Matches
Máscarita Sagrada defeated Famous B in a Believer’s Backlash match (8:17, flying DDT, great)
Marty Martinez, Mariposa, Ivelisse, Jeremiah Crane, the mach beat Dante Fox, Killshot, Cage, Argenis, Texano (5:15, cradle DDT, good)
Mil Muertes defeated Prince Puma in Grave Consequences (16:27, great)
Developments
The Prince is dead. All hail the Prince. Mil Muertes defeated Prince Puma in a Grave Consequences match, sealing the first Lucha Underground champion in a casket and seemingly ending their rivalry once and for all. Puma came close to winning at least one time, but generally seemed possessed by the dark side of himself, the part of him which Vampiro has been pushing him to embrace. It backfired, with Puma attempting to put Mil thru tables instead of simply ending it. Mil gave Puma a super chokeslam thru two tables instead. Mil finished off Puma by carting out the same casket he’d put Konnan in way back in Season 1, and stuffing Puma inside. Vampiro seemed (creepily) excited about Puma’s dark turn, and surprisingly unbothered by the outcome. It’s clear Vampiro has a secret motivation. It’s remains unclear what that motivation is – to get rid of Puma?
It’s unclear if this is meant to be the end of Puma. Striker walked back Konnan’s death, or at least the announcer’s knowledge is Konnan just hasn’t been seen since he was put in that casket, not that he’s specifically dead. It would’ve death for Mil had he lost; Catrina opened the show by threatening not resurrect Mil if he lost this match once again. She stayed out of the match, but appeared pleased with the outcome.
With Grave Consequences over, next week’s Aztec Warfare takes center stage. Striker said Drago (#20), Matanza (#1, shown getting a pep speech from Dario to prepare him for “WAR!”) and Rey Mysterio (via beating Chavo last week?) are in. Marty Martinez, Mariposa, the Mack, Ivelisse, and Jeremiah Crane earned the right to be in the match after defeating Argenis, Cage, Texano, Killshot and the debuting Dante Fox. Fox and Killshot had a run-in backstage where Dante said Dario hired him after being impressed with his attack on Killshot, and both men pretended to make peace while clearly wanting to stab each other in the back. Dante was the one who did it, ending a five minute sprint by dropping his “brother” Killshot with a DDT to give old rival Marty an easy pinfall. Cage & Texano had their own issues in the match, but the big story was Ivelisse suffering another foot injury. She pulled off a cool huracanrana on Killshot, but her feet were trapped under her on impact and something broke – she was screaming and grabbing her right foot even as she got the near fall, and rolled out in obvious in pain. Ivelisse technically is in Aztec Warfare, but it’s unlikely she’ll be able to compete.
That’s (maybe) eight in the field, with twelve unknown spots. Fenix, Aerostar, Killshot, Dante Fox, Argenis, Cage, and Texano are specifically out, Prince Puma may be dead, and Chavo Guerrero Jr. is gone. The Worldwide Underground (Johnny, Taya, PJ, Jack) seem good for four – Taya’s been missing, but they haven’t drawn any attention so it’s probably more a taping issue. Dario’s running it this time, so Pentagon Jr. probably not going to be excluded. Joey Ryan actually hasn’t wrestled at all this season, but he’s been around and he’s Dario’s friend at the moment. Usual characters Dragon Azteca, Sexy Star, Son of Havoc, Dr. Wagner Jr., Máscarita Sagrada gets us to nineteen. (Guessing Famous B is staying retired.) One spot – or two if Ivelisse can’t go – but not an obvious pick. Injured Cortez Castro? Paul London and friends? Black Lotus’ return? Someone else we haven’t seen this season? Someone new? Ricky Mandall or Vinnie Massaro?
The only other vignette (no Rabbit Tribe this week!) was Kobra Moon catching up with Drago in the bathroom again. This was a bit of a plot dump: Drago now says he was never a member of the Lizard Tribe, only their slave. Kobra Moon seems to want to go back to that old setup, but Drago’s not a fan. Daga is finally brought up, with Kobra Moon claiming “Daga was torn apart by Lord Pindar.” That sounds bad. Vinnie Massaro again wandered on this meeting with a food item, but this time decided to just go find a different bathroom.
The Famous B/Máscarita Sagrada Believers Backlash match opened the show. It was a total comedy prop match, intended just to be fun. Dr. Wagner Jr. ran in to help out, Famous B might have gotten the win but couldn’t bring himself to break a portrait of himself, Son of Havoc even the odds, and Máscarita Sagrada finally got the win by beating his old manager. Son of Havoc awarded Máscarita a biker vest for the victory, and this felt like the end of the feud.
Thoughts
This feels like the middle hour of a usual Lucha Underground chapter break – Rey/Chavo last week ended that feud, Puma/Mil (at least for now?) and Mascrita/Famous B are over this week, and the “Matazna as unbeatable champion” story looks like it’ll climax one way or another next week. You might even be able to stretch it back a week farther, with Johnny finally getting his gold by defeating Sexy Star. Of what we’ve seen so far, this is easily the best hour, and is one of the best of the season.
Doing a year Grave Consequences match, or just doing another Prince Puma/Mil Muertes match – is a challenge. There’s a lot to measure up to, and a level of shock and surprise at the level of barbarity that’ll going to be near impossible to match. (If this show runs for another twenty seasons, they may never exactly match that first match.) This match didn’t have the raw emotion or the blood of that first Grave Consequences match and it didn’t have the feel of ending with a giant move at any time like the Ultima Lucha 1 finale, but it was still a very great match, keeping up the high standards of the gimmick. Puma going crazy from the start made it feel out of control, and the huge chokeslam at the end looked very impressive. This wasn’t one of Puma’s most aerial matches – he did a 450 onto a casket and that still feels fair to say – but these need to feel like a fight and they got that feel. The Dario/Matanza vignette leading into this, had Matanza screaming about next week being a War, but it’s hard to imagine it’ll feel any more like a war than this one. They left it very unclear if we were meant to think Prince Puma was dead. Mil was warned he was going to die, but they had Striker specifically mention Konnan might not be dead (in a way where it seemed like they were setting up for a return.)
Máscarita/Famous B was an entirely opposite tone, and fun to watch. This was the best way they could’ve done this match – comedy just worked better for this than a serious match would’ve, and it being the opposite of the main event made both seem different. They threw in some references to other stuff – there was a perfume sprayer of Arrogance, Rick Martel’s old WWF bit, that blinded Famous B for a moment. There was a popcorn bad spot early which made me recall an infamous Owen Hart/Mick Foley WWF house show match, where they knew Dave Meltzer was in attendance and they wanted to see if they could get him to rate their match negative five stars by having the worst match possible, including selling big for getting hit with bags of popcorn. I’m not sure if that reference was the intention, and it was entertaining even if you weren’t looking for inside jokes – easily the best part of this feud.
The 5v5 tag seemed shortened on time to fit in the two longer matches, and probably could’ve been fun longer, but they were ending with the turn no matter how long it lasted so I’m okay with investing it the time elsewhere. It was good while is lasted. Ivelisse has had terrible luck on this show – she got hurt while being trios champions, then gets hurt while doing an awesome looking spot with Killshot. The show makes it unclear at first if it’s a real injury or a storyline – it’s both real, but maybe not the last we see of her for now. Both Jeremiah Crane and Dante Fox fit in fine in their first official matches, with Dante’s Aerostar-like springboard reverse 450 dive making him stand out more.
The Drago/Kobra Moon felt like such a repeat of the previous vignette, even though there was different plot information being communicated. If this was a more traditional sci fi drama or a soap opera, maybe this would’ve been the same scene but split over two episodes. I guess you needed to do it twice to not overwhelm people with an info dump in one night, but I’m skeptical about how much of this sinks in right away anyway. Vinnie’s repeated cameo seemed to be lampshading how forced this was. It’ll be better when they get somewhere, and it’s nice to find out poor Daga’s fate (though that trailer scene with him and the sword suggests we haven’t seen the last of him.)
