BRM Reviews the first episode of Lucha Underground (must-see)

[Big Red Machine]

OPENING VIDOE PACKAGE AND SET-UP TO EVERYTHING-AMAZING!

So… this guy named Dario Cueto owns both the promotion and the arena (his “temple”), and he wants to see some Luchadors fight. He is putting up $100,000 to the wrestler who impresses him the most tonight.

CHAVO GUERRERO JR. vs. BLUE DEMON JR.- 4.25/10
Not much of a story or anything, but these were definitely the right guys to put on in the first match. There is one spot where I THINK there was a botch (Blue Demon’s flying headscissors), the editing was good enough that I am not entirely certain.

DARIO CUETO MEETS WITH KONNAN IN HIS OFFICE- FANTASTIC!
Konnan says that wants to win the money that Cueto is putting up, and says that his client (who is not yet named or seen) is the best Luchador in the world. Cueto says he has signed a big name free agent, Johnny Mundo (John Morrison)… but he has only signed him to make an example out of him because Mundo is only in it for the money and doesn’t respect Cueto or his temple. Cueto offers to let Konnan’s guy be the one to make an example out of Mundo.
This whole thing was FANTASTIC. There were so many little subtleties here that it is hard to convey through writing. You got the sense that Cueto is a dangerous man, and is probably a heel with a big ego, and that this whole thing is also a warning for Konnan and his guy. You REALLY need to watch this.


VIDEO PACKAGE WITH KONNAN TALKING ABOUT PRINCE PUMA- also awesome, and with some cool background on Lucha Libre, too! The only flaw in this is Konnan’s statement that Prince Puma’s spirit animal is a jaguar. Shouldn’t it be… you know… a Puma?

SEXY STAR VIDEO PACKAGE- also fantastic.

SEXY STAR vs. SON OF HAVOC- 0.5/10
Sexy star is a chick. Son of Havoc, as his name indicates, is a dude. I probably wouldn’t have booked an intergender match for my first show. I get why they did it and how it works with her character, but in order to do this right, you need to let her actually lose some matches at some point too, or else she will get stale and go nowhere. That, of course, requires the rather controversial visual of a man beating up a woman, and thus isn’t something I’d have dared to do at any point on my first season or two of US TV. Props to them for being brave enough to do it, but I hope it doesn’t bring negative attention to their product.
That’s what I think of this as a concept. As for the execution… FAIL!
Yeah, he’s being a dick, but she’s supposed to be a babyface! Having her jump this guy from behind calls her integrity into question, and craps all over everything she said in that video package. She’s a terrible role model. If I want a good female role model for my daughter, I’ll show her some Ronda Rousey fights. I certainly wouldn’t want my daughter emulating this conniving cheater.
And… HOLY F*CK, SHE LOST! Now not only is she a cheater, but she’s a loser, too!

DARIO CUETO REAMS CHAVO OUT BACKSTAGE- he berates Chavo for losing. “What would your grandfather think? What would your uncles think?” He also says that because Chavo couldn’t get rid of Blue Demon tonight, he will need to bring in someone who will next week... “but once this man is here, there will be nothing I can do to stop him. One thousand deaths might be coming for us all.” That last sentence was a bit melodramatic, but once again, the whole overall presentation, especially the framing and camerawork, was fantastic.

JOHNNY MUNDO vs. PRINCE PUMA (w/Konnan)- 7.5/10
Great action.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT-
Johnny shows Prince Puma respect after the match by raising his hand. Dario Cueto comes out with a big briefcase full of money and tells Johnny he has earned it. When Johnny tries to take it from him, Cuto won’t hand it over. A brief struggle ensues, and two short men attack Johnny and Puma. One of them is Ricky Reyes. Then Ezekiel Jackson showed up and gave Johnny a chokeslam. Cueto announce that these three men work for him, so he gave them the money.
The execution was good, but I will admit that doing this all right off the bat did take away a lot of the intrigue about Cueto’s character. Also, if they were going to do this, I would have had the match be a draw. Why beat Prince Puma right away after giving him all of that build. Then you have Cueto come out and say that he will now reveal who will get the money… and then have the henchmen attack and have Cueto give him the money.
The announcers were Matt Striker and Vampiro. Striker was awesome, and Vampiro was very good, except when he would make random shoot comments for no reason such as “Eddie was the only Guerrero people actually liked,” or talking about the fact that you don’t always work the left side in Lucha Libre. He also buried Konnan as being “evil” and a corrupting influence. I assume that it must have been in compliance with the booker’s wishes if it was allowed to air, but knowing Vampiro, in his mind, these are also shoot comments.
The look and feel of everything was very different. They used a lot of different camera angles (the one I liked the most was the bird’s eye view camera), and did a great job of creating a different feel. The arena was a small underground fight club type deal (think Wrestling Society X), but they did a great job of making it look like there were a lot more people than they were. As I said before, though, the big things here were the production values and the feel, so my review, praising as it I, really doesn’t do this show justice. You need to watch it for yourselves. Here’s the link:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x28x74 ... shortfilms

Enjoy!

[Bulletclubfan2014]

DARIO CUETO REAMS CHAVO OUT BACKSTAGE- he berates Chavo for losing. “What would your grandfather think? What would your uncles think?” He also says that because Chavo couldn’t get rid of Blue Demon tonight, he will need to bring in someone who will next week... “but once this man is here, there will be nothing I can do to stop him. One thousand deaths might be coming for us all.” That last sentence was a bit melodramatic, but once again, the whole overall presentation, especially the framing and camerawork, was fantastic.

I think the last sentence was to give a teaser that it's El Mesias who it was announced he will be called Mil Muertes which translates to 1000 Deaths

[Big Red Machine]

DARIO CUETO REAMS CHAVO OUT BACKSTAGE- he berates Chavo for losing. “What would your grandfather think? What would your uncles think?” He also says that because Chavo couldn’t get rid of Blue Demon tonight, he will need to bring in someone who will next week... “but once this man is here, there will be nothing I can do to stop him. One thousand deaths might be coming for us all.” That last sentence was a bit melodramatic, but once again, the whole overall presentation, especially the framing and camerawork, was fantastic.

I think the last sentence was to give a teaser that it's El Mesias who it was announced he will be called Mil Muertes which translates to 1000 Deaths

Ah. That makes a lot more sense then.

What did you think of the show?

[Bulletclubfan2014]

DARIO CUETO REAMS CHAVO OUT BACKSTAGE- he berates Chavo for losing. “What would your grandfather think? What would your uncles think?” He also says that because Chavo couldn’t get rid of Blue Demon tonight, he will need to bring in someone who will next week... “but once this man is here, there will be nothing I can do to stop him. One thousand deaths might be coming for us all.” That last sentence was a bit melodramatic, but once again, the whole overall presentation, especially the framing and camerawork, was fantastic.

I think the last sentence was to give a teaser that it's El Mesias who it was announced he will be called Mil Muertes which translates to 1000 Deaths

Ah. That makes a lot more sense then.

What did you think of the show?

I loved it the main event was awesome and I'm not a fan of backstage segments that always end with some comedy crap in it so while they were a little corny it was nice to see backstage segments that didn't come off as being done for dumb comedy

[cero2k]

SEXY STAR vs. SON OF HAVOC- 0.5/10

i just realized Son of Havoc is M-Dogg Matt Cross. Now I'm really hoping to see him more

[Big Red Machine]

SEXY STAR vs. SON OF HAVOC- 0.5/10

i just realized Son of Havoc is M-Dogg Matt Cross. Now I'm really hoping to see him more

What happened to his voice?

[Bulletclubfan2014]

SEXY STAR vs. SON OF HAVOC- 0.5/10
Sexy star is a chick. Son of Havoc, as his name indicates, is a dude. I probably wouldn’t have booked an intergender match for my first show. I get why they did it and how it works with her character, but in order to do this right, you need to let her actually lose some matches at some point too, or else she will get stale and go nowhere. That, of course, requires the rather controversial visual of a man beating up a woman, and thus isn’t something I’d have dared to do at any point on my first season or two of US TV. Props to them for being brave enough to do it, but I hope it doesn’t bring negative attention to their product.
That’s what I think of this as a concept. As for the execution… FAIL!
Yeah, he’s being a dick, but she’s supposed to be a babyface! Having her jump this guy from behind calls her integrity into question, and craps all over everything she said in that video package. She’s a terrible role model. If I want a good female role model for my daughter, I’ll show her some Ronda Rousey fights. I certainly wouldn’t want my daughter emulating this conniving cheater.
And… HOLY F*CK, SHE LOST! Now not only is she a cheater, but she’s a loser, too!

I could see it being the story is Sexy Star has been training to wrestle the men and felt she was ready but she was proven wrong and she's going to go back to training to get better until she can compete against them

[Big Red Machine]

SEXY STAR vs. SON OF HAVOC- 0.5/10
Sexy star is a chick. Son of Havoc, as his name indicates, is a dude. I probably wouldn’t have booked an intergender match for my first show. I get why they did it and how it works with her character, but in order to do this right, you need to let her actually lose some matches at some point too, or else she will get stale and go nowhere. That, of course, requires the rather controversial visual of a man beating up a woman, and thus isn’t something I’d have dared to do at any point on my first season or two of US TV. Props to them for being brave enough to do it, but I hope it doesn’t bring negative attention to their product.
That’s what I think of this as a concept. As for the execution… FAIL!
Yeah, he’s being a dick, but she’s supposed to be a babyface! Having her jump this guy from behind calls her integrity into question, and craps all over everything she said in that video package. She’s a terrible role model. If I want a good female role model for my daughter, I’ll show her some Ronda Rousey fights. I certainly wouldn’t want my daughter emulating this conniving cheater.
And… HOLY F*CK, SHE LOST! Now not only is she a cheater, but she’s a loser, too!

I could see it being the story is Sexy Star has been training to wrestle the men and felt she was ready but she was proven wrong and she's going to go back to training to get better until she can compete against them

I could see that, but it felt at odds with the whole video package.

[Bulletclubfan2014]

SEXY STAR vs. SON OF HAVOC- 0.5/10
Sexy star is a chick. Son of Havoc, as his name indicates, is a dude. I probably wouldn’t have booked an intergender match for my first show. I get why they did it and how it works with her character, but in order to do this right, you need to let her actually lose some matches at some point too, or else she will get stale and go nowhere. That, of course, requires the rather controversial visual of a man beating up a woman, and thus isn’t something I’d have dared to do at any point on my first season or two of US TV. Props to them for being brave enough to do it, but I hope it doesn’t bring negative attention to their product.
That’s what I think of this as a concept. As for the execution… FAIL!
Yeah, he’s being a dick, but she’s supposed to be a babyface! Having her jump this guy from behind calls her integrity into question, and craps all over everything she said in that video package. She’s a terrible role model. If I want a good female role model for my daughter, I’ll show her some Ronda Rousey fights. I certainly wouldn’t want my daughter emulating this conniving cheater.
And… HOLY F*CK, SHE LOST! Now not only is she a cheater, but she’s a loser, too!

I could see it being the story is Sexy Star has been training to wrestle the men and felt she was ready but she was proven wrong and she's going to go back to training to get better until she can compete against them

I could see that, but it felt at odds with the whole video package.

I don't understand Lucha that well so for all I know it made sense with Lucha but not in American style

[Big Red Machine]

I could see it being the story is Sexy Star has been training to wrestle the men and felt she was ready but she was proven wrong and she's going to go back to training to get better until she can compete against them

I could see that, but it felt at odds with the whole video package.

I don't understand Lucha that well so for all I know it made sense with Lucha but not in American style

That's a fair point (I don't know much about Lucha either), but at the same time this is being produced on an English-language station for American TV.