BRM Reviews the 9/5/2018 Lucha Underground (underwhelming)

[Big Red Machine]

CATRINA TELLS MIL MUERTES SHE’S DONE WITH HIM- odd
She says she is done wasting her life doing his bidding. Wasn’t the original backstory that she was the one who appeared to him when he was stuck in a collapsed building after the Mexico City earthquake and he was just a normal kid? She tells Mil that she never loved him; the man she truly loved was the one who gave her her freedom, which I presume means Fenix based on the clips they showed before. She gave Mil his rock back and told him to keep it as “something to remember me by.” Mil was completely stoic throughout all of this. Catrina then gave Mil his stone back and left, but before she could even exit Mil’s sanctum…

MELISSA SANTOS SHOWS UP TO START A FIGHT WITH CATRINA- The previously-helpless Melissa appears to have gained a large amount of martial arts knowledge recently. She and Catrina have a mediocre movie martial arts fight that then turned goofily overdramatic. At one point Catrina had Melissa in an armbar and taunted her that Fenix died for her freedom and that “his heart burned for me.” Melissa countered by conceding that “he did die for you… but you will die for me!”
Catrina punched her way through a really weak door, and now they’re apparently fighting on a scaffold very high up in the air. Catrina got Melissa in some sort of chokehold so Melissa held up the pendant… and then Catrina just grabbed it and began to choke Melissa with it. I laughed my ass off at that.
Painfully creative editing was employed to avoid Melissa actually having to give Catrina a Judo toss over a railing. Catrina was then hanging on just by a hand when Mil Muertes showed up to grab Catrina’s hand, stuff the rock in it, and tell her it was “something to remember me by” before dropping her, apparently causing Catrina to fall to her death.
We then cut to Melissa standing over Catrina’s dead body when AeroStar showed up. Melissa tells him that she didn’t kill her. AeroStar says he knows this. He tells Melissa that he needs her pendant, and promises to give her what her heart desires most if she will do so. She gives AeroStar the pendant, and then he did some weird magical thing that caused either the pendant, Mil’s stone, or both, turn into black vapor and get sucked into the repulsor ray projector on his chest. Then we get a graphic flashing us back to...

TEN WEEKS EARLIER- We saw Catrina kissing Fenix in his casket and becoming fully alive again. She walked off, at which point AeroStar appeared. He did some sort of wacky energy-focusing thing using the reuplsor ray in his chest and some DBZ movements, and it brought Fenix back to life. Presumably AeroStar is keeping Fenix’s resurrection a secret for strategic reasons in the ultimate battle between good and evil.

BACK IN THE PRESENT- AeroStar brings Fenix to Melissa. I guess I was wrong about that last bit, then. Fenix is moving in a very robotic fashion. AeroStar tells Melissa, “he’s been taken out of him. It will take a while… for him to be the same again.” AeroStar disappeared in a flash of lightning, then something freaky happened with Fenix’s eye.


BACK AT THE TEMPLE- Striker and Vampiro tell us that tonight’s scheduled world title main event has been cancelled because Johnny Mundo is in no condition to wrestle. In fact, Vampiro says that Johnny may never be able to wrestle again. Dude… Matanza or not, it was just a table bump! If you want me to worry that his career is over, you need to do something more than that. Now that I think about it, but P.J. Black and Taya took table bumps from Matanza, too. Is the future of their careers in doubt as well?

JOEY WRESTLING vs. “THE MONSTER” MATANZA CUETO- 2/10
Joey got some offense in via low blows. Then he hit Matanza with a Pedigree just so Matanza could completely no-sell it. But Joey’s not bitter about getting fired or anything like that. Joey got magically disappeared/sacrificed after the match.

KILLSHOT vs. BIG BAD STEVE (w/the Beautiful Brenda)- 4.5/10
Killshot worked over Big Bad Steve’s knee. Son of Havoc came out to watch with popcorn and a soda. Steve made a sort comeback but Killshot cut him off and won with the double-stomp.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- The fans were all chanting “SON OF HAVOC!” Killshot was about to leave, but turned back to talk trash to the fans about Son of Havoc. He then slapped Son of Havoc’s popcorn bucket out of his hands. Son of Havoc got up and they had a brawl that ended when Son of Havoc ripped off Killshot’s mask and Killshot ran away so that no one would find out that he’s really Shane Strickland. Don’t worry, Killshot! Your secret is safe with me.
Anyway, I didn’t like this at all. Coming out in the middle of someone’s match with popcorn and soda is a dick move, so when Killshot slapped the popcorn out of Son of Havoc’s hand I popped because Son of Havoc deserved it. The mask-ripping seems as if it’s going to lead to a mask vs. mask match, and if either of these guys were developed in any way I would care, but I don’t. Both of these guys are guys who seem to wear masks to hide their identities because they’ve done shady things in the past, but that hasn’t been explored in any way that would make it feel like there would be actual consequences for one of these men if his identity were to be revealed.

PENTAGON DARK PROMO- He was a total heel, suggesting that Mundo is faking his injuries. He makes an open challenge, resulting in…

LUCHA UNDERGROUND TITLE MATCH: Pentagon Dark(c) vs. Hernandez- 5.25/10
Before the match Hernandez cut a promo reminding us all that Pentagon Dark broke his arm in Aztec Warfare IV several months ago. They had a painfully mediocre match here as our world title main event, with a very abrupt finish.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- meh
Pentagon Dark set up to break Hernandez’s arm again, but decided to wait for a while before doing it so that King Cuerno could show up and attack him from behind before he got around to doing it. King Cuerno laid him out with the belt, then hit Pentagon Dark with Thrill of the Kill onto the belt. This would feel a lot more exciting to me if King Cuerno had actually… you know… done anything all season.

Another disappointing episode of Lucha Underground. Things feel like they’re being done a lot more on the fly this year. The feuds feel a lot more vanilla and seem to escalate out of nowhere. Opening the show with ten-minutes of a backstage action sequence was a nice change, and is the sort of thing that reminds me of what used to be so exciting about LU, but now just feels watered down. Yeah, Fenix is back and that's nice and I expected it and he should be back, but I wish they hadn't done it at the expense of Catrina, who is connected to so many of the ongoing stories that intrigue me the most (the Limo Guy vs. Captain Vasquez "great game" that is going on, whatever her backstory with Jeremiah Crane was, and whatever secrets about the Temple that would have been revealed as we learned more of its history).

[cero2k]

JOEY WRESTLING vs. “THE MONSTER” MATANZA CUETO- 2/10
Joey got some offense in via low blows. Then he hit Matanza with a Pedigree just so Matanza could completely no-sell it. But Joey’s not bitter about getting fired or anything like that. Joey got magically disappeared/sacrificed after the match.

I liked that they killed Joey like that, but I think they did it at the wrong time. Right now Mundo should be pissed at the wedding being attacked, not Joey being killed, so when he comes back, one of those reasons is likely going to look like not that big of a deal.

Another disappointing episode of Lucha Underground. Things feel like they’re being done a lot more on the fly this year. The feuds feel a lot more vanilla and seem to escalate out of nowhere. Opening the show with ten-minutes of a backstage action sequence was a nice change, and is the sort of thing that reminds me of what used to be so exciting about LU, but now just feels watered down. Yeah, Fenix is back and that's nice and I expected it and he should be back, but I wish they hadn't done it at the expense of Catrina, who is connected to so many of the ongoing stories that intrigue me the most (the Limo Guy vs. Captain Vasquez "great game" that is going on, whatever her backstory with Jeremiah Crane was, and whatever secrets about the Temple that would have been revealed as we learned more of its history).

I keep saying, they're killing everyone off to finally kill the show, and you know what, I wouldn't mind it. This is getting like
Heroes season 4

[Big Red Machine]

JOEY WRESTLING vs. “THE MONSTER” MATANZA CUETO- 2/10
Joey got some offense in via low blows. Then he hit Matanza with a Pedigree just so Matanza could completely no-sell it. But Joey’s not bitter about getting fired or anything like that. Joey got magically disappeared/sacrificed after the match.

I liked that they killed Joey like that, but I think they did it at the wrong time. Right now Mundo should be pissed at the wedding being attacked, not Joey being killed, so when he comes back, one of those reasons is likely going to look like not that big of a deal.

Agreed.

Another disappointing episode of Lucha Underground. Things feel like they’re being done a lot more on the fly this year. The feuds feel a lot more vanilla and seem to escalate out of nowhere. Opening the show with ten-minutes of a backstage action sequence was a nice change, and is the sort of thing that reminds me of what used to be so exciting about LU, but now just feels watered down. Yeah, Fenix is back and that's nice and I expected it and he should be back, but I wish they hadn't done it at the expense of Catrina, who is connected to so many of the ongoing stories that intrigue me the most (the Limo Guy vs. Captain Vasquez "great game" that is going on, whatever her backstory with Jeremiah Crane was, and whatever secrets about the Temple that would have been revealed as we learned more of its history).

I keep saying, they're killing everyone off to finally kill the show, and you know what, I wouldn't mind it. This is getting like
Heroes season 4

I don't think they're doing it to kill the show. I think they're doing it to write people out because those people don't want to stick around. I think the seven-year contracts were a big mistake. They should have asked for five at the most.