BRM Reviews the 1/21/2015 Lucha Underground (bad)

[Big Red Machine]

PIMPINELLA ESCARLATA & MASCARITA SAGRADA vs. MR. CISCO & CORTEZ CASTRO (w/Bael)- 3/10
Pimpinella’s stuff gets old really quick. Mascarita’s would do, but he’s just so damn good in the ring.
Pimpinella did an atrocious job of taking the curb stomp. Bael decided to steal Roman Reigns' Superman Punch.

BIG RYCK’S CREW TURNS ON HIM- well… he did threaten them a bit.
This was done well, but I really don’t think there was any sense in either turning Ryck babyface or taking his henchmen away from him.
HOLY CRAP THEY BURNED HIS EYE WITH THE CIGAR! That’s a HEAVY angle right there, and doing it like this with Big Ryck right as he turns babyface seems like HUGE waste to me.

THE CREW IN CUETO’S OFFICE- they’re working for Cueto now.

VAMPIRO INTERVIEWS CAGE- very good, except that Vampiro is really annoying. Also, Vampiro buried the title.

SUPER FLY vs. PENTAGON JR.- 5.75/10

PENTAGON JR. PROMO- good, but he’s yet another heel turning babyface. It will be interesting to see who his partner is.

SEXY STAR vs. EL MARIACHI LOCO- 0.75/10
They keep pushing Sexy Star as some sort of hero, and yet they are booking her against an amateur who just started a few weeks ago and is so poor he has to beg the fans for money after the show. Bad booking.
As I’m sure you can tell, I’m getting really fed up with this Sexy Star “I am woman, hear me roar” crap. It’s not because I have a problem with women or with angles like that (look at CHIKARA’s stuff with Sara and Daizee for a perfect example of how this should be handled), but because the things the announcers are pushing don’t match up with what I am seeing of her character with my own eyes.
Her story lacks specifics, and so every time that the announcers tell us that she was close to quitting because she was “a woman trying to make it in a man’s world” but then decided not to quit and is now making it in a man’s world, it comes across to me as completely empty.
This is LUCHA UNDERGROUND! Use that! Give me a flashback of her being laughed out of the dojo when she first shows up to train or of her being treated condescendingly because she’s just a mere girl. Something to make me actually sympathize with her plight.
Give me her talking to her family and telling them she just can’t do it. Give me the scene where she walks out of the dojo because she is about to cry, but she is determined not to let the mean chauvinists see her cry.
Then give me the scene where she works up the nerve to come back to the dojo the next day, and the biggest, meanest douchebag there tells her that the ring is no place for a woman, and that she is only good for making sandwiches and babies. So she finally gets fed up and she slaps him in the face and challenges him to get in the ring with her. He laughs her off until she tells him he has no balls, so he gets angry and gets in the ring with her and she takes everything he can throw at her but she won’t stay down and she finally fires up and makes her comeback and gets some shots in and finally drops the guy with a well-placed punch followed by a big kick to the head. And she realizes (and makes the men realize) that she is just like them: she can beat anyone so long as she keeps on going and doesn’t give up!


Okay, obviously the sandwiches and babies part is very stereotypical, but something along those lines would work. It would show us a reason to care about her rather than have the announcers inform us why we should be caring about her.

So they have their match and Mariachi Loco gyrates his pelvis against hers to get cheap heat… and it just made me ask why this is wrong when Mariachi Loco does it to Sexy Star but it is perfectly okay for Pimpinella Escarlata to do it to people? It should be wrong in both cases.
Anyway, Sexy, the trained professional, beats an amateur by roll-up, and the announcers put this over as if it is some great feat. Vampiro says that she’s way better than Trish or Lita, but at least both of those women knew how to take a f*cking hotshot without it looking like sh*t. I also hated the spot where she blew Mariachi Loco a kiss to annoy him. Do you know how many times Sara Del Rey did that? That’s right. Zero.
Oh, and one more complaint: This match was pointless filler in a spot where they really should have saved the time for their first ever Last Luchador Standing match to blow off one of their longest-running feuds.


LAST LUCHADOR STANDING MATCH: Drago vs. King Cuerno- 5.75/10
Disappointing, and they did that stupid “tie the guy up so he can’t stand” finish, which is a horrible choice for a finish in their first time using the stip.
A pretty bad show from Lucha Underground.