Pentagon and his tag team partner, Pentagon
Previously on Lucha Underground: Vinnie Massaro and an innocent pizza boy just trying to get paid were sacrificed to the Gods. Plus, El Dragon Azteca Jr. became the Gift of the Gods Champion, and Mariposa talked Marty the Moth into being a thing again.
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And now, the Over/Under on Lucha Underground season 4, episode 8, originally aired on August 1, 2018.
Over: As A Heads Up Before We Begin, This Is (Lovingly) Probably The Stupidest Episode Of Lucha Underground Ever
Lucha Underground has done some ridiculous shit in its three and a quarter seasons — time travel, guys turning into actual dragons, booking Shawn Hernandez — but this week’s episode is, quite possibly, the most ridiculous bit of wrestling television I’ve ever seen.
First of all, there’s a backstage scene where newly woke Catrina accosts The Mack and reveals what we learned in a comic book back in the day: that Mil Muertes (sorry, “Mil Mortence”) killed Mack’s cousin Big Ryck and used his skull as part of his Shao Khan throne. To reveal this, she I guess detaches Ryck’s skull from the furniture and creates a fucking diorama in a locker by putting an eye patch on it and making it smoke a partially smoked cigar. Look at that. That’s the funniest shit I’ve ever seen in my life. Catrina’s back there scaring people with Pirates of the Caribbean gags. Like, couldn’t Mack have inferred when she said “your cousin” and dramatically opened a locker to reveal a skull that she’d killed Big Ryck? Did it need to be dressed up? Amazing.
I hope later this season Catrina’s like, “hey Marty, looking for Sexy Star? Heh,” and then Fonzie bumps open a locker to reveal a masked skull covered in spiders with a half-broken Rosemary action figure beside it.
Somehow topping that is the post-credits stinger, in which Johnny Mundo (dressed as Indiana Jones) and Taya (in a matching jacket) go to the Reptile Tribe’s temple to “cut the head off of the snake.” For starters, what? Then you have to think about how Vibora’s hometown is “from when dinosaurs ruled the Earth,” so is this temple … where dinosaurs rule the Earth? There aren’t a lot of barren deserts in Los Angeles. Do these dudes have to time travel every time they’re booked on a show?
Anyway, Mundo and Taya show up in the Reptile Tribe’s restaurant at the end of the universe or whatever and use Daga’s fancy ornamental sword to cut off the Undersnaker’s head. RIP Baron Cobran season 3-season 4. Johnny even drops a “we were never here” quip to a chained up Drago, who reacts to his decapitated slave-friend’s head dripping nuclear TCRI ooze by ROARING.
I don’t know where to give this a standing ovation or stop watching completely. Did George R.R. Martin book this season? Are they contractually obligated to kill somebody in every episode? More importantly, do we meet Johnny Mundo’s weirdly Scottish dad at Ultima Lucha?
Do We Even Need To Talk About The Wrestling Part
That snake-themed spelunking is set up by the opening match, in which Daga somehow chokes PJ Black into unconsciousness with a wrist lock (?) and the Reptile Tribe try to … I want to say “cut off his head,” but it probably wasn’t that severe. Worldwide Underground makes the save, minus Jack Evans (who is still incapacitated by his “debilitating lifelong struggle with ophidiophobia”), and a match is made for next week: Worldwide Underground vs. Reptile Tribe, four-on-four. If the Reptiles win, Johnny Mundo has to be Kobra Moon’s slave forever. She had one of those Funerary Boxes™ from Three-way To The Grave in her sand temple, so it looks like she’s trying to build an army. If WWU wins, though, Kobra Moon has to grant Johnny Mundo a wish. Because I guess she can grant wishes now. This show might have even gotten too inexplicably bonkers for even me to accept.
The actual wrestling parts aren’t that great, which has sadly been par for the course this season. I’m still not totally sure if it’s the wrestling or the wrestlers themselves or the talent turnover or the editing or what, but nothing happening in the ring is really “catching” like it used to, and everything feels really bland and loaded down with foley. The crowd always sounds like they’re going apeshit, but they never really look like it outside of the cutaways. I don’t know. It’s still not bad, it just hasn’t totally found the spark that made me happy-clap and tell all my friends to watch the show. Turning Pentagon into Roman Reigns and taking half a season off from Fenix probably hasn’t helped.
I’m Just Kidding About Pentagon Being Roman Reigns
If Pentagon was Roman Reigns he would’ve easily won the handicap match main event instead of actually losing it because it’s a goddamn two-on-one fight.
The hook is that it’s supposed to be a tag team match pitting Pentagon and a partner of his choice against The Man They Call The Man They Call Cage and a partner of his choice, but Pentagon’s too much of a bad-ass slash pissed-off ninja skeleton to have friends and want a partner. The only friend we’ve ever seen him have on the show was a Canadian color commentator who turns into an evil Mexican Vampire Lord turned Ghost Pope when he forgets to take his medicine, he’s not gonna be able to tag with that guy. So he ends up in a handicap match against Cage and King Cuerno, Cuerno kicks his ass, and Cage takes the pin and the glory.
This is all to set up Pentagon defending the Lucha Underground Championship in a mini-boss fight with Lucha’s ultimate mini-boss, Cage, which is good. I still think Cuerno should be the focus (because seriously), but unlike the White Guys vs. Snakes feud involving forced slavery, wishes, resurrections and multiple beheadings, this actually seems like it can and should exist in a pro wrestling world.
Over: El Dragon Azteca Is Admirable, And Making A Bad Decision
New Gift of the Gods Champion El Dragon Azteca Jr. wants to honor the Eagle Tribe (who I keep thinking is supposed to be the Dragon Tribe, because it’s full of dudes named “Dragon”) by defending the belt for the remainder of the season and challenging for the Lucha Underground Championship at Ultima Lucha Quatro. That’s a wonderfully admirable tecnico way to be, and also bruh, almost 10 people have died at your job in the past eight hours. Maybe just go ahead and cash it in before somebody drives a moth-themed truck over you or whatever.
Over: Killshot
or
Under: The Hell Are Y’all Doing With The Rabbits
The best match of the night by far is the Trios Championship match between the champs and the Rabbit Tribe, anchored almost entirely by Killshot being awesome as shit at pro wrestling. He’s carrying this thing from both ends, so much so that when they have him “steal a pin” and take all the glory and be a big post-match dick to his friends, I’m kinda like, “he’s got a point.”
The larger question is, “what in the world are they doing with the Rabbit Tribe?” The Rabbits have a better vibe about them than a lot of the characters on the show right now, have been doing good-to-great work in the ring from comedy and lucha libre perspectives, and they just did a murder angle where they beat Mascarita Sagrada to death to gain supernatural power (or something) from the “White Rabbit” and his tree throne pals. Since then, we’ve seen them lose multiple times. Is this going somewhere? Or do the jobbers just also get wacky backstories? Because I’m okay with that, but damn, I wanna see these guys do something and be important. Paul London should be in your top five most important guys in the company straight up, and my Saltador fandom is long documented.
Still though, I guess as long as we get them in exciting trios matches with Killshot running around double-stomping people to death from every conceivable angle, I’ll be into it. The wackiness is there, but eight episodes in I’m thirsty as hell for some top-shelf wrestling. Don’t forget that part.
