By: E. Young
BrightNightmares.weebly.com
Wrestling has been a little…real this week. Regardless of how you feel about whomever, who you cheer, what company you support – whatever – watching someone maintain a highly physical job while battling cancer is a tough pill to swallow and kind of awe inspiring. That part is real. Your kayfabe brother betraying your other kayfabe brother at the worst possible time hurts, but that’s the fake part. The rest of that isht was quite real.
I say all that to say, man, I haven’t really felt like wrestling after Roman’s semi-retirement. Over the past couple of years, I’ve had a couple of family deaths due to cancer so I definitely needed a minute. Fortunately, Lucha Underground is so over the top it makes a great refuge. Nothing exemplifies this better than Johnny Mundo wearing a power glove with lighting running across his abs. In the penultimate madness of the season and the last before Ultima Lucha, I didn’t have a lot of time to be sad.
So, tonight’s episode was all about the tournament to crown a new Gift of the Gods champion going into Ultima Lucha. I have to admit I was a bit skeptical about this set up. I really like the concept of the GotG so the recent changes to the rules had me a little miffed. But from a story perspective, it’s starting to come together.
Our participants in the survive match as stipulated last week are (still) Jake, Hernandez, Big Bad Steve, PJ Black, Dante Fox, and King Cuerno. Seeing Dante in this match suddenly had me wondering, what the heck happened to Dezmond X? I write these damn things and I sincerely don’t remember if he just got written off or what. Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter right now.
Focusing on a single event for 45 minutes sounds weird, but LU makes it work on a consistent basis. Possibly the finest proof of this is the first All Night Long match between Puma and Johnny Mundo. Great example of using a single match to keep things simple and allow for a multitude of stories.
Lately, anytime Jake Strong steps into the ring it turns into a massacre to make Pentagon feel un poco miedo. But Jake clearly hasn’t had his fill of legs yet. Unfortunately, although he eliminated Hernandez first, that dude got to keep all his limbs. Big sigh.
Well, what kind of story are we telling here tonight? Things got quite interesting when dark horse Big Bad Steve started dominating. It’s the first sign that Jake isn’t going to quite Big-Man-Punch his way out of this Temple. Steve comes out with his manager Famous B, who intervenes on his behalf a couple of times and generally plays the Bill Alfonso role outside the ring. Famous B is a national treasure. This season has been as much about him as it has been about Soul-Free Matanza. It’s a little late in the season, but the character change has been good for Steve. He’s filled multiple roles on the show under an alias or behind a mask, but finally being able to be himself is starting to pay off. He brings a serious threat to Jake, and even though he gets eliminated halfway through, he made me believe, damnit. That’s what wrestling is all about.
A little bizarre for a seven man match, but more often than not Jake is seen one on one with his opponents in the ring while everyone else fends off against each other outside the ring. It just looks like Jake is systematically taking his opponents down and capturing particular trophies. He snaps PJ Black’s ankle and that man has to get carried out by refs. Just like how I never get tired of seeing Kurt Angle put folks in the Angle-Lock, I have yet to get tired of that sick crunching sound that says, “yeah, that man just broke that man’s damn leg off.”
Highlight of the night – dare I say the year – is Drago fresh from injury coming in with a forklift to lift Aerostar into the heavens so he can dive down into the ring. That alone makes this match incredibly worth it, the audience coming completely unhinged makes it moreso. Just… holy shit. You might as well go all out with the spots at this point, and there’s more to come. Aerostar takes a lot out of himself and ends up tapping to Jake, but is saved from ankle failure once again by… King Cuerno?! Only the second dude with the biggest beef with Jake in this ring tonight.
The match quickly whittles down to Cuerno, Jake, and Dante Fox. Dante is long overdue for some time to shine, and boy does he. He brings the second big spot of the evening by climbing up to the rafters and diving down into the ring. I forget how big of a high spot mark I am until I’m screaming my lungs off at a dude nearly breaking his own neck.
Cuerno and Dante bring the fight to Jake but Cuerno is hurt and Dante is losing steam. I love LU multi-person matches because as things get down to the wire the drama amps up. By the time Cuerno busts out his Arrow From the Depths of Hell you can tell he’s all used up and indeed he ends up getting pinned under Jake AND Dante.
So… Dante versus Jake Strong, eh? Welp. Don’t underestimate this one, but let’s not act like Dante came out of here unscathed. He pulled that mess with Killshot, but this is a no fly zone! Dante puts up a good fight but he just can’t overcome the might of Jake Strong. He gets caught up in the ankle lock twice but finally taps. Just when you think Jake is going to leave it alone, he takes his trophy in the form of the absolute nastiest ankle snap ever. Man. What a rush, as LOD would say.
With that, Jake Strong is our current Gift of the Gods champion, so whoever retains the Lucha Underground championship belt had better watch out. The stinger for this episode is a scene of Johnny doing some kung fu parkour on the roof, visited by Aerostar. Aerostar brings an ominous warning to Johnny about facing off against Matanza alone and brings him the Gauntlet of the Gods, as previously worn by Cage. It’s his way of thanking Johnny for freeing Drago from mindslavery. Is Aerostar’s misplaced sense of loyalty going to royally screw us all up? I mean, you see what happened with Fenix. Guess we’ll have to find out at ULTIMA LUCHA!
