There are a few wrestlers and storylines in Lucha Underground that have failed to connect with me in any way. I don’t care about the Rey Mysterio/Dragon Azteca Jr. relationship. I could take or leave Texano in the ring. I have no desire to see Chavo Guerrero do anything on the show. Tonight, Lucha Underground heavily featured Rey, Azteca, and Chavo and gave Texano a big match that set up many more Texano matches.
This was not my favorite episode.
There were some fun moments in tonight’s show, but they were mired in stuff that wasn’t necessarily bad, but wasn’t necessarily good either. We got some good Dario Cueto work. (Although, I almost worry if they keep putting him in so many segments if he’ll be over-exposed.) We learned that he does cocaine, the least surprising characteristic of anyone on this show. We also learned that he received some magic pictures of… something. (And a hat from Famous B that was pretty great!) We also got to see him do some awesome ringside work, as usual.
There was a lot of random comedy, as well. We got to see Son of Havoc hanging out in his mom’s basement with Mascarita Sagrada watching tv. No, seriously, that’s a segment we saw. That’s not even the weirdest part. It ended with a bizarre product placement for Bagel Bites. I mean, I’m not going to pretend I didn’t get a kick out of this, but I can’t say it made any sense at all. We also had a random cameo from Ricky Mandel who hasn’t been on camera without his mask since Aztec Warfare 1. (He was Trece in the Disciples of Death.) Ricky got the magic photos and I presume will now end up dead any day now.
All in all, I think I’m just confused by some of the decisions they made tonight. They began a best of five series with Cage and Texano. I would think with a “best of” series, you’d want at least one great worker out there so you could have a consistently high level of quality, with spots that build from match to match. WCW did this well with Chris Benoit and Booker T, then WWE did it again later with Benoit and MVP. Basically, you want a hall-of-fame caliber worker out there. Texano is fine and I really like Cage most of the time, but this isn’t a series of matches that I want to see. Once was enough, I don’t think anyone’s clamoring for more.
Even more puzzling was whatever they’ve done to the Worldwide Underground. What was once a group of tough guys that would screw around, but still beat you up has turned into a lower card comedy act. I’m not opposed to injecting some comedy in every now and then, but tonight I think they went too far. Jack Evans might as well be Bo Dallas at this point. Maybe it was just losing Mundo for the night that tanked this and their chemistry will be fine again with the three men, but it felt tonight like they’d turned a corner and became a joke. I mean, Jack Evans literally pouted on the floor for a while through the finish. The champs felt like all business pros and WWU felt like goofy losers. I don’t think that’s a positive direction for the team.
The best wrestling we got tonight was the opener with Matanza and The Mack. It was a pretty good tv match. Can’t really complain, it had some nice moments, but it was just a match. Which, hey, it was the opener and it did its job, so that’s no knock on those guys. Mack and Matanza both looked pretty good, Matanza especially so with some displays of strength that were unbelievable. It was a good little match. The problem isn’t with them, but with the fact that nothing else was even close to as good after.
They gave us builds for down the road tonight, but for it was all for things I have no interest in seeing. I don’t want a four-on-four match with Sexy Star joining the Superfriends. I don’t want a Texano/Cage best of five series. I don’t care about Rey Mysterio when he’s not wrestling. I’m not excited for any of this based on tonight.
The one brief piece of the big story we got was the photos in Dario’s office. Apparently they’re of a place, as Ricky asked if he was going to send Matanza there. Apparently the place is magical, because even pictures of it are magical. Aside from that, I have no idea what to think. It’s the one thing that put any kind of hook in me for the future. I want to know what’s up with the photos.
Tonight’s Lucha Underground was a let down. It was still pretty easy to watch and certainly wasn’t terrible, but it was completely forgettable. I understand not every episode will be a home run; even Breaking Bad had a couple episodes you could get away with skipping on a rewatch. Hopefully they bounce back next week with something to get excited about. I know they have it in them.
The Matches
- Lucha Underground Title Match: Matanza© def. The Mack
- Good little tv match.
- Matanza’s strength is unreal, the way he tossed a guy as big as The Mack around is amazing.
- The Mack was no slouch here, either. He might not have the best match every night, but he always gives you something solid when he’s in the ring.
- Cage def. Texano
- This wasn’t very good.
- Striker pointed out how Cage kept attacking the neck of Texano and it was actually an insightful piece of commentary.
- That almost infuriates me more. What is he doing the rest of the time?
- HE COULD BE GOOD IF HE WANTED TO BE!
- Someone get this man to rein it in!
- Striker also went on a weird tangent about rope breaks and all I could think was that Mauro Ranallo would’ve sandwiched in about 10 references to Pride there.
- Trios Title Match: Drago, Fenix, & Aerostar© def. Worldwide Underground (PJ Black, Jack Evans, & Taya)
- It’s strange that the rudos stood united at the end when Taya pretty clearly screwed Johnny Mundo here.
- The match itself was just awful.
- It’s as if someone dared these guys to have a bad match and they tried to.
- Taya made Sexy Star look terrible by having a pretty good exchange with Drago.
- Sexy just isn’t on the level of most of the roster.
- The exchange was good, but not anywhere near the level of Tiger Mask and Dynamite Kid like Vampiro oddly tried to claim.
- This did nothing to make me want to see an 8-man tag with these teams.
