Let’s look at more first-month Lucha Underground. It’s been a while since we started “First Month Fire” for the former El Rey Network promotion. We’re looking at the action from episode two featuring Blue Demon Jr and Mil Muertes in the main event as well as a clash between the teams of Johnny Mundo and Prince Puma and The Crew, Dario Cuerto’s hired goons.
As far as all the hype on this episode, The Crew is introduced and they get into it with Mundo and Puma resulting in a match. We also have some character building with more Konnan mentoring Prince Puma.
I always liked that story from season one of Lucha Underground. First, he tells him to steer clear of Mundo for some reason then we get a backstory video with the two later in the episode.
Then we have some build for the main event with Mil Muertes’ manager Catrina doing the promo and segment heavy lifting.
The Undercard
The opening bout was an impromptu match as Johnny Mundo teamed up with Prince Puma to face The Crew’s Cortez Castro and Mr. Cisco. I felt that this was a very exciting match that made the most out of the room they had to groove. There was some speed to this bout and the pace was amazing for television.
It’s as if creative was aware that they had less than an hour of broadcast time and built the storytelling around those time restrictions—and found the perfect formula. This was the kind of match that kept you hanging around for the rest of the show and wanting more of whatever that was.
The following match saw Chavo Guerrero and Sexy Star team up against Son of Havoc and Ivelisse. Even though we had Chavito and Son of Havoc who could make this a thrill ride of a match, it was more of a decent but very well-paced match that built off of Star’s win over Havoc from the debut episode.
There was nothing special about the match, I mean it wasn’t a bloodbath or a spotfest but it was in place on the episode.
The Main Event
There’s not much to say about the main event as it was a heavyweight lucha bout. While extremely brief, you could see Mil Muertes and Blue Demon Jr floating into physical, lucha-brawl territory and I was here for it.
While wrestling as NWA World champion, Demon ran into a number of styles and heavyweights and infused those experiences into his lucha background.
As a result, you had this style that was similar to the heavyweights of the old Universal Wrestling Association in Mexico. That style mixed well with Mil Muertes who had since become a bulky brawler.
I think if they were given more time, we would’ve gotten an enjoyable main event.
However, Mil Muertes managed to defeat Blue Demon Jr in under five minutes, establishing that he was a luchador of note in Lucha Underground. After the match, Chavito comes out and lays a beating on Demon after feigning a run-in and save.
Lucha Underground S1E2 Verdict: Silver Medal (Thumbs in the Middle for the Undercard, Thumbs Down for the Main Event)
The main event had the potential to be solid but was just to put Mil Muertes over—nothing wrong with that but it wasn’t the most interesting bout. Meanwhile, the intergender match was only so-so. The real sauce on this episode was the opening tag match!
In-ring action aside, a great job was done on the gimmicks, storytelling, and world-building. Also, the pacing? Perfect.
Match of the Show: Johnny Mundo & Prince Puma vs. The Crew
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