The Over/Under On Lucha Underground Season 3 Episode 3: Mystic Pizza

Welcome to the Over/Under of Lucha Underground for season 3 episode 3, the most pizza-centric episode of Lucha yet. In this column, we analyze the best and worst things about every episode of the best wrestling show on television. If you need to catch up, you can read about season 1 here, and season 2 here. Season 3 episode recaps can be found here.

Re-post: If you’re still wondering how to watch the show, it airs every Wednesday night on El Rey Network. If you don’t have El Rey on your cable system, you can get it on Sling. If you can’t do that, you can download the episodes on iTunes. They’re selling a “season pass” right now where you can get every new episode right after it airs. If you can’t do that, and you demand viewing information without just being a cheapskate and googling “watch lucha underground online free,” I don’t know what to tell you. Watch the show.

And now, the Over/Under on Lucha Underground season 3 episode 3, originally aired on September 21, 2016.

Over: Dario Cueto’s Vindictive Coke-Fueled Booking Binge

This week’s show-long, loosely associated series of backstage vignettes centers around Dario Cueto, who has been inspired by a stint in prison and a series of threats from undercover cops and also maybe the devil to go on blatant, on-screen coke binges and book weeks of television programming. So … being a normal TV producer.

We catch him in the act just before Johnny Mundo and Taya burst in. Johnny wants a Lucha Underground Championship match because he’s the biggest star on the show — hope he gets one before El Patron saunters back in — but he’s got obligations as 1/3 of the Trios Champions. He storms out, leaving Taya to step in as said 1/3 and point out that Cueto’s “got a little something” on his nose. I’ve probably typed this before, but Taya is secretly not secretly one of the very best characters on the show right now.

Before all this, we get a LENS FLARE DOJO KARATE LUCHADOR FIGHT between cool-as-a-cucumber-covered-in-question-marks Rey Mysterio Jr. and hot-headed, hot-throated El Dragon Azteca Jr. Dragon wants a match with Pentagon, but Rey’s like, “breh, it’s Pentagon, you were getting your ass kicked by Black Lotus, you should probably relax.”

Chavo Guerrero Jr. sneaks into the Junior Convention and shows up Dragon Azteca, implying that Mysterio’s teachings are weak and maybe Dragon should be getting trained by a Guerrero.

Later in the episode, Dario is going through his mail — lots of Famous B merchandise that they’d better be selling in real life, and some spooky photos we’ll touch on in a minute — when Dragon Azteca barges into his office, demanding a match with Pentagon. Dario thinks that sounds suitably violent and signs it, in pencil. Rick Mandel shows up next (again, more on that in a minute), and then Chavo shows up and tells Dario they “need to talk.”

The next thing we know, Rey Mysterio is in Dario’s office finding out about everything, and learns that the match is now El Dragon Azteca Jr. vs. Chavito for a SHOT at Pentagon Dark — he broke both of their arms, remember, and Ricky’s too, for that matter — with Rey as the special guest referee. Dario’s so confident in this decision, he signs it in pen. Only Lucha Underground could make the confidence of pencil vs. pen seem like it’s got gravitas.

So! Spooky photos.

Dario opens a manila envelope and discovers a stack of black and white photos. One of them is a photo of creepy dolls, and while I can’t make out the second photo, it kinda looks like the poster for The Passion of the Christ. He’s a little unnerved, but he’s Dario Cueto — he deals with psychotic kidnappers and limo villains and murderous deformed God-inhabited cage brothers all the time — so he tosses them in the trash.

Ricky Mandel wanders in and asks Cueto when his next match will be, and says something about the “cool photos.” Dario looks down, and the pictures are on his desk again. MYSTICAL SPOOKY PHOTOS. He gives Ricky the photos, and (for now) that’s it. Based on what we’ve been given in this segment, it appears that Dario Cueto is being Ringu‘d through the mail. Snail mail is a pretty antiquated way to supernaturally threaten someone, so we’ll say he’s being Ringu‘d Old World Style.

Over: Monsta Mack And The Ooltimate Opportunity

Dario’s crazy coke-fueled booking binge continues throughout the night, with him putting together two increasingly wacky match situations:

1. Dario’s Dial of Doom returns, now even more ridiculous with Dario referring to it as “critically acclaimed.” I like that they could like, assume 37-episodes in advance that I would mark out for the Dario Dial of Doom and know they could retroactively use me as proof.

Anyway, Cueto spins the wheel and The Monster Matanza Cueto’s opponent is THE MACK, who is maybe the best possible match-up for him. Think about it. They’re both guys who are way more athletic than they look, who are both stronger than usual and able to like, backflip on command. Mack’s right behind Son of Havoc on The Believers’ list of favorite underdogs, so adding a more physically complimentary opponent to the Matanza/Son of Havoc wheel scenario ups the stakes, makes the match better and makes it a little easier to suspend disbelief. Like, sure, The Mack’s not pinning Matanza three episodes into the season to win the Lucha Underground Championship, but they keep it brisk and competitive enough that you can forget the foregone conclusion and enjoy it.

Mack goes for the frog splash and gets nothing but knees, allowing Matanza to hit Wrath of the Gods of score the victory. Wheel in the sky, keep on turning.

2. Due to their lackluster performances in Dario’s “4 A Unique Opportunity” tournament at Ultima Lucha Dos, Cage and Texano have been paired up in a match for not a unique opportunity, but the ULTIMATE opportunity. Cage wins, only to find out that he’ll have to beat Texano two more times; if he wants the ool-timate opportunity, he’ll have to come out on top in a best-of-5 series. Somewhere Cesaro and Sheamus are watching this like, “oh, five would’ve been a good number.”

I haven’t read the spoilers, but I hope Cueto just keeps expanding the series and running Cage and Texano into each other all season by dangling this opportunity in front of them. “NOW YOU MUST WIN THE BEST OF 21 SERIES!” And then it turns out the “ultimate opportunity” is just a match with The Renegade*.

*I know he’s dead, so in this scenario, “The Renegade” is Marty the Moth dressed like the Ultimate Warrior.

Over: You Can Have Pizza Anytime

And now, the part of the show you know I lost my f*cking mind over.

During the Dario’s Dial of Doom spinning, Cueto mentions that Son of Havoc got beaten by Matanza so badly that he’s spent the last two weeks at home, being taken care of by his mother. Later in the show, we actually jump to SON OF HAVOC’S HOUSE, “somewhere on the open road” to find Son of Havoc and Mascarita Sagrada watching TV while his mom makes him Bagel Bites. Swear to God.

Lucha Underground is better at product placement than any show I’ve ever seen. Remember in season one when they turned a Miller Lite sponsorship into a weird passive-aggressive class warfare thing in Dario’s office with Hernandez not knowing how to use a coaster? Now they’ve got Son of Havoc’s mom — “Linda Havoc,” if you were wondering — not only cooking her son and his “little friend” Bagel Bites, they’ve got her f*cking PRESENTING them with a heavenly glow. Look at this. The Bagel Bites SHINE:

My heart grew three sizes that day.

If you’re wondering why Mascarita Sagrada’s giving the TV the finger in that photo up there, it’s because they’re watching the 423-GET-FAME commercial. I will never get tired of the expanding backstory of Brenda, a down-on-her-luck Los Angeles transient hooker (?) transformed into a sexy television nurse by the infomercial magicks of Jimmy Hart’s bastard.

I don’t know, man, seems like she’s doing pretty well.

Over: There Really Aren’t Unders Anymore, Sorry Everyone

… but I want to keep talking about the Bagel Bites.

This week’s main event is the aforementioned Trios Championship match between the current champions (Aerostar, Drago and Fenix) and the former champs, in one form or another (Jack Evans, PJ Black and Taya subbing in for Johnny Mundo). As you might expect, this is the kind of match you happily clap about, even when you’re by yourself watching on a laptop at like 8 AM on a Thursday.

The story here is that Worldwide Underground is frustrated and not operating at 100%. Mundo is butt-hurt about not being treated like the biggest star in the world, so he’s not in the match. Jack Evans is obsessed with making his opponents butt-hurt by like, putting his hands together and diving fingers-first into their assholes. Black is frustrated by Jack being such a butthole and balls-obsessed dork, and keeps tagging himself in all violently until Jack is physically removing himself from the match to sit criss-cross applesauce on the floor and pout. Taya’s trying to be the cool mom and carry the weight of the match AND keep everyone on the same page. Eventually, you know, the three SUPER LUCHADORS who are cosmic eternal reincarnated time-traveling whatever best friends are able to overcome this.

Aerostar gets the win for the tecnicos, which brings out Mundo for the Damned Numbers Game beatdown. Sexy Star jogs out and throws some dropkicks in the general vicinity of their bodies to send them packing, and Striker gets the “THE SUPERFRIENDS HAVE BEEN JOINED BY WONDER WOMAN” line he’s been sitting on all night.

And that’s the show. In an hour we got multiple segments dedicated to the Cueto/Rey Mysterio/Dragon Azteca/Chavo Guerrero/Pentagon … uh, pentagon, three quality matches (two of which approached “very good”), backstage character engagement motivation for a bunch of people who didn’t wrestle AND an in-universe commercial featuring a different in-universe commercial that made me laugh so hard I smiled for like 10 minutes after. In one hour.

I wish Lucha Underground was on a bagel, so I could have it anytime.