By John Moore
Lucha Underground Hits
Fenix vs. Mil Muertes: These two rivals have the best of in-ring chemistry with each other and manage to add layers upon layers to their feud every time they step in the ring together. As I’ve been praising for weeks, Lucha Underground has built up this iteration of the long standing feud nicely by having Mil demolish the top wrestlers in the company showing no fear while also showing fear to the only man who beat him thus building Fenix as an in ring beast without contact between the two. We got a lot of Grave Consequences in this no disqualification match with Fenix and Mil trying to freshen things up a bit with setpieces like Fenix ripping apart the mask of Mil, making him show a bit of humanity. I liked Grave Consequences just a tad bit more due to the novelty, but this one is up there. I definitely recommend that you check this one out as well as the rest of the series between these two dating back to early last season. The only nitpick I continue to have with these matches is the unprotected chairshots to the head that Fenix takes. He’s such a gifted young luchador at 25 years of age, that I would hate it if he had his career cut short due to him taking too many unnecessary risks.
Son of Havoc, Ivelisse, and Angelico vs. The Disciples of Death: A good showing as usual from the former and new Trios Champions. These three never got a chance to showcase what they fully can do last season due to Ivelisse’s injury and now it’s good to see them get a second chance to have a run with the trios straps as the trios division showed a lot of promise when it was introduced. What surprised me here and throughout their run was how ineffective Catrina’s Putty Patrollers were and it looked like they were hitting the abort switch on them because all it looked like they were doing was holding the trios titles hostage. They even got beat up by Konnan three on one at one point. Mil Muertes also possibly killed them with electricity punches so maybe this is the end for the trio of death.
Matanza reveal: We get little tastes of the great Dario Cueto this season so anytime he enters the screen, we get instant entertainment. This time we got the long awaited reveal of the B-Boy eating monster, Matanza (slaughter) Cueto. I’ll probably have more to say when we see him in the ring, but here’s to hoping that Lucha Underground can pull off some of their editing magic because I haven’t been impressed too much seeing him in a few select dark matches. Small note, the guy playing Matanza has been competing in the ring at almost every taping in the dark match.
Aztec Warfare Build: Lucha Underground did a splendid job here promoting their strong main event while also sprinkling hype throughout the show for next week’s landmark Aztec Warfare 2. It set up a tone that all of the warriors were aiming for the goal of becoming number one contender (which was changed later on). It’s also not like they were rushing the hype either as we got hype last week when Aero Star brought his super nunchaku to the fray. This episode also had some B-Movie greatness in the form of Prince Puma making Puma noises coming from his mouth. What cracked me up the most was Rey Mysterio and Dragon Azteca Jr drinking El Rey branded Tequila. At the same time we got news that Rey Mysterio and his new friend are finally coming to the temple.
Lucha Underground Misses
El Texano Jr vs. Chavo Guerrero Jr: Lucha Underground really, really (?) wanted to go with this feud last season but had it cut short due to a Chavo Guerrero leg injury. I was hoping that the two wrestlers had something great in mind since they felt the need to take two on the storyboard and try to get this thing going. I also thought that Blue Demon being absent would improve the quality of Chavo in a feud since the guy did have one good feud with Sexy Star. Instead we got a bad gauntlet match a few weeks ago and a lame payoff in this bullrope match. In a way I hope this is the end of the feud so Texano can take his man’s man gimmick to better places while Chavo fades away somehow.
I’m noticing after a few weeks of binge watching on demand Lucha, that some of these wrestlers are just terrible. The stars like Puma, Pentagon Jr, Fenix and some others are magnificent. Cage, for example, is an active performer, but Texano is just terrible. Chavo is a great wrestler, and, can work with just about anybody, but Texano is so bad that not even Chavo can cooperate with him. If a person needs to be sent to a training camp is Texano.