Lucha Underground S02E25: Ultima Lucha II Pt. 3

Ultima Lucha II Part 3

VAMPIRO & PENTAGON JR. STAND OUTSIDE OF A CAVE-
Vamp tells Pentagon Jr. that in order to truly have no fear and defeat Matanza, he must �"destroy” the man he was- the man who was broken by Matanza. Then Vampiro sends Pentagon Jr. into a dark cave, telling him that �"fear” is inside. Pentagon Jr. is attacked by Darth Vader but defeats him in a lightsaber duel, but it turns out that under Vader’s mask he was wearing a Pentagon Jr. mask.
Whoops. Sorry. Wrong thing.
He does fight… a gang of copies of himself? Maybe? He beats them up. The final one looks different and speaks English. He defeats it, and unmasks it and it turns out it’s Vampiro, who tells him that he is now ready. This was weird. It ended with Vampiro rechristening him Pentagon Dark.

LUCHA UNDERGROUND TRIOS TITLES MATCH: Jack Evans, P.J. Black, & Johnny Mundo(c) vs. Drago, Aerostar, & Fenix- 6.75/10
Striker and Vampiro debate whether or not paying attention to who is the legal partner is important. This should never even be a debate.
Jack punched Aerostar in the anus. He later hit Fenix in the anus as well with some sort of… �"put my hands together over my head with my fingers at a point, pretend I’m a rhinoceros, put my head down and charge across the ring” type of move. Fenix later got what I thought was a stomp to the balls but Striker said was to the anus. We also had the heels steal the old Ares/Claudio/Tursas BDK Ragnarok finisher which didn’t look anywhere near as cool when the guy taking the move is about the same size as the guys holding him up.
The action was really great but I didn’t like all of the overbooking. We had multiple ref bumps that were totally on purpose with no DQ. We had Fenix kicking out after getting crushed with three belt shots at the same time, killing that finish. I understand that it was done to justify the interference from the returning Angelico that gave the babyfaces the win, but I’d really have rather seen a (mostly) clean heel victory, with Angelico returning afterwards to chase them off, setting up Angelico, Ivelisse, and Son of Havoc going after the belts to start the next season. Don’t get me wrong: I see the benefits of booking this the way they did (more focus on Angelico as a singles wrestler, new faces with the tag titles, who, after a rematch with the now-former champs and the now full-strength dysfunctional babyface unit, can bring new people into the division), but the way the end of the season has been booked has me afraid that they’re going to have Son of Havoc, Angelico, and Ivelisse go their separate ways, and I think that would be to the detriment of at least Son of Havoc and Angelico, and possibly Ivelisse as well.

DRAGON AZTECA JR. vs. BLACK LOTUS- 4/10
Both of them got their entrances cut out of the show. Huh. I wonder what happened.
They were having a fine match, but this match was never going to be about actual wrestling so much as it was going to be about whatever winds up happening between them as it relates to Dario and Mantanza, so getting the finish that does absolutely nothing for that in any way was extremely disappointing. Did we really need Pentagon Jr. Dark to run in, cause a DQ, and then break both of their arms? The finish of this match was supposed to move the story along. This finish just pushed it aside.

PENTAGON DARK PROMO- good explanation of our opening segment for the live crowd.

LUCHA UNDERGROUND TITLE MATCH: �"The Monster” Matanza Cueto(c) (w/Dario Cueto) vs. Pentagon Dark- 7.75/10
Apparently �"there must be a winner” means �"no DQs or count-outs.” If that’s what you mean, then just say it. To me, �"there must be a winner” means that there can’t be any draws or any sort of double-finish.
Anyway, they had a really great brawl all over the place. The stuff with Dario was good as it protects Pentagon Dark while also building off of the comment that Vampiro had just made on commentary that someone needs to get rid of Dario (in fact, when Vamp got up and brought out the barbed-wire baseball bat I thought he was going to go over and take a swing at Dario instead of giving it to Pentagon). It lets this feud continue into next year while also escalating it, with the more active involvement from Dario and Vampiro hopefully adding some freshness to it next season.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- or they could go that way.
Vampiro goes to help Pentagon Dark up, but Pentagon Dark pushes him away. I assume Pentagon is angry because if he had just gone for the pin instead of getting the barbed-wire bat from (the very slow-moving) Vampiro, he would probably have won the match and the title. Pentagon Dark left without his maestro, and when we returned from commercial Vampiro was back on commentary, and while Striker was doing the welcome back, Vampiro (or maybe Ian?) was taking his pills again.

IVELISSE vs. TAYA- 5.75/10
They brawled. It was fine. Then they finally got back in the ring and Ivelisse hit a Code Red… and then the lights went off and Catrina used her magic to also switch places with the referee. She attacked Ivelisse and laid her out with a butterfly version of the Barbie Crusher. Then she teleported away again and the referee was back and Taya hit her Northern Lights Suplex into a double stomp finisher for the win. Then the lights went out again and now it was Taya who Catrina transported away and took her place. She said �"Death comes to everyone. Even you, b*tch.” Then she gave Ivelisse the lick of death.

So far tonight we have had ZERO clean finishes, and with the possible exception of the opener, it has been all brawling and absolutely no wrestling. Hopefully the main event will fix that.

REY MYSTERIO JR. vs. PRINCE PUMA- 8.5/10
This definitely had the �"big match” feel that the main event of your biggest show of the year should have. Rey shows that he can still go at a main event level (if used sparingly, which Lucha Underground has done a great job with) and Prince Puma gets to have yet another awesome main event. The announcers were pushing that Puma’s idolization of Rey caused him to be a little sentimental and take a bit too long on a 630 senton that might have put it away, but Rey moved and mostly took over and eventually won. We got the Rock-Hogan post-match deal where Rey won but called Prince Puma back and gave him center stage.

PENTAGON DARK ASSAULTS THE ANNOUNCERS- Yes, I did pop huge when Striker got superkicked.
He beat the sh*t out of Vampiro with the barbed-wire baseball bat. Vamp bled all over the place, and Pentagon Dark ate a good chunk of that blood. He also cut a promo saying that he was now the maestro.

DARIO CUETO IS ARRESTED- Dario has apparently been arrested by the cops. He is handcuffed and loaded into a van. As they drive away, his face becomes cloaked in shadow… and just like last year, it seems like a faint smile appears on his face at the end.

A good show in the ring, but very disappointing otherwise. After the Ivelisse vs. Taya match, this started to feel more like just a big but ultimately �"regular” episode of LU. Like more of a half way point to a season than a season finale, and the ending to this show really solidified that to me. We got no payoff to any of the backstory stuff that had been built up all year (wasn’t the mysterious boss supposed to show up at Ultima Lucha?), and the finishes to all of the matches except the main event felt like transitions to new feuds (or in the case of Dragon Azteca Jr. vs. Black Lotus, stalling) rather than payoffs of their own. If we expand this to include the previous weeks of this supposedly �"Ultima Lucha,” I think this also applies to the angle with Son of Havoc getting screwed in that stupid tournament and to many of the elements going in to the Gift of the Gods Title match (nothing happened with Daga and Kobra Moon, Killshot didn’t get his revenge on Marty, and there was no payoff or advancement whatsoever to Night Claw, either by revealing his identity, deepening the mystery, or putting him over extremely strong in order to deepen our desire to find out more about this masked man). There was no season-ending montage with a promise of things to come. Just Dario getting led away in handcuffs. Season two did not live up to the greatness of season one, and, fittingly, Ultima Lucha II did not live up to the greatness of the original.