If someone asked me “How would you describe Lucha Underground?”, I would tell them that I view it a “dark version of CHIKARA”. The cinematic scenes, the fighting styles of some of the wrestlers, the superpowers and magical objects used by said wrestlers, the... deaths of various characters. You see those traits in CHIKARA, but Lucha Underground displays a much darker tone to them.
The IWC needs to learn how to praise one promotion without bringing down another. You can’t act like WWE running the way they do is a bad thing. They’re as big as they are today simply because of how their shows run.
Vampiro and Matt Striker were a great commentary team. Johnny Mundo and Taya came off as so badass with worldwide underground, good seeing Ivelisse being so high profile in almost every match. had several really great death matches too. it would have been nice seeing Alberto El Patron vs Johnny Mundo feud go longer.
Matt Striker won me over immediately when he compared Dario Cueto to the Beyonder summoning the world's greatest heroes and villains to Battleworld for the Secret Wars.
I was part of that small but loyal fanbase. Loved lucha underground. From the soap opera aspects to the tip of the hat to WMAC Masters (holy crap props for mentioning that yourself - never forget season 3 of WMAC was filmed and never released) the fact they played kayfabe by having the wrestling itself actually only be a show within its own larger universe was a chefs kiss.
I miss LU so much. It was starting to get wobbly near the end, but I’d take another season of it over six months’ worth of the current mainstream product.
I love wrestling it’s my sport of choice, but my stepdad loves soccer but when Lucha Underground released it’s the only thing that caught his eye, he would introduce me to it and gave us something to bond about, I wish it came back
The one I'll never forget about Lucha Underground was the year long build up and eventual match between Vampiro and Pentagon Jr. That has to be the greatest wrestling story I've ever seen play out and at the every end when Pentagon Jr learns who is his master I was just losing my mind going, "What the fuck just happened?" It was perfection.
@Kristofer Carter Roku tv revived El Rey as a streaming channel and you can see all the Lucha Underground episodes. if you do not have a Roku tv then search youtube it has most shows from the 4 seasons
Man I loved Lucha Underground. Wrestling in America felt stale at that time, and LU was not only innovative with their storytelling techniques, but they had the production budget to back it up.
FINALLY!!! Oh my word, I've been waiting for some attention to be paid to Lucha! Single-handedly got me back into pro-wrestling. Edit: Like, legitimately dude. Thank you for making this video. Made my Friday. 2nd Edit: Dammit, man, and now you throw in a WMAC Masters reference? Crap, now I *GOT* to join your Patreon!
I really did enjoy watching a Lucha Underground they're going for their only take like a TV show mix with pro wrestling especially the Supernatural characters
Thank you for doing this. Honestly… Some of my all-time favorite wrestling came from season one and season two of the show. I also got to drop you a message about how I almost went to a live taping…
During Wrestlemania weekend, a man from Australia saw my Lucha Underground beanie and wanted to talk about the promotion. Crazy to think the people this little show reached. I never did watch that final season. The promotions' heart had stopped by then.
Back during seasons 2 and 3, even with NXT black and gold on the same night, Lucha Underground was the highlight of the wrestling week. Pity about those horrible contracts though. BTW, nice Digital Underground reference there, Dave.
The problem with Lucha Underground was it was a great wrestling show, run by people that understood storytelling, but not the wrestling business. They never were able to launch a touring brand, but I guess they thought they could, or would. Why else would you try to prevent talent from working elsewhere, but not provide a place for them to work? They needed to try the old “booking fee” system that territory owners used. Lucha could trademark characters, and charge a fee for that character to appear. Otherwise, the talent can work, just not under the same gimmick, if they can’t provide work.
Actually I went to a independent event where I was able to talk to aerostar and also Drago on a seperate occasion and asked them what their experience was like working for Lucha underground and they had no complaints they described it as a really great time in their life. I asked them about the contracts and they didn’t speak bad about it like every fan makes it seem. One thing they did say is that there was days that they had to do several different matches in one day (due to recordings) and it would take a toll on their body.
The debut of Matanza Cuerto in Azecta Warefare 2 which was like a big gauntlet match where the winner was Lucha Underground champion Basically Jeff Cobb under a mask and while Cobb is a good wrestler his work as Matanza is his best
I loved LU. It had great wrestling but I loved how it wasn't just a wrestling first show it was more about what happened outside of the ring and the stories with wrestling thrown in their
I liked how it was clear that many characters had agendas beyond winning belts (though that was of course part of it.) There was vague but real supernatural power to be gained in the Temple and which could extend far beyond the wrestling ring.
And they never made a big deal about it. I don't think the word "intergender" was even uttered - it was just assumed that, if you were in the Temple, you'd fight men, women, dragons, reptile men, whomever!
I loved LU, seasons 2 and 3 were some of the very best wrestling storytelling I've ever seen. It truly showed that a different, more innovative and creative take at wrestling was possible, and how much pure fun it could be. Pity it ended the way it ended and how wrestlers were treated economically.
Lucha Underground is what made me a wrestling fan. IMO the industry should take more notes on how they did things. There's way too much cruft in wrestling that are "because we've always done it this way" or artifacts of when they were pretending real hard that wrestling was a legitimate unscripted sport.
I attended a couple LU tapings. Super fun atmosphere! Unfortunately, I had to wait a year before they were broadcast, and we all had to sign waivers to not disclose any spoilers.
_Lucha Underground_ , to me at least, always felt like a modern-day successor to those old _lucha_ movies where guys like Santo and Blue Demon would fight vampires or Martians or something, updated for the 2010's and given a grittier, more adult-orienter aesthetic, without losing the supernatural stuff. It was so unlike anything else at the time, and it hooked me personally so much that I envisioned a major bad guy in a superhero-themed RPG I was part of at the time as being played by Dario's actor, but I digress.
When it came out I remember asking a friend what it was like & he said “It’s a lucha version of ECW but shot like a real TV drama man. You gotta check it out.” Idk if I’d compare it to ECW myself I do get what he was trying to get at in his description. I looked at it more as it stood out on its own identity more than anything else & is probably why he used the ECW comparison. But yeah, LU was friggin awesome when it was on. I miss it.
Dario (and even now under the moniker of Cesar Duran in MLW) kills it as a heel authority figure for me. More Head of the Table than Reigns . More preferable to having to put up with enduring the sight of Andrade In AEW. 🤔Y'know?
The thing about Dario as an authority figure was, as a fictional character, if he took a dislike to certain wrestlers, there was a point to it besides personal biases.
@@joshellison85 lot of people would be willing. In my personal opinion the only people that can really realistically takedown characters like Bray Wyatt and Undertaker, and aleister black / Malachi black, are people that are of the exact same character.
Got to meet mil muertes at wrestlecon 2023 and he was honestly one of the nicest wrestlers I’ve ever met, as a 3rd generation luchador i asked for tons of advice and he took time and thought with each answer, him kalisto, Andrade aka la sombra, mark hennry, Enzo and Adam Cole gave me some great advice fr and all genuinely took their time to teach me what they know before my debut I really hope I can entertain you all one day -El Chivo
I don't know about this video Dave. I'm going to have to check in with Meltzer and Alvarez to see if they approve of this. I think I have warned you before about FACTS and RESEARCH and how it is unaccepted in the IWC!!!! 🤣
Around this time I had stopped watching wrestling. From WWE getting stale for me to Cornette ruining ROH to Dixie, Hogan and Russo killing TNA, I was done. But my dad who isn’t even the biggest of wrestling fans, the biggest casual there is, LOVED Lucha Underground. He would tell me how awesome it is and he never talks about wrestling like that. Anytime I tuned into Raw I started getting headaches because of how bad it was for me. It was like radiation l. I really wish I hadn’t missed wrestling from 2015-2019. I began watching again because AEW brought me back but I missed the Indie boom period, Lucha Underground and NJPW at it’s peak.
My fav promotion im watching this promotion kix asian in indonesia many name apear in this promotion such rey fenix pentagon jr john morison mayu iwatani kairi iyo sky king muertes and santos escobar apear this promotion
It went down the drain because the American geeks killed everything for everybody just like they have for everything else in wrestling...the show desperately needed to lean even more into lucha instead of doing the opposite, what the hell were the likes of Sonny kiss, Jack swagger, etc doing in LUCHA Underground? Its lucha underground not some lame 2010's indie fed.
