Lucha Underground 2×10: El Jefe Is Back

Matches

Mr. Cisco & Cortez Castro b Johnny Mundo & Taya [4:39, Psycho Realm on Taya, OK]

Angelico, Son of Havoc, Ivelisse vs Barrio Negro, Trece, Siniestro de la Muerte to retain the Lucha Underground Trios championship [good, first defense]
Siniestro de la Muerte pinned Ivelisse (2:37)
Angelico Fall of Angels on Trece (4:45)
Siniestro de la Muerte beat Angelico (6:33, double knee smash to the back)
Son of Havoc beat Barrio Negro (7:53, standing shooting star press)
Son of Havoc beat Siniestro de la Muerte (9:26, moonsault)

Mariposa beat Sexy Star (1:24, Butterfly Effect, OK but no really long enough to be rated)

Matanza defeats Pentagon Jr. to retain the Lucha Underground Championship (3:58, Wrath of the Gods, OK) – first defense

Developments

Make it ten in a row for Matanza. He didn’t beat Pentagon as quickly as he beat his opponents at the end of the Azteca Warfare tonight, but he wasn’t in really any more trouble even when Pentago knew he was coming. Pentagon got in shots on Mantanza, but even his backcracker couldn’t take the monster off his feet. Pentagon ‘earned’ the title match by attacking Dario and threatening to break his arm. Matanza broke Pentagon in response; Pentagon had a back injury late in the match, took the big powerslam, and then got powerbombed thru the announce table after the match. The show ended with Pentagon being taken away in ambulance with Vampiro (who attacked checking on Pentagon) glaring back out thru the ambulance window.

Dario was busy taking care of existing issues this episode. He transitioned back into power, and back into having his office in it’s usual look, rather quick. The interim tenant, Catrina, didn’t object to her candles being removed, but was very upset Mil got taken out before even getting into Aztec Warfare and demanded a title shot. Dario brushed off Catrian’s ghost behavior and pushed for a truce, noting he was giving the Disciples a trios title rematch, but Catrina declared Matanza would have the title back and she’d have the Temple too. Dario didn’t seem worried.

Dario also had to deal with an angry Rey Mysterio, who wanted to talk about Dragon Azteca. Dario first tried to avoid the topic by talking about Azteca Jr., but Rey wanted answers about Dragon Azteca Senior. Rey accused Matanza of killing his old mentor, and Dario swore his brother didn’t murder Azteca. (Dario is telling the truth – it was Black Lotus, back around as a bodyguard, who killed Azteca.) Dario tried making a deal with Rey, which went much smoother than Catrina: Rey and Azteca were welcome back into the Temple, as long as they left the past in the past. Rey clearly didn’t trust Dario, but seemed to take this deal for the moment.

The trios rematch didn’t go too much better for the Disciples. They did manage to get a 2 on 1 advantage in the elimination match (and no reason seemed to be given for it being an elimination match.) Catrina helped out, distracting Ivelisse into a kick, and trying to cost Son of Havoc the pin at the end. Ivelisse stopped Catrina that time, and the champs kept the belts. The formerly dysfunctional trio seem completely on the same page, and the Disciples should be well out of the title picture now. New challengers are coming; Dario announced a trios tournament for #1 contenders starting next week.

Mariposa made her in-ring debut. Prior, Marty told a story of the Moths always being the richest tribe of the Aztecs, of the others being jealous of them, and of the role of Mariposa being passed down from generation to generation to the current strongest one. It’s Marty, and he was reading this from a book which had no words, so it could be all in his head or completely true. At any rate, Mariposa completely squashed Sexy Star, and the moth siblings took out Willie Mack after the match too.

The opener was the odd tag match of the Crew versus Mundo & Taya. Johnny seemed to be taking advantage of Taya’s enthusiasm to fight, and carefully only tagged himself in when he thought he team had the advantage. They were really at a disadvantage when Cage came down to watch. Mundo bailed, and Taya took the pin.

Thoughts

Anything was going to be a bit of a comedown from the last few weeks, and this one was a little bit of a resetting of the status quo. Dario got his office reset, cleared out the last vestiges of the Catrina era and set the template to come.

It’s going to be an adjustment going from the back and forth matches of the Puma championship run and even the competitive matches of Mil Muertes short run to utterly one sided Matanza matches. It’s easy to understand what they’re doing from a logical standpoint – it’s going to be a while before anyone can even really budge the monster – but it does take one of the more fun aspects of the show away for the moment. They did promise a much darker place, and a place without two count falls in the title match is a bit dark.

This Disciples trios title match is the best of the three they’ve had, even with the quick eliminations canceling people out. It’s probably too late in the game to matter, but the Disciples actually looked impressive at times and they eliminations made it easier to get a sense of them as different characters. You could at least tell which one was which when they all aren’t around (and when Striker can name them again.) It would’ve been a more memorable match with a bit more time, but the last run by Son of Havoc was really good.

The Mariposa/Sexy Star match felt very edited, like they took out minutes of the match in a big chunk at one point. It was also another one sided squash on this show. Mariposa’s finish looked brutal. I really liked the Marty vignette.

The opening tag match was ill-fitting. There was no real team to root for or a reason to care about the match, and it didn’t really move along any story – Cage hates Mundo, Mundo is scared of Cage, Mundo is kind of a jerk to Taya but Taya doesn’t care or hasn’t caught on. It wasn’t long and it wasn’t bad, but it was something I was easily distracted from and felt like time that could’ve been better spent on the trios match.

There was a lot of stuff that got done that needed to get done – they had to explain the status of Rey and Catrina, they gave Mariposa a real introduction, and they started things for the future with the trios tournament announcement. The show served it’s purpose, but it doesn’t seem like one people will be looking back at strongly.