Lucha Underground S02E16: Graver Consequences

Graver Consequences

DARIO MEETS WITH COUNCILMAN DELGADO IN A BAR-
Dario pays him either a cut of his business or protection money or something along those lines. Delgado says �"my employer will be pleased”- presumably the same employer that wants Captain Vasquez to drop her case against Dario.
Dario wants to get back to the Temple but Delgado blocks his way. He warns Dario about the police investigation and says he wouldn’t be surprise if the cops already had someone on the inside. Then we go the following exchange:
Delgado: �"The Temple is very important to my employer. In fact, when his ascension is complete, he is going to stop by… personally… to see it.”
Dario: �"He’s coming to the Temple?”
(insert BRM snark: �"You mean The Emperor is coming here?!”)
Delgado” �"He’s been waiting a very long time. What? Did you think your brother was going to have all the fun?”

WINNER GETS ONE OF THE SEVEN ANCIENT AZTEC MEDALLIONS: Joey Ryan vs. Mr. Cisqo vs. Cortez Castro- eh… I’ll give it a pass and call it an okay segment instead of a match.
The story was that Joey hid on the outside making The Crew fight it out, then Joey ran in and rolled Castro up for the pin. I’ve been quite resistant to everything involved in the whole �"police” storyline (which isn’t really a �"storyline” so much as it is an element of the overall story), but the one thing I have thought has been absolutely great about it has been Joey Ryan and Cortez Castro. (That being said, them teasing me with a hint about something Matanza/mystical powers-related in the earlier segment might change my overall feeling about this angle).

Also, now that all of the medallions have been won, we’re crowning a new Gift of the Gods Champion next week.

MIL MUERTES & CATRINA BACKSTAGE- very good.
Mil was meditating. Catrina appeared and gave him a pep talk/instructions that were very important for a few reasons:
1. We learn that Catrina is AT LEAST 197 years old (although another possible interpretation of this is that she died 197 years ago).
2. (And the part I liked the most)- she brought up the first Grave Consequences match, where Mil lost… but we later found out that losing was part of Catrina’s evil plan because it would make Mil stronger, which, in hindsight, kind of makes the finish of the match mean… I don’t quite want to say �"less” than it was built up as because it was clearly an important plot point in season one, but it definitely did make the finish of that match mean something… different (and for Mil, completely opposite) than we thought it would at the time.
Here, though, Catrina made a specific point to tell Mil that a loss for him tonight was not part of her grand plan. She wants to see Mil destroy Matanza. In other words, the writers went out of their way to assure us that there would be no bait-and-switch this time. If Mil lost tonight, it would be very bad for him.
3. It is, for some reason, important to Catrina that Mil see her give Matanza the lick of death (the negative part of this was that it is impossible not to laugh when she- using the same deadly serious tone she has used for this entire promo, starts talking about how she will �"lick the face of a god.” How can you not laugh at that?)

LUCHA UNDERGROUND TRIOS TITLE MATCH: Rey Mysterio Jr., Dragon, Azteca Jr. & Prince Puma(c) vs. Ivelisse, Son of Havoc, & Johnny Mundo (w/Taya)- 6/10
Dario has appointed Mundo to be a replacement for Angelico. Still no word of any sort on Angelico’s injury. I was shocked that there wasn’t any sort of backstage segment to show us Son of Havoc and Ivelisse discussing either Angelico’s injury or being forced to team with Mundo.
They started off with two different forms of a sportsmanship/mutual respect spot, one between Dragon Azteca Jr. and Ivelisse, and the second between Rey and Son of Havoc. Then Mundo and Prince Puma tagged into and Mundo sent Prince Puma to the floor and distracted the referee so Taya could put the boots to him. Ivelisse came over and put a stop to this. From that point on, the babyfaces avoided tagging Mundo in, which irked Taya to no end and she let us know it.
The interesting thing about is that Ivelisse and Son of Havoc wrestled a match that… wasn’t really heelish by any means, but certainly can’t quite be called 100% clean, either. They took longer than five seconds for their double teams after making a tag, and Ivelisse, while not the legal competitor, dropped down to the floor to trip Rey up as he came off the ropes. This is the sort of thing that allows them to still be babyfaces, but also retains that rough around the edges �"desire to win” that you would expect from people with a biker gimmick introduced the way these two were.
The aforementioned trip-up spot led to Rey yelling at Ivelisse and her getting up on the apron to yell back at him. Mundo (the legal wrestler for the team) tried to hit the distracted Rey with a springboard Enzugiri but Rey moved and Mundo accidentally nailed Ivelisse, who was out for the rest of the match (which didn’t last long, as Son of Havoc soon ate a 619 and then a 630 for the pin).
The match was short for what you would expect here, but they have Graver Consequences to get to. After the match Ivelisse went to check on Son of Havoc but Taya jumped her from behind and beat her up, so I assume we’re getting Johnny & Taya vs. Ivelisse & Son of Havoc at Ultima Lucha.


Rey Mysterio Jr. was wearing a silver mask tonight, so Matt Striker went out of his way to describe Rey as �"The Man in the Silver Mask.” That’s like calling Johnny Mundo an American Male. Technically it is a true statement… but that particular phrase is closely associated with someone else.

GRAVER CONSEQUENCES MATCH FOR THE LUCHA UNDERGROUND TITLE: �"The Monster” Matanza Cueto(c) vs. Mil Muertes (w/Catrina)- 8.75/10
Basically, this is just a regular Casket Match, but now there are even more coffins surrounding the ring for you to use. They took WAY too much time with the Dia de Muertos procession, which was after they came back from a commercial bumped that had a pointlessly-long establishing shot of LA.
Did anyone else catch Dario holding the key up in front of Matanza like Paul Bearer with the urn?
Interestingly, the crowd was solidly behind Mil. I expected them to be behind Matanza.
I thought Vampiro was pretty bad during this match, but he did have one AMAZING line, which was, �"when you rip somebody’s mask off, it’s like you’re assaulting their soul.”
This was pretty crazy. They did a great job playing into the Monster vs. Monster feel they had here. The best way I can describe this would be the following: Imagine 1998 Kane and Undertaker facing off in a Casket match in the ECW Arena, adapting their own style to work for that crowd and doing the sort of things you would almost certainly have seen if ECW ever did a Casket Match.
They did a lot of interesting stuff, Dario and Catrina got involved, and there were several awesome moments, including Matanza getting his hands on Mil’s stone and tossing it into a casket (followed by Catrina herself). Matanza won, as he should have. Best non-Aztec Warfare match so far this season.

POST-MATCH STUFF- When Dario opened the casket Catrina had been thrown into after the match, she had vanished.
The procession came to take Mil’s casket away, and it was revealed that the chief guy in the procession was King Cuerno.

COUNCILMAN DELGADO MEETS WITH HIS MYSTERIOUS EMPLOYER- interesting.
He gives him the cut of the money he got from Dario. He was very, very nervous about having to tell this guy that Dario thought Matanza might be the most powerful person alive, but made sure to tell him that he had told Dario was the mysterious employer was the most powerful person in the world. We didn’t get to see the mysterious employer’s identity, but we know he likes cigars.


Awesome show from LU as always. Business is clearly about to pick up.

STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. When Rey hit the 619 and tagged Prince Puma in to hit the 630, Matt Striker went crazy talking about this was Rey �"passing the torch” and when Prince Puma got the pin �"a new star has been created!”
HE’S ALREADY BEEN THE F*CKING WORLD CHAMPION! How the hell was he not a star before?!

2. Striker- �"the Reaper’s trident sends Matanza crashing.”
Um… Matt? The Grim Reaper has a scythe. It’s Poseidon that has a trident.
(Yeah, I know, he misspoke. Everyone does it sometimes. But he wouldn’t have done it if he didn’t have this need to try so damn hard to be artsy, which is something that I find horribly annoying about Matt Striker.)
(Edit: He didn’t misspeak. I know this because he made the same mistake again later on in the match).