matches
Aerostar defeats Jack Evans (8:29, top rope Canadian Destroyer)
Fenix [O] defeats Sexy Star, Pentagon Jr. [X], King Cuerno, Cage, the Mack, Killshot (10:14, standing moonsault)
Hernandez defeats Alberto el Patron (5:07, cover after Johnny Mundo put Alberto thru the office window)
all the gifs for the show are here.
developments
Dario revealed to his brother, the monster in the cage, he spent half his father’s fortune on acquiring seven ancient Azteca medallions. (There’s one for each tribe.) Naturally, now he’s going to have people fight over them. Dario explained it as wanting to recreate the battles originally fought for them, but I suspect those ancient battles had less package piledrivers. Dario just wants violence, though he noted that a person holding all seven would be like holding a gift from gods and might be strong than the monster.
Dario didn’t really let anyone else in on this plan, not until he called seven wrestlers to the ring for an unexplained match. Dario appeared prior it to explain the seven medallions, saying they could grant immortality, and they’d be given out in a series of matches to come. The seven way match here was the first of those matches, a wild match full of action and pinfall break ups. Pentagon and Sexy Star had issues during the match, but pretty much everyone fought everyone else. Fenix finally took the win.
Fenix was resting in the locker room after the match when Cartina (with spooky light powers) confronted him. She’s against Fenix now. The best I can figure, judging from her always not quite straigthforward dialogue, is she was working with Mil’s best interests (or at least own belief in Mil’s best interests) all along. Catrina manipulated Fenix into killing Mil Muertes because Mil is all about dying, and presumably he’ll be back stronger this time. Catrina definitely warned Fenix that Mil was coming back stronger. Fenix reached out to get her, but Catrina disappeared. Fenix wasn’t alone though – three mystery masked man in green lightning leaped were lurking on the top of the lockers, leaping off as the segment ended.
That wasn’t the only locker room. Earlier, the Mack caught Big Ryck counting out a new stack of bills but couldn’t get an answer about who it was from. Ryck accussed Mack of being in the Temple to make the people happy, but Ryck is there to make money because that’s all that matters. Ryck came off as if he was shifting back towards the rudo side, or at least the mercenary side. Mack stuck with the tecnico side in his match and he and Killshot appeared to be fighting Cuerno & Cage after their seven way match was over.
Someone else definitely leading towards the rudo side was the debuting Jack Evans. Within the first 30 seconds, he was walking on his hands, urging people to look him up on YouTube, and screaming that he had invented lucha libre. Jack’s over the top rudo act kept him booed while he and Aerostar were having their own crazy match, including Jack doing a 450 splash to the floor. Aerostar had a hurt leg near the end of the match, allowing Jack to catch up to him on the top rope, but Aerostar surprised everyone with a top rope Canadian Destroyer for the surprise win.
Dario continued his plan to get the trios titles to the Crew by telling Angelico, Son of Havoc and Ivelisse they’d be forced to face the rudos in a ladder match for the titles. Dario offered to just let them vacant the title due to Ivelisse’s injury, but they – and she – refused to give up.
The #1 contenders match was the main event, but probably the shortest match on the show. Dario had declared there must be a winner by pinfall or submission, which turned out to be pivotal. Alberto had an early chance to set up for the armbar when Johnny Mundo ran down and tripped Alberto out of the ring, then threw him thru office window. (Dario, in the office, reacted by getting himself a new drink.) Mundo threw Alberto in and gave Hernandez an easy win. Mundo offered no explanation past “This is MY world!”
thoughts
Another great episode. The Aerostar/Jack Evans match totally exceeded my expectations. I know both guys were good if given the chance, but I was expecting this more to be along the lines of a five minute establishing win for Jack. Jack got established and looked good, but Aerostar was treated like an important guy even after he lost the Best of Five. (It probably did help that it was the one match I didn’t know the finish too and was generally surprised – point for anti-spoiler crowd.)
7 way was the epitome of a crazy spot fest. It wasn’t just the spots themselves though, it was third guys running in to get in their two cents and moves piling on moves. Everyone came off as a big star, they touched on the Pentagon/Sexy issues, and they snuck in a Cage/Cuerno vs Killshot/Mack feud in the background. Pentagon had his moment of being the world’s greatest luchador before getting beat, which is the way it goes for him sometimes. Everyone had their moments.
The Catrina/Mil Muertes/Fenix story could use a moment to breath and explain. I think it’s a little bit intended to be mysterious, because Catrina and Mil Muertes are mythic creatures and explaining them grounds them in reality too much, but there’s it’s got to be clearer why they’re hitting a big cosmic reset button on their set up. There’s some good aspects of this, the new trios teaser introduction came off great, but it would benefit by grabbing the viewer by the hand and walking thtem thru what’s supposed to be going on.
Main event was not really clicking at the same level as the other matches, but it was the match which could didn’t need ot be epic – the glass breaking angle was going to trump a better match anyway. It came off as a big deal, along the lines of the Blue Demon Jr. injury angle from the first set of episodes and the crowd totally went with it.
