Lucha Underground Review: Apocalypse Now
Well...it’s been some kind of night for lucha libre folks. Down at the secondary headquarters of wrestling’s mother ship, the Cruiserweight Classic ended with a lucha libre star standing tall as king of the Cruiserweights. That’s awesome, and somehow it might not even be the most awesome thing of the night thanks to Lucha Underground’s main event. Going into tonight it seemed like LU would be a one match show and it was; the first two matches were squashes that more or less established a newer luchador as an unlikable bastard and reignited an old feud. But thanks to a spellbinding set of backstage scenes and a main event for the ages Lucha Underground delivered once more, adding to what has turned out to be a historic night for lucha libre as a whole. I tried to tell you all we were taking over! But we can discuss world domination some other time; let’s review this bad boy! Moses; meme it down big man!
Undercover Luchadors!
To think; if the main event had been something different tonight we may be referring to this as LU’s flashback show. We had a whole slew of them, starting here when we saw the Undercover Luchadors listening in to Cisco getting murdered by El Jefe. Cortes didn’t take this too well; he wanted to bring the rain down and have El Jefe arrested. Captain Vasquez and Joey Ryan disagreed and after a quick round of fisticuffs by Cortes and Ryan (while Vasquez looked on hilariously unimpressed), the last of The Crew walked off in a huff, but not before he made sure to remind both his comrades that Cisco was Mr. Cisco. A little late to be sticking up for your buddy but it’s something. You could understand his position and not so much Vasquez or Ryan’s…till later when everything got flipped on its head. What else is new in LU though right?
Dr. Wagner Jr. defeated Mascarita Sagrada
Less of a match and more of a showcase for Famous B (still interrupting Melissa Santos because he wants to meet his maker one day), Brenda (now a nurse) and the Good Doctor. Or should I say the Surgeon of Suffering?! Freakin Wagner; you know you’ve got it good when you’re not just a legend but have the coolest nicknames. It wasn’t shocking to see Mascarita as the first opponent for Wagner considering his history with Famous, and it wasn’t shocking to see Wagner squash him. Mascarita is cool and all, but there’s bigger fish looking to get revenge on Wagner, Famous and co and this more or less served as a way to make the Good Doctor/Surgeon look good. He did just that. Also, LOL at Famous faux checking on Mascarita after the match with a stethoscope. Never change Famous, never change.
Millennia of TWISTS!
Holy Cthulhu did we get taken on a journey here in the best scene of season three (thus far). We went back a thousand years to see a young Aztec girl accepting an amulet from her dying father. I know what you’re thinking; it was Catrina who got the amulet right? WRONG! We cut to around Ultima Lucha Dos time and there’s Captain Vasquez, holding one half of the amulet. That’s right folks; the captain appears to be someone from the past, kept alive by this amulet that, according to her father, will prevent her from ever dying. There’s news, there’s big news and then there’s universe altering news like that, and it certainly puts a new spin on why Vasquez is so gung ho on taking El Jefe down. I think we were all so caught up with this twist that no one had time to realize that Cortes, who appeared to go behind Vasquez’ back to have El Jefe arrested, was suspended for his insubordination. Granted there was more developments on that later on, so perhaps it’s a good thing we were caught up with you know, life changing info. Or as we generally call it, Wednesday!
Mil Muertes defeated Argenis
Well…at least Argenis got more stuff in than Mascarita did! Not that it’s saying much as the former Immortan owned the other 98% of this match and finished it off quickly with a spear and a Flatliner. The bigger story here was what happened afterwards with Prince Puma. Yes, Prince Puma came out and it appears him vs. Mil is on again. Could it be that Puma was listening to Vampiro last week after all? Vamp did say that Puma hadn’t been the same since Mil, so it makes perfect sense that Puma (in his quest to rebuild) would go after the former Immortan in order to find his former form. It’s not something most would’ve caught at first but in reality it’s an excellent story beat to help renew this rivalry that, while not nearly as huge as Matt Striker tried to make it out to be, was a very important part of late season one/early season two. Can you imagine this feud going long enough that these two end up working a Grave Consequences match with each other? Let’s now go live to the internet’s reaction.
Corruption in the Task Force
As if enough hadn’t already happened in the first three Undercover Luchador segments, LU had to pull more rabbits out the hat here. For starts; Joey Ryan is in fact a corrupt cop. I know; WHO COULD’VE SEEN THAT COMING?! I haven’t been this shocked about something since I can’t finish this sentence with a straight face. Come on folks; Joey Ryan turning out to be the sleazier version of Matt Damon in The Departed is as stunning a development as Zack Snyder being the most loathed director in America.
Anyways, Ryan’s now in cahoots with El Jefe, is taking pay offs from him due to child support (LOL) and also revealed that Cortes Castro is his partner, which pretty much means poor Cortes’ days are shorter than Dude, Where’s My Car?. That’s not good; even more not good is that Cortes is coming back to the Temple, ready to fight on Vasquez’ side in the Great War and do things her way. Cthulhu help him; I’m pretty convinced Cortes isn’t lasting the year and it frankly wouldn’t surprise me to see him get offed next week. You don’t get away with being an Undercover Luchador on El Jefe’s watch! Well unless you’re Joey Ryan and you’ve got child support to pay. Speaking of, how many baby mamas does Joey have you think? I’d like to believe he’s covered them all up with Candice LeRae’s help; she seems like the friend who’d go the extra mile for you in any situation.
Weapons of Mass Destruction Match
Killshot defeated Marty “The Moth” Martinez
You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t remember everything from this match as I decided to skip taking notes and just take the whole thing in. Might be one of the best decisions I’ve made since I started watching Lucha Underground. Ladies and gentlemen I’ve seen Grave Consequence, I saw Vampiro and Pentagon do things to each other that would land most people in prison; I’ve even witnessed a grown man satisfy a camel (just kidding. Or am I?!). This match was right there with it and in some ways was structured even better. The match began the exact way it should’ve, with Killshot launching an all out assault (pun fully intended) while Marty ran for the hills, but not before he was busted open with a nasty cut to the head. Gradually the violence just built from there with both men taking an insane beating. Here’s just some of the action; Killshot was German Suplexed onto the ring apron, both men were thrown through military crates, Marty Superplexed Killshot onto more of said crates (following a spinebuster onto them), Killshot hit a DVD on Marty through a ladder that I was fairly certain broke Marty’s back and Marty powerbombed Killshot from the ring and through two tables, a moment where Striker and Vampiro pretty much declared Killshot dead. It was crazy, and best of all it made sense. Like I said in my preview, these were two guys motivated by hate and insanity, two things that lead to you doing the sort of shit they did to each other here. It’s also why the lack of pinfalls was a great touch; neither man should’ve wanted to win this match prior to wiping their opponent off the face of the earth, which is why the pins didn’t come till halfway through.
And fucking A, how about that ending folks? For all the buildup and all the cool moves nothing quite compared to the payoff, which saw both men perched atop of one of the tallest ladders in the history of the western hemisphere. There were two tables set up on each side, which momentarily got me thinking that both men would fall through them at the same time, a spot that might’ve been too much for everyone to handle. Instead Mariposa, interfering on her brother’s behalf, would go through one after taking a Killshot kick (this was a really underrated, gutsy bump by the way, with Mariposa almost hitting the back of her head on the turnbuckle) and then Marty would after Killshot took back his dog tags (wrapped around Marty’s neck all match) and proceeded to hit a DOUBLE STOMP FROM TWENTY FEET UP THROUGH THE TABLE! Yes you read that right, and believe me, it’s even better when you see it. This sort of spot would’ve been great one way or another, but my goodness Killshot hit it so well and Marty sold it so smoothly that it looked like a guy riding an elevator down. Absolutely perfect and a special way to close a special match. I’ve heard that these two got a standing ovation after the match and if any two men deserved it, it was Marty and Killshot. They bumped like crazy for each other, they did things most luchadors wouldn’t be willing to do and most importantly they concluded a great story with an phenomenal ending. Nevermore will anyone claim that Killshot and Marty aren’t made me in the Temple. Congratulations dudes, and thank you.
The Dark Side of the Amulet
I know what you’re thinking and it’s all in Caps; THAT WASN’T IT?! HOW COULD THEY NOT FINISH THE SHOW ON THAT GORGEOUS DOUBLE STOMP?! I would normally be in complete agreement with you, except that this finale gave us a twist even bigger than the previous twist, which was Catrina having possession of the other half of the amulet Captain Vasquez has. So in a way I guess I was right when I thought the amulet thing was leading back to Catrina! This development opens up even more questions than the other scenes did, like whether it was Catrina or Vasquez seen a thousand years ago (it wasn’t made clear and it could frankly be either of them), what their relationship is and how they’ve ended up on opposite sides. Even if you haven’t been a fan of the in ring action thus far (and if you still aren’t after that main event, you’re crazier than Marty) these scenes for season three have been amazing and this just continued that. It also may be time to consider that we just got our first real look at the biggest picture in LU’s hall of big pictures.
We’re done here folks. I’ll be back tomorrow with a preview of CMLL’s Legends show this Friday, provided the huge lucha celebration over tonight’s LU and the CWC winner doesn’t put me on the DL. Till then, Spider-Man gives his thoughts on WMD!
