Lucha Underground 3×18: Evil Rising

Matches

Sexy Star defeat Mariposa (top rope double stomp, 6:52, ok)

Drago [O], Vibora, Pindar defeat Mala Suerte, Saltador, Paul London [X] (6:55, running blockbuster DDT, ok)

Johnny Mundo beat the Mack (low blow, 9:40, good)

Developments

Johnny Mundo beat the Mack and Johnny Mundo is still the Lucha Underground champion, but Johnny Mundo and the Mack still are yet to have a Lucha Underground championship match. Dario Cueto, in his most bait-and-switch move in a while, changed tonight’s match between the two from a title match to one where the winner would choose the stipulation. As easily foreseen when the Mack told Sexy Star to stay out of it, Worldwide Underground interfered to give Johnny the win. Mundo insulted the Mack post match, then declared their match would be an All Night Long iron man match.

Sexy’s own night went better: she defeated Mariposa again. Mariposa showed a bit of the spark from her Battle of the Bulls fight, but was defeated cleanly at the end. There was still no indication or admission she had been behind the spider taunting, which predictably means it was someone else. Marty the Moth came to the ring after Sexy had left, helping Mariposa up to predictably attack his sister.

The middle trios match was less predictable. For one, both the Rabbit Tribe (who erroneously believe Máscarita Sagrada is their white rabbit leader) and the Reptile Tribe are both too new to be predictable. We saw some of the same hi-jinks from the Rabbits as last time, but the Reptiles are pretty much new. Kobra Moon ordered a previously chained Drago to take her place in the match, and he had no problems working with his captors. The announcers speculated Drago had been brainwashed or drugged in some way. Fenix and Aerostar saved him post match. The surprise here was Drago didn’t immediately turn on them, but he still seemed to be pretty confused.

The only other outside of the ring story started and closed the show. Mil Muertes was understandably upset about Prince Puma violating the rules of a Grave Consequences match by showing up alive – only he’s allowed to do that! Catrina correctly blamed Vampiro, and Mil Muertes thrashed Vampiro to end the show. (In a very A New Hope touch, Prince Puma made it as far as the apron but couldn’t/didn’t stop his mentor from getting a flatliner to death.)

One other thing: Jeremiah Crane tried to brag to Catrina about defeating the person she loves, only to be crushed when Catrina revealed she loved someone else. That’s what happens when you miss season 1, Crane!

There was one single commercial and one station bug adjacent message noting next week’s show as the midseason finale. It’s subtle enough that people might have missed it, and I’m guessing most people who don’t closely follow the show won’t realize it until it shows up on c&p sites tomorrow; it’s the danger of breaking news late on a Wednesday! It appeared that audio references to the Mundo/Mack title match happening in two weeks were muted. That makes sense, though not having Striker or Melissa in front of a microphone to replace their audio suggests a) they had to get it done quick/cheaply and b) they might not have known exactly when it was coming back when they made the changes.

Nothing was announced for next week, for the first time in a while. It’d be fair to expect the title match is happening next week given the way the show ended, but they never explicitly said it and it seems intended to air on episode 20, the first episode of the second season. (There’s could always switch up the order, but the preview for the next normally scheduled episode has a non-wrestling segment with Mack and Mundo that would have to be replaced if they did.)

Thoughts

Whenever season 3 is done and we’re (maybe) ranking episodes again, this will be an easy one to file in the skipable range. The matches weren’t great and the storylines didn’t really move a whole lot, or at least didn’t need the full episode to move as much as we did. It feels like the Sexy Star/spider story didn’t move at all. I guess we’re supposed to think Sexy is so perfect that she couldn’t be picking on the wrong person, because at no point in the storyline did they even work in a red herring to make one believe Mariposa was actually behind things. If there’s no progression, then it’s just another Sexy Star singles match in a season with a lot of them, and a Sexy Star/Mariposa rematch that’s not near as good as the last one you had. There’s not going to leave all that much useful out when they cut it down to 10 seconds in the next previously opening montage.

The main event was not a lot better as far as moving things along. Dario could’ve announced the All Night Long match in his interaction with the Mack backstage and it would’ve meant as much. The idea that they were facing each other to determine a stipulation really wasn’t given time to have any weight, and we barely had time to think about what stipulation either guy would want before the match was happening. (What would’ve Mack picked? I guess Falls Count Anywhere worked out ok for him.) I liked the match, with Mack’s size forcing Mundo into more of a pounding brawl than usual. The idea of Mundo as a long term champion with lots of title matches, like Puma and Matanza, but being forced to adapt to his challengers styles instead of his own has some promise. This didn’t totally get to that potential but it was enough to for me to like it fine. The finish came off super flat, with Mundo down for a long time as Mack and the referee kept going back and forth between PJ Black and Jack Evans on the apron. It felt like Mundo missed his cue about when to get back up, and it was strange they couldn’t save it in editing.

They really need Sexy Star and the Mack to start realizing they can’t just go alone when Mundo’s interfering, or at least give better reasons to do it than pride. By now, the frustration isn’t on Worldwide Underground for interfering, it’s on the técnicos for not at least attempting to stop them.

The Russo swerve of Marty attacking his sister is the worst of predictable booking. It’s always done where there’s no reason for the two friendly characters to be having this interaction without the turn, and without really any good explanation for the turn. They really needed some follow up on this show, right after Marty attacked Mariposa, to make it mean something. It felt cheap and pointless as it was presented, but maybe one of them might now win a feud. There’s nothing there that you’ll wouldn’t get the same amount out of when it airs to start a show.

The trios match seemed to not work as intended. I think the idea was to get over the Reptile Tribe, but the Rabbit Tribe is so colorful and wacky that the slightly newer guys got overshadowed. Pindar seemed like he got nearly as much in on Aerostar after the match as he did during the match. Maybe Vibora too; Fenix and Aerostar were better at being gnats for them to swat away, and maybe some Argenis-level team would’ve helped give a stronger first impression. The mystery over Drago’s actions at least came thru well. Drago came back to técnicos awfully quickly , which probably means this story isn’t over, but it’s interesting enough that I want to see that more.

That’s the deal. Predictable stuff is good if you’re interested in the destination. This one just had a batch of storylines where I’m not that interested in them right now and the matches didn’t really make up for it. The good thing about LU is there’s so much stuff – maybe too much stuff! – so we’ll likely get a whole different batch of stories moving forward next week and I’ll probably like those more. And I’m intrigued to find out how Mundo & Mack can go 40 minutes, but I may have to wait a while for that.