matches
Matanza (c) defeated The Mack for Lucha Underground Championship (6:01, Wrath of the Gods, good)
Cage defeated Texano (5:55, discus clothesline, ok)
Fenix, Drago, Aerostar (c) defeated Taya, PJ Black, Jack Evans (9:22, Aerostar inside springboard frontcracker PJ Black, good)
developments
There were a lot of stories about the same level of importance, nothing dominating the episode as in past weeks. The most time building a match was for one happening next week. The show started off with Rey Mysterio and Dragon Azteca training while Mysterio advised Azteca not to go for revenge against Pentagon. Azteca has a lot of trouble actually listening to advice. He first foolish charges Chavo Guerrero when he interrupts (angry about Chavo betraying the alliance with Azteca Sr. way back in season 1), which only gets him quickly humiliated. Azteca later goes to Dario to demand the match with Pentagon. Dario would rather see the Azteca/Black Lotus match completed, but offers to pencil in the Pentagon/Azteca match for next week. Dario later met with Chavo, in a meeting we didn’t see, and ends the episode explaining the situation to Mysterio directly. Rey doesn’t want to Azteca to face Pentagon, and Dario agrees with him – he’s changed the match to Azteca/Chavo instead, with the winner getting Pentagon. (Chavo must still want revenge for Pentagon breaking his arm near the end of season 2.) Dario points out Mysterio is conflicted; he knows Chavo well, and he knows he doesn’t want Azteca to actually face Pentagon yet, so Dario decides the proper thing to do is to make Mysterio the special referee so he Rey can decide the match himself. That goes down in pen.
Dario’s a busy guy in this episode. He introduces the first match, with The Mack being the latest name to ‘win’ the Dial of Doom. Matanza tries to attack Mack on the way to the ring, but Mack comes in from an unexpected direction and gets some solid shots on Matanza. Matanza eventually gets his knees up on a frog splash and finishes off another challenger. (“DARIO’S CHOICE” replaced Son of Havoc on the wheel, for what it’s worth.)
The previous Dial of Doom winner, Son of Havoc, is seen at home. Well, maybe his mom’s home. Son of Havoc complains about Famous B and his commercials to a friend who very much feels the same, Mascarita Sagrada. They’re briefly interrupted by Havoc’s mom who offers to make them Bagel Bites. This really happened, and the Bagel Bites bit appeared to be sponsored content.
Dario also appeared to offer an Ultimate Opportunity to two people who had disappointed him by losing in the first round of the 4 A Unique Opportunity tournament at the end of last season, Cage and Texano. The opportunity itself and the stips weren’t really revealed until the match was over, but it’s another best of five series. Cage leads 1-0.
In even more Dario action, in between meeting with Azteca and Chavo, Dario opened some mail. He discarded a Famous B hat, and tried to discard some mysterious photos which was sent to him. Dario put him in his trash basket, only for them to magically appear back on his desk. Ricky Mandell, who still exists and wants to have another match on this show some day, came asking for the match and ended up with the photos as Dario tried to rid two nuisances at the same time.
The main event featured no Dario whatsoever, but also not a lot of Johnny Mundo. It was scheduled to be Mundo, Jack, and PJ challenging, but Mundo walked out over still not getting a shot at Matanza – he’s a main event talent and expects to be treated that way. Taya gleefully took Mundo’s place on the team, though she may have regretted it later. Jack spent most of the match pouting and refusing to get along with PJ for no apparent reason. Jack just took a seat on the floor near the end, and Worldwide Underground really didn’t stand much of a chance. Mundo returned post match to attack the tecnicos, with Sexy Star making the save again.
thoughts
Last week was the big match episode, this was a moving pieces around episode. Texano/Cage is literally the start of something, the trios title match was obviously a setup for something else, and Matanza simply collected another title defense to his run. There was lots of Dario, which is great because Dario is great, but they were all just setting up things for later on.
Matt Striker talked about the Mack being trained by Lil Cholo and TJ Perkins. I have no idea who this TJ Perkins is, but does that mean LU is a reality where both Lil Cholo and the remarkably similar Mr. Cisco exist.
Mack looked good on offense against Matanza, and Matanza again got thrown a lot more in a Season 3 match than he did for almost all of Season 2. I’m kinda of waiting for a story about how Matanza got powered down between seasons, because it’s kind of impossible to ignore. It makes for more exciting matches, but it is a break from what they’ve done before.
Matanza is really running thru the 4 A Unique Opportunity participants, but won’t be getting Cage or Texano for a while, I’d guess. Their match felt like a teaser to bigger matches down the line – neither guy even tried their usual big spots – which makes sense if they’ve got four of them. It’s unfortunate timing to be rolling this out just as WWE is running a similar angle, where the matches seem to be well received, but the concept is not. It did help spotlight Aerostar & Drago back in season 1, and Texano could use the same sort of attention to distinguish himself here.
Main event was kind of a mess for a while, with Jack’s antics detracting from the match. I’m sure it was mostly them just working thru the cards as they’ve been dealt – Jack can’t talk and can probably barely wrestle because of his jaw injury at that point, so even filming something to explain why Jack was acting that way would’ve been a challenge – but it was confusing and took away from a match which looked much better on paper. It did get going late, and it was an unexpected spotlight match for Aerostar, who seemed to get the most time of the tecnicos. Sexy Star’s dropkicks could not be saved by editing.
Dario was the star of the show. His bit with Rey at the end was great. I couldn’t decipher much of the photos, but I’m sure we haven’t seen the last of them.
taping dates for dorks
The trios title match was taped on May 15th (I think!), the other matches were taped on March 20th
