By: E. Young
BrightNightmares.weebly.com
This week’s Lucha Underground brings us to our next big event, a Grave Consequences match turned 3-way match at the insistence of Antonio Cueto (and Jeremiah Crane). That means Three Way… to the Grave! But first, we learn that with a new temple comes a new creeper.
Yeah, Marty the Moth may be King Creepy Bastard, but Ricky Mundo with his new “friend” straight from a chapter of Insidious is giving him a run for his money. While Worldwide Underground prepares for war against the Reptile tribe, we get a little more insight into Ricky’s new buddy, whom we learn is a doll named Rosa.
And… she talks.
Johnny tries to sic Jack Evans, who has a previous victory against Drago from last season, on Vibora but Jack’s scurred of snakes. Not dragons apparently, but snakes. Jack peaces out and leaves us alone with Ricky and that creepy ass doll and—oh look at the time, it’s our first match against a newcomer!
This episode, Xo Lishus (aka Sonny Kiss) debuts straight from the ballroom, presumably to fill the hole that Pimpinela Escarlata left as the resident exòtico. For those unfamiliar with lucha culture, an exòtico is a male wrestler that expresses himself flamboyantly. In the past exòticos were essentially drag queens or even implied to be transgender, but these days more and more exòticos have been able to tone down to “sexually ambiguous”. Think OG Goldust.
As you might expect in highly masculine sports/sports entertainment, exòticos are not always treated the best. Okay, they’re usually the punchline of very homophobic and transphobic jokes but in recent years the tide seems to be turning. Xo Lishus is introduced in a way that acknowledges his extravagant gender presentation without making it a joke and Vampiro and Matt treat him with respect throughout the whole match without yelling “INCLUSION! DIVERSITY!” buzzwords at us the whole time, unlike for Sexy Star’s debut in season 1. That’s called being an ally! Did Xo Lishus and Jack Evans smash patriarchy and burn forced gender roles with their match? Nope, but it was a spotfest in all the best ways, packed full of the high-flying daredevil maneuvers Jack is renowned for and Xo looked fantastic, picking up a win in his debut match. Victory twerk!
After the opening match, Pentagon Dark comes out and cuts a promo about how he’s about to run this temple with his LU championship… only to be thrown through a table by the luchador killer himself, Brian Cage! Pentagon Dark caused Cage to lose the gauntlet of the gods last season so obviously he’s looking for some revenge, and probably some arms. This is a feud I could watch anywhere, anytime so I’m hyped to see where this is going for the season.
Speaking of fight forever, as the embodiments of life and death respectively, Fenix and Mil Muertes certainly feel like they have been fighting forever. This is their second casket match; last season, Fenix managed to kill death itself and shut Mil up in his own coffin… unfortunately, Mil is back and the dirt nap just made him mad.
But Mil doesn’t just have beef with Fenix in this match: last season, he gained a power and love rival in Jeremiah Crane, who is in this match solely to win the dark heart(?) of Catrina. Catrina… just wants her lifeforce back, which she intends to get through Fenix.
Before the match, we get a nice little intimate segment with Melissa and Fenix, who became a real ‘ship last season. In a nice bit of foreshadowing, Fenix promises her he’ll be back. I’m personally not feeling the buildup for this match and I think it’s a bit too soon, but it does do a few important things. First, we finally lay to rest (pun intended) the rivalry between Jeremiah and Mil. Jeremiah brings a new, grimy level of brutality and violence and something must be said about how well Sami Callihan does “crazy”. However, Jeremiah’s fatal flaw of short-sightedness comes up in the form of his scorned ex-lover Ivelisse, who nails him with a hammer just as he did to her last season. Jeremiah gets laid to rest and taken out of the temple, and after that we are left with Mil and Fenix.
Although this latest entry in the Life & Death saga ups the violence and brutality, it’s still the same match we’ve seen from these two. Even repeating some of the spots with Fenix’s mask ripping, but fortunately his face is covered in blood! What is nice here is Melissa’s involvement and she even directly attacks Mil a few times. Go Melissa! Unfortunately, it’s all for naught and Mil seals Fenix away in a coffin. It’s heavily implied that when Fenix rises from the grave again, he’ll be under Catrina’s control. Will he replace Mil entirely? Who knows, but with Aerostar MIA and Drago mindwiped by Kobra Moon, surely it will be up to Melissa to snap him out of the evil spell!
After the main event, the show ends on a tender note with Antonio Cueto and his son, Matanza. Just kidding, Antonio informs Matanza that he’s weak because when Matanza was a bebe monster, Antonio asked that the gods spare a sliver of his humanity. Brother Dario nurtured that humanity; Antonio hates it. It is then revealed that the key to Matanza’s humanity lies in the large key that Dario once used to control Matanza, now wielded by Antonio. Who… promptly gives it to Matanza to break. Matanza broke his own soul. This show is brutal! What will become of Fenix? How back is Matanza going to bleep us up next time? Are we ever going to address Sexy Star? More next week, as Lucha Underground continues!
BrightNightmares.weebly.com
This week’s Lucha Underground brings us to our next big event, a Grave Consequences match turned 3-way match at the insistence of Antonio Cueto (and Jeremiah Crane). That means Three Way… to the Grave! But first, we learn that with a new temple comes a new creeper.
Yeah, Marty the Moth may be King Creepy Bastard, but Ricky Mundo with his new “friend” straight from a chapter of Insidious is giving him a run for his money. While Worldwide Underground prepares for war against the Reptile tribe, we get a little more insight into Ricky’s new buddy, whom we learn is a doll named Rosa.
And… she talks.
Johnny tries to sic Jack Evans, who has a previous victory against Drago from last season, on Vibora but Jack’s scurred of snakes. Not dragons apparently, but snakes. Jack peaces out and leaves us alone with Ricky and that creepy ass doll and—oh look at the time, it’s our first match against a newcomer!
This episode, Xo Lishus (aka Sonny Kiss) debuts straight from the ballroom, presumably to fill the hole that Pimpinela Escarlata left as the resident exòtico. For those unfamiliar with lucha culture, an exòtico is a male wrestler that expresses himself flamboyantly. In the past exòticos were essentially drag queens or even implied to be transgender, but these days more and more exòticos have been able to tone down to “sexually ambiguous”. Think OG Goldust.
As you might expect in highly masculine sports/sports entertainment, exòticos are not always treated the best. Okay, they’re usually the punchline of very homophobic and transphobic jokes but in recent years the tide seems to be turning. Xo Lishus is introduced in a way that acknowledges his extravagant gender presentation without making it a joke and Vampiro and Matt treat him with respect throughout the whole match without yelling “INCLUSION! DIVERSITY!” buzzwords at us the whole time, unlike for Sexy Star’s debut in season 1. That’s called being an ally! Did Xo Lishus and Jack Evans smash patriarchy and burn forced gender roles with their match? Nope, but it was a spotfest in all the best ways, packed full of the high-flying daredevil maneuvers Jack is renowned for and Xo looked fantastic, picking up a win in his debut match. Victory twerk!
After the opening match, Pentagon Dark comes out and cuts a promo about how he’s about to run this temple with his LU championship… only to be thrown through a table by the luchador killer himself, Brian Cage! Pentagon Dark caused Cage to lose the gauntlet of the gods last season so obviously he’s looking for some revenge, and probably some arms. This is a feud I could watch anywhere, anytime so I’m hyped to see where this is going for the season.
Speaking of fight forever, as the embodiments of life and death respectively, Fenix and Mil Muertes certainly feel like they have been fighting forever. This is their second casket match; last season, Fenix managed to kill death itself and shut Mil up in his own coffin… unfortunately, Mil is back and the dirt nap just made him mad.
But Mil doesn’t just have beef with Fenix in this match: last season, he gained a power and love rival in Jeremiah Crane, who is in this match solely to win the dark heart(?) of Catrina. Catrina… just wants her lifeforce back, which she intends to get through Fenix.
Before the match, we get a nice little intimate segment with Melissa and Fenix, who became a real ‘ship last season. In a nice bit of foreshadowing, Fenix promises her he’ll be back. I’m personally not feeling the buildup for this match and I think it’s a bit too soon, but it does do a few important things. First, we finally lay to rest (pun intended) the rivalry between Jeremiah and Mil. Jeremiah brings a new, grimy level of brutality and violence and something must be said about how well Sami Callihan does “crazy”. However, Jeremiah’s fatal flaw of short-sightedness comes up in the form of his scorned ex-lover Ivelisse, who nails him with a hammer just as he did to her last season. Jeremiah gets laid to rest and taken out of the temple, and after that we are left with Mil and Fenix.
Although this latest entry in the Life & Death saga ups the violence and brutality, it’s still the same match we’ve seen from these two. Even repeating some of the spots with Fenix’s mask ripping, but fortunately his face is covered in blood! What is nice here is Melissa’s involvement and she even directly attacks Mil a few times. Go Melissa! Unfortunately, it’s all for naught and Mil seals Fenix away in a coffin. It’s heavily implied that when Fenix rises from the grave again, he’ll be under Catrina’s control. Will he replace Mil entirely? Who knows, but with Aerostar MIA and Drago mindwiped by Kobra Moon, surely it will be up to Melissa to snap him out of the evil spell!
After the main event, the show ends on a tender note with Antonio Cueto and his son, Matanza. Just kidding, Antonio informs Matanza that he’s weak because when Matanza was a bebe monster, Antonio asked that the gods spare a sliver of his humanity. Brother Dario nurtured that humanity; Antonio hates it. It is then revealed that the key to Matanza’s humanity lies in the large key that Dario once used to control Matanza, now wielded by Antonio. Who… promptly gives it to Matanza to break. Matanza broke his own soul. This show is brutal! What will become of Fenix? How back is Matanza going to bleep us up next time? Are we ever going to address Sexy Star? More next week, as Lucha Underground continues!
