LUCHA….LUCHA….LUCHA….LUCHA….LUCHA….LUCHA….LUCHA…
Lets face the facts, it’s the best wrestling show on Television and if your not caught up by now, take the time and read some of my past reviews. Navigate to the bottom of the screen and you will have the choice of going back and catching up. Now as always the show starts off with a video package going over past events, this week’s package shows the history between Fenix and Mil Muertes. They also give us a reminder of what happened with Mundo and Alberto. I gather this is going to be a packed show as we inch closer to the dreaded season Finale, lets get into the action……
First we see Black lotus, by the looks of it she must have walked the entire week to get to her destination. She then comes to a building and attempts to enter as Chavo comes out to greet her. He confronts her by saying Lotus’s teacher wants her protected, and that he has just as much history with the Cuetos as she does. He tells her to be patient and end this in the ring, and that he will also have her back going forward.
Opening with the band in the temple, we navigate over to Vampiro and Matt Striker, they hype that tonight is the battle between Hernandez and Puma for the Lucha Underground Title. This has been brewing for the last few weeks, and personally I foresee an extension in the feud. After the introductions we head to the ring for the arrival of Aerostar followed by the newly turned Johnny Mundo.
Match 1 = Johnny Mundo VS Aerostar
Mundo starts heeling it up right from the get go, locking up and tossing Aerostar to get heat. He then begins to taunt and kick around tempting Aerostar before he continues his assault by working stiff and stomping the crap out of him. After a bit of punishment Aerostar begins to come back with a nice leg drag counter, he then caps off his flurry by doing a spring board splash onto Mundo. It doesn’t take long for Aerostar to return to his high flying tactics, allowing him to survive another stiff assault from mundo, then transitioning well into a dive to the outside of the ring to the floor. Mundo takes the dive well and they both sell for a while outside the ring as the crowd chants. Once they return to the ring Mundo is working well here, switching up his move set, even Striker refers to Mundo’s new moves as a “mma style ground and pound assault.” Mundo continues grounding Aerostar by using rest holds and stiff strikes, and it is clear he will not let Star get any momentum to fly around going forward, yet Star’s heart begins to show as he counters Mundo to turn the crowd in his favor. Again Mundo cuts him off and he actually sets up for his End of the World finish, but Aerostar ends up countering which pisses off Mundo. Mundo shows his anger by viciously striking star into the corner, then he caps off his sequence by hitting Star with a nasty Northern lights suplex. This sets up Aerostar perfectly allowing Mundo to hit the end of the world for the 1…2…3.
Winner = Johnny Mundo Via Pinfall.
This was a good match, it is clear that Mundo is taking his heel run seriously and as I watched him pound the crap out of Aerostar, I’m a little more behind his turn. I knew going into this he would have to change his move set a bit, we know he will always have the high flying aspect for his work style, but trying to get heat and get over as a heel, he needed less of the glamorous offense and more of a ruthless attitude. Since he has studied MMA for real, I think this will do well for his character and he will be able to show a aggressive Mundo for the duration of his heel run. Kudos to Mundo for switching up that move set.
Next we come to an interview with Sexy Star and Vampiro, they begin talking about the one Pentagon Jr. They go over how Star saved Super Fly and that she may have a target on her back. Star says Jr. is nothing but a bully and that she is not afraid of him, she also comments on how she hasn’t talked to Fly since he lost his mask. She continued to talk about how she felt when she pinned Lucha Underground’s most dangerous man, and continued with talking about how she loves to inspire the women around the world, inspiring them to stand up for themselves. Once she finishes Vampiro breaks the news that Dario Cueto has approved a rematch between Star and Jr, and being the strong women she is, she welcomes the challenge.
Wow next we have the match for the Lucha Underground title, crazy it’s not main eventing, that must mean we are in for a real treat in our main event with Fenix and Muetes. Commentary does point out tonights show is a dual main event as we move forward, with both Puma and Hernandez making their respective entrances.
Match 2 = Hernandez VS Prince Puma.
As you can imagine, power VS speed to start this off, Hernandez gets the fist big move by pancaking Puma into the matt. After taking his bump puma comes back hitting a nice basement dropkick then capitalizes and sends Hernandez out of the ring. Once noticing he got the best of Hernandez he does some crazy flips and actually steels Hernandez’s strut to show off. He is definitely in the big mans head as Konann tells him to finish him off, he counters Hernandez’s attempt at a shoulder block and face plants him into the ring DDT style. Continuing to get off some nice moves, Puma caps off the spot with a spring board splash, crashing down on the big man below. It doesn’t take long for Hernandez to return on the offensive as he uses the ropes and raw power to break the champ down, he continues to send him into the corners and works as though he is possessed by Kevin Nash, Striking the champ with dominating knees. Continuing his offense Hernandez hits a nice over head throw, then transitions into a nice submission, it’s a modified torture rack and after holding it a moment, he drops down into a back breaker. Even after the nice move Puma kicks out and begins his come back, but using all his Power Hernandez hits a Batista bomb ending Puma’s attempt. Very frustrated at the heart of the champion who kicks out at 2, Hernandez hits a major shoulder tackle that sends Puma flying out of the ring. Now this is when things get a bit crazy, Konann stands on the apron as Puma is on the outside of the ring recovering. Hernandez sets up for his superman dive, as Puma grabs a chair from under the ring. As Super Mex dives he is struck by a chair, the referee is seemingly dealing with Konann, is Puma turning heel? I don’t know, if they are going with the storyline of Konann poorly influencing the pure face champion, this could be the beginning stages. Continuing their fight outside the ring, Konann barks orders as the 2 wrestlers go back and forth, Hernandez then hits a nice boarder toss onto the edge of the ring apron. It looks as though he wants to do more damage so Hernandez attempts a second boarder toss again yet Puma counters, he then gets flung into the barricade in an attempt to recounter Puma, yet Puma jumps onto the barricade and does moonsault taking out Supermex. After a bit of selling both Lucha’s re enter the ring, the story now is both are trying to win by executing power moves. Hernandez kicks out of special moves by Puma and vise versa, both are desperate for the victory as Hernandez tries to pull off a top rope dive. Puma sees his chance and begins kicking Hernandez desperate for victory, the crowd is fully behind him as they clap along willing the champ to continue. It’s not until he goes for his finish and Hernandez tries to counter that Puma gets the upper hand. Perched on the top rope he kicks the crap out of Hernandez twice blocking his attempt to counter him, the second kick is so bad it causes Super Mex to fall into position allowing Puma to finally gets off his 630 swanton, hitting him with the finish for the 1…2…3!
Winner = Prince Puma And still Lucha Underground Champion
This was a good match, the only thing I would say is the pacing was a bit off, if they worked the same match just in a slightly different order, it would have been better in my opinion. The chair sequence really confuses me, I think they wanted to do that spot to weaken Hernandez, yet they took so long for the finish to come, it still shows Puma won the match clean. It would make more sense, or at least have been more obvious if they did that spot going into the finish. I know they wanted to keep Puma and Hernandez strong, but my question is why do the chair shot if Puma was going to beat him clean anyway? It does lead to Hernandez having just cause to claim he was not beaten fairly, even though he seemed to recover fine from the chair shot during the match. I’m guessing time will tell going forward and I’m sure they will revisit this in the future.
We transition right into the next main event as Melissa Santos introduces our next competitors. After Fenix’s entrance Mil Muertes makes his return, this time he has minions and souls of his own accompanying him, we also get a shot and how SEXY Catrina is, my lord have I miss her so. Before Muertes can get fully set and ready Fenix dives out of the ring on top of him, yet Muertes counters with a forearm to begin this match.
Match 3 = The Man Of 1000 Lives, Fenix VS Mil Muertes
Muertes starts off pounding on Fenix, nothing super fancy just the brawling style he’s known for. Commentary talks about how Fenix must have been played from the get go, and how Catrina has re aligned with the dark side. Using a slow mythical pace Muertes continues denying any offense from the high flyer, finally he gets off a few strikes but then gets taken down by a spinning choke slam. As Catrina and Mil’s new minions stand in a trance, Fenix counters and runs along the ropes hitting a nice kick on the heel, then doing a nice spring board somersault to finally take Mil off his feet. Striker has a random reference by comparing both wrestler’s power levels to a video game, he states even though Fenix got off a little offense Mil’s power bar is still in the green ( this made me awkwardly laugh). Now weapons and the environment come into play during the match, Mil starts attacking Fenix with a chair and then starts ramming his head into the rusty barricade. After a counter Fenix climbs the same barricade and hits a nice double foot stomp on the downed Muertes. The crowd chants this is awesome as Fenix rolls Mil into the ring. Kicking out Violently Mil does the Undertaker sit up and returns to his beating of his victim, tossing him out of the ring. Mil even switches it up by doing a dive from the top rope himself wearing Fenix down further. Mil then turns up by slamming Fenix on the announce desk and striking him with a chair. Once taking him out with the weapon, he carries Fenix up the stairs to the roof area that was made famous by Angelico, after receiving the visual nod from Cartrina and her disciples, he power bombs Fenix through the roof and onto the un charted territory below. Striker SOLD THIS PERFECTLY, he even utter a OH shit the same time I did, as the entire crowd begins to go bananas. The ref runs down and is desperately trying to get into the door blocking access to Fenix, but the door is locked, just as the action gets good we cut to a commercial….
Once we return the minions finally bust through the door grabbing the crippled Fenix and bring him to the ring. As if they were presenting a sacrifice they present Fenix’s limp body to Mil, who drops him with a heavy flat liner. Needless to say Mil gets the pin for the 1…2…3.
Winner = Mil Muertes
As Mil and his faction of Minions stand tall, Catrina does the lick of Death on Fenix as we cut away from the temple.
As we go off the air we see the Crew standing with Dario Cueto, it seems it is time for judgement day and they will need to answer for their sins. Finally Cueto says someone has to pay for this, and tells the Crew to choose. As we stand their waiting the 2 outside members turn on the middle member, it looks as though Cortez Castro and Mr. Sisco turned on Beal. They then feed Beal to Cueto’s brother as blood sprays in their faces. Once the sacrifice is done Cueto asks if the remaining members understand, they respond with “yes sir’ as we go off the air.
Another amazing show as Lucha continues to re define how wrestling is presented on television, I hope you enjoyed and let me know what you thought of this weeks show.
Now here are my thoughts on the news of ROH signing to destination America and how it pertains to Lucha Underground. Personally I see this as a genius move by DA to acquire 2 different promotions on one network. If the rumor that Dixy sent a email riddled with criticism to the President of the network by accident is true, this was the perfect retaliation. If the network is trying to promote its own little Wednesday night wars and possibly try a hand at cross promotion, I also see this as a positive move. Time will only tell what the true motivation behind this move was, and we will just see what happens in September when TNA is rumored to be cancelled. Now with that being said, I really don’t think this will effect Lucha at all, this company has no competition. In my opinion this is the only company that can say it is in a league of its own, when it comes to presenting WRESTLING and TV show together. Yes WWE is still the top brand, but as Vince states himself it’s not wrestling, it’s “Sport Entertainment”, and lets face it, WWE isn’t even a wrestling show anymore, its a show about wrestling filled with adds and faulty narratives. Keep that in mind when you stare into Roman Reign’s fake sky blue eyes. Now if WWE is the show about wrestling then TNA is wrestlings equivalent to Seinfeld, the show about nothing… I think this is going to be Impact’s final days, and I’m thankful there are other companies the TNA roster can go to for future work. I just don’t see this effecting Lucha at all because there is enough difference to keep them set apart. The only thing that may set back Lucha a bit is the season based show style. However I think that will just add more anticipation to the shows return, nobody is doing the cut scenes and video package production like Lucha, and if we need to wait and have an off season, its worth it in the long run.
Well let me know what you guys think about the show, also will ROH be taking over for TNA? So many questions, lets chat about it….
– Grainbelt Jones
