Lucha Underground 7-15-15 Review

Hello again everyone and welcome to another look into the Temple slot machine that pays out Aztec Medallions, Lucha Underground! After three weeks without, Finally, the Internet has returned to the Brandt Household! Thanks to a certain cable company associated with a wise-cracking grey rabbit for finally getting their crap together. Bigger thanks to Kurt Zamora for filling in for me last week and doing an awesome job. This week’s show will parse out 3 of the 4 remaining Aztec Medallions, plus Mil Muertes and Prince Puma will face off in-ring leading into their main event match at Ultima Lucha in three weeks, which I’m sure will feature a thoughtful discussion of their differences over tea and cakes, or somebody getting beat down mercilessly, one of those things. As always I’ll give a quick rundown of what happened on the show and then some analysis of the key moments. Let’s Lucha everyone!

The Rundown

Recap of Dario Cueto revealing Aztec Medallions

Recap of Sexy Star-Super Fly feud

Recap of Vampiro-Pentagon Jr. Feud

Pentagon Jr. segment in Dario Cueto’s office

Bengala Defeats Daivari via pinfall to win Aztec Medallion

Vampiro in-ring promo with Pentagon Jr.

Locker room segment with Sexy Star

King Cuerno defeats Killshot via submission to win Aztec Medallion

Sexy Fly defeats Super Fly via submission for Aztec Medallion

Marty “The Moth” Martinez challenges Sexy Star for newly won medallion, Sexy accepts

Sexy Star defeats “The Moth” via submission to retain Aztec Medallion

Mil Muertes-Prince Puma face-off in ring with Dario Cueto moderating

Five Sides of Awesome

Pentagon Jr. kicked off the show in Dario Cueto’s office this week, as Cueto tried to convince him that he should really consider taking a match for an Aztec medallion. Pentagon refused once again, telling Cueto if he was interested he’d have just broken Cueto’s arm and taken them all. I love how even most of the heels treat Cueto like crap. It’s one of the major differences in LU’s presentation of a heel authority figure and it really works. Pentagon told Cueto all he wants is to destroy Ian Hodgkinson, aka Vampiro, and that if his challenge wasn’t accepted tonight, he was going to show Vampiro exactly why he is zero fear. Nice way to create more anticipation for that eventual confrontation.

Bengals finally win something!

After an open from Vampiro and Striker and an introduction to this week’s house band, Mexican Dubweiser, we went to the ring for our opening bout, Bengala vs. Daivari for an Aztec Medallion. The match went Daivari’s way for a while, with Big Ryck interfering and allowing Daivari to get the upper hand. Eventually Bengala turned things around and was able to get in some strong offense, hitting a DDT and rolling through for a two-count. I love how on this pinfall attempt Bengala crossed the legs of Daivari and Striker pointed this out on commentary, selling that it was much harder to kick out.

After Daivari kicked out he whipped Bengala into the ropes only for Bengala to dive out and take out Big Ryck on the floor. As Bengala went to the top to come back in though, Daivari caught him with a Superplex for a near fall of his own. Daivari called Ryck onto the apron and tried to feed Bengala to him, but Bengala reversed, and Ryck hit his own man, which allowed Bengala to hit a bridging German which was enough for the win. I was a little surprised that Bengala went over here but I’m fine with it. The fans love him and he’s got a great move set. I think this may be the start of Daivari turning on Ryck because he’ll blame him for this loss, but there wasn’t much of a hint at that yet.

Vampiro Rises

After the match Vampiro told Striker he had to go to the ring and handle some business. Vampiro cut a pretty good promo again detailing how he’d proven himself over the years and was now content with his role, and Pentagon Jr. of course interrupted. Pentagon was absolute gold here. Telling Vampiro to stop crying and when Vampiro said his name was Ian Hodgkinson, interrupting with “Tu nombre es que?” and delivering a “Do you want to face me, Ian” line in a sing-songy, taunting voice.

Vampiro came back and told Pentagon that Ian Hodgkinson was not the guy he was going to face at Ultima Lucha, because the guy that was going to kick his ass is named Vampiro. Awesome moment that we knew was coming but was still great to see. Pentagon went after Vampiro and got a choke-slam for his troubles, and that ended that segment. Great promo from both guys and I’m excited for this match!

Hunter vs. Assassin

In another Aztec Medallion match, Killshot and King Cuerno faced off in a match of similar styles. Does Killshot remind anyone else of Deadpool? In fact if you’re a comic book nerd like me you can sum this match up as Kraven vs. Deadpool. King Cuerno has impressed me from the beginning and I like how he hasn’t really changed much in becoming a face. His offense is still vicious as evidenced by his slam of Killshot onto the ring apron. That looked painful. Cuerno was on offense for most of the match, and put away Killshot by hitting a reverse hurricanrana and then locking in a variation of the dragon sleeper.

I expected a little more from this match to be honest, but it didn’t really get the time it should have. I’m guessing this feud is done for now so I would have liked to see a little more in the payoff match. Cuerno deserved the win though, he’s been one of the most solid performers in Lucha Underground throughout. Speaking of disappointing…

Don’t blink

They built up the match between Sexy Star with a recap of their feud in the opening, and then a backstage segment where Sexy was getting ready in the locker room and pulled out Super Fly’s mask from her bag. All signs pointed to this being a great match to end the feud, and instead we got a 30-second match with Super Fly tapping to a Kimura arm bar almost before it was really locked in. This feud deserved more, instead they used it as a stepping-stone to Marty “The Moth” coming out and challenging Sexy for her medallion, because it had a moth on it. Ugh.

Sexy Star accepted and this match got a little more time. I expected Super Fly to try to redeem himself and interfere, but that didn’t happen either. Instead Sexy Star reversed a figure-four by the Moth, and then locked in the Kimura lock again for another win. I usually try to find the positive in everything, but this whole segment wasn’t really my thing. I’d have been much happier with Sexy Star and Super Fly getting that full amount of time for their match, and having the Moth come out after and challenge for next week. I guess they wanted Sexy to look strong but really it just made Super Fly look bad. Six of the Seven medallions have now been won. I expect the final medallion winner will join the six other winners in a match where the winner takes all at Ultima Lucha.

Faces of Death

Our main event this week was the face to face showdown between Prince Puma and Mil Muertes. Cueto introduced both men and Striker pointed out that each was without their managers on Cueto’s orders that this be a one-on-one faceoff. That lasted long enough for Mil and Puma to get all testy with one another with Cueto telling them to save it for Ultima Lucha. Then Catrina came out and Cueto acted like he was surprised but it really seemed like a set up. Out came the Disciples of Death with the coffin and they jumped Puma with Mil Muertes.

Konnan came out to assist his boy and evened things up with his cane, taking out all three Disciples of Death before turning his attention to Catrina. Mil saw his lady was in trouble and took the cane away from Konnan and took him down. Puma tried to help and he got the cane too. With Puma down the Disciples of Death put Konnan into the coffin and the show ended with Mil Muertes standing tall over a fallen Prince Puma.

The Wrap

This was just an ok week of Lucha Underground to me. I was expecting more from a couple of matches and just didn’t get it. The Sexy Star Super Fly match was particularly disappointing. I think this episode suffered from trying to cram too much into the one hour show as they are trying to set the table for Ultima Lucha. It was saved a bit by the greateness of Pentagon Jr. and the awesome moment of Vampiro finally accepting that challenge, but everything else was just ok. I guess one down show every once in a while is to be expected. The next few weeks should be better as we get to Ultima Lucha.

It was a good week for Lucha Underground otherwise with Johnny Mundo giving a great interview on the Stone Cold Podcast on the heels of Eric Van Wagenen’s episode. Hopefully a season 2 official announcement will come soon. That’s it for me this week, have a great week everyone and Lucha on!