05/05 Mondo Lucha show at Congress

Hopefully this’ll be quick (edit: it wasn’t!), because I’m a bit overloaded today. Though what could be more vital than lucha results from a part music concert/part burlseque show.

Mondo Lucha is a group trying to do the Lucha Va Voom bit of lucha and burlesque dancing. “Trying” is the emphasis. This show was trying by the end.

Tickets were $15 for GA, $20 for ringside. There was different pricing and a middle ‘reserved’ seating on the website. The actual difference was $20 got you a seat around ringside, while $15 meant you stood around for the first hour behind a barrier, then just walked past the barrier and grabbed an empty seat when there was no one actually checking tickets and half the seats were empty. Even though I should’ve known better, I paid $20 for ringside and a crazy $20 for parking (it was $7 at Dragon Gate. Hipster tax?) I would guess 200 range for attendance, mostly at the $15 price.

Show started somewhere north of 7:30 (7:00 start.) I got there around 7:25, listening to people running the show telling people buying tickets that eh show was just about to start. Not really.

Show led off with that usual Cinco de Mayo staple, a band singing songs in the 1950s. They were fine.

Ring Announcers was Some Guy Who Was Probably The Promoter But Forgot To Actually Introduce Himself To The Crowd. I could end the recap there and you’d get the idea.

1) Zero Gravity (w/female manager) beat the North Star Express
Maybe the best match on the show? I have not seen Zero Gravity in many many years, but the masks they were wearing here are a normal part of their gimmick. Ryan Cruz wore a Bobby Lee mask for the match. Corbin was good playing to the crowd. NSE (heels) ended up going after the female manager, only for the manager to lay them out with moves to set up the finish.

First burlesque dancer was here. I was distracted by the insanely drunk guy (both in level of drunkness and speed of drunkness), who had been “sneaking” to better seats, and sometimes standing up and pumping his fist at the action. During this performance, he had an embarrassing premature liquid dispersal. (He kicked his beer over.) Drunk Guy ran away from his spilled beer, turning up with a new filled glass a few minutes later.

Maybe the house band played here? I left for a bit.

2) Noriega & maybe Billy Star (whomever is the guy who’s always Noriega’s partner) b Byrce Benjamin & maybe 450 Hammet (he had 450 on him, that’s all I know)

Noriega was great playing to the crowd, the rest have had better days. Rudos won clean

A white suited manager from Hollywood got into an argument with the ring announcer, demanding his man (the KGBeast – no machine gun hand) get a match on the show. The back and forth was not so good (“Is there even a Russia anymore?”) but KGBeast’s non-stop flexing with his chain in the background was pretty great. (I may have this in the wrong spot.)

Second burlesque dancer was here. I think she was the second best? I don’t have a rating scale for burlesque dancers, but she was good.

3) Former WWE Star Colt Cabana (w/Lucha Lawyer) b Chiva Exotico (w/female manager)

Colt (heel) became the second guy in about forty minutes to demand a match. Ring Announcer brought out a bisexual goat. Cabana objected, feeling this would not be the grappling battle he desired, and called out his Lucha Lawyer (goofy man in red Shane Storm mask). They looked over the contract and took the match. A comedy match broke out – Chivas biting comedy, exotico comedy (much of this) and Colt Cabana comedy, including a slow speed chase thru the crowd. Lucha Lawyer took a bowl of animal crackers and tossed them in the ring, distracted Chiva Exotico and allowing Cabana to squash him with a top rope splash for the win.

There was a two dancer act here, except it wasn’t as much dancing as crazy tricks they could do while holding onto a stripper pole. It was clearly difficult but nothing I would’ve gone out of my way to see.

4) Egotisco Fantastico & [incoherent] Kid (w/Female Manager) b Matt Cross & Arik Cannon

I think they said Fantastico’s seconds name two or three times and “Kid” was the most I ever made out. I was confused as to why Matt Cross would’ve driven from where ever he had to drive to be on this show on a Wednesday night, or why they’d bring in Matt Cross to be a short heel, but then there are a lot better questions to ask than this. This match did not do a lot for the crowd. It wasn’t bad, it just didn’t connect. Cross & Cannon (heels) ended up going after the female manager, only for the manager to lay them out with moves to set up the finish. Familiar!

Final burlesque dancer – this woman (Lola?) had been the MC for dancing segments thru the show and was really a level or two above all the other acts. Her dance was good, but she was better at interacting with the crowd thru the night. There were moments where she was ‘reacting’ to the crowd, in ways that I was sure were just preplanned, but she made it seem authentic. Best performer of the night, I guess.

The Ring Announcer called three winners from a Facebook contest in the ring to receive free t-shirts. He had no list, had no recollection of what the last names were, but eventually we had one woman who had to be coaxed to the ring, one woman who super excited to run down to the ring, and one guy who took off the shirt he was wearing to put on the new shirt (and reveal six pack abs in between.) Before you could finish saying “Hmmmmm”, White Suited Guy From Hollywood and KGBeast hit the ring, demanding the match. Ring Announcer explained everyone had already had a match, so no match. White Suited Guy decided the people in the ring had not had a match, and attacked the fans. Ring Announcer, security, and a referee seemed basically unconcerned and treated it as a 3 vs 2 match. (To be blunt, the other fans were mostly unconcerned as well; it went from “what the heck?” to “oh, this is a bit” with little worry in between.) The T-Shirt Fans were unable to figure out how to get out thru the ropes, so the KGBeast and White Suited Man just beat up on them for about four minutes – mostly the girls, with the guy getting dumped for a while. The guy managed a trip from the outside, which started the comeback. Guy in White Suit got stripped down to his pink underwear. The smaller of the two woman fouled KGBeast, the larger woman body slammed him, and the man did a top rope splash for the pin. This was all, uh, something. Interesting choice for your main event, let’s go with that.

And then the band from earlier in the show came out for another set. The “Fans” started to walk to the back, stopped to sit on the stage because walking to the back would give them away, then tried to sneak out thru the crowd during a song, still selling their injuries from the match. Got to keep the suspension of disbelief after that match.

Anyway, the band didn’t sound as good the second set as the first. I don’t know if it was them or where I was sitting (I had walked over to talked to jtron during the show, only to look back and see a group of people having decided to take over my seat while I was gone), but it was also half past 10, so I checked out before whatever else was next. So did most of the crowd, so I hope the show was actually supposed to be over then.

I wanted to say I left because I saw what I needed to see, but…this was in no way a lucha show. This was a indy wrestling show, a show that would’ve gone unnoticed under any other name and without the dancers. Lucha Va Voom actually has lucha libre wrestlers, but it’s a whole lot better in interacting with the crowd but making everything simple (these are the tecnicos, you cheer them, these are the rudos, you boo them, and we’re going to have a lot a fun by the end of the night) where this Mondo Lucha was the usual independent wrestling sillyness of just putting on matches and expecting you to care because isn’t wrestling great. That was not enough for this crowd.

Maybe I should be harsher? This was billed as half a lucha libre show, but it was a show with zero Mexican wrestlers and not even any Mexican music – it was as if they liked everything about Cinco de Mayo except the Mexican part! I can think of no better example of what Cinco de Mayo has come to mean in the United States than that, so at least I’ve gotten this easy example out of my $40.

The mask stand was pretty great. There’s was that. I’ve been to worse shows at Congress, shows that actually featured lucha libre wrestlers but had horrible matches, were badly run, and featured tons of filler I had no interest in. But when the best thing I can come up with is “I’ve seen worse”…

Lucha Va Voom is coming on June 16. That I can recommend. This, not so much.