the matches
- Johnny Mundo [O] & Prince Puma [O] b Cortez Castro [X] & Mr. Cisco [X] – (9:21, top rope 450 splashes on both men) – GOOD
- Chavo Guerrero Jr. & Sexy Star [O] b Ivelisse Vélez & Son of Havoc [X] (2846-3421, casadora cradle) – OK
- Mil Muertes b Blue Demon Jr. (4:22, flatliner) – OK
the developments
- Castro, Cisco and Big Ryck all got names. Mundo rushed them, ran them off, they teased coming back with weapons, and Puma evened the odds. Cueto made it a tag match. Mundo & Puma won, but Konnan disauded Puma from getting involved with Mundo and his battles. Konnan wants Puma just to list to him. Puma remains mute.
- Big Ryck watched his partner’s match from the crowd, smoking a cigar, and walked off with after the loss.
- Sexy Star beat Son of Havoc to get revenge for last week’s tights pull. Chavo had the match won with the frog splash but tagged in Sexy to allow her to try to the ring.
- Mil Muertes was introduced. He’s got Catrina, who licks Muerte’s opponents before he faces them. She’s got a mysterious object that’s important to him. He won clean in his debut.
- Chavo ran in post match as if to save Demon from more of an attack, but instead hit Demon with a chair. Chavo took out two referees, two unidentified wrestlers and was temporary stopped by Sexy. Commentators invented a story about Chavo being Sexy’s hero/mentor. Chavo hit her with a chair shot too. Demon was stretechered out as if seriously injured.
Thoughts
Opening tag match was good. It was less a total move exhibition than last week, but they worked basic tag team forumla and so they had more of a story than last week’s show. Mundo & especially Puma seemed way out of Castro/Cisco’s league in this match. Maybe Cisco & Castro shouldn’t lose in their debuts, but they definitely should not have beaten those guys – and Big Ryck is being treated as the important guy.
Mixed tag match was better than I thought it would be. Sexy’s figured out enough things to do as a tecnica to make it work. Ivellise was given a minimal introduction, no more than Son of Havoc really. There was one really noticable miscommunication spot near the end that they couldn’t edit out, but otherwise it was okay. It served it’s purporse.
Main event didn’t do much for me. I’m okay with not seeing Demon for a while, but not-Mesias was not so great either. This match was more about getting over the character than having a good match and making Muertes look like a threat via clean win, but it was all kind of blah. It also totally got overshadowed by the post match angle, which an unexplained swerve.
Commentary was worse than last week and more what I was concenred about. Striker was all over place and hitting the “we’re not the WWE!” talking more frequently and more explicity than last week. Vampiro was saving absurd things. They tried to sell the seriousness of the show ending angle but it was hard to be with them at that point. Though the story of Sexy and Chavo having a meaningful relationship came out of nowhere and would’ve been a hard sell for anyone – the sudden of it all and the expectation we’d care cracked me up.
The two patterns so far are ending the show with a big angle to try and get people to come back for week two, and the show being broken down into three long segments. They had a long segement to start and a long one to end, which left a lot of commerical time in the middle half of the show. El Rey is airing a lot of house ads and probably cuodl afford to give Lucha Underground a few more minutes. It may be a Unimas issue, but it definitely breaks up the flow of watching the show live.
Things changed between tapings. We’ll see what that means for next week. They have edited things – there’s now way those matches were that short live – but they ending pushing the Chavo turn and the Demon injury angle big and didn’t hint towards the three guys starting next week.
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I think last week on Unimas(and I guess El Rey too) was 43:00 running time. Six “blocks” or segments.
Pretty sad. I remember when I was watching wrestling in the 80’s and 90’s, running time was 48 minutes with a 6/6 barter split.
I appreciate the optimism and waiting to see how it plays out, but…
this show is rubbish.
Over edited in every way: script, storylines, matches.
Awful ‘fusion’ between US and Mexico: Commentary (Blue Dee Mon-is he Jamaican?), scripts (Catrina(?) saying Mil Mortes-it’s MUERTES for fucks sake). Matches: Just PWG Indy flippy shit, not lucha at all.
As a long time fan of lucha, I have no desire to see low level WWE cast offs, or Indy guys who don’t get it, or washed up luchadors.
I’d love it if it was lucha and/or an exciting show, but it’s neither.
It’s TNA lucha. Dead on arrival.
Two episodes in, and I’m lovin it. It’s campy and goofy, totally spot on. Tag team opener was great and kinda better than E1 main event.
Looking forward to next week and the AAA 3-way. Pentagon!
FWIW Blue DAY-MON is the current way of pronouncing his name. But I can see how non-Spanish speakers would be annoyed by that.
“Correct”, not current. Oops.
Yeah, I know it’s ‘DAY-MON’, it’s the way he mixes both and goes Dee-mon’.
It’s Alfredo’s fault for pointing it out on Twitter last week ;)
I’m going to watch next week, or skip a few weeks, as I’d love to see Fenix etc. and how they do. But the show as a whole is a big disappointment due to the studio feeling. It’s a bit like WCW’s Florida tapings twenty years ago, except they’ve turned off the lights.
@Rob: In Spanish, I’ve only heard it pronounced “Deh-Mon”.
Thanks to Dr. X, I’m now imagining Blue Day-mon as a Jamaican. Might improve viewing his matches. :)
anyone else bothered by the chair shot that sexy star took? with athletes being in the news for male-on-female violence, I just feel its a shitty way for cheap heel heat and the inter-gender matches just suck.
The action is pretty good and there’s a decent variety but good god they couldn’t have found a better announce team? Striker and Vampiro are SO bad.