OPENING RECAP VIDEO- covered A LOT of stuff, including the fact that Chavo stole Mil Muertes’ stone, which was something I had completely forgotten about. Did they ever resolve that?

ALBERTO EL PATRON IN CUETO’S OFFICE- Cueto complements Alberto on his fancy cars and his fancy suits. Alberto responds “I like your key. What does it unlock?” Does he know something? Is he working for Black Lotus? Or maybe someone else? Or is he merely just curious? All are possibilities.
Alberto wants to be allowed to cut a promo. Cueto says that his temple is for fighting, not talking. Alberto promises that this will be ground-shaking, and that the next time he comes to Cueto’s office to ask him for something “it will be for blood.” Cueto says okay.

FENIX vs. ARGENIS- 6/10
This was a very Lucha opener.
Remember last week when Catrina came up to Fenix, made out with him, and only then warned him that they needed to keep their interaction a secret or else Mil Muertes would kill them both? Well apparently she figured that the best way to do this would be come to ringside to watch his match, then licked his opponent’s face after the match, just like she does for her charge (and boyfriend?) Mil Muertes. Good job there, Catrina. With you doing stuff like that, I’m sure this will remain a secret for a good two or three weeks at most.

HOLY SH*T! Vampiro said something nice about Konnan!

MIL MUERTES & CATRINA BACKSTAGE- She tells him that “the power of a thousand lives was too much for you, and you need-” at which point Mil Muertes cut her off, goozled her (a term which sounds a lot more dirty in this context), and lift her off the ground by her throat. He shouted “I need NOTHING!” at her, and at this point I was certain he was going to go all Darth Vader on her ass and just kill her, but instead he put her back down and we flickered to black.
When we came back, Mil went to go find Chavo. They had a staredown and Chavo tried to sucker-punch him, but Mil beat him up and told him “this is the week you pay your debt.”

BIG RYCK PROMO- good

JOHNNY MUNDO vs. SON OF HAVOC (w/Ivelisse)- 5/10
Son of Havoc dedicated this match to “the baddest bitch in this building and the love of my life, Ivelisse”… so you know he’s losing.
OH MY G-D! Can we please not have EVERY SINGLE STUPID CLICHÉ LINE ABOUT RELATIONSHIPS?!
In fact, it’d be nice if they not fall back on clichés and stereotypes for everything else, too. Just because Ivelisse is female and Hispanic does not mean that you HAVE to refer to her as a “fiery Latina” every freakin’ time!
Yeah, so… they did stuff and it was decent, except that the announcers kept talking about Mundo’s knee because of the chairshot it took last week, but Johnny was barely selling his knee and Son of Havoc never went after it. It was such a big disconnect that it almost took me out of the match.
Son of Havoc loses because he took too much time playing to Ivelisse… or at least that’s what we were supposed to believe. What really happened was that after playing to Ivelisse, he took F*CKING FOREVER to actually jump off of the turnbuckle. He wasn’t even concentrating on her or even the crowd anymore at that point. It looked like he was nervous- like this was his first time jumping off the top rope and he was trying to collect his nerves by breathing deeply.

After the match, King Cuerno attacked Johnny Mundo. There was no blood in sight, but that didn’t stop Matt Striker from saying “the blood-stained plains tell the story.”

PENTAGON JR. vs. RICKY MANDEL- for the match itself? DUD! It was a slow and boring squash. In terms of my overall experience while watching it? -10/10! Why? Because not only was this a slow and boring squash match, but the only thing I could do during it was sit there and listen to Matt Striker run his mouth like a f*cking idiot, spewing overly insider drivel to the viewers and trying so hard to be poetic that he made no sense. After this match, all I wanted in the world was to see Matt Striker suffer some sort of head injury that would result in him having amnesia and forgetting everything he knows about wrestling so that I’ll never have to listen to him again.
Vampiro and Striker talk about the fact that Pentagon Jr. has some sort of secret master. Vampiro believes that there is something diabolical about this master. This prompted Striker to ask “like a Sith Lord, maybe?”
And I lost it.
YES, MATT! WE ALL GET THE F*CKING POINT! YOU JUST GIVING ANOTHER EXAMPLE FROM A TOTALLY DIFFERENT GENRE DOESN’T HELP, AND AT THIS POINT, YOU ARE NOWHERE NEAR WORTHY ENOUGH TO BRING UP STAR WARS, SO JUST STOP! YOU’RE A F*CKING NERD! WE GET IT! WE GOT IT THE VERY FIRST WEEK WHEN YOU BROUGHT UP THE BEYONDER. JUST CALL THE MOVES AND ONLY THE MOVES OR SHUT THE F*CK UP!

Pentagon Jr. broke Ricky Mandel’s arm after the match. The fans chanted Pentagon Jr.’s new catchphrase. Why would you give the guy a babyface and easily chantable catchphrase if he is going to be a sadistic heel? That’s just f*cking stupid.
Pentagon Jr. said he did all of this for his master.

ALBERTO EL PATRON PROMO-
He has the AAA World Heavyweight Title with him (which Striker, for some reason, called the “mega championship” which sounds really dumb). The fans go nuts for him. He starts to talk and says that everyone around here is his friend, and Striker felt the need to open his pie-hole and say “you’re free now, my friend. Do whatever you want.” I seriously hope that the “whatever you want” in question is to walk over to Striker and repeatedly punch him in the throat.
For some reason, Alberto pronounced “underground” as two words instead of one. He claims to be the first Luchador ever to hold “every single major title in North America.” Yeah… so I guess he’s not going to TNA any time soon.
He said lots of good stuff about national/racial pride and equality… and kinda-sorta implied that WWE is racist.
Then Texano Jr. jumped him and whipped him with a rope, which looked really lame. I really don’t like them brining Texano Jr. and the AAA World Heavyweight Title in with Alberto. It really just felt like they decided to take their AAA feud to Lucha Underground- like it’s a AAA story taking place on Lucha Underground TV. It feels secondhand.
Lucha Underground’s format means that it has so many unique opportunities, and to just bring in a feud from somewhere else rather than doing something that really plays to Lucha Underground’s strengths feels like a waste.
Even if it was just Alberto bringing the title in without Texano Jr. I still wouldn’t be thrilled about it because it will overshadow the Lucha Underground Title, which they need to focus on establishing (although I guess I’d be fine with Alberto defending the AAA belt while they do some major angle revolving around the fact that the LU Title has been ripped in half and whatever that means for whatever special mystical whatnot is connected to it.

Not a good show from Lucha Underground, made almost unbearable by the announcers.

STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. Striker tries to hype up Alberto’s promo by promising that “there are few surprises left in our industry, but tonight we bring you one.”
“Few surprises left?” In other words, “WRESTLING IS DULL AND PREDICTABLE!”

2. Matt Striker- “At the risk of sounding like a pervert, Catrina almost looks turned on by this action (in the Fenix vs. Argenis match).”
Some advice for anyone who wants to be any sort of announcer or newscaster or… really… anyone who wants to be ANY SORT OF PERSON WHO INTERACTS WITH OTHERS IN SOCIETY: If you have to preface your statement with the phrase “at the risk of sounding like a pervert” THEN IT’S NOT SOMETHING YOU SHOULD BE SAYING OUT LOUD!
Vampiro followed this up by informing us that the action in the match was getting him aroused as well. TOO MUCH INFORMATION!

3. Striker- “The Lick of Death.”
Is there anyone who doesn’t immediately burst out laughing whenever Striker says this?

4. Matt Striker declared that Son of Havoc was a “star” because of the pain he is overcoming in this match which was only about five minutes old. This would be the same Matt Striker that had started this match off by noting that Son of Havoc almost never wins.

5. Vampiro referred to Ivelisse as a “piece of a-s-… blank.”
Yeah. He stopped himself before he finished spelling out a bad word, but apparently had no problem with the misogynistic content of his message. Hooray for having our priorities straight!

6. Striker- “the sacrifices here in the temple are many, but none in the form of the aggression of Pentagon Jr.”
THIS DOESN’T EVEN MAKE ANY SENSE!

7. Striker- “Nice slingblade there. I often refer to it as the Tanahashi.”
Oh. So have you been calling it wrong on purpose this whole time, or did you finally learn the right name, but still feel compelled to call it the wrong name, too, because you’re an idiot?

8. Striker “Now the crowd being conditioned to understand what we’re about to see.”
OH MY G-D SHUT THE F*CK UP! Using insider terms doesn’t make you cool or edgy, and explaining the techniques by which you manipulate the audience only makes those techniques less effective. I hope Bill Watts or someone like that who is way too old-school to exist in the business anymore sees this, gets on a plane to LA and punches Matt Striker in the face.