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Hi. The name’s Dan; I'm super-smarky. Introduction's done, so let me get on with telling why my taste is better than yours ... wait, no. Okay, try this: your taste is awesome, that’s why I know you’ll love this awesome thing.
This article should (in theory) serve as a way to introduce uninitiated wrestling fans to the insane and insanely cool world of Lucha Underground; or, if they are already au fait with it, an open love-letter to the product.
Reason One: The Wrestling
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So, the wrestling is just on a higher level than that of WWE. And don’t get me wrong, I respect that if you wrestle for WWE, you’re working tons more shifts than any other televised brand because of house shows, touring etc. But watching as a fan? Well, give me spectacle, and I lap it up. Give me more, such as more great wrestling, and I like your product better.
Reason Two: The Wrestlers
There are many amazingly talented and hard-working wrestlers in WWE – probably more than any other company in the business (now that they’ve acquired AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura anyway). But how many Rybacks do we have to sit through to get to our Rollins'? How many Brie Bellas before our Boss Banks'?
In the first season of Lucha Underground, there were about five guys who I wasn’t dazzled by. Three were jobbers. One was Daivari. The other guy kayfabe got his face eaten by a monster. Oh yeah, and one of the jobbers got repackaged as part of a dominant trios team, and another got a bafflingly entertaining gimmick as a sketchy wheeler-dealer who wants to help you get famous.
All the rest of the guys are awesome and deserving of every awesome moment they got, and are continuing to get. Not one of the luchadoras (female lucha libre stars) disappointed me. And now there are more of them!
I’m gonna try not to just rant incessantly about every damn person, but here's a brief summary of the awesome points of these five luchadores:
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It would be remiss of me to not point out the man who is, for some, the most talented wrestler in the world today. If you know your independents, you’ve heard of Ricochet. He’s garnered Meltzer Awards aplenty (including Best Flying Wrestler 2011, 2014, 2015; and Best Wrestling Manoeuvre 2010 and 2011 for his double-rotation moonsault), and flies like a goddamn eagle. What’s crazy about his representation in Lucha Underground is that for an entire season and a half, he didn’t even talk. Don’t get me wrong, he’s not underdeveloped as a character, but in a way, he's our eyes into the Temple (Lucha Underground has the best names for everything, including the building). He was their first champion, and deservedly so – it could have easily been Johnny Mundo (that probably would have got more press), but they chose the guy with a brighter future ahead of him – there are worse faces for a company than this jaguar mask.
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You don’t have to know the history of Octagón, and how the Asistencia Asesoría y Administración (AAA for short, the parent company of Lucha Underground - well, sort of) likes to create other reimaginings of existing big-money draws, like the minis version, the heel version, the numerous Hijos del insert-luchador and insert-luchador Juniors. All you have to know about Pentagón Jr are two words: Cero Miedo. You want more information? Well this dude breaks people’s arms. That’s a good 20-25% of his gimmick. He’s a badass who breaks your arm after he beats you. Pentagón is probably my second favourite wrestler in the whole damn world, only behind his shoot younger brother Fénix.
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Yes, that’s his full name. So, for the entire first season you knew about this guy, but never saw him. Remember how I said a jobber got his face eaten? Yeah, this dude did the eating. He’d been built and built as an unstoppable monster, and he hasn’t disappointed. Okay, well some people were expecting more gore straight away I guess, but you couldn’t have him not be a wrestler now, could you? His mask covers his mouth (beautiful touch), and he’s played by a hossy Guamanian amateur wrestler who can suplex you to death. I’ve heard him described as if Chad Gable was playing a monster – yes. But bulkier, scarier, and with a slaughterhouse look to his attire.
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Hasn’t women’s wrestling come far in the last few years? Well, no. We just started noticing in the last few years because WWE insisted on it. In season one, Sexy Star was a real heroine – more than just a babyface, but a genuine role model for anyone watching, taking on opponents more than twice her size and weight. WWE is always gonna be pussyfooting around inter-gender wrestling, but as long as you tell the right story (which admittedly, the commentary team doesn’t always do), she can be the poster-person of a new wave. In season two, she laid low, having been kayfabe kidnapped and traumatized. Then she took part in Lucha Underground’s first I Quit match (here called a No Más match) – and it still is a strong contender for the match of the year. The blood, the storytelling, the sheer danger you can feel watching it – and the most well-timed, emotionally charged f-bomb you’ll ever hear.
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Willie Mack may not be the flashiest guy on the roster, but I thought I ought to explain that not everyone in Lucha Underground is an enmascarado. So what can you expect from this big guy? Great acting and promos? Old-school bruiser style fighting? Well maybe not, but the dude can fly. Seriously, with his Dusty Rhodes physique he can do standing moonsaults, tope con hilos, the works. And it doesn’t look like he’s Vadering, like it takes all his might to heave himself in outstanding acrobatics, and the weight of him is what gets you, the Mack just flies like any of the other cruiserweight luchadores. Plus, he’s got a bitchin’ stunner on him.
Now, I may really, really want to talk about Mil Muertes, King Cuerno and Fénix right now, but you get my point. That roster is, percentage-wise, the strongest that there is in the wrestling world - okay, besides maybe New Japan.
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Why is that better? Well sometimes, it’s not. Like when you accidentally see spoilerrific champion lists, or happen to grace one of the wrestlers’ Wikipedia pages and find out they’ve won Aztec Warfare that you haven’t seen yet. But most of the time, it goddamn is better. You watch Botchamania, right? Well, you’re a wrestling fan who’s found this article on the internet, so probably, yeah. Well Lucha Underground has been on there ... once? I think? Wrestling’s very difficult, and all great wrestlers botch every now and then, but as a fan, I like to enjoy the watching without remembering that I’m watching performers. So, they edit around the missed spots with careful camera shots. It happens so rarely anyway, and flows smoothly with the action when it does.
Another advantage of pre-taping your wrestling show? You can treat it more like it involves real fights. What’s the premise of a wrestling show? It’s supposed to be a fighting league, but personalities clash, and the fighting is more intense for it. Basically. So how do you make that work better? By showing the backstage area like a pulp drama would; by conserving background details over the course of an editing process; by having storylines precisely worked out by the time they get to your screen.
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All in all, Lucha Underground is a wrestling show made by people who care about wrestling, and who care about making a damn good TV series, and it shows. The backstage vignettes are gorgeous and ridiculous; the wrestling is well thought-out and paced expertly depending on its place in the timeline of a feud; everything gets paid off satisfyingly! Can you honestly say any of that about WWE?
Yes, the wrestlers are good, but so are their characters. They have consistent personalities, even when they turn. Being heel doesn’t necessarily make you get along with other heels, or that you hate all faces. When two characters have a history that goes back more than three months, it’s addressed. Lucha Underground makes sense – and in a promotion involving reincarnated dragon-luchadores, ghost-valets, and Aztec gods inhabiting the bodies of mortals, that is high praise.
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So, even if your fantasy wrestling promotion is filled with great talent, your feuds are great, and you’ve got flashy spots in gif form all over the internet, what more could you do? The little things. The gorgeous little creative touches that make the product shine even brighter. The Temple’s equivalent of the Royal Rumble (but done better – decisions are eliminations) is called Aztec Warfare. Awesome. The Money in the Bank contract (but done better – no cheap swerve moment, plus it can be won from the owner) is the Gift of the Gods Championship, and you earn it by winning seven ancient Aztec medallions. And just look at those titles! They’re so pretty!
Lucha Underground does flash as well as they do substance, and that is indeed saying something.
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Okay, you thought Vince McMahon was a great evil boss character. Well, how about having a well-written, professionally-acted – What? I only said five? Dammit! Well I'm using creative licence, and trust me, Dario Cueto is awesome.
So, those are five - well, six - reasons why Lucha Underground is awesome, and many LU fans could probably identify even more cool aspects of the product. So, take it from me, check out Lucha Underground - you damn sure won't regret it!
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