Lucha Underground 3×40: Ultima Lucha Tres – Part IV

Matches

Matanza defeated El Dragon Azteca (8:27, Wrath of Gods, good)

Mil Muertes defeated Cage & Jeremiah Crane for the gauntlet of the gods

• Cage Weapon X on Jeremiah Crane (11:33)

• Mil Muertes Flatliner onto a chair Cage (14:04)

Prince Puma beat Johnny Mundo (c) to win the Lucha Underground Championship and keep his career (18:23, 630 senton, excellent)

Pentagon Dark defeated Prince Puma (c) to win the Lucha Underground Championship and to end Prince Puma’s career while saving his own (8:27, running package piledriver, great)

Developments

Everything came to an end.

Dario Cueto’s deception of Black Lotus came to an end. Dario had long ago convinced her Dragon Azteca had killed her family, when it was Matanza all along. Lotus returned, attacking Azteca once again to set up a surprise powerbomb on Matanza. Lotus got Dario to admit he was a lair, while also suckering Lotus into an attack from Matanza. Lotus found out the truth, but her shot at revenge seemed to be at an end. Dragon Azteca didn’t fare any better. He technically won the match by being thrown thru the cage, but Dario restarted it and Matanza destroyed Azteca for most of it.

The battle over the gauntlet seems to be concluded. Dario made the three way match an elimination match. All three men were covered in blood even without the help of the super powered gauntlet. Cage finished Crane by suplexing him out of the ring thru two tables and Mil Muertes, then brought him back in for a Weapon X. Mil Muertes was able to catch Cage with a Flatliner on a chair to eliminate him. Dario presented Cage and Catrina with the gauntlet, Muertes posed, the lights went out – and King Cuerno returned to lay out Muertes. Cuerno got revenge on the man who sent him to ambulance one Ultima Lucha ago, and took the gauntlet for himself.

Taya’s documentary wrapped, and we saw it in all of it’s star wipe glory. Thumbs up.

Prince Puma’s quest to win the Lucha Underground Championship for it’s second time reached it’s destination. It didn’t come easy. Worldwide Underground got involved with referee Marty Elias was taken out. They dragged in Rick Knox to make the count, but Prince Puma kept kicking out. Angelico made a surprise return for a safe, clearing on Worldwide Underground once, and then a second time when Ricky Mundo unwisely charged with a kendo stick and was easily disarmed. Puma survived a top rope Moonlight Drive and Fin de Mundo to hit the 630 to win the title and save his career

Dario was not done. He revealed one more match: Pentagon Dark cashing in his Gift of the Gods to face Prince Puma. Dario made it career versus career as well. Pentagon broke Puma’s arm early in the match, with Puma wrapping his arm but wrestling one armed most of the way. He still had an opening for the 630, but Vampiro pulled Pentagon out of the way. Pentagon eventually finished off Prince Puma with a running package piledriver to win the title for the first time, and to end Puma’s career. Vampiro put the belt around Pentagon’s wait, and declared the Temple was his as a dejected Puma left.

Lucha Underground concluded with a series of vignettes, similar to season 1:

• a dejected Prince Puma walked out of the temple one last time, but not before dropping his mask on the floor.

• King Cuerno back in his trophy room, with the gauntlet as his newest prize

• Sexy Star, on a red carpet, was given a present by a young girl and warned “she hasn’t forgotten”. The present contained a spider, confirming it wasn’t Cortez/Veneno who resposible for them.

• Máscarita Sagrada insisted he was not the white rabbit but told the Rabbit Tribe he could take them to him/her/it

• Fenix & Melissa drove off in Fenix’s firebird, but Catrina had an eye on them (still with feelings for Fenix) – and Crane seemed to be watching all of them

• In the Reptile Tribe throne room, Pindar was tied down. Daga swung a sword around and, with Kobra Moon telling him he needed only one more thing to become her king, Daga chopped off Pindar’s head. Drago, chained up, didn’t seem to like this much. Daga & Kobra Moons seem to be getting along much better.

• Matanza is back in his cell. Rey Mysterio is also locked up, as Black Lotus has been in the past.

• Vampiro told his master that Puma was gone forever and Pentagon was raised to new heights. His Master, a masked man, told Vampiro he did a good job and he (Pentagon?) would soon fall.

• Dario Cueto apologized to Agent Winter about not getting the gauntlet, but he’ll fix it. Agent Winter told Dario not to worry, Dario’s getting a pass on this. Dario was surprised, but Winter explained it didn’t matter, because Dario would be dead – and shot Dario twice in the gut. Winter said new management would take care of it. Winter left, and Dario grabbed the red phone. He called someone in his dying breath, spoke in Spanish, and passed out. The person on the phone called Dario Jefe, but that’s all I got. (Twitter says Dario said “I need your help”, which sounds right.) It appears Dario Cueto may be dead, but they left it slightly open – the closing sound was a pounding heartbeat drum effect, and then silence.

The show ended with “To Be Continued”, just as the previous seasons did.

Thoughts

I don’t even know what to say here. Opener was good for what it was for. Three way match was great (and even a little better live.) Puma/Mundo was outstanding. Pentagon/Puma was thrilling. The stuff they’ve teased all year was cleared up in the last few minutes and unexpected stuff was set up. If you’ve followed this show for the last three seasons, this was everything you wanted in a finale.

Well…maybe you didn’t want Dario dead. They left an out, I hope they take the out, I can’t imaginethis show without Dario. On a night where LU gave us a thing people’ve been wanting for the last 60 or so episodes, Pentagon as champion, they teased one of the things people would least want to happen. It’s a heck of a cliff hanger. Is Dario alive? Who could replace him?

I’m not sure anyone can really replace Prince Puma. His week in, week out strong matches were a major part of season 1, and his performance tonight belongs among those. The match was Mundo was outstanding before and after the interference break (which didn’t really harm the match). Going straight from that to another match with Pentagon working with one arm ratcheted up the difficulty even more. Puma handled it fine. There’s fair reasons to have doubts about how he’ll do in WWE, but don’t forgot what you saw for the last three seasons: this man can get over as a top of promotion star given the opportunity. If WWE doesn’t get the same return out of him that Lucha Underground did, it’s says a lot more about WWE’s weaknesses than about Ricochet’s.

Pentagon is an ace of a different sort. LU still stubbornly wants him to be the villain, though not a single person in that building wanted to boo him at the end of the night. He’s the charismatic king of a temple full of lunatics, and you can accomplish a lot with that. There’s no obvious next challenger lined up, and even some of the usual suspects have other stuff going on. (Mundo with Angelico, Muertes with Cuero, Fenix with Crane?), and I don’t know exactly what a season 4 title reign would bring Pentagon. But I hope it’d bring him the long, dominate reign people have been waiting for.

There’s so much to talk about, and I can’t cover it all. Matanza might be that next challenger, because he looked impressively dominant in his match. Cage put in the an athletic performance which would be far an away the best on most shows. Aneglico looked great in his return, and I’m hopeful we finally get to see that big match. The vignettes came off great, even if a couple of them – Rey, Sexy Star – made me confused knowing they left open plots for people who they might have known weren’t coming back. (They sure had decided Pindar wasn’t coming back!) On the podcast, a chat room person suggested Vampiro’s master might just be Kevin Kross’ character, and I’m interested in seeing how that plays out.

I really hope it all does. I’ve hoped that all along, but everything about this episode of Lucha Underground made you want to see more episodes of Lucha Underground. I hope Dario and the rest lives a while longer.