Lucha Underground Preview: Caging Bulls
You remember during season two when Lucha Underground had a show featuring one huge multi-man match and Johnny Mundo cowering in cage? Guess what folks; we’re doing it again, albeit a tad differently this time. The next LU episode will see the Wednesday Night Delight enter the steel again to defend his LU Championship for the first time, but not before the Battle of the Bulls concludes earlier to determine his next challenge. You know; if he gets by Sexy Star first. With that comment I’ve just sent a dozen anti-Sexy crusaders to their keyboards for another round of ranting and raving! So who prevails in the cage? And who is the king of the bulls? Let’s get to it. Meme me Moses!
Battle of the Bulls Finals: Winner is Number One Contender for the Lucha Underground Championship
Cage vs. The Mack vs. Jeremiah Crane vs. P.J. Black
What to Expect: In typical LU fashion, I’m not sure I ever expected most of the guys here to make it to this match. P.J. won a match that seemed destined to be Angelico’s. Cage and Texano (still locked in a struggle to determine which one of them is possessed by an ancient evil Aztec god) looked destined to screw each other out of winning their semi-final four way, only for Cage to win it by simply screwing over Texano. Even Big Willie had long odds; the Microwave Man had to go through Immortan Mil, El Dragon Azteca Jr. and Marty to make it here, three guys I would’ve bet on before him. Jeremiah I believe was the only guy I actually predicted to make it this far. I guess this means we can all look forward to Mascarita making it to the finals of next year’s Battle of the Bulls while Matt Striker attempts to ape Al Michaels’ “DO YOU BELIEVE IN MIRACLES?!” call while Vampiro flashes this look at him.
The good news is, even with the unexpected names, the match should still be awesome, partially because the Battle of the Bulls has been awesome already (has there been a bad match yet?) and partially because all four of these guys are very good in their own right. On top of that, everybody here has something that could potentially cost them this match. P.J. is best buddies with the Lucha Underground Champion (and already has tension with the group after he betrayed Jack Evans last week, the most heinous lucha crime in history!). Texano can’t be happy Cage robbed him of this opportunity to be in this match himself. Jeremiah still has that mysterious past with Catrina, which of course means Mil Muertes will get involved at some point. And poor Mack, even though he’s had no real feuds this season as of yet, is best friends with Sexy Star, which means he has an enemy in Worldwide Underground off the bat. This is a match where I can see some, all or even none of those other stories factoring into the result and I don’t see how that doesn’t work in the favor of LU and all four of these dudes. It should be a fun match that keeps you guessing, and if you’re not into that sort of thing then it’ll at least have the first Mack-Cage interactions since their second unbelievable Ultima Lucha Falls Count Anywhere match. You can’t go wrong there.
Winner: The only guy I can’t see winning here is Cage; LU’s daring but I can’t see them even attempting to put the man from the 559 in another story when he’s already in the middle of a huge one. That leaves P.J., Big Willie and Jeremiah and all three make sense. P.J. vs. Mundo works due to their friendship and could be done in an old school Four Horsemen like way where one member fights back instead of lying down for one match (only for them to swerve and return to the fold the next week). Jeremiah vs. Mundo could be the way to get the Jeremiah/Catrina/Mil/Ivelisse love square kicked into higher gear, not to mention the match intrigues the fuck out of me (Mundo’s style vs. Crane’s? Tell me it doesn’t interest you!). And Mack-Mundo works because of Mack’s friendship with Sexy. Ultimately I’m going to pick Big Willie. They’ve kept him looking strong throughout this season even without a big story and he’s Sexy’s bestest pal. As the Killers would say, it’s only natural. Granted they were stop motion skeletons at the time but so what? Semantics people.
Cage Match for the Lucha Underground Championship
Johnny Mundo (c) vs. Sexy Star
What to Expect: For the life of me I cannot see how anything about this match is going to be fun, except for the conclusion because it means all the Sexy Star hoopla can finally be over. I said this in my review of her match with P.J. Black and I’ll say it again now; there is no middle ground with this woman. You either love her with everything in you or hate her with everything in you, a very curious thing considering Sexy Star is the definition of an average performer, a woman whose strong on character work and weak on the in ring aspect. I’m very much looking forward to this match being over, just so we can move on to other things in the LU title scene and both sides of the Sexy Star debate can calm their nips. As for the match itself, I’m keeping my expectations low. These two did a much better job their second time working together, but it was still okay at best and did little to erase the taste of their first match, one of the few times LU has been less than stellar in ring. The introduction of the cage is intriguing and Mundo’s been great in his previous times surrounded by steel (this will be his third LU cage match), but it’s impossible for me to say how Sexy will react within the confines. Ultimately I’d say this will probably be an average match, with each side of the Sexy debate over and underrating it to prove some point. The only thing I can say for sure is that there will be interference and lots of it. Hey, it wouldn’t be a cage match, a gimmick designed to limit interference, if there wasn’t a shit ton of interference anyway.
Winner: Rest easy Sexy Star haters; Mundo is definitely retaining this belt. In fact I’d go as far to say there’s a better chance of M. Night Shyamalan successfully pitching a Last Airbender sequel than there is of Sexy winning the belt back here. The real question is how she’ll lose. As weird as it was, LU must have something planned to follow up the tarantula in Sexy’s locker from last week, and I’d bank on whomever that was conspiring with the Worldwide Underground to help Mundo retain and move Sexy away from the title scene. Who is it? I’d bank on Ricky Mandel. Just a feeling folks; just a feeling.
That’s a wrap sports fans. I’m off for now, but I’ll return to review this show tomorrow and potentially do some other stuff. Lot to do before the year is out. Till we meet again, drop the DUCHOVNY and get with the SCULLY!
