By: E. Young
BrightNightmares.weebly.com
Lucky episode 7 finally brings us to the Gift of the Gods tournament! But before we get to that, we have a few opening matches, and a new house band: Metalachi!
The first match of the night is the remains of Infamous Inc squaring up against each other. Sammy Guevara faced off against Jake Strong and put up a good fight full of his signature high-flying and a great spot jumping from the rafters that would have made Angelico proud. This is also the first match really using the layout of the new icebox temple and I hope we see more of that as the episodes roll on. But while Sammy puts up a fierce fight, Jake overcomes him with the ankle lock/ankle snap. Thanks for coming, Sammy.
Next, Vinnie Massaro is summoned into the ring by Antonio. Vinnie the Italian greaser is curiously over with the Believers despite not getting a ton of matches or even screen time. To be fair to him, he’s a solid hand and his comedy is effective. But it looks like Antonio is also questioning Vinnie and decides to reward him with… a pineapple pizza? Just kidding, he sics Matanza on him for a sacrifice. This was a throwaway but Vinnie surprisingly got some offense in against the monster before being shuffled off to the hereafter. Oh, and the pizza guy got snatched up too. Well, damn Antonio!
Main event time. The seven person Gift of the Gods tournament has already been shortened one person, but Antonio decides that he’s over it and declares a three way. Two teams of three will face off against each other, then the winning team fights amongst themselves for the belt. Sounds pretty sweet. Son of Havoc and Ivelisse choose Willie Mack as their partner which sets them up against Team Semi-Heel: Dezmond X, Cuerno, and El Dragon Azteca Jr.
With all the build up to this tournament and the stakes raised, expectations were high for this and it delivered and then some. Everyone got a chance to shine and show off, but special shout out to Dezmond for wildin’ out all over the place. If you watch nothing else from this season of LU, at least watch this tournament or at the very least the second half.
During the match, Killshot reappears. Killshot hasn’t been stable for a long time, but he’s really been thrown off since Mack chose Son of Havoc to enter the GotG tournament over him. Killshot watches and cackles, but when the jilted Mil Muertes runs in and destroys everyone, Killshot tries to intervene… or maybe help Mil? Not sure since he gets run over too, but time will tell whose side Killshot is on if anyone’s.
Cuerno pins Havoc for the win, and the second half of the tournament begins. Team Ivelisse losing broke my heart, but I’m not entirely surprised as the three of them make up the best part of LU’s midcard. They’ll be fine and they’ll be back soon. Plus Killshot isn’t done with Mack just yet. After an intense match between Dragon Azteca, Dezmond, and King Cuerno, El Dragon Azteca Jr picks up the win and the belt. I was actually pretty excited about this as Dragon Azteca (Rey Horus outside of LU) has been due for a pretty good push for a while. He’s another one of my favorite dudes in the temple, so I can’t wait to see what he does next.
The stinger for this episode features Mariposa kidnapping her own brother Marty. The context introduced here is that Mariposa is not her real name, but a title signifying her status as an elite bodyguard for the very wealthy Moth tribe. Marty is the real head here, but he’s… insane. Yes, that’s the best word for it. Mariposa calls her brother out for being a weirdo (his latest affixation is collecting Pentagon’s teeth and I don’t want to know what that means) and tells him to aspire higher. Marty decides that it’s time to face off against Pentagon Dark for the Lucha Underground championship. Incoming hoss battle!
The GotG tournament, even with the kooky stipulations, was fantastic and this week’s hour was overall pretty solid. Who else will we kill of next week? Who’s already dead? Will we get a montage of Famous B going through physical therapy? Gotta tune in to find out!
