Lucha Underground 1×22: Mask vs Mask

the matches

Angelico [O], Ivelisse, Son of Havoc b Aerostar, Drago [X], Fenix to advance in the trios title tournament (8:13, shooting star press)
Sexy Star b Super Fly (5:46, la casita)
Prince Puma (c) b King Cuerno to retain the Lucha Underground Championship (9:03, 630 senton)

the developments

Dario met with Puma and Konnan to explain he wanted the Lucha Underground Trios championship to be as important as the heavyweight one. Dario made Puma captain of a team, telling him to find two partners for a match next week against his own selected team. Konnan pushed for more info about Dario’s team, and Dario revealed King Cuerno would be on it, Prince Puma would face King Cuerno tonight, Cuerno’s partners would be with him, and the match would be for the Lucha Underground championship.

Later, Konnan told Puma he’d recruited Hernandez to be on the team. They were interrupted by Johnny Mundo, who revealed Prince Puma had also asked him to be on the team. Konnan wasn’t happy with the idea of team with Mundo, while Puma still seems (quietly!) uncomfortable with Hernandez.

Texano and Cage, Cuerno’s partners for next week, backed him up and helped Cuerno in the match. Puma still won, thought with some help from Hernandez. Prince Puma didn’t want to help. They had an animated discussion about after the match, only to be interrupted by Cage & Texano attacking. A five man brawl (with the defeated Cuerno being pulled out by the referee) ended the show.

This week’s trios title match saw both teams fall apart during the match. No one on Son of Havoc’s team really wanted to work together and Drago & Aerostar avoided tagging each other in out. Both teams seemed to pull it together, only for Ivelisse to walk out on Son of Havoc when he dove for a tag while Drago and Aerostar started slapping each other in the face. Havoc overcame Aerostar & Drago to get the win, much to Ivelisse’s surprise and distress.

Sexy Star and Super Fly were forced to fight each other for disappointing Dario by losing last week. Dario ensured they’d fight hard by spontaneously making it a mask versus mask match. The announcers emphasized how strange it was to have a sort of sudden mask match, questioning Dario’s decisions strongly than they have in the past. Super Fly aggressively went after Sexy Star, but missed his moonsault and was rolled up for the pin. Super Fly demanded Sexy Star unmask him, and she sadly did. Pentagon Jr. attacked both after the match, this time breaking Super Fly’s arm before Sexy Star could stop him.

thoughts

This show is one I thought would get a lot of negative feedback, because of the quick mask match. I try to avoid reading reviews until after writing my own, but there didn’t seem to be many people complaining about it on Twitter during the show. It helps that Sexy Star is popular with the show’s fans, and part of the reason this happens appears to simply give Sexy a big win with no help before she faces Pentagon. It kind of got lost a little bit with Pentagon running in right after, but it’s a win they can bring up forever on the show and make seem bigger than it was in the moment. (The other reason I think this happened was to bring Lucha Underground and AAA slightly more in line, which is another Lucha Underground Sexy Star dilemma for another day.)

I didn’t have any problem with it, I was amused to watch it happen before my eyes (a second time!) Striker and Vampiro really pushed the idea of Dario cheapening the mask stip by doing it at random, actually voicing the most likely complaints in the segment while trying to shift the blame for to Dario (instead of putting it on the promotion.) I think they handled it as well as possible.

Prince Puma and King Cuerno came off better on TV than it did live. There was one botched spot in (at a spot they really couldn’t take it off), and it was probably a bit slower than people would’ve expected from a Prince Puma match, but it still was satisfying and set up next week’s tournament match well.

Opener trios match had a lot of stories to juggle and had to handle a match in between. They made the most out of everything, building towards Drago/Aerostar well and continuing Havoc’s post breakup win streak. None of the matches on this show were super, but they were all very solid.