Welcome to the Over/Under of Lucha Underground for season 3 episode 9, where we talk about the best and worst moments from the best supernatural pro wrestling telenovela ever made. 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 9, originally aired on November 2, 2016.
Over: Dario’s Choice
This week’s episode begins with Dario Cueto spinning Dario’s Dial of Doom and landing on the deadliest soda in California: DARIO’S CHOICE. He teases the Believers with guys they’d want to see — Prince Puma! Pentagon Dark! El Mariachi Loco! Okay, not that last one, but he shouldn’t dropped him in there — before going for the obvious choice. He slots in Cortez Castro, the undercover police officer who got secretly ratted out by his partner and has already gotten his arm broken for it.
Castro shows up in a full cast and his wrestling gear, which is hilarious. Cueto tries to explain it away by saying Castro still comes to work every day even though he’s injured, which would be great if it didn’t pose questions like, “does he just stay shirtless because his arm is broken?” and “what kind of police sting operation is dumb enough to see Dario Cueto wink wink nudge nudge their undercover agent into a situation where his arm gets broken and not realize he’s onto them?”
Anyway, most of the match is this:
It’s not much of a match, but it’s a great story. Dario’s basically feeding an injured, one-armed man to his deformed, God-inhabited monster cage brother as punishment for being a Dirty Rat. Castro’s trying to fight back, going so far as to attack Matanza with the cast shards after Matanza straight up snaps it off of him, showing a hell of a lot of heart and bizarrely attempting to maintain his cover despite it being so extremely blown. Matanza eventually puts him away, and Dario gets in Castro’s face like, “HAVE FUN RECOVERING UNDER COVERS, MAYBE YOU CAN GO TO THE PHARMACY AND COP SOME MEDICATION, COME TO MY OFFICE LATER SO WE CAN DISCUSS FERGUSON AND SEE IF WE THINK THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD POLICE OFFICERS.” Castro’s probably like, “this is fine.”
Maybe it’s time to make the cop asides less about the undercover cops, and more about how their boss has half of an estrogen-powered immortality amulet? Are we just gonna pretend that didn’t happen?
In the office after the match, Dario and Joey Ryan make fun of Castro for getting his arm broken twice, laughing about how they didn’t teach him how to fight monsters in the police academy. Yeah, I guess Bubba Smith is dead so that’d never come up. This will definitely not come around to bite Joey in the ass.
Over: Suit And Die
As a follow-up to that whole “a Canadian vampire lord is giving me dangerous advice” story from the past few weeks, Prince Puma challenges Mil Muertes to a goddamn GRAVE CONSEQUENCES match. I haven’t seen it, obviously, but if that match isn’t stupid good I’ll eat one of my shoes.
Catrina shows up to accept the challenge, and Mil rushes out dressed in a suit and tie like a boss to throw hands. There are few things in this world as majestic as a luchador in a suit, especially when that luchador is a barrel-chested personification of death who loves the color purple and might still be full of taxidermy stuffing.
Under, With Some Over: A Little Too Much Mascarita Sagrada
My major problem with this episode is how lop-sided it felt. Prince Puma and Mil Muertes get one 5-minute bit to put over a Grave Consequences match between two former champions in what should be one of the biggest matches in the history of the company, and Mascarita Sagrada gets a backstage segment, a lengthy Son of Havoc vs. Dr. Wagner match and a big post-match promo to put over his beef with FAMOUS B? Maybe I’m just ready for season 3 to stop fucking around and get to the Fireworks Factory, but it seems like they’ve got that backwards.
That’s not to discredit the entire story or even the match itself, which was fine. I like what they’re doing, even if it should involve 99% more Pizza Bagels product placement. The rub is that Mascarita wants a match with B, but Dario says B is “pretty much retired.” Son of Havoc appeals to his violent, gambling nature, and they come up with a Son of Havoc vs. Doc Wagner match where if Havoc wins, Sagrada gets to pick the stipulation for a match with B. If Doc wins, B gets to pick the stip.
So Havoc ends up winning, and we get the announcement of Mascarita and Famous B in a Believers Backlash match — you may remember that from the time Fernandez got beat up with nunchucks while a bunch of fans whipped him to death with belts — with a “fans bring the weapons” modifier. That’ll be fun. I think the best part of the whole story so far has been The Beautiful Brenda’s understanding that Mascarita Sagrada is a baby. Right? Here she calls him a “son of a bitching baby,” which is barely cursing and totally hilarious. “Son of a bitching” is my new favorite adjective.
Over/Under: Adios And Vaya Con Chavos
Finally this week we’ve got our main event, a Loser Leaves Lucha Forever (~!) match between Rey Mysterio Jr. and Chavo Guerrero Jr. They’ve been fighting each other for years, and now it’s time for one of them to step aside forever. Any guess on which one of them it’ll be?
There’s a lot to like here, and a lot to criticize. A lot of the match is very sloppy, with Chavo seemingly forgetting how to take a handful of moves while he’s in the middle of them, and a very obvious build to a false finish where they’re seriously asking us to believe they’ve retired Rey Mysterio Jr. Matt Striker’s like, “it was an honor to be on his DVDs!” Bruh, come on.
I do like how they DID the false finish, though, as it was perfectly Guerrero. Chavo Sr. (who nobody knew was going to interfere!) gets into the ring with a chair like he’s gonna hit Mysterio, but turns and blasts Chavo Jr. in the face. That gets Mysterio disqualified, which technically means that Guerrero won, and Mysterio would have to leave Lucha forever. It’s a nice read of the rules, you know? They didn’t take into consideration that Mysterio is way more important to the show than Chavo, so Dario Cueto pops out and is like, “NOT ENOUGH VIOLENCE, RING THE BAILLLLLLLL.”
The match continues, and that’s when it gets good. They throw everything they’ve got at each other (including a very cool transition from a springboard senton into a single-leg crab) and, of course, Mysterio’s able to make Senior stumble into his own chair and send Junior packing. I don’t know if this is an official retirement or if Chavo will be back next week as somebody’s Vampiro to try to destroy Rey for beating him, but either way, it’s a nice way to tie up Chavo’s three LU seasons of, “I’m a scumbag and eventually the lucha libre community’s gonna end my career.”
So long, Chavo Guerrero, and thanks for all the Amway.
