Lucha Underground 4×4: Pain, Love and Sacrifice to the Gods

Matches

Jake Savage beat Big Bad Strong Steve (2:07, anklelock, ok)

Taya & Johnny Mundo beat Daga & Kobra Moon (6:22, Taya curbstomp Kobra Moon, good)

Matanza defeated Mr. Pec-tacular (0:47, Wrath of the Gods, ok )

King Cuerno beat Chavo Guerrero for an Aztec Medallion (9:52, Thrill of the Kill, ok)

Status Check

Champion: Pentagon Dark

Gift of the Gods: vacant

Aztec Medallions: Dragon Azteca, King Cuerno, the winner of Mil Muertes/Cage + 4 TBD

Trios Champions: Killshot, the Mack, Son of Havoc

Died This Season: Jeremiah Crane (casket), Fenix (casket/lifeforce absorbed), Mr. Pec-tacular (sacrificed)

Happenings

After three episodes of big events, the fourth episode of the season was smaller in scale, mostly setting up things for later. As usual for these sort of Lucha Underground episodes, the Aztec Medallions were back in play.

King Cuerno won a Medallion over Chavo Guerrero, in a match which seemed to exist for the announcers to tell us Chavo was one of the best of all time, but also evil and that meant Cuerno was now a good guy. It was more notable for the office vignette which set it up. Antonio Cueto would like the Gauntlet back for the Order. Cuerno’s story is it was stolen from him. Antonio in no way believes this story but can’t do anything about it for this moment. Instead, he tries bribery. Cuerno’s offered not just a medallion match against the man who beat him in Aztec Warfare, but the specific medallion which represents his tribe. Cage interrupts the meeting to ask for a title shot of his own. Antonio’s not big on getting a title match just by attacking the champion and tells Cage he’ll have to earn it, starting with a Medallion match with Mil Muertes next week. Antonio says Muerte’s tribe’s medallion will be on the line, which is also shown to the camera.

Both the Cuerno (Deer?) and Muertes (Death?) tribes & medallions had been guessed at by people watching the show. This appears to be the first time the show has outright stated those last two ones. That means off referenced about seven tribes are:

• Deer (or something like that): King Cuerno
• Rabbit: Paul London, Mala Suerte, Saltador
• Moth: Mariposa & Marty
• Reptile: Kobra Moon, Daga, Drago, Vibora
• Eagle: Dragon Azteca Jr.
• Jaguar: no known active currently members in LU
• Death (or something like that): Mil Muertes, Catrina

In other show mythology, a vignette with Catrina served as a coda to the three-way Grave Consequences match from last week. Catrina sucked the lifeforce out of Fenix with a kiss, then dropped off her half of the immortality amulet with Melissa as a reminder. Melissa has no idea what it is, but the show did a good job reminding us of the amulet’s meaning in the previously vignettes. They also showed a brief clip from a season 1 (!) episode where Catrina outright said stealing Fenix’s lifeforce was her goal – this plan seemed to come suddenly the last few weeks, but they’d laid a seed for it years ago. Catrina’s lifeforce absorption came with an outfit change into a red dress. I think it’s the outfit she was wearing in the western poster that hinted at her old age in an episode long ago, but I can’t remember which one to check.

On top of all that, Matanza is now sacrificing people to the gods by having the lights go off, a special effect noise play, and the person being disappeared when the lights came back up. Mr. Pectacular was the first victim, getting in no effective offense against the newly charged up monster.

Big Bad Steve didn’t fare any better against Jake Strong, losing an uncompetitive match and getting his ankle broken. Strong stole part of Steve’s gear too. Brenda was with Steve but Famous B was not – Matt Striker said B was in danger of getting his leg amputated because of the damage from Strong’s anklelock. They asked that people send well wishes to 1-423-Get-Fame

Maybe the most normal thing on the show was the feud between the Hollywood types and the snake people. Kobra Moon’s first in-ring action since season 2 ended in a loss, though it wasn’t without interference. PJ Black cracked her with a kick to the head to set up Taya’s curbstomp. The victory was short-lived, as Vibora was able to take out three present members of Worldwide Underground in revenge. Kobra Moon vowed Johnny Mundo would bow before her.

Thoughts

This episode had some things for people who are into the Lucha Underground lore, but it didn’t really have much in memorable matches.

Both the Matanza and Strong matches were not much. Matanza is much better at doing an impressive squash at this point. The sacrifice bit was unimpressive; I was preparing myself for something gory, something in the more over the top LU fashion that would get everyone’s who already given up on the show mad at it. It was just the lights out trick instead. Strong needs a direction and a better connection with the LU storylines then beating up people vaguely allied with Famous B. He also needs a better camera angle on his gutwrench suplex, since that was his one impressive spot.

I wasn’t really feeling long Chavo Guerrero matches in 2015. Three more years haven’t improved the situation. The match had a purpose of reminding people who hadn’t seen Cuerno wrestling a real match since season 2 of what he can do and that it’s ok to cheer for him. It still felt more long than good. Lucha Underground Twitter teased this might be it for Chavo for now, which didn’t seem connected to anything mentioned on the show. I hope they know what they’re talking about.

The mixed tag was the best match on the show. Daga got a lot of time for once and made a good impact with it. It didn’t make him by any means, but he’s another guy no one’s seen on this show for nearly two seasons and it at least reminded those people he might be part of good matches. (He also told Mundo “Welcome to Snake Town!”) We’re kind of owed a Mundo/Daga match from AAA and they did enough to make me want to hear it here. Kobra Moon seemed protected early – tagging in, doing the Lita headscissors on Mundo and tagging right back didn’t give me great hope – but she did more later and ended up looking better than she had in the past. (There were some edits though, even I could pick it up for once.) The big surprise was they did a mixed tag match without making a big deal about it for once. Vibora was put over super strong in this match. I still have no idea who I’m supposed to be rooting for in this feud. At least the action’s good.