Previously on the Over/Under of Lucha Underground: After a six month hiatus we finally had Johnny Mundo defend the Lucha Underground Championship against The Mack in “All Night Long,” a match that would go (cleverly enough) all night long until we had a winner. We did not have a winner, so they’re doing it again this week as a one fall match. So did … did they just take six months off and then do an hour-long match that didn’t mean anything? I’m supposed to love this, let me check my notes. Hm.
If you need to catch up on the rest of the episodes — if you aren’t caught up, you should need to catch up — you can read about season 1 here, and season 2 here. Season 3 episode recaps can be found here.
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And now, the Over/Under on Lucha Underground season 3, episode 21, originally aired on June 7, 2017.
Under, Honestly: All Night Long, Cliffs Notes Edition
So yeah, last week’s return episode was an hour of Johnny Mundo vs. The Mack, where the main story was that Mundo had the numbers, but Mack’s friends kept showing up to bail him out of tough spots and keep him in the match. It ended in a tie, so Dario Cueto announced a one-fall, “sudden death” match for this week. The payoff to an hour-long ironman match is a one-fall match a week later. It’s … not their best idea.
Cueto shows up to make this Falls Count Anywhere as well, which means that (more than usual) Worldwide Underground is cleared to run out and attack Mack whenever they want and keep him from winning. Mundo’s in trouble, so he gets saved by Ricky Mandel, just like last week. Mack’s about to win, but PJ Black interferes. Just like last week. Sexy Star runs out to help, just like last week. The difference?
From last week’s report:
Mack ends the show by hitting a stunner on Mundo and celebrating with the belt, which might as well stamp MACK IS NOT WINNING NEXT WEEK on his forehead. I haven’t been spoiled on the rest of this season yet, but by my count Mundo’s got another doppelganger at his disposal now and two people in his faction we didn’t even see on this episode.
Sure enough, the difference in last week’s match and this one is that Taya shows up, pulls Mundo out of a tight spot at the end of the match and sets him up for victory. So after an hour and 20 minutes, the story is that Johnny Mundo is champion because a bunch of people help him. … Cool?
Over: Dario’s “Innovative Concepts”
I love the suggested running theme that while Dario Cueto’s family has been in lucha libre forever, he’s never actually watched it before. So he’ll come up with ideas that everyone’s done, and be like, I JUST CAME UP WITH THIS, THIS IS THE BEST IDEA. Remember when his first big innovative idea was a Royal Rumble? And then he came up with the Gift of the Gods Championship, which is like Money in the Bank if Money in the Bank was a title belt? And how all of his other unique ideas are just tournaments? Dude got a mysterious box FROM THE DEVIL as a prize to give away and it turned out it was a gauntlet from Medieval Times you have to take off when you actually wrestle.
This week, he comes up with his greatest and most innovative idea ever: a tournament, for a cup, where the winner gets a title shot.
I can’t wait for his next big creation, a match fought inside a haunted house that somehow has to end inside a wrestling ring. Or a cage match with a really big cage made out of bamboo.
Over: No Time For Pants, Dr. Jones
Maybe the best single moment of the week belongs to the Worldwide Underground, in a segment where Taya delivers the bad news about Cueto’s other announcement — Johnny Mundo will defend the Lucha Underground Championship against Rey Mysterio Jr. at the Cueto Cup Finals — to a freshly showered Johnny. Mundo makes Ricky Mandel go get the car so the kid “doesn’t see him nervous,” then announces to Taya that he’ll have to train harder than he’s ever trained before to defeat Mysterio. And he has no time to put on pants. John Mundo must HANG DONG IN A DOJO to defeat the Biggest Little Man.
And while I’m thinking about it, forever +1 to the Mundo/Taya relationship. I love that it’s 1000% platonic and based on their mutual admiration for their natural horribleness as people. I also love that we got a pro wrestling segment where the woman is the clothed pragmatist and the guy is beefcake-as-fuck in a towel because he had to wash his abs for 20 minutes after wrestling.
Over: Babadooyaka-dooyaka
This week’s other backstage segment (note: I missed you, Lucha backstage craziness) involves Mysterio trying to give good advice to Prince Puma, a man who watched his mentor get buried alive and then died himself only to be resurrected by a Satanic Canadian vampire who is a total bro when he’s not sadomasochistically torturing the pain out of his subjects by hanging them with hooks and attacking them with a barbed-wire-covered baseball bat. Mysterio has been through similar stuff. Remember the Filthy Animals? That was way worse.
Rey is like, “hey man, maybe chill?” and Puma storms off. Rey then sees the Astral Projection of Vampiro in the mirror like so much Ultimate Warrior, and is warned to leave Puma alone. Rey punches the mirror, and I’m starting to think Cueto makes all those clandestine deals with evil businessmen and demon guys to cover his glass, door, ceiling and mirror replacement budget.
Over, With A Little Under: What Were You Expecting
Aero Star, Fenix and Drago defend their Trios Championship against the Reptile Tribe of Kobra Moon, Vibrator and the Penis of the Dragon. The important thing here is that Drago had been held captive for a really long IRL time and brainwashed (on screen) by Kobra, so … maybe Fenix and Aero should be wary of trying to tag him into a match against them? I mean, if he didn’t just immediately forget the rules of wrestling and start violently attacking them? Wouldn’t he do that?
On the plus side, the match is a lot of fun, and Aero Star is bonkers in it. He usually adds one or two new moves into his repertoire every match, but here he’s like, “I gotta do a headlock, let me springboard into the ring, land on the bottom rope, bounce to the top rope, catch a thrown rose, hurl it at my opponent like I’m Tuxedo Mask, then backflip onto this flower-covered hamster-ass looking fake Drago.” He’s so good. I love that he’s a time traveler, so maybe he’s just from a future where Ricochet and Will Ospreay ruined everything and now if you don’t open the match with a corkscrew plancha people start screaming BORING.
Anyway, when it’s time to tag in Drago, he turns on his friends and officially joins Aces and Snakes. He’s chained up again after the match, though, to suggest that maybe he’s still being forced to do Kobra’s bidding and isn’t totally rudo. Also of note: technically Drago just defeated himself to win his own Lucha Underground Trios Championship.
Over: Here’s A Brick And I’m Drowning Slowly
In this week’s main event, Prince Puma Dark finally gets a win over his blood rival Mil Muertes thanks to help from Vampiro, who uses his dark magicks to learn Mil’s one weakness: being hit in the face with a fucking brick.
It’s a Boyle Heights Street Fight, so it’s legal. That’s also the reason the ring is filled with trash by the end. I don’t think I’ve seen a room so full of garbage since Nitro went off the air. That’s both a joke about the quality of Nitro at the end and the actual trash people threw at the nWo, if you’re keeping score. Puma looks like he has the match won on his own with maybe the grossest ass-to-sternum 630 I’ve ever seen, but Catrina climbs in and hits him with her magic earthquake rock. That prompts Vamp to get involved and save the day with the aforementioned brick.
Now it’s going to be nearly impossible for Mysterio to pull this chatty dead version of Puma back from the dark side. Vampiro didn’t just give him life, he gave him something he needed MORE than life: a win over Mil.
