Hello, hello
Lucha Underground is back on the top of the heap for best wrestling show on TV this week. They clapped back as I knew they would, giving us a nice show! We got some new match announcements for Ultimo Lucha, as well as seeing some other plans that are brewing for the big event in August! As always if you need to catch up please feel free to take a peak at the past reviews!
Let’s get into the action this week!
Starting off the show we get a promo from Lucha Underground’s most dangerous man Pentagon Jr. He seems to be speaking with his master and informing him he will have a sacrifice at Ultimo Lucha. We also get to catch a glimpse of who his master is, but don’t get a chance to get a clear look, at least we know now that his master is an actual person.
Next we cut to the ring and see The Mack entering the ring, it doesn’t take long before he is followed by, They Call Him Cage. I knew this was something that was going to happen and I am excited to see The Mack get a solo match to showcase some skills! I called this to be something weeks ago (it wasn’t hard to see) but as I stated in past reviews this is a testament to how well they can keep guys separated from singles competition until they are ready to pull the trigger on a feud.
Match 1 = The Mack VS They Call Him Cage
I loved how these guys started this match with fire. They sold well how bad each character wants to get their hands on the other, and doing so by waisting no time and pounding each other to start this match off! I was really impressed (as I knew I would be) with how well The Mack really held his ground here. Even though Cage is the more dominant size wise The Mack got in some nice power spots of his own, my favorite came when he hit an exploder on Cage and threw him into the corner turnbuckles. I also like the phycology of a back and forth contest, and I think they pulled it off pretty well, each wrestler got to hit some nice spots and it shows that both these guys are really selling this rivalry. Cage hits a nice stalling vertical suplex and by now the crowd is really into this thing, we get chants of this is awesome due to the excitement of the crowd following big stiff shots and the vibe is excelling nicely. The way they sprinkled in the hard spots really gave us a tease b the time they went into the finish, we were set up with all the hard hits but The Mack pulled off the quick victory by executing a lucky roll up on Cage, getting fall for the 1..2..3.
Winner = The Mack
The finish was awesome, not for it being a roll up of course that was lame, but because they worked the match hype giving us excitement, then timing the F***K finish perfectly. Of course all of us fans are wanting more and to see this finally end, I for one see they will re visit this for Ultimo Lucha!
Now we migrate back stage and get a cool little promo with the trios champions, well it starts out with a confrontation with Catrina and Son of Havok. Catrina does her thing where she taps a man on the shoulder then appears when they least expect it, she warns him her minions are coming for the trios titles, but tonight Muertes is coming for his soul. At this point Ivelisse comes into frame and starts acting like the baddest B***H, she goes for Catrina to protect her teammate but Catrina disappears causing Ivelisse to fall on top of Havok. After laying together for a second they have a moment as if they are gonna kiss but it is interrupted by Angelico, who patronizes them for possibly getting back together, they both respond with “shut up” as the promo ends.
Next we get an addition of the ever compelling Vampiro interviews. This time he sits with a less than pleased Pentagon Jr. The interview starts off with Vampiro apologizing for getting in his business but quickly migrates to Jr attempting on punking Vampiro. Vamp insists he’s not about that warrior life anymore, but at the same time he is no coward, finally Jr really gets in his face and exits letting us see a piece of the deranged Vampiro returning, Jr also refused to answer who his master is which added fuel to this fire.
Darkness falls upon the temple as we see Catrina and Mil Muertes enter the ring, once they make their intimidating entrance, Son Of Havok appears and garners much love from the crowd!
Match 2 = Mil Muertes VS Son Of Havok
Despite not competing in the temple for a while Son Of Havok gets monster love to start this match. As expected Muertes really tries to push the power game to gain his control over his opponent. He just tosses Havok about and even throws him out of the ring and into the barricade on the outside. The cool thing about this is how they sold the fear of Muertes which is what they need to do, he actually should have been disqualified because following tossing Havok in a group of vacated chairs he then actually strikes Havok with a chair itself. Even after all of that Muertes power bombs Havok on the announce table and none of this garners a disqualification due to sheer fear, this is the kind of different stuff they should do to continue pushing Muerte’s power. Commentary also did an awesome job of coloring and painting the picture by reminding us how bad Muertes beat Fenix and that anything in this match could happen, during the brawl on the outside I couldn’t help but hope something uncanny would go down and that my boy Havok is in serious jeopardy. One thing I will say I hope happens with Muertes is, if he has a match before Ultimo Lucha I hope its just him destroying somebody in a match, screw pinfalls he is already the number one contender and that will not change, it would really put over his dominance if he just destroys somebody and doesn’t care about winning or anything, just beats another Lucha down. It would also make a difference if he just injures someone random that will not be at Ultimo Lucha, maybe coming out randomly to destroy Jack Evans. Any way Havok also did a good job playing face and selling for the match, he even got a nice hope spot by countering Muertes and getting him set up for the shooting star, of course he didn’t nail it but he had the fans hoping he could pull it off which was the focus of the spot. This also causes Catrina’s disciples get involved and start attacking Havok’s partners on the outside causing him to lose focus and help by hitting some nice dives, unfortunately it was a mistake because once he re turns his attention to Muertes he is greeted by a choke and dropped with a flat liner for the 3 count…
Winner = Mil Muertes
Following the match Catrina does her lick of death on Havok as Muertes, Catrina, and her disciples all stand tall in the ring, it is clear they are the faction to be feared.
Following adds we return to the ring to find Texano, he is basically cutting a promo on Chavo and that he doesn’t care if he hurt his leg, he is Mexico and he is coming for Chavo. Once he gets in some more jabs the crew come form behind and begin their assault on the face kicking and pounding on him using the numbers advantage. Finally Blue Demon comes down runs in for the save, what was obvious here is that Demon was going to turn, and they proved this by having the crew toss in a chair to Demon, no suspense no holding the chair on the outside a while none of that. They literally slide out of the ring and just throw the chair to Blue Demon, which makes no sense if you are selling you are afraid of his run in. They could have executed this way better because we all saw this coming a mile away already since last week, and the poor execution by the Crew and Demon made this a bit lame in my opinion, after beating down Texano drawing blood by using his chair, Blue Demon battle cries he is Mexico and that Texano will be facing him at Ultimo Lucha.
Main event time already as we get hyped for an Atomico’s match, which is a 4 on 4 match with Mundo and Alberto acting as captains of their squads, this should be nice and we will see how it goes.
Alberto Johnny Mundo
Sexy Star VS Hernandez
Drago Jack Evans
Aerostar Super Fly
Right before this match we get a hype up of the Alberto and Mundo match at Ultimo Lucha, they also announce that it is official that Hernandez and Drago will also meet on the same Ultimo Lucha night. They of course do this to add to the importance of tonights main event and also sprinkle in the fact that Sexy Star and Super Fly have beef that needs settling. This match was a bit all over the place and it also looked like some of it was either called on the fly, or there may have been a few mis cues. I like how Mundo worked but there were some portions where Mundo was a little too cowardly for my liking. After him slamming Alberto through the glass window and getting the upper hand, I found the running to be a little much, it was cool because he suckered Alberto into a nice trap of all his teammates beating him down, but if they could have done it more as if Mundo is being sly and devious Vs just plain cowardly it would have helped this badass ground and pound character Mundo is trying to build. There was also a section where Mundo left the entire temple being chased by Alberto only to return, and it is not like they left so someone could pull off a huge spot. Evans, Aerostar and Drago were pretty much in this thing just to bump around and they did most of the fill work as far as spots go. Star had a decent exchange with Mundo but I also liked how Mundo kind of played her off a bit and really didn’t respect what she could do ,which helps the character. Hernandez didn’t do too much in the bought seeing as the whole story was about Mundo and Alberto, however he did some nice power moves and did get a bit of time to add more heat on his beef with Drago, I also liked how Hernandez played the crowd as a heel and even when the crowd started the chant Johnny Punto for Mundo he even reacted and tried to cover Mundo’s ears. The finish was a bit random but Mundo caught Albert off guard by hitting him with his end of the world finish while Alberto had Evan’s locked in the cross arm breaker, Alberto was seemingly about to make him tap, but once Mundo hit his finish, Sexy Star comes in and he plays her and rolls her up for the pin grabbing the tights and the 3 count!
Winners = Johnny Mundo, Hernandez, Jack Evans, and Super Fly
Once the match is over Striker is hyping Ultimo Lucha and says next week Puma and Muertes will have their face to face confrontation. Striker then states Puma has faced nothing like the power of Mil Muertes and how he will likely never be the same afterwards win or lose. Just as the credits start to roll Pentagon Jr comes out of no where and super kicks Vampiro right out of his seat and beginning to attack him with a chair. He beats poor Vamp down and then begins to douse him with gasoline, he then pulls out a zippo lights it and says if he does not except his challenge at Ultimo Lucha he will burn Vampiro alive. He stairs into the camera for good measure and then give the beaten Vampiro a week to decide, once he blows out the zippo flame the show goes off the air.
Back to being an exciting show, the crowd was back, the storylines were back and things are on the up swing. I really enjoy how well this show writes for its characters and even if they have a downer show a week before it almost seems by design because they come back really solid. This is making some of the things that happened tonight mean that much more. My only problem is WHERE THE HELL IS KING CUERNO? I know they had a bit of a teaser with him and Killshot going and I hope we see how that pans out. Honestly with both of these guys kind of having I wouldn’t say a similar gimmick, but they both have the hunter assassin thing going on so it does build itself, but they need to at least give these guys a show or 2 to make that mean something. If they end up not doing anything with it, I’m going to be pretty sad they went all these shows and didn’t throw King Cuerno in a match somewhere, he is seriously like the 3rd best heel on the roster behind Muertes, and Pentagon Jr. Honestly I would say the second after Pentagon got pinned by Sexy Star (hahaha), but anyway Cuerno could have added so much more to some of these big tag matches just by having his phycology input, it seems every match he has been in is 5 star and that is more than i can say for Jr (even though I love him) and Muertes who is more character driven. Also I will say I hope we get more about the medallions soon, and even after that string where the show became the Dario Cueto show, I am kinda missing the man, he has been lesser of a factor in recent weeks and I have to say the product is missing something with out him. Well before I get too ahead of myself I will call it here and I hope you enjoyed the show!
Now there are a lot of rumors going around about the future of the product and if it will return next season. I heard an interesting Podcast with Vampiro and he basically stated he is not worried, things are going well and when you are gaining profit he doesn’t see why it would not return ( I’m paraphrasing here) but he did also shed some light as to how they do certain things and some history on him and Konann. Personally I also am not too worried about the product, the show is doing too damn well and even though you never know I feel something will come though. I also read rumors that Puma might be in the running to head to NJPW, maybe even to win a major belt but I haven’t seen anything locked down yet and I am waiting to get more solid info. I hope Puma stays with Lucha but if he gets the chance to do both, that would be ideal, I can foresee at some point him dropping the belt and taking a nice little hiatus from Lucha which would be perfect, he could then return without guidance from Konann and be a monster face, or hell even a heel upon his return. I feel with how well Lucha rotates their roster and storylines if he goes away they can make it work, as long as he isn’t signing and exclusive deal. His absence for some time could also allow Lucha to sign or capitalize on some of the bigger players they already have like my boy King Cuerno, who in my opinion could have an awesome run with the belt now, but as we know with this business you just never know. Anyway everyone I’m out for this week and I hope you enjoyed this addition and I will see you next time, have a good week!
– Grainbelt Jones
