awesome stuff from him during the finish. Note that Taya is the only competend member of this whole fucking crew. She should consider maybe doing better than Johnny Mundo and these other two goofs.

 

• Evans stands at ringside, arms still folded, face still in a protracted pout, as Johnny Mundo reveals that he didn’t even get out of the parking lot! He runs in and helps Black and Taya attack the celebrating Super Friends! Mundo, who knocked Fenix out and took his place in the Black and Evans trios team in the first place, especially targets Fenix in this attack. The heels celebrate until Sexy Star hits the ring to rally the troops and help clear them out.

 

• Seedy backstage interstitial: Dario Cueto actually invited someone to his office instead of having them barge in on him while he snorts cocaine or tries to rid himself of magically-enhanced photos of a grisly nature or murders a dude with a red mold of a bull or whatever else he does in his spare time within that office of his. His guest is Rey Misterio Jr.; Dario tattles on El Dragon Azteca Jr. ignoring Misterio’s well-given advice and coming to him for a match against Pentagón Dark. Misterio is frustrated and asks for the match to be unbooked. Dario has already done so; instead, Dario has booked Azteca against Chavo Guerrero Jr., with the winner earning a “You Broke My Arm, You Stupid Prick” Match against Penta.

 

• Misterio takes this all in while Dario notes that Misterio probably doesn’t want Azteca wrestling either of these proposed matches. Misterio readily agrees with Dario's assessment and asks him to use his pencil to erase that match from his booking notebook, but Dario instead assures Misterio that he’ll try to help the hotheaded Azteca Jr. out by making sure that his mentor Rey can watch over him up close…since Rey’ll be the special guest referee in the Azteca/Chavo match. Dario tosses his pencil aside and instead writes Rey’s name in as guest ref in extremely permanent ink. Man, what a dick!

 

• It was another enjoyable episode of Lucha Underground! 4.25 LU-CHA chants out of 5.

[Ramo2653]

On 9/4/2025 at 11:38 AM, tbarrie said:

Wait, Santos Escobar was King Cuerno? I only know Escobar from the WWE 2K23 video game, but I often wondered why the computer kept booking this random goober fairly close to the top of the card. (I pretty much only play Universe mode and I generally let the computer book the men's division.)

Shame the 2K23 servers have been shut down; odds are somebody created King Cuerno's outfit as an alternate attire for Escobar. Would have been fun to use.

Pretty sure the Cuerno gimmick was only for LU since he was Hijo del Fantasma in AAA before losing the mask and then going to WWE. But the chest tattoo is dead giveaway. I'd argue the Santos should probably be given better stuff to work with but I can say that about a good chunk of the WWE undercard so who knows.

[zendragon]

Regarding your next TV project, I'd like to request Wrestling Society X. It seems that most of it is up on Youtube and Dailymotion and I know you just can't get enough of Jack Evans, Mil Muertes, and Joey Ryan

[SirSmUgly]

Season 3, Show 4: “Brothers in Broken Arms” or Earned in Blood

• Recap: Nobody will listen to anybody around the Temple. El Dragon Azteca Jr. won’t listen to Rey Misterio Jr., for example, and now has himself distracted with getting revenge against Rey’s wise advice. Or consider the case of Johnny Mundo, who doesn’t understand that Dario’s “No, you can’t have an LU Championship shot” is a full sentence and is now letting down the rest of the Worldwide Underground and harassing Gift of the Gods title holder Sexy Star instead of focusing on being the best trios tag member and supportive significant other that he can be. And let’s not even get started on Officer Joey Ryan not heeding the ominous warnings of Captain Vasquez and going full dirty cop in an attempt to help Dario Cueto engineer a war involving the pantheon of Aztec gods on earth…just to get some dough to pay his child support. This is the problem: You don’t listen, you don’t really hear, you tune things out, and then you find yourself getting ripped apart by a dark god like you were a character at the end of The Cabin in the Woods or something. Then again, maybe sometimes listening is bad, like how Prince Puma pretended not to listen to Vampiro, but then actually did and pursued a blood feud with Mil Muertes on Vamp's advice. On second thought, maybe just do whatever the hell you want in the Temple; it’s probably going to turn out all cattywampus anyway.

 

• Seedy backstage interstitial: Dario Cueto walks up to Sexy Star in the locker room, the former giggling about how Matanza “destroyed” Willie Mack last week. Well, it was a pretty competitive match, but sure, I’ll go with Dario's version. I also didn’t think that Son of Havoc got beaten so badly that he should have had to recuperate at home, but it got us some excellent product placement. Dario looks at Star holding her Gift of the Gods belt on her lap and wonders if she’s more worried about Mack's health or about eventually getting slaughtered by Matanza. Star claims that she’ll never be afraid of anything anymore, but Dario suggests that maybe she’d be smarter just to keep defending the GotG belt and avoiding a title match and what would probably be an academic Wrath of the Gods. He then assures her that she won’t be defending her belt tonight because she’ll be wrestling as part of an eight-luchas tag, partnering with the Super Friends against the Worldwide Underground instead.

 

• It's not product placement time because we don’t get a brand name, but Dario flips his wrist up and checks his gold Faux-lex watch like he’s Ric Flair in 1985, then declares that he’s got other places to be. He leaves, and Johnny Mundo rushes in while calling out for Taya. He doesn’t even see Star standing there until he turns around, at which point he tells Star that he doesn’t think he’s yet formally introduced himself to her. Hey, yeah, unless it occurred off camera, he really hasn’t. Mundo sticks out a hand; Star thinks about taking it, does take it, and gets pulled in by Mundo. Mundo growls that he’ll be holding her GotG belt soon enough, then makes to release the grip, but Star holds on and pulls him in – a silent I got some strength too, buddy response – before releasing her own grip. Mundo leaves, while Star sticks around, gets overwhelmed by the tricky position she is in of holding the GotG belt while an Aztec god is the LU Champion, and front kicks a locker to let some of her anger and annoyance out.

 

• The house band tonight is the Chimpz. Striker: “And they’re not only our friends, they’re our prime mates.” Vampiro’s sigh of disgust at that delightfully terrible dad joke is the cherry on top. He’s sitting over there trying to get over the joyous awfulness of Striker’s quip for like five seconds before finally chuckling at the stupidity of the wordplay while Striker runs down the card.

 

• Let’s open with Siniestro de la Muerte in the ring. Catrina isn’t anywhere around, which is weird. She hasn’t been with him the last couple of weeks. Then again, she might be showing up soon because Prince Puma is his opponent. Striker tells us that Puma requested this match from Dario Cueto, which is interesting. I wish there was time for small interstitial to show them interacting directly, but oh well. Puma throws some awful strikes to start; I like the guy, but man, sometimes he does stuff that looks simply dreadful. I give him credit for mostly hiding a thigh slap on a dropkick, though. The camera angle didn’t do him any favors there. I was watching a Scott Hall match yesterday and realized suddenly that he’d do thigh slaps on his front kicks that I didn’t even register until I started looking for them. If you’re gonna slap your thigh on your kicks, look at tape of Scott Hall, I suppose.

 

• Puma rolls Siniestro while commentary talks about how Puma’s altered color scheme for his mask and tights matches his journey into darkness. Siniestro gets some offense in there, but Puma is never in much danger. The match itself isn’t very good, with a lot of weak offense and sporadic my-turn, your-turn exchanges that don't come off very well. Puma sets up Siniestro for a 630 Senton when Mil Muertes storms the ring and breaks it up. Siniestro sucks, though, and  hefails to capitalize; Puma quickly lands a cradle piledriver and then, staring into Mil’s eyes at ringside, plants Siniestro with a Flatliner for three. Ooh, move stealing! That’s how you know there’s hatred a-brewin’. Puma gets up immediately after his victory and lands a suicide dive onto Mil at ringside before brawling with him a bit. Catrina eventually backs a frenzied Mil away while Puma taunts him from his place back in the ring. That match was simply here to facilitate the angle at the end, and in that regard, it was successful.

 

• Seedy backstage interstitial: Uh-oh! Dario Cueto has summoned the now-exposed Officer Cortez Castro Reyes to his office for a meeting. When Dario extends an invitation to his office, he usually greets his visitor with a veneer of fake chumminess. This time, Dario has a deadly serious look on his face as he gets up from his desk. He walks over to Reyes…and hugs the guy. Then he says, with complete coolness in his voice, “I wanted to see how my man Cortez Castro is doing.” In other words, he speaks in a tone that is the exact opposite of how Mister Cisco (R.I.P.) said a similar line to Dario when randomly entering his office to get some intel (Season Two, Show Twenty-Five). The super-nervous Cisco tipped Dario off and got murdered. Dario doesn’t have Cisco's issues with smoothly lying to people, though, so while Reyes is internally disgusted by Dario’s fake sympathy and his assurance that he’ll get down to the bottom of who killed Cisco, Reyes receives absolutely zero clues that Dario knows that Reyes is an undercover cop.

 

• Dario goes all O.J. Simpson and promises to find “the real killer” before suggesting that maybe Big Ryck killed Cisco in revenge for Cisco being the one to burn his eye with a cigar (Season One, Show Eleven). I thought Bael did the actual eye-burning, but still, this is a pretty good red herring suspect Dario threw out there. Of course, Reyes knows that Big Ryck is missing or dead (R.I.P., one of the things I recently read is that there’s a Lucha Underground comic and that Ryck was killed off by the Disciples of Death in one of the issues set between the first two seasons, though he’s not joining the Permadeath Count because it didn’t happen on screen), but he can’t let anything slip. He just starts to leave the room after Dario pointedly tells him that “life goes on.” We can hear Melissa Santos starting her ring announcement for the next match as Reyes reaches the door and prepares to exit so that he can have his match. Dario suggests that “the show must go on” and then tells him to win this next “match of his career” for Mister Cisco. Did I type uh-oh yet?! Because uh-oh! In a little visual flourish, as Reyes opens the door to leave and looks back at a steely-eyed Dario, red-and-blue strobe lights to mark his entrance flash against the frosted window of the office door. He knows you’re five-oh, bud! It’s over!

 

• Well, Officer Cortez Castro Reyes heads to the ring to wrestle what Striker calls “an added bonus match coming out of Dario’s office.” Dario is kinda smart in the sense that rather than having Matanza harm Reyes, he’ll have Pentagón Dark do it for the sake of the plausible deniability of having an enemy of his do the job. Then again, he’s kinda messy in that he made this sudden bonus match instead of just booking it like a normal match. Give yourself more plausible deniability, not less, Dario. Anyway, Penta is still mad at Vampiro, so after enduring a fiery Reyes beatdown attempt to start, he dumps Reyes face-first on the buckles before staring down Vamp on a SHHH Slap, then earning an easy victory with a package piledriver. Of course, Penta unwittingly helps Dario send a message to Captain Vasquez and the LAPD by snapping Reyes’s arm after the match; then, he gets a microphone and promises that no matter who wins the Chavo Guerrero Jr./El Dragon Azteca Jr. match and earns the right to face him, that dude is getting a few bones broken. Penta calls Chavo an “old man” and calls Azteca something that is bleeped on audio and translated in text as “skinny punk.” However, I only heard unbleeped the word flaco, which I know means skinny because as a beanpole in high school Spanish class, I had that word used to describe me by many an activity partner on adjective practice day, **sigh**. But you don’t want to hear about one of the many reasons that I started to weight train in my early twenties, whereas I do want to hear what was bleeped, dang it! Anyway, if you didn’t know, Penta is still unaware of any internal feelings of fear.

 

• Alright, time for our Atómicos Match pitting the Super Friends and Sexy Star versus the Worldwide Underground. Fenix, Aerostar, and Drago are already in the ring alongside their partner Star; the Worldwide Underground enter via the floor. I wonder if Taya Valkyrie has Jack Evans agreeing to play nice again or has soothed P.J. Black for eating a lot of offense the last time they faced the Super Friends or has maybe soothed Johnny Mundo’s absurdly large ego. Or maybe she’s thinking about going solo because these dudes are kinda holding her back. Mundo throws his sunglasses at Star; Taya points and laughs. This absurd high school bully shit enrages Star, who sticks around in the ring to open the match against Taya. There’s a legit FUERA LOCA/SEXY STAR dueling chant. I bet if Ivelisse were in the ring against Taya, any dueling chant for Taya would be overwhelmed, just saying even though I know I say it too often.

 

• This sequence is decent enough; Jack Evans and Drago tag in next and Evans does a whole gymnastics routine that Drago just watches instead of kicking him in the solar plexus. Evans then tags out to Black. OK. Drago should have tripped him on a cartwheel, though. Black is in there to get his ass kicked and stumble around while the babyfaces beat him up, but he escapes danger on a slingshot and tags in Mundo.

 

• Some more stuff happens, and Fenix tags in. This match is fine, I suppose. I don’t actually care very much about more Super Friends vs. Worldwide Underground, and I’m sorta over Sexy Star. I thought that LU got her over in the first season, and her friendship with Willie Mack was wholesome and kept her over with me for the bulk of the second season, but she’s not very good and isn’t likeable enough to be in the position that she’s in right now. Meanwhile, Jack Evans does a terrible looking running headbutt to Star’s taint, and you know what? I’m good with this match. I’ll just speed through to the finish.

 

• So, the heels land a combination of crisp offense (Mundo, Taya, Black) and joke attacks (Evans) on face-in-peril Sexy Star. Striker and/or Vampiro remember a dude from WCW: During said attacks, Vampiro recalls Billy Kidman fracturing his eye socket with a moonsault back in a WCW match. Every time Kidman leapt from the top rope, the move taker was risking taking a Kidman knee to one of their bones. Kidman actually became a consistently good worker by the end and his tag team with Rey Misterio Jr. is the best short-term tag team of all time for my money, but he had zero body control in the air on flips and needed to cut out the flipping moves from the top rope for the health and wellness of his opponents.

 

• Star escapes further damage when Mundo accidentally smashes into Taya; she gets a hot tag, and the match quickly breaks down. Aerostar almost plants himself in the second row hitting a plancha on Black at ringside. Taya sells a leg injury outside the ring after Star kicks her to the floor in a less-than-smooth spot, but Evans and Mundo team up on Star; Mundo hits Star with a superkick, and Evans backslides her for three. This wasn’t a good match. The men of the Worldwide Underground help Taya off the floor while the men of the Super Friends help Star up in the ring after the match.

 

• Seedy shrine of the dead interstitial: Catrina and Mil Muertes prepare to finally kill Siniestro de la Muerte for being a complete failure. Catrina snaps his neck, then basically sucks his evaporating life force out of his body like she was Shang Tsung. Seriously, Catrina is Mexican female Shang Tsung. I don’t know why I haven’t made that connection until now. Catrina then blows the life force she sucked out of Siniestro toward Mil, re-adding that life force back into Mil’s, uh, general essence? Sure, we’ll go with “general essence.” Anyway, Catrina gives Siniestro one final Lick of Death, and you know which counter that it’s time for. Permadeath Count: 10 (Bael, Konnan, El Dragon Azteca Sr., The Three Nerdsketeers, Trece, Barrio Negro, Mister Cisco, Siniestro de la Muerte). Catrina has one final request for Mil; kill the wabbit! No, sorry, kill the Puma!

 

• El Dragon Azteca Jr. meets Chavo Guerrero Jr. in the ring for a match to determine who is allowed to try and avenge the broken arm that Pentagón Dark gave them last season. Of course, the reluctant Rey Misterio Jr. has been penned in as the referee for this match by the dastardly Dario Cueto. I enjoy late-career Chavo, and Azteca is a solid worker, but I don’t expect much from this match. Part of the reason why is that the focus in this match is on the story, what with Misterio as the ref and Penta probably still in the building.

 

• They have a solid opening with some nice chain wrestling before Chavo wins a two count off a shoulderblock. An annoyed Chavo barks at Rey that his count was slow while Rey just shrugs it off and shows two fingers. I get a lot of joy out of having Chavo and Rey in the same ring interacting with one another.

 

• Rey continues to be a fair referee, though! Honestly, though the desk wonders about Rey’s ability to be impartial, they suggest that Rey might shade his count toward Azteca, whereas Rey internally probably (subconsciously?) hopes that Azteca will lose, learn a lesson here, and stop wasting his time with Chavo and Penta. There’s a nice spot where Azteca attempts a slingshot crossbody to the floor and gets caught and smashed into the raised railing. This is a solid televised bout.

 

• Chavo takes it back in the ring, where he’s better off when he’s bullying Azteca and worse off when Azteca can take things to the air. Chavo cuts off an Azteca comeback with a nice lariat that earns a two count, then goes back to a chinlock that certainly looks like a choke. Vampiro asserts that I am right about that on commentary. Chavo then rolls through a charging Azteca into a Canadian Maple Leaf…Mexican Eagle Lock?...anyway, it’s not quite a smooth as when Lance Storm does it. Azteca makes the ropes easily; Chavo tries to claim that Azteca tapped (he didn’t) and then tries to provoke Rey by slapping his hand down (he doesn’t). Chavo then escalates things by punching Rey square in the jaw. Rey has too much pride to simply disqualify Chavo, which is Rey’s mistake: Rey forearms him back and sends him right into Azteca, who leaps up onto Chavo’s shoulders in electric chair position and flips into a rana for a successful pinning combination – exactly the thing that Rey didn’t want as Rey will realize when he’s done being hot at Chavo.

 

• Chavo charges Rey after the match and gets tripped and hit with a 6-1-9. You’ve been on the end of that one before, buddy, and you probably will be again. Chavo collects himself and storms away, pointing at Rey in anger. You know what would be rad? One more Chavo/Rey singles match for the culture.

 

• Seedy dojo interstitial: Black Lotus is dumb enough to be lighting candles for her dead parents and claiming that she killed the man who killed her parents (she didn’t) and that before she could claim Azteca’s mask from Jr., Penta stopped her. However, she plans to show Penta what fear is like along with her Black Lotus Triad (she probably won’t).

 

• Not much great wrestling, but lots of interesting story stuff on this show. Chavo/Azteca was a fun little bout, though, and Luis Fernandez-Gil’s acting was particularly good tonight. 3.75 LU-CHA chants out of 5.

[SirSmUgly]

5 hours ago, zendragon said:

Regarding your next TV project, I'd like to request Wrestling Society X. It seems that most of it is up on Youtube and Dailymotion and I know you just can't get enough of Jack Evans, Mil Muertes, and Joey Ryan

I actually don't mind Evans as an annoying heel, and I enjoy Mil Muertes, so that doesn't sound so bad!

WSX is on the list for some point in the future, but I have other plans assuming that I can get all the television together. Fingers crossed!

[SirSmUgly]

Season 3, Show 5: “The Prince and the Monster” or Black-and-Blue Prince

• As the summer comes to a close, so does my ability to reel these shows off most days of the week. As always, I write this here for myself and not for anyone who actually reads these: The goal is to get done with the final season and the thread by the beginning of winter vacation. Doable, but might be a stretch. Then again, it’s not like LU hasn’t been a mostly pleasant watch, so I will allow myself to dream!

 

• I can see in the listings that by the time I get to the end of next week, I might well be getting through the episode titled “Every Woman is Sexy, Every Woman is a Star.” This seems to indicate that a certain monster might be losing a certain LU championship. I can’t imagine that they’d have Sexy Star beat him directly. They wouldn’t. Would they? I think the right answer is Mundo and his annoying little gnat friends helping Mundo steal the gold in a title match that is randomly picked by Dario’s Dial of Doom before he turns right around and drops it to Star in the next week or two, though my spotty memory seems to recall that what maybe happened was that Star won it somehow and then lost it to Mundo. Either way, I am not looking forward to Sexy Star or Johnny Mundo being LU Champ, though I am fairly sure that both achieved that goal this season.

 

• Recap: We’re getting another Dario’s Dial of Doom bout this week; Willie Mack lost the previous one to Matanza. Puma and Mil are locked in mortal battle. Cage and Texano are having a best-of-five series for one of Dario’s wonky opportunities; Cage is up a match to none.

 

• The show begins with Dario introducing the Dial of Doom. Who will win a title shot against Matanza Cueto tonight? Wow, it lands on Prince Puma. I don’t believe that Mil Muertes or Catrina will be letting Puma win a damned thing. Dario announces that the match will be tonight's main event, then addresses Puma directly into the camera. Basically, Dario says that Puma isn’t winning the big belt again tonight, then tosses the mic into the camera lens.

 

• Matt Striker’s quip about house band the Chimpz this week: “You know how they get down the stairs? They slide down the banana-ster.” That one isn’t nearly as good as last week’s, but it is adequately groan-inducing.

 

• Ivelisse Velez opens tonight’s show against Mariposa Martinez (w/Marty “the Moth” Martinez). Both women trade waistlocks, and Mariposa wins a takedown. She feels good about herself after that, but Mariposa’s next collar-and-elbow attempt goes poorly for her, as she ends up arm dragged and hit with a lariat. Ivelisse wins some kicks, picks up steam…and gets her ankle grabbed by Marty on a rope run, allowing Mariposa to hop up and take control.

 

• Mariposa manages a body slam and then tries to injure first Ivelisse’s left arm and then her left leg. She cuts off an Ivelisse comeback attempt with forearms, then, yeah, that’s a Kondo Clutch. Thanks, Striker. I forgot that you call an inverted Cloverleaf a Clutch. Anyway, Mariposa locks a Kondo Clutch on, but Ivelisse gets the ropes.

 

• This is a decent little opener, perfectly solid TV wrestling. Mariposa chokes Ivelisse over the ropes; when the ref backs Mari off, Marty’s creepy ass tries to kiss Ivelisse. Ivelisse, naturally, slaps him instead. Mariposa comes back over, grabs Ivie by the hair, and then tries to make Ivie kiss Marty while Marty screams SAY YOU LOVE ME at Ivie. What the fuck?! That was some wild shit. Marty is deplorable. Vampiro asserts that Marty should be under observation and not allowed out in public without someone watching them. That was probably a kayfabe uncomfortable thing for Vampiro to say considering Vampiro’s own experience with being under observation.

 

• Mari keeps cutting off Ivie’s comebacks, but she can't do it forever; Mari tries a Butterfly Effect, but Ivie sits down on it, escapes, and then hits a Canadian Destroyer (or a Code Red, if you like, since she runs herself into a sunset flip to hit it, which seems the key difference between the two) for three. The Martinez sibs quickly overwhelm the lone Ivie after the match and beat her down. Decent stuff!

 

• Seedy backstage interstitial: In his office, we hear one side of Dario’s conversation with someone over the phone. Based on the content of what Dario says – he knows that Puma comes from a great Aztec tribe, but Matanza is a literal Aztec god and will be able to successfully retain the LU Championship – he's maybe reassuring Councilman Delgado or his dear old dad Antonio, someone like that. Dario must hastily hang up when Johnny Mundo does a cursory knock and then enters without being called into the office; Mundo is aggy about Puma getting a Lucha Underground title shot and calls Puma “Mr. Losing Streak” even though Puma just beat the not-dearly departed Siniestro de la Muerte last week, you heel who is blind to the facts!

 

• Dario says that the wheel of fate is turning, rebel one, action! Oops, sorry, that’s what a BlazBlue arcade unit says. What Dario says is that the wheel of fate turned and happened to land on Puma’s name, and that’s just how fate is. Mundo doesn’t believe in fate because fate didn’t give him his perfect eight-pack. Then he shows Dario his perfect eight-pack. I’m not giving Mundo enough credit for being genuinely funny, so hold on, here is what he said as he showed Mundo his abdominals: “I don’t believe in fate! Do you think it was divine intervention that gave me these abs? **dramatically shows abs** No! It was hard work. I earned these abs. So save your hocus-pocus stories for the next sucker who walks in here.” Dario rolling his eyes during this Mundo rant was perfect.

 

• Since Mundo doesn’t seem to understand that this is Lucha Underground and not the WWE and that all that “grab the brass ring” shit that Vincent Kennedy McMahon purportedly believed in doesn’t apply to Dario “conjuring up a war between the Aztec tribes and their gods” Cueto’s approach to running a wrestling show, he doesn’t get what he wants. Mundo then argues that he should at least get a shot at Sexy Star’s GotG belt because she lost last week’s Atómicos match against him and the Worldwide Underground.

 

• Surely, you can see where the devilish Dario is going with this, right? A few weeks ago, he heard Mundo’s request for a shot at Star’s GotG belt and turned it back, but he instead gave fellow Worldwide Underground member Taya a shot at the belt because Taya was the only one in the Underground to win a match at Ultima Lucha Dos. This time around, Dario agrees that Star lost last week's match, was pinned to lose it, in fact, and then points out that Jack Evans was the one who earned the pinfall and not Mundo. Guess who gets the shot at Sexy Star’s GotG championship. Dario is a complete prick and says this in mock-seriousness: “What a great idea, Johnny! Talk about divine intervention!” Mundo is slow to leave Dario’s office, so Dario has to issue a curt “Get out” to convince Johnny to finally exit.

 

• Is Mundo a slowpoke considering his methods for going about trying to get a title shot? Dario is willing to create discord wherever he can, even in a heel group,and he's probably enjoying his part in breaking up the Worldwide Underground, but also, he and Dario don’t exactly like one another! I’m sure Dario still smarts over Mundo knocking him out or taking the key to Matanza’s cell. Two years is not a long time to get over that sort of thing, especially for the grudge-holding type of guy that Dario is. Anyway, I look forward to whatever situation next leads to Mundo trying once again to get a GotG title shot in a couple weeks, but having Dario give it to P.J. Black instead. I can’t imagine that the egos in the Underground will be able to coexist together even through the end of this season, though I could always be wrong.

 

• Creepy psychedelic cult promo: The Cult of the White Rabbit airs its first mysterious little promo asking people to “follow the white rabbit” and promising to make their entrance into the Temple soon.

 

• Texano wrestles Brian Cage in match number two of their best-of-five series. These two start where they left off the last time they met while Vampiro makes international hockey competition analogies to hype this feud. This match is okay, just like the last one. Lots of my-turn, your-turn, very pacey, meant for big moves and spots rather than any sort of storytelling about how each man is adjusting to the other after the events of the previous match. They have an extended obligabrawl while Striker tries to make up for criticizing Texano’s conditioning in the previous match by implying that he sees that it has improved in the two weeks since he last worked Cage.

 

• Both guys hit shoulderblocks and leg lariats and suplexes and do various counters and stuff. The pace slows down once it gets back in the ring, but this match could do with some sense of progression within the series. They basically trade power moves with one another for a few minutes until Cage suplexes Texano into the ring from the apron and then calls his attack like he’s a Street Fighter character – LUCHADOR DESTROYER – before successfully hitting the F-5/Luchador Destroyer for three. Cage goes up two to nothing in this series, and honestly, I hope he sweeps it because I have zero desire to see this matchup more than three times.

 

• Seedy backstage interstitial: Sami Callihan makes his LU debut as a guy who shows up to the arena too late to help Ivelisse out; he runs up to her in the locker room, hoping to see her match though she has already wrestled. Sami notices that Ivelisse is hurt and demands revenge on whoever did it to her because – oooooooh – they’re dating now! Sami’s name in Lucha Underground is apparently Jeremiah, so I’ll just start calling him that until I get further updates on his full name. Anyway, Ivelisse says that she would really like to not date a co-worker because it didn’t go well for her the last time, but Jeremiah protests that he wants to be active within the Temple and would still be a way better boyfriend than “Son of Chaos,” and boy, can Ivelisse pick ‘em or what? Just as Ivelisse asks Jeremiah to grab her bag and take her home so that she can come down from the night's events with a drink, Jeremiah pulls out a flask and slams back some liquor, then offers it to her with a simple “why wait?” Ivelisse, sullenly: “I guess I’ll be driving us home.” Forget finally defeating Catrina; will Ivie ever defeat her own shitty taste in dudes?

 

• It's time for Prince Puma to try and become the first two-time Lucha Underground Champion by defeating the nigh-undefeatable Matanza Cueto (w/Dario Cueto). Vampiro thinks that Puma needs “more guidance” to reach his full potential. I bet you think that, Vamp. I’m still expecting Vampiro, having seen that he can influence Puma, to somehow weasel his way to Puma’s side and then set him against Penta.

 

• Anyway, here’s the main event! They end up outside the ring pretty quickly upon Puma’s initial burst of offense, at which point Matanza takes over and we get another obligabrawl. Striker questions how wise Puma’s strategy is in taking it to the floor, but Vampiro obviously loves the move. They smash each other into the raised railing for a bit. Dario requests that Matanza swing Puma back-first into the railing once more, but Matanza brings it back into the ring and lands an overhead release belly-to-belly suplex instead.

 

• This is a better back attack on Matanza’s part than the back attack that apparently broke Penta’s in their match last season. Puma does try a comeback, but leaps into a shoulderblock that flips him and that doesn’t move Matanza. Matanza continues the beatdown and scores two after a boot to the head; he gouges at Puma’s eyes after Puma kicks out.

 

• Rib breaker, rib breaker, headbutt from Matanza. The champ tries a corner charge, but misses; Puma 6-1-9s Matanza in the back, then lands a diving elbow from the top. Man and god are wearied; they both get to their feet, and  Puma tries to lift Matanza into fireman’s carry position. Matanza blocks it, but again Puma dodges a charge, and the challenger lands double knees and a standing SSP for two. Puma tries to extend his advantage with another power move attempt, but Matanza elbows his way out of it and lands a German suplex. Matanza actually hits a corner charge splash, but Puma signals that he can take move punishment like that. It's bait, of course. Matanza hits another splash, but Puma catches a third splash attempt in mid-air and scores his Northern Lights rolling into a vertical suplex that is pretty impressive as a feat of strength, I have to say. The cover only nets him a two count, however.

 

• Looking for the kill, Puma stalks the staggered Matanza. He tries a high kick, but Matanza traps his leg and hits a release capture suplex, then scores a deadlift sitout gutwrench powerbomb for a near fall. Matanza shoots Puma in, who dicks his strike and kicks him. Puma runs at Matanza, who catches him and swings him around in an attempt at a Wrath of the Gods, but Puma shifts his weight and lands a DDT, then scores a series of kicks when Matanza stands that knocks the champion right into position for a 630 Senton. Puma goes up, nails it, rolls to his feet on impact…and eats a Pounce from Mil Muertes, who has rushed the ring. Dario orders ref Marty Elias not to call for a DQ as Mil drops Puma with a Flatliner. Boy, did Vampiro fuck Puma over with that “why not attack Mil Muertes to get your mojo back” advice. I know, Vamp would argue that Puma wouldn’t have come this close to victory if he hadn’t started to unlock more of the darkness within, but Puma was already doing that before Vampiro ever talked to him. Matanza gets to his feet, stares down Mil, and then accepts Mil’s gift and lands a Wrath of the Gods on Puma for three. The crowd does not like this cheapie finish. The match was solid, though. Dario and Catrina still have beef; Dario lifts his key and Catrina lifts her mystical stone in response. But that’s beef to be carved up on another day, maybe.

 

• Seedy backstage interstitial: Killshot is just trying to get his reps in on the bench press when Joey Ryan walks up and drops an unmarked envelope on Killshot’s chest. Killshot wants to know who gave the envelope to Ryan to give to him, but Ryan doesn’t know because he’s “not a detective,” as he so falsely puts it. Ryan leaves as Killshot opens the envelope and pulls out a message that says YOU LEFT ME FOR DEAD. Oh great, I sure can’t wait for this Killshot/AR Fox feud. Boy, what a treat, as I am so falsely putting it.

 

• This was once again a decent show, and I think that LU refreshing its roster with a few current or soon-to-be-coming debuts (Black Lotus Triad, Jeremiah, White Rabbit cult) is needed at this point. What this show could really use is a hot main event match in this third season; they’ve had some fun matches, but looking at my early list, we haven’t had a match that is a clear early contender for my season-ending top five. At this point, my top match is the Moth/Killshot WMD Match, and that’s pretty much 98% because of Striker’s batshit trashy commentary. It’s early days, though. 3.75 LU-CHA chants out of 5.

[zendragon]

I remember back in the day guys like Tajiri where so good with hiding their thigh slaps it was like a magic trick. Now everybody just slaps the hell outta their thigh in front of the camera. Luchasaurus might break your scale

[SirSmUgly]

Season 3, Show 6: “The Open Road to Revenge” or Misterio and Azteca Experience Burnout

• Recap: Rey Misterio Jr. lost his cool after El Dragon Azteca Jr. lost his cool and now Azteca is wrestling Pentagón Dark instead of, y’know, unraveling the giant “Aztec gods ravaging the earth” plot that he’s central to. So that’s going well! Meanwhile, I sure hope that Mascarita Sagrada gets a measure of revenge [™ Michael Cole] on Famous B. for unceremoniously dropping him from his representation; maybe after a Bagel Bites-powered dinner with Son of Havoc, the two buddies have come up with a couple of useful ideas about how to do that. And of course, Sexy Star is under the gun again tonight, defending her Gift of the Gods title against a member of the Worldwide Underground. No, not her. That match already happened. No, not him. He keeps getting denied. No, not him either. He’s boring. Yeah, yeah, him, that’s the one. The yell-y one who does too many flips. 

 

• Seedy backstage interstitial: El Dragon Azteca Jr. puts on his mask and prepares for battle by talking to the spirit of his deceased mentor El Dragon Azteca Sr. In a cool little extra, we see that Azteca Jr.’s locker has pinned within it a torn, old-timey wrestling event poster that promotes a Chavo Guerrero Sr. (or Chavo Classic, if you’d like) vs. El Dragon Azteca Sr. main event from 1991. That’s a cool little prop. Azteca Jr. focuses on it and promises to fight with honor even if his opponent Penta has little of it. Alas, Chavo Guerrero Jr. breaks Azteca Jr.’s reverie by trying to break a metal chair across Azteca’s back and head. Chavo wants revenge on Penta, and that he ostensibly lost that chance to Azteca last week means nothing to him.

 

• We see Chavo land a series of chair shots to Azteca’s head from first-person perspective, which is the best kind of chair shot to the head since it was actually a chair shot to a camera and cameras can’t get CTE, before he spots the poster and claims that Chavo Sr. kicked Azteca Sr.’s ass that night. Then, in a very unintentionally (?!) funny spot, Rey Misterio Jr. walks into the locker room right past Chavo Jr.; Chavo silently leaves Rey to continue on and discover Azteca slumped in the corner. Rey calls for help and then asks the half-concussed Azteca if Penta attacked him. Azteca manages to signal that it was not Penta. Rey looks back at where Chavo was standing and then – here’s the unintentionally (?!) funny spot – looks to the sky and screams CHAVOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO and I think it was intentionally funny to some degree, a homage to bad B-movies where this sort of thing happens, but it did also undercut the seriousness of Chavo’s attack on Azteca a bit.

 

• This funk band in the Temple is pretty great. Slapbak is their name. I dig this sound. Anyway, Striker and Vampiro quickly kick it to the ring, where our opener is a tag match between Famous B. and Dr. Wagner Jr. (w/Brenda) and the two pizza bagel-eating buddies Mascarita Sagrada and Son of Havoc. Of course, Havoc rolls out here on a bike with Sagrada in the sidecar. This gets a huge pop. Brenda scolds Sagrada for being a NAUGHTY BABY when Sagrada flicks of the heels in the ring; the babyfaces rush the ring and then end up dual suicide diving the heels at ringside after they vacate the premises.

 

• Havoc and Wagner end up in the ring, where on a thigh-slap scale where “least obvious” is Prince Puma, “most obvious” is Fenix, and dead in the middle is Alberto El Patrón, these thigh slaps score a(n)…Wagner scores a Puma, but man, his are hidden so well that he should probably take over Puma’s place on this scale. Time for a sidebar here: zendragon’s note about wrestlers not bothering to hide their thigh slaps is a small, but obviously important to me part of why I fell off of modern wrestling. In that post, zen aptly notes that Tajiri did it “like a magic trick.” It’s an appropriate simile because not hiding those slaps is very much like a magician not bothering to hide the sleight-of-hand as they do a trick on stage. I get that kayfabe is dead, but I still want you to trick me, y’know? Also, that post of zendragon’s made me wish that prime Tajiri was on this show.

 

• Anyway, Havoc and Wagner wrestle to a stalemate before Sagrada tags in and, after a couple of strong moves including a headscissors, Wagner catches Sagrada and lands a sitout powerbomb for two. Famous B. tags in and beats down Sagrada while the crowd chants 4-2-3-YOU-SUCK, which is pretty good, actually. I crap on them when they’re terrible, so I have to give them credit when they do something clever.

 

• Brenda’s Betty Boop voice is killing me. Her pitch is making me want to break the speaker on this Chromebook. Anyway, no matter how much she says AWWWWWWW, POOR WITTLE BABY about Sagrada, Sagrada will not give up, though if he tapped out to get her to stop with the voice, I’d understand. Instead, he makes a hot tag to Havoc, who punishes Wagner and gets two on a springboard crossbody before B. breaks up the pinfall attempt. B. then remembers that he does suck, actually, before trying to run away. He doesn’t make it and eats a belly-to-back suplex. Havoc then clotheslines Wagner to the floor and tags in Mascarita, who hits a top-rope crossbody, then a fireman’s carry slam and an elbowdrop.

 

• Things seem to be going well for the babyfaces, but Wagner circles the ring and trips Havoc as Havoc perches on the top rope for an SSP attempt. B. and Wagner then pick apart Sagrada; Wagner lands a Dr. Driver and the tags in B., who pins Sagrada with a stethoscope on the chest. B. pronounces Sagrada to be finished. Striker hits a mocking THE STREAK HAS BEEN BROKEN [™ Michael Cole] regarding Famous B.’s Temple losing streak coming to an end, but whereas the Undertaker’s old, completely cooked, wrinkly cornball punk ass should have retired immediately after he lost to Brock Lesnar at WM 30, I would very much like to see B. on future LU shows.

 

• Creepy psychedelic cult promo: Paul London and the Cult of the White Rabbit are coming to a Lucha Underground episode near YOU!

 

• Vampiro runs down the card at the desk, and I’m sure that he and Striker will be surprised to find out that El Dragon Azteca Jr. won’t be available for that match against Pentagón Dark…or maybe not, as Striker notes that he’s heard murmurs that Azteca has been injured. Striker then lets us know that Dario’s Dial of Doom will be back next week to choose another victim for Matanza Cueto. The last time around, Matanza barely escaped his match against Prince Puma with the gold due to a whole lot of help from Mil Muertes, so Puma/Mil is also signed for next week’s show. I don’t think Matanza is losing the gold until Aztec Warfare III. OK, looking at the listing of the show titles for this season, I am guessing that he is surprisingly eliminated from Aztec Warfare III and that Johnny Mundo wins that match (and the title), then loses it the very next week to Sexy Star, who announces before Aztec Warfare that she’s cashing in her GotG belt on the winner. Let’s see if I’m right.

 

• Speaking of the Gift of the Gods belt, in our next match, Sexy Star defends her belt against Jack Evans. Before that happens, of course Evans yaps on the mic for a couple of minutes. Evans promises to end Star’s career, wait, no, end her life, actually, and then declares himself the Star Destroyer. Star just slaps him in the face, which is the right way to respond to this yappy lil’ chihuahua. Evans and Star proceed to have a match in which the quality probably will heavily depend on how well Evans’s shtick lands. It lands okay and Star is alright in this thing to start, scoring a seated senton to the floor after a bunch of rope running; she then drags Evans across the floor by his hair before hair bealing him; Evans does a full flip bump and his boot catches the camera, shaking it, which is a nice effect.

 

• Star just beats holy hell outta this dude in what ended up being a decent obligabrawl; she posts Evans, then tosses him back in the ring before rushing Evans and being countered with a Snake Eyes. Then, you’ve got to be kidding me, this crowd is 50/50 chanting STAR DE-STROY-ER/LET’S GO SEXY. Are you fucking serious, crowd? And the chant, based on sound, is fairly well split by gender. The part of the crowd chanting for Evans has a much deeper tone than the one chanting for Star. Unbelievable. And you know what? Sexy unloading on a shitheel like Evans outside the ring was satisfying. If half the crowd is just determined to shit on Star at this point, I don’t know what to say.

 

• Evans holds Star in a chinlock and moves her jaw while chirping out an interview between himself and his version of Star. I mean, he's completely unlikeable. Why would anyone in this crowd cheer for him Finally, the SEXY STAR chants win out, but they should never have had to. This match, by the way, is much better than I would have guessed. Evans is a dick heel who uses strikes to gain control, but he doesn’t take Star seriously and fucks around in there – like landing a series of backflips into an eye jab – which is of course a mistake. Star makes a comeback, gets two after a series of seated splashes in the corner, then wraps Evans in a Gory Special and drops him straight down onto the points of his knees in what is essentially a Gory Kneebreaker, which is a cool move, actually.

 

• Evans manages to get a boot up on a corner charge, then manages to get on the second rope and land a flipping neckbreaker for two. He bitches at the ref before going back up to the top rope, but he takes way too long; Star catches him up top, knocks him to the floor, and then follows with a top-rope crossbody. Star tosses Evans back into the ring, which is when P.J. Black’s goofy ass leaps out of the crowd holding a kendo stick. That distracts ref Rick Knox, who doesn’t see Johnny Mundo run out and spear Star outside the ring. Mundo rolls her back in the ring and hides under the apron; Evans covers, but only earns two.

 

• Mundo and Black circle the apron, formulating a backup plan, but Aerostar and Drago hit the ring and take out the heels, with Aerostar landing his awesome dead-drop back splash on Black. Drago brawls with Mundo back up the aisle as Evans and Star meet once more in the middle of the ring. Evans backslides Star and tries to earn a leveraged pin with his feet on the ropes as he did to Drago over a year ago (Season Two, Show Three), but Knox actually spots this cheapie leverage attempt and breaks it up. That’s when Rey Fenix hustles to the ring; Knox points at him and tries to send him away, but he hangs around and argues, pulling Knox’s attention long enough for Star to go outside the ring, retrieve the kendo stick that Black dropped, and bring it back into the ring. She sack taps Evans with it, then drops Evans with a swinging neckbreaker and scores a three count. Mundo admonishes Evans for not taking advantage of his awesome and timely spear as Star celebrates with Fenix in the ring.

 

• So, this match was actually good without the gaga, something of a miracle between Evans and Star that didn’t actually hinge on Evans’s shtick as I guessed up front, but that was certainly enhanced by it. The gaga-ful finish with all the jibber jabber and run-ins completely enhanced the bout. I’m not sure what this says about the season so far, except maybe that we’re only six episodes in, but it might be the best match of this early season three. The only thing that baffles me is that as a match, it was meant to get Star over as a fighting resourceful babyface, and yet the crowd was split on it again for a huge chunk of it. LU’s bookers, road agents, and showrunners are doing everything they can to prepare the crowd for a Sexy Star LU Championship reign, and they’re doing it correctly, but I’m not sure any of it matters. It felt at the time like people online were basically thinking, We know it’s coming, so let’s hurry up and get it over with. I mean, I’m not exactly looking forward to it either, but I can appreciate the path there this season with Star and her allies trying to dodge the giant jackass heel group’s various machinations on their titles. I'm certainly not rooting for Jack fucking Evans because I'm not excited about a potential Sexy Star title reign, I'll tell you that much. 

 

• Seedy backstage interstitial: Dario Cueto gets off the phone with the folks at the hospital, who confirm that Azteca Jr. will be staying overnight. He looks at a grinning Chavo Jr. and says that he supposes that Chavo will get Azteca’s spot against Penta in the main event tonight. That’s when Rey Misterio Jr. busts in and proclaims that Dario’s new main event will actually be Rey “versus this piece of shit [Chavo] right here.” Ooh, Rey cussed! That’s how you know things are serious. Chavo tries to play it off, but Rey promises to send Chavo to the hospital in revenge for what he did to Azteca. Chavo appeals to their 25 years of friendship, a period in which Chavo, mind you, tried to break Rey’s noggin open with a chair to keep the WCW Cruiserweight Championship and also caused Rey to lose the WWE World Heavyweight Championship to Booker T. by, uh, trying to break Rey’s noggin open with a chair, actually, and the point is that Rey doesn’t trust this guy, nor should he. Chavo saunters toward the office door, but then suddenly tries a quick strike that Rey catches. Dario is entertained by this exchange, to say the least, especially when Rey follows up by punching Chavo repeatedly in the face and informing him that, “After 25 years, I got real familiar with your handiwork, Chavito.”

 

• These two have such a long-time beef that they forget that someone is watching them. Rey snaps out of his grim glare at Chavito when Dario, smiling lasciviously, speaks: “Oh, I could cut the tension with a knife. I love it.” Chavo manages to extract himself from a distracted Rey’s grip; Dario decides that since he already promised Penta the main event spot, but that he also likes the potential violence suggested by this whole confrontation going on in his office, he’s making it a Triple Threat between Rey, Penta, and Chavo. That sounds like a worse match than what we were originally going to get (Azteca/Penta) on the strength of the three-way dance aspect, but then again, Rey and Chavo are in it and could come up with something very good. Dario, edging himself verbally: “And if all goes well, someone else will be joining [Azteca] Jr. in the ER tonight.” Okay, buddy. As soon as Chavo and Rey leave his office, he grabs a house mic from his desk so that he can go interrupt Melissa Santos and tell the crowd what the actual main event is.

 

• In fact, once Pentagón Dark makes it to the ring, Dario steps out of his office, announces that Azteca Jr. can’t make it tonight, further elaborates that the match is now a Triple Threat, and then fills Santos in on the new main event competitors off-mic. The commentators and crowd didn’t get the chance to see the awesome interstitial that we just did, so while they are not that surprised to see Chavo Guerrero Jr. walk to the ring, they are quite surprised to see Rey Misterio Jr. do the same. If you’ll recall, Rey already gave Penta that work earlier this season (Season Three, Show One), so Penta probably wants to get Misterio back for beating him. Chavo wants revenge on Penta for breaking his arm (Season Two, Show Twenty-Three), and of course Rey wants revenge on Chavo for his earlier attack on Azteca, so each guy wants to target another guy in this bout.

 

• Chavo and Penta manage to superkick Rey and go at one another for a sec, but Rey recovers and backdrops a charging Chavo to the floor, then manages a headscissors to send Penta out there as well before landing a corkscrew slingshot crossbody on both guys to the floor. He doesn’t need the big belt, but I want him to win it. I actually hate the “doesn’t need the belt” argument, actually. So the fuck what? I want to see the cool guy who I like and who rules at talking and wrestling be the champion. Fuck all that “they don’t need the belt” nonsense.

 

• Chavo tries to resort to using chairs, but when he trips Rey and tries to ring him up, Penta baseball slides the chair into his head and throws kicks at everyone at ringside. I mean, man, this dude throws a ton of kicks. Penta wedges a chair between the ropes, but he eats it when Rey reverses a whip and sends Penta toward Chavo, who drop toeholds Penta into the chair.

 

• I know that I talked a bit of history between Rey and Chavo back in the interstitial section, but Matt Striker helpfully adds more historical context: “I’m reminded in 2004 of when Chavo won the cruiserweight title off of Rey, and then in June of that same year, Rey beat Chavo Classic to recapture that title.” That’s the most recent memory he has of beef between them, but how did he remember this thing that I absolutely do not remember, but he forgot Chavo costing Rey the big gold belt because he felt Rey was coasting off Eddie’s memory even though Rey was not a Guerrero and Chavo was? Actually, in fairness to Striker, I don’t remember much of anything about 2004 WWE as I was focused on getting a degree and a ton of silly relationship shit/partying every weekend at the time.  Vampiro says that their beef goes back to the mid-‘80s when Chavo Sr. knocked out Rey Sr. in the dressing room when Rey Sr. the promoter tried to cheat Chavo Sr. Oh man, I need to find out more about this. Is this true? Someone tell me more because Google sucks at filling in those details. I did find a video of Chavo Jr. sitting down with Chris Van Vliet and being fucking awesome as Chavo Jr. tends to be, and I want his dope-ass Guerrero Family shirt that he’s wearing. What a great shirt. I bet he’s selling it online. Yeah, here we are: https://www.prowrestlingtees.com/the-family-7716.html?srsltid=AfmBOorFbp2drz9GFu1xBeKX01Uan6L8Qxo6qDbTp3N69gCUAa-_zSRJ

 

• I am 100% ordering that shit.

 

• Anyway, there’s a match going on between Chavo and Rey while I think about how these two have contributed to hours of pro wrestling joy in my life. Penta reinserts himself, but I still dream about a one-on-one Chavo/Rey match in LU. Striker brings up Penta switching from Chavo to Vampiro as a mentor, which rattles Vamp. Sorry, brother, but it happened, you have to deal with it, and that’s how life is.

 

• So, Chavo shimmies and goes into the Three Amigos rolling verticals on Penta. Striker tries to get over that this is a villainous thing to do, the dastardly Chavo using the beloved Eddie’s move, and of course what happens is that the crowd pops and then starts chanting ED-DIE. Vampiro helpfully points this out to poor old Striker. That was funny. Striker also mentions that Rey and Eddie were best friends. Are we all forgetting that Eddie tried to legallt claim Rey’s wannabe hoodrat child for his own? In a ladder match, no less? Actually, I hope we never forget that because it’s one of the three or four best things WWE did in the aughts.

 

• Anyway, after a complex sequence leading up to the finishing run, Rey hits a 6-1-9 on Chavo, but Penta ducks out of the way and catches Rey with a package piledriver for a surprising three count. Penta, who wasn’t able to snap Rey’s arm in week one, tries again this week, but Rey counters with a headscissors and sends Penta to the floor. Misterio loads up a dive, but Chavo cuts him off with a clothesline and then destroys his leg with a chair to close the show.

 

• I might just be the high DVDVR poster on Chavo Jr., huh? If I were doing a top on hundred wrestlers all-time list, I’d start him inside my top twenty and probably wouldn’t drop him from it no matter how much other wrestling that I watched. Any show with this much Chavo and Misterio is probably going to score well; add in a surprisingly good Star/Evans match and a fun little tag opener, and this show absolutely outperformed the level of quality that I thought it would manage coming into it. 4.5 LU-CHA chants out of 5.

[zendragon]

Re: the immersion breaking thigh slaps.

don't know if you saw the Vince doc on Netflix, but the part at the beginning where Trips says "Are fans know its a show, but they get into the characters and storylines" is and interesting perspective on modern wrestling now that the cat is completely out of the bag. We all know its a show so its easier to justify it as entertainment like and MCU movie or a novel. How ever it really chaps my ass to see wrestling (particularly the bad comedy on the indys) treated like a giant in-joke. I want at least people to make the effort to seem real with in the confines of the show I'm watching.

[Ramo2653]

Yeah, I'm generally not a fan of the "ha it's fake and you know it's fake so we're going to do really fake stuff" wrestling. I don't go to a play that may have a fight scene and the actors wink at me about how they're not really fighting with real swords. I'd expect wrestlers to at least keep up the illusion a little bit. 

[SirSmUgly]

Season 3, Show 7: “Payback Time” or Critical Hits

• Recap: It’s time for Prince Puma and Mil Muertes to meet one-on-one for the first time since Mil defeated Puma for the title at Ultima Lucha Uno; can Puma even the score by reaching into the darkness within? Vampiro sure hopes so! In other news: Killshot is on the cusp of entering a feud with an old squadmate and Sexy Star continues to run circles around the Worldwide Underground with the help of her Super Friends. And of course: Here comes another week of Dario’s Dial of Doom!

 

• Seedy backstage interstitial: But first! Prince Puma wraps up before his bout when Vampiro pops in on him to wish him luck and offer his mentorship services. Puma declines. I mean, that’s one way that I might put it. Here’s how he actually put it, though: “I want to make this crystal clear so there’s no mistake: I want nothing to do with you. Nada. I don’t care if Mil is beating me lifeless in front of your desk; you don’t help. Because the truth is, I would rather die by Mil’s hands than live by yours.” Well, then. Vampiro takes it in stride and predicts that Puma’s the only one who will be doing any killing out there tonight. Puma growls and walks away as Vampiro stares contemplatively at his departing form.

 

• Matanza Cueto paces in the ring while Vampiro and Matt Striker kick it to Dario Cueto and his ridiculous-ass Dial of Doom. This week, Matanza kills off that flippy dipshit Killshot. I love (and by that, I mean “am bummed out”) that all the dudes from my home state on this show are completely un-rootable-for. At least it’s by design for Jack Evans. Killshot is still patched up from that goofy WMD bout with the Moth from a few shows back that included what I feel comfortable saying is Matt Striker’s career performance on play-by-play. Killshot sells his back like he’s a seventy-year-old woman getting out of her low-sitting sedan in the church parking lot, but then again, at least he took the time to sell something.

 

• What happens is that Matanza kills off this flippy dipshit Killshot for the most part, tossing him around with a series of suplexes and catching Killshot’s dives before ragdolling him. Killshot actually does a cool thing by manipulating Matanza’s fingers to escape a series of backbreakers, but when he makes the mistake of headbutting Matanza in the shoulder twice, Matanza loads up a headbutt and blows Killshot away with it. This is the best use of Killshot, having him bump around for a huge dude, fighting up with cool little moves when he can. Matanza almost buries the guy with a top-rope Tombstone (!!), but Killshot flips away and hits a series of moves culminating in a hanging DDT that looks great. Is this Killshot’s best match so far? I think it is, and it’s not particularly close. Killshot goes up top gingerly to hit a finishing double-stomp, dramatically tears away the bandage on his back…and has to roll through his whiffed stomp when Matanza has time to move away. Good news! Killshot didn’t crash and burn on the missed stomp. Bad news! Matanza hits a sweet running European uppercut that turns Killshot inside out. That’s it for Killshot, who gets shot into the ropes and rebounds right into a Wrath of the Gods in the most fun sprint that I’ve seen on this or any other show for a while, and that’s saying something considering Matanza has been busy having fun sprints this season.

 

• Dario declares “that was easy” as he leads Matanza away; Killshot got way over with the crowd between this match and the WMD bout against the Moth. I almost feel like maybe I should reconsider my disdain for the guy…and then here comes AR Fox to face off with him. Unless I have a massive change of heart about this feud this time around, I’ll have to reconsider all that reconsidering I was thinking of doing. Killshot thought that Fox was dead somewhere in Central Asia and hugs the guy, but Fox shoves him away and kicks him, then lands a series of strikes before dropping his dog tags on his downed Army buddy. Personally, I wonder why Killshot didn’t connect the YOU LEFT ME FOR DEAD message that he was sent a week or two ago with, you know, his old squad mate showing up out of nowhere and glaring at him. Tough night for ol’ Killshot!

 

• Psychedelic Cult of the White Rabbit teaser: It’s a psychedelic Cult of the White Rabbit teaser.

 

• The Super Friends (Drago, Aerostar, and Rey Fenix) hit the ring, where their pre-match hype-fest is interrupted by Dario Cueto. He first promotes Aztec Warfare III, which is coming up in four weeks. I don’t think they’ll be able to top last year’s Aztec Warfare bout, which I think was basically perfect in terms of booking and execution. The step up between the first and second matches of this type was massive, so if they can just keep things somewhere near as good as they were in the previous Aztec Warfare, they’ll be doing a stellar job.

 

• In the meantime, Dario complains that no one has come close to beating Matanza for the belt (untrue) and that no one on this roster can do it one-on-one (also untrue: From a kayfabe standpoint, I think Cage, Penta, Misterio, and Puma could all believably do it, and maybe Mil as well). This is where Dario oversteps himself once again and says that he’s bored with all this lack of competition, so Aztec Warfare III will be a title defense for Matanza. I have to chuckle because every year, they find a way to make this match for the title in a new and creative way.

 

• Dario’s crazy ass then says that he’ll be entering Matanza at number one just to show how dominant the champ is. I mean, you’ve got a councilperson and his Dark Lord who apparently think it important for your brother Matanza to hold onto the belt and dominate the Temple, my dude. Why are you risking their ire, no, their very Bryan Clark wrath itself by sticking Matanza in a tough position like that? I mean, it makes sense – Dario is nothing if not a slightly delusional megalomaniac, and I once again get a kick out of how his character is basically “what Vincent Kennedy McMahon would be like if his daddy didn't give him a ready-made wrestling company to walk into when he wanted to get into wrestling, but if he did have enough money to start his own indie.” But Dario, you are asking for it, buddy!

 

• As I think that Fenix is lucky that he won’t be entering at number one for once, Dario makes that point directly to Fenix in the ring. He then says, What the hell, why don’t we give you an opportunity to enter at number twenty? It’s probably a bit late in the series for this new segment, but what the hell, and I’ll go back and mark them earlier as well when I edit these; it’s once again time for A Unique Opportunity: Dario extends that opportunity to all of them by making them have a Triple Threat Match against one another with the victor entering the match at number twenty. Now folks, we know what it means to be given a Unique Opportunity. There is always a crushing downside. This particular crushing downside: The winner enters Aztec Warfare at twenty; the losers don’t enter Aztec Warfare at all. Boy, Dario hates it when people are friends. It's wild. This dude doesn’t like anybody or anything that might make people happy. Dario is basically social media in human form, creating as much discord between people as possible. This fucking guy.

 

• You know that Drago has to be wondering why this dude Dario Cueto keeps offering him these janky-ass Unique Opportunities. The friends dap it up, and then Fenix steps to the apron while Drago and Aerostar wrestle. Uh, is this a three-way with tags? No? Yes? Am I watching a 1996 WCW three-way or what? The crowd seems to prefer Aerostar to Drago as they do some loose mat exchanges. Fenix leaps in when he sees a chance to hook Drago from behind and, um, Aerostar stands on the apron? They’re just standing around and watching one another work with intermittent spots where all three of them connect. Right now, I don’t care about anything they’re doing until the finish. What we get is lots of counters and counters to counters and lose exchanges on the mat and kicks with thigh slaps and one-on-one fights while the other dude stands there and watches and dives and missed dives and all that stuff that you’d expect. Everyone seems evenly matched, pretty much.

 

• Fenix gets popped in the nose and starts bleeding…oh man, that thing might be legit broken. I’m pretty sure it is, actually. It happened when he was taking a seemingly innocuous top-rope crossbody from Drago. Poor Fenix is huffing air right now while he goes through his spots. Well, I was sort of rooting for Aerostar, but now I want Fenix to win. As usual in pro wrestling, a legit injury or a little blood can give a nondescript match instant stakes. And there were already actual stakes to this match! This is for a plum position in Aztec Warfare! But the action to get there means more because Fenix is laboring as he works a series of nearfalls with his fellow tag champs. He’s even snapping off dropkicks and catching wild dives like he didn’t bust his face. Respect.

 

• I’m not even going to get mad at these dudes standing in the center of the ring and slapping one another. Aerostar slips on a springboard, which is pretty much Aerostar’s thing. He’s like a masked J.T. Smith. OK, maybe that comparison is a bit harsh, but at least I didn’t say he was like a masked “Hard Work” Bobby Walker. Anyway, Drago takes this match into his hands; he scores a poisoned rana on Fenix that sends the latter rolling to the floor in pain, then plants a flipping reverse DDT on Aerostar for three. Fenix entering at one in each of the first two Aztec Warfare bouts and then not being allowed into the third one at all is such an injustice that even though I’m not a Fenix fan, I want him entering at twenty in next year’s final Aztec Warfare.

 

• Seedy backstage interstitial: So, Drago stands in the locker room trying to come down after his victory when Kobra Moon creepily crawls up behind him and tells him that he needs to win Aztec Warfare and bring the LU Championship back to their shared tribe (!!). Drago says that he left their tribe a thousand years ago (!!!) and will never return. Then he roars. Kobra Moon watches him leave; some schlubby dude eating a quesadilla comes in looking to take a shit when he realizes that this isn’t the men’s room. Kobra hisses at him. He farts. No, I didn’t make any of that last part of this interstitial up. So, is Kobra still trying to bang Daga or what?

 

• More seedy backstage interstitial stuff: Johnny Mundo does his weekly bitchfest at Dario Cueto about not getting a fucking LU Championship shot already, but this time, he tries a new tactic: Paying him off with the money that he won in the very first episode of this series by beating Prince Puma and that he was only able to gain physical possession of a few shows later after surviving a ladder match with Big Ryck (Season One, Show Seven). Mundo apparently held onto that briefcase full of unmarked billsfor emergency situations, which explains why it’s once again in this Temple being a fucking plot point. Amazing! Dario is excited to see his 100K again, though Mundo notes, “94,373 dollars…I had to pay someone off.” Apparently, the payoff had to do with some internet photos or some shit? I didn’t quite catch what Dario muttered and don’t know what he’s referring to. Anyway, this finally earns Mundo a mere shot at Sexy Star’s Gift of the Gods belt, which actually makes me think that my previous idea that Star would cash in on Mundo after Mundo won Aztec Warfare III will be instead done in reverse; Star wins Aztec Warfare and Mundo cashes in on her. Either way, meh.

 

• Speaking of predictions, Mil Muertes (w/Catrina) is already in the ring to face Prince Puma, and I’m guessing that this won’t blow off the feud because it’s only going to go about ten minutes maximum. LU typically loves its twenty-plus minute blowoff matches. When the match starts after Puma makes it to the ring, Mil mostly stomps him out before making the mistake of giving Puma room to counter by shooting him in. Puma quickly dodges Mil’s attack and ends up landing a springboard elbow. In fact, Mil charges again when Puma I son the apron, and of course, Puma moves and, after Mil tumbles to the floor, Puma hits a suicide dive and then a plancha. Vampiro looks hopefully for any signs that Puma is cheating or being more aggressive or generally taking to his tutoring, even if subconsciously so.

 

• Mil and Puma are working at quite the pace. Mil tries to toss Puma into the raised railing; Puma backflips off the railing, but eats a spear on the rebound. Mil grabs a wooden chair and uses it to beat down Puma for a bit, then tosses him into various barriers around ringside. They brawl up the stairs and into the crowd. Vampiro: “I think Puma needs this beating – needs to go dark – to be light.” OK, buddy. Please talk to your therapist after this show. Anyway, Mil clubs Puma down in the crowd, then casually takes the stairs back to ringside, but he's underestimated Puma’s desire; Puma leaps from halfway up in the stands onto Mil standing on the floor.

 

• It takes some effort (and a bit of facial acting to the back of the Temple) for Puma to lug Mil’s dead weight back into the ring, but he manages it. He then waits patiently for Mil to rise before hitting springboard double knees into a standing SSP for two. Mil is on tilt; he runs at Puma and eats a boot. Puma attempts a 630 Senton Bomb, but Mil rolls out of the way, endures a couple of Puma strikes, and then lands a floatover powerslam for two.

 

• This is a good match, which I don’t think is any surprise. Mil Muertes is pretty good in general at this point, and Puma working up from underneath against a monster is fun stuff. The thing about LU is that it’s full of flawed workers that the bookers and road agents get the very most out of on a consistent basis, which I think is one of the small joys about watching it. Both men try strikes, but Mil’s straight right knocks Puma out of the air as Puma tries to land a kick. Mil follows with a goozle and a chokeslam for a close two count. Mil signals that it’s Flatliner time, but he sure takes a long time to set it up, and Puma elbows his way out of Mil’s grip and scores a superkick. He next tries a spinning back kick, but Mil grabs him as he spins, tosses him into the corner, and lands ten short-arm clotheslines.

 

• Mil once again takes too long to follow up, however. He charges after celebrating and eats post when Puma swings out of the way. Puma lands a couple of kicks to Mil’s head, then shoves him into position for a successful 630 Senton Bomb that gets three. Huh. I thought there was going to be some sort of screwy finish to extend this feud, but I’m cool with that. Awesome stuff from these fellas. Catrina looks displeased, especially when Puma taunts her. She raises her mystical Aztec stone, but sorry sis, your man lost. Our final shot before we leave the Temple is Vampiro nodding his head as Puma celebrates, a pleased (and somewhat creepy) smile on his face. Oh, brother.

 

• Not-so-seedy dojo interstitial: Rey Misterio Jr. has a meeting with Chavo Guerrero Sr., remonstrating with him about his need to get Chavo Guerrero Jr. the fuck off his back so that he can focus on stopping this whole destructive Aztec war instead. Rey would like to cut a deal with Chavo Sr. to get Chavo Jr. to maybe leave him alone. Chavo Sr. and Rey talk around Rey's proposed solution to this issue until the last line, in which Rey reveals that he has come to ask Chavo Sr. for his blessing to challenge Jr. to a Loser Leaves the Temple Match. Well, if you’re going to go out, go out having one final awesome singles match against one another. That’s what I say. We’ll be seeing that match in a couple of shows based on the listings.

 

• A week after Sexy Star and Jack Evans had a bit of a miracle match, Killshot looked great in his match with Matanza Cueto. Hooray for small miracles (and good television)! 4.25 LU-CHA chants out of 5.

[Ramo2653]

Wait, is the Dario character evil Tony Kahn?

[SirSmUgly]

15 hours ago, Ramo2653 said:

Wait, is the Dario character evil Tony Kahn?

I think of him as Spanish indie Vince McMahon, but I endorse this comparison as well. I can see exactly how it fits - two guys who really wanted to own a wrestling company create one with family money. 

And if we find out that Tony is, I don't know, trying to unlock complete godhood within himself via some sort of obscure Jainist practice so that he can make the world a better place, then your comparison would be perfect. 

[SirSmUgly]

Season 3, Show 8: “Gift of the Gods” or A Box Full of Primal Rage 

• Recap: Based on what has happened over the past few weeks, we’re probably looking at the following for tonight: Match three of the best-of-five between Brian Cage and Texano, Johnny Mundo getting his Gift of the Gods title shot via bribery, and Ivelisse’s new romantic partner Jeremiah steamrolling her and getting involved in the Temple.

 

• Seedy backstage interstitial: Of course, Sexy Star doesn’t know that Johnny Mundo bribed a GotG title shot out of Dario last week, so she walks into his office with a sense of determination, claims that she isn’t scared of Matanza Cueto, and attempts to cash in the belt for a shot at Matanza next week. She’s a week too late, though! Dario agrees to give her that match…if she gets past Johnny Mundo. Star dismisses Mundo as a mere warmup opponent, and Dario is impressed by her confience, but he does note that if any of her allies in the Super Friends interfere, they will be banned from the Temple. Note that he does not say the same about Mundo’s allies in the Worldwide Underground. Hey, I think that maybe Dario doesn’t want a woman to be champion. Star is determined to be the first woman to win the Lucha Underground Championship, and she’ll get there, but not in the way she’s attempting to. Once she exits his office, Dario darkly mutters, “As my mother could attest, women don’t fare too well against my brother,” which is quite the understated way to predict that Matanza will murder Star if they face one another.

 

• As usual, we’re here with Matt Striker and Vampiro, only three shows from Aztec Warfare III, which is an event that I, for one, am looking forward to. After running through the parts of the card we already know about, we go to the ring, where Marty and Mariposa Martinez engage in some light harassment of Melissa Santos. The Moth is out here with Mariposa as his second; his opponent is Ivelisse Velez. Ivelisse is alone, but let’s see how long she remains so.

 

• Ivelisse starts the match by evading Marty and landing a series of kicks, then monkey-flipping out of his goozle, but when she tries a springboard crossbody, he catches her and floatover powerslams her for two. Marty is really weird about women, you know. He can’t help but be predatory while also wrestling her. Mariposa bites Ivelisse’s cheek while the ref politely asks Marty to stop strangely caressing Ivelisse’s head and huffing air into her ear. Melissa Santos looks legit concerned sitting in her ringside chair.

 

• As best she can, Ivie fights up; she gets a flash rollup for two and then makes a comeback with a series of kicks and a front choke. Marty’s just too big, though; the commentators give some great commentary about how to best sink in the choke while Marty fights it and finally breaks it by running Ivie into the corner and then hitting her with a spinebuster. The Moth then quickly finishes her with a layout Full Nelson Slam for three. Marty and Mariposa toss Ivie to ringside like so much trash and then, uh, celebrate by rubbing their foreheads together like doting lovers, so yeah.

 

• Their weird incestuous bonding moment is interrupted by Jeremiah, who jumps them both from behind. He front kicks the Moth, but is interrupted in attempting to drop Mariposa with a more complex move by a recovered Marty. Ivie has recovered outside the ring; she gestures in frustration that Jeremiah is out here against her wishes before getting back in the ring to make a save. The babyfaces win out, clearing the ring. In the process, Jeremiah tries another big move, this time on the Moth, but he escapes taking any damage. Anyway, Jeremiah and Ivie have domestic issues in that Jeremiah tries to apologize with a hug twice, but Ivie’s like, Yo, I told you that I don’t want you coming out here, and it takes a pleading, “I’m sorry!” while kneeling for Jeremiah to convince Ivelisse to accept a third hug attempt.

 

• Psychedelic Cult of the White Rabbit teaser: Did you know that Paul London is one of the plants in the crowd whom Scott Steiner calls WHITE TRASH while seizing a weapon from his hands at WCW Greed ? I need to go back and add that piece of info into that Greed review I wrote when I get around to making edits to it. Anyway, London went from a mere plant helping to facilitate the final WCW PPV main event to WWE Tag Team Champion with Brian Kendrick to cult practitioner who apparently really digs Lewis Carroll.

 

• Seedy parking lot interstitial: Oh man, Ivelisse and Jeremiah are basically reminding me of a couple of long-forgotten, bad short-term relationships I had in between having a long-term college partner and meeting my wife. When a relationship starts out with complete instability and nonstop craziness, you know you’re setting yourself up for pure, unadulterated “shoulda stayed single” fuckery in the very near future (that is, unless you are in your early twenties and therefore too stupid to know much of anything). Somewhat-funny, somewhat-embarrassing memories come flooding backto me as Ivie and Jeremiah argue in the parking lot about whether or not the latter should ever step into the Temple again. Jeremiah: “I’m sorry, but I stopped taking orders from people when I dropped out of high school!” This man is not made for a nine-to-five, Ivie. He’s made to fight. If you can’t handle that, let him go.

 

• See, he just said this: “It’s always been my dream to hurt people for money.” He wants to team up with Ivie to beat the shit out of pretty much everyone in the Temple, then declares that their relationship “ain’t gonna be like you and that other guy” as Ivie blows him off and gets in her car. He thinks their time in the Temple together can make them stronger and wants to take an offer from Dario Cueto to compete within it. Ivie relents, but she knows Dario’s nature all too well and says that if the Temple’s owner makes them fight one another, she’ll have to regretfully kick the shit out of her over-aggressive and somewhat dopey boyfriend. Jeremiah's response to this: “I love when you talk dirty to me.” Of course.

 

• Let me admit something, dear reader: I am a complete sucker for volatile relationships in fiction. No, not that cheap reality show shit. That’s boring (and too loud). But in other fiction, I am all in on this stuff, especially in literary fiction. For example, (and strangely for a fifteen-year-old straight dude, in retrospect), when I read Wuthering Heights as a teen, I was completely invested in Heathcliff and Catherine being absolutely volatile toward one another (and toward everyone else around them, for that matter). Considering that Emily Brontë was stuck living in a parsonage her whole life and that her dad and her brother were basically the only dudes she knew intimately, it tracks that she pretty much thought of relationships like the typical hormonal fifteen-year-old would her whole life. But yeah, give me a good toxic relationship – Jane and Rochester, Daisy and Tom (or Daisy and Gatsby), Henry and Camilla (or Charles and Camilla, literature’s own Marty and Mariposa) – and I am fucking there. I’ve always been that way, actually, because probably the first volatile fictional relationship that I got truly invested in was a professional wrestling one – Randy and Elizabeth. And I mean, it was a volatile non-fictional relationship as well, but we’ll just put that aside for the purposes of this aside.

 

• But there’s more within the same interstitial! As Ivie pulls off, we see a car in the background suddenly cut its lights on; actually, it’s the limo with Councilman Delgado in it. Dario watches Ivie drive off (and Jeremiah walk off), then quickly enters for a clandestine meeting. Delgado, as soon as Dario seats himself: “His descension is complete.” Dario looks relieved. I would like to know what in the blue fuck, however. Dario: “Soon the gods will be reunited and then no one can stop us.” Please keep explaining, fellas, because what in the blue fuck? Delgado asks if Dario has chosen a host body for all of the re-combined Aztec gods (!!!!!!!), and Dario mentions that he has two in mind (!!!!!!!!!!), which I guess means “not his brother Matanza,” or they would just say that they’re going to have the gods all inhabit Matanza’s body directly, I’d suppose.

 

• Councilman Delgado hands over a dented metal box that glows blue and suggests that whomever Dario chooses will go from “almost godlike” as they are now to straight-up “godlike,” and just as I was thinking that Cage would be a pretty good vessel for the Aztec gods, Dario grins as he holds the box and reveals, well, A Unique Opportunity: The winner of that best-of-five series between Cage and Texano will get the unique opportunity of being inhabited by the combined power of all seven Aztec gods and probably getting the chance to wipe out the whole earth, or at least Southern California. OK, then!

 

• Let me tell you something: The juxtaposition of petty relationship drama with potentially world-ending Aztec god destruction in the same seedy parking lot interstitial enhanced the whole thing for me. The ultimately personal and insignificant being present right alongside the global and potentially civilization-ending. Is that 2025 vibes or what? In a series full of great talking segments, that one might have been my absolute favorite. It’s up there for sure.

 

• Now more than ever, I believe that Brian Cage should sweep Texano to make an accidental statement about why he should be the vessel for godlike destructive power. Texano runs right up to Cage and throws fists, and of course, we get a third match where both guys trade big moves back and forth. I’ve seen Cage wrestle more complete matches; he and Matanza didn’t just do a MOVEZ exhibition, y’know? They had a back-and-forth match with great flow to it that built to a finish. Now, he and Texano are tossing each other around, but they just don’t have the connective tissue that makes a match more than a bunch of pretty good moves. The crowd starts chanting something that sounds like GET YOUR SHIT IN, and while I’m probably just mishearing them, I also have decided that they’re chanting it because that’s pretty much what’s happening right now.

 

• Striker and Vampiro are making a ton of athlete analogies on commentary (e.g. Striker saying that Texano needs a lockdown performance like Madison Bumgarner, if you want to remember a random MLB pitcheing ace). The reason I mention this is that after Texano tosses Cage into a bunch of chairs, knocking them all over, Striker calls out the greatest left-hander on the lanes of all time, Tacoma’s own Earl Anthony. Actually, Earl is the G.O.A.T. on the lanes period because if you stuck him in 2025 in his prime, he’d still win a ton of tournaments, but if you stuck, say Jason Belmonte back in 1975 with only the primitive technology of rubber and plastic balls. shooting it up on wooden lanes instead of synthetic ones, he wouldn’t win shit. But man, I am digressing again. Who am I, Taz?

 

• The point is that these guys hit a ton of big moves and work a ton of close two counts and go back and forth. Again, as an exhibition of moves, it’s perfectly watchable. As a match, it’s subpar. I can’t complain, though. “Watchable” is fine for this bout. Nearing the end, Cage lands a discus lariat, a powerbomb into the buckles, and a Lucha Destroyer, but Texano still kicks out. I don’t buy that he would after all that, frankly. Cage sets up for a Steiner Screwdriver, but Texano small packages him for the victory. Aw, this series continuing is a real shame.

 

• Seedy backstage interstitial: Dario looks inside this box, which we can’t see the contents of, but which glows an eerie blue light on the inside. The producers shouting out Tarantino is always fun, and Pulp Fiction’s “briefcase emanating a soft glowing yellow light when Jules and Vincent open it” is an iconic movie prop, so I like how they’re aping it here. Dario hastily closes the box when Rey Misterio Jr. walks in on him. Rey pitches him on booking him in a Loser Leaves Lucha Match with Chavo Guerrero Jr., and boy, does Dario love that idea. Rey is sick of Chavo stabbing him in the back in every fucking promotion, and so he resolves that “sometimes, you gotta put a dog down for its own good.” Is the consensus that veteran Misterio is actually a very good promo guy? He’s been excellent at promos this whole LU run. I feel that he went from “not very good” to “passable” in WCW and then from “passable” to “solid” at some point in his first WWE run, but here in LU, he’s just straight up excellent. Probably I just didn’t watch WWE consistently enough from the late aughts and New Tens to follow Misterio’s progress in that regard; it’s probably the case that I’m a little behind there.

 

• We have finally reached the main event between Gift of the Gods title holder Sexy Star and the greedy, grasping Johnny Mundo. There’s a split chant as both wrestlers circle one another and then do some shitty matwork. LET’S GO MUNDO wins out easily, though in fairness, most of the crowd isn’t into chanting for either one of them. Mundo immediately tries to save things by heeling it up with a thumb to the eye, a proud look on his face, and a few follow-up kicks. Striker relates that he heard that the Super Friends are banned from ringside, but he hasn’t heard the same about the Worldwide Underground. Neither have I, Striker! Neither have I!

 

• I start contemplating whether a show without any top-tier matches but with multiple great interstitials can score a full five on my scale. This match isn’t good so farand desperately needs some gaga to enhance it. Mundo locks on what Vampiro calls out as a Karl Gotch-like version of a sleeper, which is cool, I guess? Star continues fighting up from underneath as the cocky heel takes risks that probably indicate a bit of underestimation on their part – so, pretty much like the opener we saw with Marty Martinez being too weird and just a bit too complacent to press his size advantage to the maximum. Eventually, Marty managed to clearly (and mostly cleanly) win out anyway. Here, on the other hand, Star gets a visual three count (really, a visual seven count) on a sunset flip after Mundo airplane spins her right into ref Marty Elias’s noggin, but Elias doesn’t recover in time to count it. So there’s that!

 

• Star excoriates Elias for sucking at his job; Mundo tries to spear her, but she steps aside and he spears Elias instead. Star immediately leaps on Mundo’s back and chokes him out, but Elias is completely out, so P.J. Black and Jack Evans rush the ring and land a Superkick Party on Star. The men of the Worldwide Underground celebrate, play air guitar together, and then drop Star with a team crucifix back body drop. Rick Knox makes it to the ring to count Mundo’s cover, but Star gets a shoulder up at two.

 

• Mundo shoves Knox around; Evans and Black then drag him out of the ring and invite him to another Superkick Party. Black grabs a chair and hands it to Mundo, who sets up for a Pillmanization of Star’s neck (and Striker uses the word “Pillmanize,” which I personally appreciate). Star sure needs a friend, and while Dario banned most of her friends from ringside, he forgot about Willie Mack! Mack makes his return to the Temple and knocks over Black, then hits a cutter on Evans as Evans dives onto him. Mack hits Mundo with a pair of Mack Stunners; Star follows with a chair shot and covers for…2.8. Meanwhile, Mack has to keep fighting off two people, and he at least manages to fight them both to the back. However, I still haven’t seen Taya. Hmm.

 

• Meanwhile, the gaga has elevated this match as I knew it would, though as it turns out, Mundo doesn’t need Taya’s help in this match at all. Mundo tries an End of the World, but Star rolls out of the way. Mundo still recovers first; he grabs a chair, and a recovered Elias yanks it away, but as Elias disposes of the chair, Mundo pulls a Lord Steven William Regal, slips some brass knux out of his tights and onto his right hand, and loads up the Power of the Punch, which he lands square to Star’s jaw for an academic three count. Yeah, the jibber jabber in that match was pretty great, as is Mundo nearly sobbing as he cradles the Gift of the Gods belt.

 

• Seedy backstage interstitial: Prince Puma is working out on the heavy bag in the dingy Temple gym when Vampiro interrupts him. Vamp is impressed with Puma taking a “great first step” with his clean victory over Mil Muertes last episode. However, Vamp reminds Puma that Mil and Catrina killed Konnan and suggests that maybe Puma has more pain to bring to Mil in return. Puma notes that he does remember that, but that he also remembers Vampiro’s constant shitting on Puma’s mentor and friend Konnan, thus his current distrust of Vamp. Vampiro admits his disdain for Konnan, but notes that he didn’t go out there and kill Konnan – Mil did. Vampiro suggests that for Puma to find his true power, he needs to do what Mil did to Konnan – stick him in a casket and send him to his death. First of all, Puma versus Mil in a Grave Consequences Match sounds great. Second of all, Mil losing every Grave Consequences Match he ever has on this show sounds hilarious, though LU loves its 50/50 booking between its main eventers when they feud and will probably put Mil over. Anyway, Vamp says that he still hates Konnan, but he respects Puma, which is true, but also, I don’t believe that Vamp is doing all of this out of mere respect. Vamp leaves Puma to go at the bags again, and I note that he hits them a little heavier than he was before Vamp interrupted him.

 

• I settled on 4.75 LU-CHA chants out of 5. I might change this to the full five at some point, though. Really, there was one great interstitial and a bunch of excellent ones, but maybe I wanted either two great interstitials or one great interstitial and one great match to get there. Yeah, actually 4.75 LU-CHA chants out of 5 is the right call, thinking about it again.

[zendragon]

Those fans where chanting exactly what you thought they where chanting

[Ramo2653]

8 hours ago, SirSmUgly said:

I think of him as Spanish indie Vince McMahon, but I endorse this comparison as well. I can see exactly how it fits - two guys who really wanted to own a wrestling company create one with family money. 

And if we find out that Tony is, I don't know, trying to unlock complete godhood within himself via some sort of obscure Jainist practice so that he can make the world a better place, then your comparison would be perfect. 

IMO Vince McMahon would totally use a family member to hurt people to bring upon a war of the gods. Not sure about TK, but you can't really trust a billionaire.

And yes as zendragon said, the crowd was chanting that. One of Cage's nicknames is Mr. GMSI which is Get My Shit In because of course a jacked up guy who can fly a little bit has a meta nickname.

None of the PBA pros that do wacky youtube stuff has gotten Belmonte to join one of those videos (and he's a guy who takes himself very seriously so I don't know if he ever would) but assuming he could throw 2 handed, with his speed and rev rate, he'd be fine throwing old equipment. I'd love to see old pros deal with the heavier oil on current lanes though. 

[SirSmUgly]

16 hours ago, zendragon said:

Those fans where chanting exactly what you thought they where chanting

 

14 hours ago, Ramo2653 said:

And yes as zendragon said, the crowd was chanting that. One of Cage's nicknames is Mr. GMSI which is Get My Shit In because of course a jacked up guy who can fly a little bit has a meta nickname.

 

OK, so earlier in this thread, Matt mentioned anime being a major influence on modern workers, but I was listening to an 83 Weeks episode about the WCW video games of the 1990s, and Guy Evans mentioned that one worker basically told him that he patterned his matches around how WCW/nWo Revenge worked - hit a variety of moves to fill your spirit bar so that you could spam finishers. I didn't really think much about how years of playing wrestling games where that is the core strategy might alter a future worker's idea of "psychology." 

All this is to say that Cage probably played the shit out of the old AKI games or the Yuke's Smackdown! games, huh? Anyway, that chant (and the match) was a bummer to me, but I'm pretty much a dinosaur about pro wrestling at this point. 

 

Quote

None of the PBA pros that do wacky youtube stuff has gotten Belmonte to join one of those videos (and he's a guy who takes himself very seriously so I don't know if he ever would) but assuming he could throw 2 handed, with his speed and rev rate, he'd be fine throwing old equipment. I'd love to see old pros deal with the heavier oil on current lanes though. 

I think - and I could be wrong - that the downgrade in tech wouldn't allow Belmo to keep the same speed and rev rate. He'd be shooting rubber for at least a significant part of time that covers Earl's career. Add to that all the other downgrades in tech, from the lane materials themselves to the fact that they didn't have machines to oil the lanes and humans would apply inconsistent patterns, and I don't think he'd be able to simply overpower the lanes in 1974 or whatever. 

My argument for Earl is that accuracy travels across eras, regardless of the technology. Earl could carry the same low-hook light wall shot if he needed to in 2025 is my guess. I watched all the PBA tournaments up through 2000 on Youtube a couple years back starting in like 1975, and his accuracy and ability to repeat a shot was insane. I'm not sure I've ever seen someone repeat the same shot down to the board with the same speed and angle like he did. I think he'd do just fine on heavier oil patterns; he'd have reactive resin and urethane to help him deal with it. I know urethane is banned on tour now, but can you imagine Earl going up the second board with a Pitch Black? My God, he'd be nearly unstoppable. 

Not to knock Belmo too much. I still think he's the third best bowler ever behind Earl and Walter Ray. 

[SirSmUgly]

Season 3, Show 9: “Loser Leaves Lucha” or Rey Misterio Jr.’s Endwar

• Recap: Joey Ryan got his fellow cop Cortez Castro Reyes brutally injured when he outed Reyes to Dario Cueto; Rey Misterio Jr. is tired of Chavo Guerrero Jr.'s “same ol’ bullshit” and wants him the fuck outta this Temple so that he can focus on more cosmic concerns.

 

• Hey, Chavo Guerrero Sr. is in the front row to witness this Loser Leaves Lucha Match. I presume that Chavo Sr. is going to be on the “same ol’ bullshit” as his son and wonder, briefly, if this signals Rey Misterio Jr.’s impending exit from the Temple. Let’s hope not, but no matter who is done after tonight’s show, let’s also hope that we get one final banger from Rey and Chavo Jr. that is befitting of their legendary status.

 

• Dario Cueto cuts off Matt Striker’s rundown of the card because he’s sick of listening to this guy yap yap yap, and honestly, that’s how a lot of people legitimately feel about Striker’s commentary, so fair enough! Dario reminds us that Matanza Cueto, who stands in the ring awaiting a challenger listed on Dario’s Dial of Doom, will be entering Aztec Warfare III at the number one position in a couple of weeks. It’s interesting that Dario wants Cage or Texano to be the new host body for the combined gods; maybe this is why he stuck his brother at number one position? Is he sacrificing little bro to get him the heck out of the way for the winner of the best-of-five between Cage and Texano? I initially read his decision to place Matanza at number one as boastfulness when maybe what drove that decision is cunning.

 

• Anyway, Dario sells the Dial of Doom with goofy charm, proclaiming that since he and everyone else loves the dial, he wanted to get in one more spin before retiring it through Aztec Warfare. Of course, it lands on Dario’s Choice. Some fans volunteer. Dario scoffs at the very idea because that would make for terrible ratings. Maybe if you’d caught Dario four hundred miles north of here when he was powering up Matanza through squash match slaughters over civilians, you’d have had a chance of getting a match with him, guys.

 

• Now, Dario goes full on “Vinnie Mac on the last Nitro” and starts running names past the fans. Misterio is out because he’s already got a match tonight (though Chavo Jr.’s name was still on the wheel). Dario floats Penta, but then after the crowd cheers, Dario “suddenly” remembers that Penta has already lost to Matanza. He also “suddenly” makes a connection between Penta and the last guy whose arm Penta broke – Officer Cortez Castro Reyes. OK, so I’d guessed that Dario’s Choice would pop up and that Dario would use this opportunity to have Matanza maraud the guy, but I love that even before that happened, Dario maneuvered Reyes into an arm-breaking from Penta. Wow, this dude Dario is a master torture deviser. My headcanon is that he rigged this wheel, by the way, which would make him smarter in kayfabe than pretty much all the people running WCW back in 1992 were as a shoot. You idiots let it land on Coal Miner’s Glove? Sting versus Jake Roberts, and Coal Miner’s Glove was a legitimate option for a match? Fuck off, WCW.

 

• Oops, sorry, I got distracted. The point is that Dario is a total piece of shit under the guise of magnanimously rewarding a loyal employee: “ [There’s] this guy that I saw backstage who had his arm broken by Pentagón, and yet, he comes every week to work, doing rehab, just hoping that one day, he’s getting his shot. Well, buddy, that one day is today!” Should I fire up the Permadeath Count now, maybe? Yeah, maybe I’ll get it warmed up right now just in case.

 

• Castro has a kendo stick in his left arm and has a cast on his right arm. He walks down to the ring, angrily tosses the stick on the ground, and then exchanges glares with Dario. Commentary wonders what all that’s about. Fellas, it would take too long to explain. Castro gets in the ring and immediately gets his broken arm stomped into mud by Matanza. Vampiro declares that “Dario’s got no balls,” but having his brother destroy a cop on live television is pretty ballsy, I’d say! Matanza re-breaks Castro’s arm – and breaks the cast – by snapping it. He moves to bean Castro in the head with the broken half of the cast, but Castro dodges and hits Matanza with the cast a few times until Matanza cuts all that shit out with a running European uppercut – man, that move looks SICK – and then a Wrath of the Gods for an easy three count.

 

• Dario gets in the ring, hands Matanza the belt, and then addresses Castro: “I’m sorry, I didn’t know you weren’t ready. But please – please - get plenty of rest UNDER COVERS and come back as soon as you can…RAT.” Striker expresses confusion about what the heck that means. Well, I bet you can take a guess based on Dario stressing the words UNDER COVERS and RAT, my dude.

 

• Seedy backstage interstitial: In Dario’s office, Dario Cueto and Joey Ryan giggle together about Cortez Castro Reyes getting annihilated, but when Son of Havoc and Mascarita Sagrada knock on the door, Ryan promises to leave Dario to business for now; he asserts that they can resume laughing about Reyes later. Havoc advocates for Sagrada – “I’m here on behalf of him.” Dario, still giddy, pointing at Sagrada: “Did you just say half of him? That’s a little bit rude, isn’t it?” I can just hear both the character and the real-life Vinnie Mac HYUCK HYUCKing at that one, Dario. Anyway, Havoc demands that Sagrada get a shot at Famous B. one-on-one, but Dario initially blows off the idea, claiming that B. has “pretty much retired” from wrestling to become an agent. Havoc notes that B. wrestled a couple weeks back, though, and he presses the request. Dario reconsiders; he says that if Havoc can knock Dr. Wagner Jr. off tonight, not only will Sagrada get B. in the ring, but Havoc will get to set the match stipulations. Of course, you know Dario; there’s always a catch. This one is simple: If Wagner wins, Wagner picks the stips for Sagrada/B. The babyfaces agree. Dario, pointedly looking at Sagrada before bursting into more giggles: “You see? Dario Cueto never does anything HALF-ASSED!” Havoc and Sagrada understandably do not find this jest funny at all, but hark? Do you hear that? From somewhere in the distance? Shhh, listen quietly: HYUCK HYUCK, THAT’S GOOD SHIT, PAL! Anyway, Dario being total garbage tonight has been both immensely entertaining and infuriating, as it should be.

 

• Prince Puma is in the ring holding a house mic, and I fear that Vampiro has played the guy like a fiddle. Yep; Vampiro can barely hide the grin on his face while Puma basically repeats Vampiro's pitch to him last week almost word for word, claiming that beating Mil a couple weeks back wasn’t enough and that he wants to stuff Muertes in a casket in revenge for what Mil did to Konnan (Season One, Show Thirty-Six). Catrina walks to the top of the steps and accepts Puma’s challenge to a Grave Consequences Match; Mil jumps Puma from behind while wearing a funereal suit. They tangle; Puma fights out of a Flatliner, then fakes a suicide dive after knocking Mil to the floor. He even fires Mil’s discarded jacket at Mil while it walks away; he hits Mil square in the back with it, and the crowd goes OHHHH, and Mil, not expecting it, turns around like, I know this lil’ motherfucker didn’t just throw my jacket at me, and Puma’s instinct to do that was excellent. That was a neat little unplanned spot.

 

• I genuinely felt bad for Melissa Santos just now. She starts her introductions for the next match, spots Famous B. lurking near her, and her face immediately falls. She mutters, “Oh my G—just…*sigh*” before plastering a fake smile on her face while B. takes the mic from her and says, “Let me handle this.” Melissa Santos having to deal with consistent harassment at work from shithead heels is low-key one of the most arresting side stories that has run this whole series. I’m not a fan of her ring announcing, but damn, let the lady do the job she was hired for without having to deal with your bullshit! Anyway, B. tells all the audience members to stop calling his number because they suck and he doesn't want to represent them, unlike Dr. Wagner (w/Famous B. and Brenda). Santos gets the mic back to introduce Son of Havoc (w/Mascarita Sagrada) and to announce the stakes for this match.

 

• Havoc immediately clotheslines Wagner to the floor so that he can fire off two straight suicide dives. He high fives fans after the second one, then posts Wagner and slams his head into the commentary table. Wagner gets tossed around the ringside area; he reverses a whip to the raised railing, but Havoc leaps onto it, climbs up, and scores a moonsault. Havoc is rolling as he tosses Wagner back into the ring, but he goes on the run and runs himself right into a clothesline. Wagner scores a sitout powerbomb for two. Wagner then distracts the ref so that B. can get a few shots it; Sagrada runs over to stop it, but B. tosses him away.

 

• Wagner lands a second-rope Diamond Cutter, but that only gets two. Wagner scores a suplex out of a front chancery for two more. This match is squarely mediocre. I bet it would be better if Silver King were a part of it. Havoc eventually fights back with a series of kicks, then does entirely too many flips and tumbles just to hit a lariat. He scores two on a forearm. I’m not really a Havoc guy, and Wagner hasn’t done anything to make me care about his in-ring work in the limited action that he’s had in LU. Havoc scores another close two count, but he goes up and gets caught by his beard; Wagner climbs up there with Havoc, but is kicked to the mat and hit with a Havoc SSP for three.

 

• After the match, Havoc and Mascarita Sagrada consider their options. Sagrada whispers into Havoc’s ear that he wants a Believers’ Backlash Match – this is a perfect situation in which to bust this match type out again – and then further whispers to Havoc that Sagrada doesn’t want belts to be the only weapon. No, he wants an ECW-style Believers’ Backlash Match in which everyone goes to the Dollar Tree in the neighborhood and cleans it out before the match, bringing whatever appliances they want for Sagrada and B. to use on one another. I really dug the Hernandez/Drago Believers’ Backlash Match on Ultima Lucha Uno and look forward to a reprise between Sagrada and B.

 

• Psychedelic Cult of the White Rabbit teaser: Paul London says that he followed “the White Rabbit down the hole,” and said rabbit told him to go to the Temple and compete if he wanted to find his destiny. London reveals a couple of rabbit cultists behind him at the end of the teaser. OK, so we have Aztec tribes based on rabbits (London), snakes/reptiles (Drago and Kobra Moon), jungle cats (Prince Puma), birds (Fenix), winged insects (Marty and Mariposa Martinez) and the cosmos (Aerostar, Sexy Star). Is that right? There are seven Aztec tribes, so what is the seventh one? I read somewhere that all the masked wrestlers from the first season were meant to be representative of one of the tribes. What tribes are Penta, King Cuerno, and Mil Muertes from? What about Argenis? Was Super Fly from Marty and Mariposa's tribe? I wonder if we’ll find any of that out.  And the El Dragon Aztecas – are they from the same tribe as Drago and Kobra? And if they are all from the same tribe, but good-guy Drago left that tribe, why didn’t good-guy Azteca Sr., as far as I can tell? And will the opening interstitials from the first two shows with Puma talking to Azteca Sr. ever be folded into this show now that Azteca Sr. has died? I have so many questions!

 

• Matt Striker confirms that Prince Puma will meet Mil Muertes in Grave Consequences next week before cutting to Melissa Santos, whose announcement that the main event is a Loser Leaves Lucha Match legitimately shocks the crowd. Chavo Guerrero Jr. daps up his pops before getting in the ring. Vampiro might dislike Chavo, but he’s upset that the last of the Guerreros might be about to leave the business. I mean, if you ignore Eddie’s kid wrestling. And the kid he kayfabe let Rey Misterio Jr. adopt. Speaking of, here’s Rey Misterio Jr.!

 

• I recently re-watched the Rey Misterio Jr./Chavo Guerrero Jr. SuperBrawl Revenge match again just to refresh myself. I adore that match, and I wanted to see these dudes in their twenties wrestle before watching them do it in their forties. Obviously, Rey isn’t running around at the same pace, but Chavo trying to overpower Rey as Rey tries to fight up is basically always good. Chavo attempts to leverage his weight advantage to get an immediate pin, but Rey manages to escape and manages a sunset flip for two.

 

• Chavo wants to slow things down, but Rey gets on his bike, arm drags Chavo to the apron, and then dropkicks him to the floor. Rey comes off the top with a rana and flips Chavo Jr. right into Chavo Sr. sitting at ringside. They spill to the floor, but Sr. gets up and doesn’t retaliate. Yet. Instead, Rey rolls Chavo back into the ring and lands a moonsault for two. Rey fires fists and then an elbow into Chavo’s noggin, slumping Chavo in the corner. Rey lands a baseball slide to the sack as I think that maybe Rey wants to get Chavo out of wrestling, but also he wants to punish him for the years of fuckery that Chavo perpetrated upon him.

 

• Rey next runs at Chavo and attempts a rana, but Chavo goes with Rey’s momentum and counters with an Alley Oop. Chavo follows up with a series of strikes, a couple of hard whips to the corner, and a lariat for two. Chavo wants to stop Rey from running again, so he attacks Rey’s leg, drops an elbow on it, and puts on a legbar. Alas, Rey gets to standing and backdrops a charging Chavo to the floor, then follows with a slingshot plancha.

 

• Rey sells the knee as he rolls Chavo back inside, then gamely springboards up and right into a Chavo counter-dropkick. Chavo goes right back to the leg, kicking Rey’s wheel out from under him and then wrapping it around the ringpost. He looks to finish Rey by sitting him up top and landing a super back suplex, but Rey hooks the rope, then elbows his way out while . They struggle up there as Chavo attempts to hang on; Vamp and Striker do a great job of talking about how Rey is so innovative and experienced on the top rope that he knows a ton of escapes and counters even when stranded up top.

 

• True to the words of the commentators, Rey manages to finally pry Chavo’s grasp from the ropes and knock him to the mat, but Chavo comes right back before Rey can reposition himself and grabs Rey in electric chair position. Still, Rey’s experience helps him turn that into another sunset flip that slams both men to the mat. They struggle to their feet and trade forearms; Rey wins out and shoots Chavo in, then scores a springboard crossbody for two. A follow-up seated springboard senton also gets two. Rey tries running again, but gets caught while tilt-a-whirling and hit with a backbreaker. Chavo shimmies like his Uncle Eddie, then initiates the Three Amigos. He lands two of the rolling verticals, but Rey hops out of the back on the third and headscissors Chavo into 6-1-9 position.

 

• And here is where Chavo Sr. gets involved. He gets up, grabs a folding chair, and slides it into the ring, then gets in after it and picks it up. OK, this is a bullshit finish that sours me on the whole match, even if it ends up being a false finish. Chavo Sr. fakes a swing at Rey, then hits Chavo Jr. and celebrates when ref Marty Elias, who never calls for DQs on this type of interference unless there is an obvious storyline reason for it, calls for a DQ. This is dumb. For the love of everything holy, please don’t actually have this be the finish. Thank goodness, Dario is out here to put an end to this madness. He screams at Marty Elias for being a fucking idiot and gets a well-deserved babyface pop. Then he says there are no disqualifications in the rest of this match even though he feels that should have been completely obvious from the jump. On one hand, they teased a random DQ finish just to critique the random DQ finishes this show inserts to move storylines along, but on the other hand, this spot killed the match.

 

• Rey rids the ring of Chavo Sr., but when he leaps at Chavo Jr., Jr. rolls through into a Canadian Maple Leaf in the center of the ring. Rey crawls to the ropes and actually grabs the bottom rope, but Chavo yanks him right back even though, uh, that should be a rope break. Anyway, at this point, I’d rather be watching the SuperBrawl Revenge match. LU done went and TNA-ified this ostensibly final matchup between two guys with a long and storied rivalry. Chavo Jr. hits two rolling verticals and a Gory Bomb, but again only for two.

 

• Anyway, Rey comes back and hits a 6-1-9 and a toppling springboard splash for three. Chavo Jr. is kicked out of Lucha Underground.

 

• My disappointment is immeasurable, and my viewing of this show is somewhat ruined. 3 LU-CHA chants out of 5.

[SirSmUgly]

Season 3, Show 10: “Ready for War” or Puma?! PUMA?!?! PUUUUUUUUUUMMMMMMMAAAAAAAAAA!!!

• Recap: Famous B. superkicking Mascarita Sagrada as a way of dropping his representation probably turned out to be a mistake considering that Son of Havoc helped Sagrada receive a Believers’ Backlash Match against B. for some long-deserved revenge. Meanwhile, Vampiro isn’t in a position to manipulate Pentagón Dark anymore, so he’s moved on to manipulating Prince Puma…right into a Grave Consequences Match with Mil Muertes, in fact.

 

• Seedy backstage interstitial: Catrina exhorts Mil Muertes to bury Prince Puma just as he buried Konnan and gives Mil some extra motivation by telling Mil that if he loses a third Grave Consequences Match in three attempts, she won’t be resurrecting him this time around. I feel that Puma might be fucked. Doubly so because I bet Vampiro is hoping Puma loses so that he’s more easily manipulable and indebted to Vampiro using the dark arts to bring him back from the brink of death.

 

• I get a real kick out of casket matches in LU actually killing the losers.

 

• I’ve wanted to see Aztec Warfare III so badly that I might just roll through this show and then watch Aztec Warfare on top of it all today. This is the last of my summer. I’m going HAM before it ends.

 

• Famous B. (w/Brenda) wears a loud red suit that I hope protects him from the various blows that Mascarita Sagrada and maybe also the fans will rain down upon his treacherous skeevy sports agent ass. Sagrada starts by tossing coffee on B. Then, he grabs a helmet and pads, puts it on, and charges headfirst into B.’s balls. B. does a whole-ass Shawn Michaels-style flip bump off the impact. Sagrada gets a mini-ladder, puts it on the announce table, climbs it, and lands a Savage Elbow from the top. This is delightful, and this series of spots reaffirmed my decision to be a professional wrestling fan.

 

• Brenda has to walk over and distract Sagrada so that B. can manage to get to his feet and land a superkick. B. informs the crowd that they in fact suck before grabbing a bag full of popcorn and eventually falling into it when Sagrada dropkicks him in the knee. He manages to toss Sagrada down the ramp when Sagrada charges him, though, and then he dumps Sagrada into a trash can and stuffs him in there with the metal lid. THE GARBAGE HAS BEEN TAKEN OUT, B. declares, before grabbing a couple of mallets, and Striker appropriately mentions Johnny “Scotty ‘Raven’ Flamingo” Polo. He plays some music on the can, but Sagrada bursts out and beats B. with the lid while Striker unfortunately mentions Duke “the Dumpster” Droese. God, 1995 WWF was fucking stupid.

 

• B. still manages to get back up and toss Sagrada into the barriers at ringside; Brenda tries to help by handing B. her wizard wand. B.: WHAT’S THIS GONNA DO, STUPID?! Sorry Brenda, but he has a fair point. Well, unless the wand actually works and Brenda's transformation wasn’t just a special effect for the sake of B.’s commercial. Anyway, continuing to speak of WWF guys from the ‘90s, B. finds a spritzer of Arrogance. That stuff’s been discontinued for years! Did someone find it in an abandoned factory in Boyle Heights? I’m pretty sure it’s toxic. Someone should check on B. after Sagrada managed to get hold of it and spray it in B.’s face. Sagrada finds a wizard hat, waves the magic wand over a bag while wearing it, and then produces a bowling ball from the bag. See? The wand was actually pretty helpful, B.

 

• Sagrada grips the ball, prepares a shot, and like a prime Pete Weber with the match on the line, he barely shaves the head pin and leaves a 2-4-10, then audibly curses. No, sorry, that’s not what happened. He struck, that's what happened. Specifically, he struck B. in the testicles with the ball. A sound effect of pins crashing plays when it happens because why the hell not? Sagrada tries to follow with a top-rope splash, but Dr. Wagner runs to the ring and shoves him to the mat. Wagner grabs a framed snapshot of a Famous B. ad and prepares to crack it over Sagrada’s head, but B. stops him: “WAIT WAIT WAIT WAIT WAIT WAIT WAIT…**looks lovingly at his own image**...That’s me.” The crowd chuckles as B. goes full on Narcissus - or alternatively, full-on "Narcissist" Lex Luger - and gazes at his own visage.

 

• That picture ends up cracked over B.’s head after Sagrada gains possession of it, B.'s noggin in real life busting comically through its position in the image; meanwhile, Son of Havoc runs to the ring and brawls with Wagner, leading him away from the ring. Sagrada chokes B. by his tie; Brenda grabs some giant novelty scissors from Melissa Santos and cuts B.’s tie, freeing him, but Sagrada hits a suicide dive and then grabs a cream pie from a member of the audience, and then I'm sure that you can guess what happens next. I’m not gonna tell Striker to shut the fuck up because he calls the next spot with just enough of a hint of plausible deniability, but when he yells CREAM PIE! FOR THE BEAUTIFUL BRENDA! ALL OVER HER FACE! I grit my teeth as I attempt not to cut-and-paste in a certain recurring segment in which I admonish Matt Striker for his choices and you know what, Yo, shut the fuck up, Matt Striker: Sagrada requests one of Striker’s shoes to use as a weapon, and Striker goes too fuckin’ far and hands it over while exclaiming YOU KNOW WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT GUYS WITH BIG FEET, DON’TCHA?! Also, Striker hands over a clown shoe, which is definitely accurate.

 

• Sagrada beans B. with the shoe, then hits a diving DDT from the top rope for three. That was a solid little comedy version of this match type, and I was pretty invested in Sagrada finally getting some revenge on B. Sagrada even gets to toss B. from the ring just as B. did to him after the initial superkick that started this whole affair. Havoc comes back to the ring to celebrate with Sagrada by using the giant scissors to cut the head off of a Famous B. standee while a pained B. pleads NOT MY FACE from his spot at ringside. Havoc then hands a matching biker jacket to Sagrada. Aw, I like their friendship. I’m sure Dario will be pitting them against one another in a few weeks.

 

• Seedy backstage interstitial: Killshot faces off with AR Fox in the locker room and exchanges wooden dialogue with him in which Killshot tries to make amends with Fox and Fox is like, Fine, then, and we’re actually gonna tag together tonight, but I don’t think he’s being honest about being fine with anything, and neither does Killshot based on the side-eye he gives Fox as they embrace.

 

• More seedy backstage interstitial stuff: Elsewhere backstage, Drago practices a nunchaku routine in the mirror when Kobra Moon walks up to him normally, like on two legs and everything. Strange. She asks Drago if all this practice is preparation for a war, then spars with Drago while trying to convince him to rejoin their tribe. Drago refuses and claims to have been a slave to Kobra’s tribe rather than a tribe member herself. And then, um, what? Kobra says this: “You don’t want [to] suffer the same fate as Daga, do you? Torn apart by Lord Pindar?” So, Daga died off-screen; feels a little “Poochy died on the way back to his home planet” for me. Of course, he doesn’t get added to the Permadeath Count until I see it happen in front of me.

 

• Drago expresses shock that this Lord Pindar is still alive; Kobra reiterates that Pindar is in fact alive and will force Drago to kneel before her and recognize her as his queen. The schlubby farting dude from a couple episodes ago walks in holding a chicken leg, realizes that he’s made another wrong turn, and decides to use the ladies’ room, which probably isn’t seeing much use considering the makeup of this crowd. Then he farts again. I hope this guy is Lord Pindar in disguise. But seriously, did they hire some juvenile writer from the Dub just recently or what?

 

• OK, our second match is a multiperson tag match full of folks who hate one another. It’s five-a-side, with the winning team gaining entrance into next week’s Aztec Warfare bout. The first team: Willie Mack, Marty “the Moth” Martinez, Mariposa Martinez, Ivelisse Velez, and Jeremiah Crane. Hey, Jeremiah now has a last name! The second team: Killshot, Argenis, Dante “AR” Fox, Texano, and Brian Cage. I’ll call Fox by his given name going forward, though I don’t always do that – see WILLIE Mack or BRIAN Cage. What can I say? I’m capricious. Not as capricious as Dario Cueto, though, good gravy.

 

• So, we’ve got a five-on-five in which Crane and Fox start out trading moves and trying to have a match straight out of WWE All-Stars for the Microsoft Xbox 360 and Sony PlayStation 3. I’ve checked out already. I’ll tell you if there are things that I feel are worth noticing. In terms of relationships, Cage thinks that having a two match to one lead over Texano in their best-of-five series means that he can boss Texano around. The men obviously disagree about their relative places in the pecking order. Texano tosses Mariposa onto Cage; Cage pulls Texano to the floor to have a spirited conversation regarding Texano's aim that is broken up by Mack diving onto them.

 

• Jeremiah and Ivelisse do some solid team-up stuff before everyone dives onto everyone else, damn near. I say “damn near” because Fox and Killshot stand in the center of the ring and exchange views upon a litany of subjects. The Martinez sibs try to interject with their own shared position upon the matter, but Fox and Killshot have no time for the outdated and out-of-touch views of the moneyed elite and eject the siblings from the premises. Killshot starts a dive, but Fox stops him because he’s got a new move that he’s wanted to try incorporating into his floor exercise routine for a minute now. Fox successfully completes said move.

 

• This match isn’t good, but it's short, and that's something! Ivelisse manages a close two count on a rana to Killshot and lands in a way that initially looks like a botch, but that turns out to be a well-executed spot that allows her to sell reinjuring her shin. She laments NOT AGAIN while clutching her lower leg outside the ring after Killshot kicks out. Marty then prepares to finish Killshot off, but Fox stops him so that he can help Marty out with his preparations. Fox spits on Killshot after dumping him on his head and leaves; Marty accepts the gift and takes the easy pinfall. That means that Mack is in Aztec Warfare, so I’m happy with the result.

 

• Seedy backstage interstitial: Dario Cueto stands in front of lil' bro Matanza's cell and hypes Matanza in preparation for next week’s Aztec Warfare Match. He exhorts Matanza to do the Cueto family name proud; Matanza vocalizes that he understands what he has been trained to do with one word: WAR.

 

• Alright, Mil Muertes (w/Catrina) meets Prince Puma in Grave Consequences. Puma flies in and kicks Mil as soon as he reaches the top of the stairs before diving onto him and beating him from the bleachers onto the floor. So that started out hot! Mil manages a belly to belly on the floor, then smashes Puma into the railing and clears the crowd so that he can toss Puma into the emptied chairs. Puma even gets tossed through the door of the little storage room. Striker calls Mil a “No Limit Soldier,” but I don’t see Rey Misterio Jr., Brad Armstrong, or Swoll out here. I don’t even spy 4x4.

 

• Striker tries to sell that the roses in the funerary flowers have thorns in them when Puma swings them at Mil. Striker is having the worst night on commentary that he’s had in a long time. I could have gone on and on about how awful he's been since the last time I mentioned him in this review, but I’ve tried to show some restraint. Mil kills that Puma comeback by powerbombing Puma onto a coffin, then leans a table in the corner of the ring. The crowd is 55/45 for Puma in their dueling chant, maybe 60/40, while Mil retrieves a chair and smacks Puma with it. Muertes wedges a chair in the opposite corner from the table, and they work a series of whips and charges that ends with Mil taking a header into the chair, but immediately shaking it off and rebound spearing Puma through the table. The dueling chant starts up again, a bit closer to 50/50 this time.

 

• This is a decent match, but as I watch Mil unhook the metal turnbuckle tie, I think to myself that maybe one of the downsides of having a casket match every season is that it’s a match type that needs fewer iterations to stay feeling fresh. They’re (understandably) recycling a lot of similar spots from the last two of these matches. Of course, I am watching them over a compressed period, so it’s well possible that if I watched these on original air, I wouldn’t feel this way.

 

• But I don’t want to shortchange this match, which includes Puma laying Mil on top of the casket and dropping a 630 Senton Bomb onto him, which is a great spot. Puma opens the lid and tries to roll Mil into the coffin; Striker notes that Puma was inefficient in positioning Mil to stuff him in, suggesting that he was on “the wrong side” due to inexperience in this type of match. Vampiro, who has been growing steadily more invested in the proceedings over on commentary, has the following response: “Matt, you don’t understand. When you’re on the dark side, you’re never on the wrong side.”

 

• Mil resists; Puma responds by slamming the lid into his back repeatedly. He even gets a chair and uses it to knock the lid into Mil’s upper back; Vampiro approves wholeheartedly. Puma grabs a table and sets it up outside the ring while Vamp praises Puma for prioritizing hurting Mil over taking the victory: “I’m liking this. Prince Puma is wanting to hurt somebody…He’s always tried to go for the win; it’s always been a championship situation. This is taking somebody’s soul, my friend.” Suffice it to say that Vampiro is doing a wonderful job on commentary.

 

• And in fact, Puma takes so long to set up the table that when he makes it back to the ring (and taunts before even trying a move), Mil has recovered enough to chokeslam Puma onto the closed casket’s lid. Mil maneuvers Puma into the casket and tries to press the lid down; Puma manages to use his legs to hold the lid up and kicks his way out of immediate danger. Mil shoots Puma in and, after a short exchange, hooks Puma for a Flatliner. Mil drops backward, but Puma uses his hands to catch himself and pop back up, then lands a superkick on a confused Mil.

 

• While I got on this match for some of the same-y feeling stuff, I didn’t blame the workers, who are out here beating the dogshit out of one another to about the same level as the original Muertes/Fenix Grave Consequences. They end up back outside the ring, where Puma wallops Mil in the head with a steel chair, then smashes the chair against the rail and deftly misses Mil’s head while making it look like he clobbered him. The production truck got the right shot for that spot, too. And in truth, this match is very good, which is no shock at all. Once the 630 Senton Bomb spot happened, the match found its own special identity.

 

• Puma goes up top, but Mil revives like he’s the Undertaker and meets Puma with fists; they trade strikes as the table that Puma set up looms large as a target beneath them. Mil wins out, goozles Puma while Puma is still on the top rope, and chokeslams him all the way from the top to through the table and onto the floor. Mil grabs a second coffin, the one that Konnan was buried within, in fact, and hoists it into the ring. Wait, no, he puts it on the little rollaway that the Spirits of the Dead use to bring the coffin to whatever dead space (heh!) that they bring it to after someone loses this match.

 

• Puma is still completely out; Mil receives no resistance as he hooks Puma, drills him with a Flatliner right there on the floor, and then fireman’s carries Puma over to the coffin, where he dumps him, crosses his arms, and closes the lid. Mil makes out with Catrina while the crowd decides that no, they mostly don’t appreciate what Mil did. Vampiro looks somewhat pleased, though. He’s breathing a little heavily over at his seat, actually. Calm down, Vampnetico! This ended up being a really good match, by the way. I suppose that means that Mil will be in Aztec Warfare and Puma will be in a graveyard somewhere. The Spirits of the Dead roll Puma away as Striker laments Puma’s fate.

 

• Most of this show wasn’t good except for the weird Snake Tribe stuff and the stellar main event, but I am fully ready for Aztec Warfare. Bring it on! 3.25 LU-CHA chants out of 5.