Lucha Underground 2×13: Monster meets Monster

Matches

Aerostar defeated Drago for an Aztec Medallion (good, springboard splash, 6:36)

Jack Evans, PJ Black, Fenix defeats Disciples of Death (good, springboard 450 splash, 9:05)

Matanza and Mil Muertes went to a no contest (good, referee stop, 7:03)

Developments

The Mil Muertes/Matanza match took place, though we didn’t quite get a result. Mil did far more damage to him than anyone had done in the last month, beating him to the ground earlier and taking him down off a dive. (That one legit injuried Matanza, who was noticably hobbling around the rest of the match. Dario and Catrina each took a turn getting involved to give Matanza recovery time, and there was a noticable edit.) The two battled up the steps and onto Dario’s office roof, teasing throwing each other off. Finally, Mil gave Matanza flatliner on the roof, which collapses the roof and caused them both to go to the floor. Striker explained the referee stopped the match that point. Both Catrina and Dario helped up their objects and signaled this wasn’t over for them.

It is over for the Disciples – or at least two of them. They lost again, this time in the trios tournament, and Catrina demanded to know why she shouldn’t end them. Siniestro de la Muerte (purple) gave her a reason, by ripping out the black heart of Trece (gray). Catrina said that wasn’t enough, and Siniestro did the same to Barrio Negro (gold), who must’ve been the dumbest member of the crew if he didn’t see that coming. This satisfied Catrina, and either she or the black hearts themselves seemed to give Siniestro new powers and a new look. He’s a solo act now for sure.

The team which defeated the Disciples, and did advance, was Fenix, Jack Evans and PJ Black. This was another Dario concept. He had considered putting Fenix, Drago and Aerostar together in the tournament, but noted he had done so last year and Drago & Aerostar fought leading to their elimination, making them undeserving of another shot. Dario did find them deserving of another fight, and instead put Drago and Aerostar against each other in the second Aztec Medallion match. Aerostar stumbled badly at one point, falling hard to the floor, and Drago perhaps took it a little easy on his friend instead of capitalizing. Aerostar seemed to be hurting thru the match, but came back to win and claim the second medallion. He and Texano await five more winners.

One of those winners will be decided next week. A vignette at the Johnny Mundo Dojo (I’m assuming) revealed Taya had called Dario on Johnny’s behalf to demand a shot at a Medallion – he hadn’t gotten the chance last year. Taya explained Dario agreed to the idea, but the opponent would be Cage. In a cage match. Johnny’s high self confidence seemed a bit damaged by this news.

Going back to the trios match from earlier: Jack declared himself leader of the trio, loudly ordering around his teammates. PJ got pushy with Fenix as well. Neither PJ or Jack wanted to much to do with Fenix after the win, but the team looked pretty strong when they were working together and would seem to have a decent chance to win the final.

They weren’t the only team to advance to the last round. Angelico, Son of Havoc, and Ivelisse were informed they would not face the winners of the tournament, but would be defending their titles against all three teams who’d won so far in a four way match. Dario poked at champs and their issues, pushing them against each other again.

Next Week:

• Angelico, Son of Havoc, Ivelisse (c) versus Cortez Castro, Mr. Cisco, Joey Ryan versus Prince Puma, Rey Mysterio, Dragon Azteca Jr versus Jack Evans, PJ Black, Fenix for the Lucha Underground Trios championship

• Johnny Mundo versus Cage for an Aztec Medallion

There was one last moment to close the show. Captain (Maureen) Vazquez – the superior officer of Castro & Ryan – was visited by a mystery councilman named Delgado who said he was representing Boyle Heights, warning her back off Dario Cueto (which seems to be working in secret.) Delgado and Vazquez appeared to have some history together. Vazquez said she was unconcerned about the Mayor, but Delgado said he was working for someone bigger. Vazquez seemed worried she’d gotten herself into a bad situation after the councilman left.

This was a really fun show. I felt like 90% of the conversation is going to end up about the unrealistic nature of electrified zombies pulling out each other’s hearts, but there were also some good wrestling matches here.

Mil Muertes versus Matanza was the more exciting Matanza match yet. He took far more damage than in the previous few weeks while they were in the ring, but still looked like a complete monster by how he was able to thru Mil Muertes around. And everything after the dive was interesting. I knew both the injury and the non-finish going in, which probably greatly affects my view of the overall match – it was impressive how much Matanza was able to still do with a leg injury which they had to be fearing would end him for the season, and the flatliner thru the roof looked incredible enough to mitigate the lack of a finish. I can understand if that lack of outcome detracted for other people, but this gave me more than expected and the eventual rematch should be super.

The Disciples went out on a good note. Well, before the death scene. The Jack Evan, Fenix and PJ Black team were the stars of the match and intended to be so, but the DoD kept up with them well and looked as effective as they have been all season before taking another loss. Jack & PJ Black came off as annoying but really good, and Fenix got in a Brillo Cometa. Striker always talking about the different personality of each henchman seemed to accidentally drive home the problem: we never actually saw those personalities, wtth them coming off more as if they had been told not to show different personalities. On a show with a lot of big characters, they didn’t seem to have one. Maybe one will work better than three – at least the one with the best superkick survived.

They left in an Aerostar springboard mishap, which was a very different way of doing things. It turned into one of Striker’s better perfomances, as he tried to weave it into a big story about the gambles of the lucha libre style and a specific one about how Aerostar was suffering from the fall to make sense of it all. The problem was Aerostar didn’t seem to know they were doing that story, not selling as much as you’d need to really tell it. It was still a fun match and at least an interesting experiment.

Councilman Delgado is Lorenzo Llamas, of all people. Definitely an unexpected bit of casting. It seems like the police story is going to explain how/why Dario’s able to run an underground fight club without getting shut down, but I was not expecting the star of the Renegade to be part of that story.

Mundo’s cage match with Cuerno (who’s vanished here) was really good last season, and the four way trios match should be great if they can keep all the bodies out of the way. I hope it’s a fun as this episode.