Lucha Underground 4×15: The Hunted

Matches

Fenix beat Aerostar
(6:16, Fenix Valagueza powerbomb – Black Fire Driver, good)

Marty the Moth beat Dragon Azteca Jr. (c) beat to win the Gift of the Gods Championship
(4:47, double underhook DDT, ok)

Pentagon Dark defeated Mil Muertes and King Cuerno to keep the Lucha Underground Championship
(6:01, package piledriver, good)

Marty Martinez defeated Pentagon Dark to keep the Lucha Underground Championship
(3:33, double underhook DDT package piledriver, ok)

Status Check

Champion: Marty the Moth (0 defenses)

Gift of the Gods: Vacant.

Trios Champions: Reptile Tribe (Kobra Moon, Daga, Jeremiah Snake) (1 defense)

Died This Season (14): Jeremiah Crane (casket)*, Fenix (casket/lifeforce absorbed), Mr. Pec-tacular (sacrificed), Cortez Castro (sacrificed), Máscarita Sagrada (murdered by Rabbits), Vinnie Massaro (sacrificed), Pizza Guy (sacrificed), Vibora (beheaded), Mala Suerte (sacrificed) , Saltador (sacrificed), Benji the Agent (murdered by Ricky), Angelico (implied to have been murdered by Ricky), Catrina (fell off a roof), Joey Wrestling (sacrificed)

Resurrected (2): Jeremiah Crane/Snake, Fenix

Developments

This has been a pretty pitiful season for Marty the Moth Martinez. Pentagon broke his arm in Aztec Warfare to start the season. Marty’s only been seen in two vignettes in the thirteen episodes since that time. It turned around in one show. Marty had the greatest night of his career, ending it as Lucha Underground champion.

It helps to have things break your way. Marty got unexpected luck early. Fenix destroyed Aerostar and confronted Melissa post-match. Dragon Azteca decided to get in the middle and paid for it. Fenix ended up dropping him on the floor with his valagueza powerbomb – dubbed the Black Fire Driver by Matt Striker – and Azteca was really in no condition to defend his title.

Azteca insisted on doing it anyway, especially when Antonio Cueto said he was going to just rule it as a forfeit. Azteca put up a fight and got in one moment of hope, but eventually lost cleanly to Marty’s double underhook DDT.

Pentagon Dark survived the double challenge of Mil Muerte and King Cuerno to keep his title, only to be immediately attacked. The strange amount of time remaining gave a hint as to what was happening next. Antonio Cueto appeared to state Marty persuaded him that the “one week notice” rule on the Gift of the Gods championship was a dumb idea, and he was waving it going forward. (This was the other thing Marty bought last week.) Cueto ordered the match started with Marty against a beat up Pentagon.

Marty had control most of the short match, but Pentagon caught him with the Mexican Destroyer. Marty smartly rolled out before he could be pinned. Marty also apparently made his own luck: a previously unseen woman crawled into the ring and surprised Pentagon with a Canadian Destroyer. (It’s Chelesa Green, who was not given a name.) Marty hit his double underhook DDT, and shockingly ended Pentagon’s reign.

Small detail: this week, Striker acknowledged Mil Muertes was on his own. He did while seemingly going out of this way to not mention Catrina by name.

In the only unrelated segment of the night, Paul London was granted an audience with the White Rabbit. London noted how long it took to get noticed and mentioned sacrificing Saltador & Mala Surete. The White Rabbit paid no attention to any of that, only noting London was down two teammates and suggesting himself and El Bunny fill in. London agreed to take them back to the Temple.

Marty’s cash-in means the Gift of the Gods title is now vacant. The usual end of season Medalion scramble should begin shortly. We should also expect to start hearing matches for Ultima Lucha 4 (just 6 episodes away) at any time. It sure appeared a couple were set up on this show.

Thoughts

This episode was all in service of telling the story of Marty scheming his way to a championship. The matches were a bit sacrificed to tell that story. They’re always shortchanged on a four-match show. They were designed not to be much in two of them, with similar “the champion is too hurt to put up a challenge” stories being told. It worked if you got into the Marty win, and it came so out of nowhere (even with the pieces laid out last week) that it was memorable. I’m not sure I’m excited about a Marty title run, but it’s understandable they’d want to give it a try after his strong work in his feud with Fenix and Killshot last season. It just also feels part of the erratic nature of this season for someone to be gone for two-thirds of it and end up as champion.

Dark Fenix, as we’re no doubt supposed to think of him, really stood out in his match with Aerostar. I’m still not convinced that a rudo Fenix is the best use of him, but he’s really good at the sinister zombie act he’s doing, and it does freshen him up after basically being the same character for the entire run so far. (There’s few characters from the initial run of episodes who haven’t been changed or disappeared for a stretch.) Fenix & Aerostar probably could’ve done much more given the time, but they made the most out of what they had and the bigger match is the one with Azteca.

Mil/Cuerno/Pentagon took the hardest hit from the storyline requirements. Marty/Azteca could’ve been better, but those three guys are among the best luchadors who’ve been on the promotion and it felt too hurried to be a big-time match. It was reminiscent of the Cage & Matanza matches that didn’t quite live up to their potential.

The other two matches weren’t much. Pentagon got more offense, though both shared the same couple of hope spots by the champions before they got beat. Marty got a little more help with Pentagon – Penta is historically weak to women doing Canadian Destroyers – but they were notable for the outcome and not a lot that happened in them.