Project Lucha Underground: Season 1, Episode 5: “Boyle Heights Street Fight”

Good Morning!

Howdy! Welcome back to Project Lucha Underground Season 1. The Pequeño household is in the middle of a bunch of projects here, with garden clearing, mulch laying, and grass encouraging all taking center stage. We’ve also begun Mission: Mission: Impossible, in which we watch all the Mission: Impossible movies before the final one drops in theaters next week. I also just finished up Andor, and am gonna try to get the wife to watch that with me since Rogue One is her favorite Star Wars movie. 

On top of all that, we’re hoping to check out the new Final Destination flick, Bloodlines, which I’m told is not related to Roman Reigns despite the title. But that’s neither here nor there. We’ve got Lucha to watch, and less time to watch it (because of all the other stuff we’re also watching.)

Last Week On Lucha Underground

Episode three was pretty good, if a little uneven! Couple good matches in King Cuerno versus Drago and Fenix versus Pentagon, Jr. and some plot moving stuff too. Prince Puma caught some strays during Johnny Mundo’s match against Big Ryck, and Mundo got beat down and put through a table to end the show. Ivelisse challenged Sexy Star, adding to the women’s roster and keeping the spotlight on Star for now. We still haven’t seen what Dario Cueto’s key is for, but Mil Muertes’ pal Catrina seems to know. King Cuerno had a solid debut, and I think that wraps everything up. 

My one big critical observation was that it kinda felt like a reset. We didn’t build on too many stories that will keep rolling as we move forward. But I guess that’s not really the case. Star remains the focal point of the women’s division, and I think her matches against Ivelisse and Son of Havoc and her beating at the hands of Chavo Guerrero keep that intact. And I guess Johnny Mundo would be considered the main protagonist of the show alongside Prince Puma, and they’re clearly being set up to continue their bro-lationship despite Konnan telling Puma to distance himself from Johnny. I guess the best thing to do is keep watching to see what develops, so let’s go ahead and do that.

So let’s get back underground!

Lucha Underground: Season 1, Episode 5: “Boyle Heights Street Fight”

All Images from El Rey Network

After a recap of weeks past, we got to visit Dario Cueto in his office. Konnan told Cueto that he was there representing Prince Puma, but Cueto wasn’t having it, as Big Ryck’s crew doesn’t answer to Cueto. Konnan requested a match between Big Ryck and Prince Puma, but he didn’t want a regular ass match, he wanted a street fight. No rules, anything goes, things of that nature. Cueto agreed, Konnan took a big swig of Cueto’s drink again -- so far Konnan has declined a drink twice and taken Dario’s both times. Cut to a little spider for some reason, and we headed into the Temple for…

Match 1

Mil Muertes versus Drago

You know I love me some Drago, but these two probably have the best presentations of anyone in Lucha Underground, and that’s saying something. Drago approached this fight a lot like the one last time against King Cuerno, trying to use his speed to evade Muertes while getting hits where he could. Speaking of, King Cuerno watched this fight from atop Dario Cueto’s office, not really reacting but observing. Mil Muertes dominated, although Drago might have gotten more offense off than anyone else so far in a match against the big guy. Unfortunately, a couple successful strikes led to Drago climbing the turnbuckle only to be speared out of the goddamn air by Mil Muertes. A Flatliner finished off the blue dragon, and Mil Muertes won by pinfall. 

This was pretty good for what ended up being a glorified squash! Drago’s look sometimes fools me into thinking he’s bigger and more dominant than he is, as the last couple matches we’ve seen show he’s better at playing Little Mac than Mike Tyson, so to speak. 6/10 lucha masks for this contest. 

After the match, Catrina did the face-lick she’s fond of, and King Cuerno continued to observe from above. After the ring cleared, and Drago remained unconscious on the mat, Cuerno stalked down to the ring, yanked the dragon to his feet, and hit Drago with a Fireman’s Carry into a sitout powerbomb, which probably has a name but since we hadn’t seen it yet, nobody used it. 

After a replay of the Johnny Mundo video package where he works out in a poorly lit gym, we ended up following Dario Cueto into the locker room, where Mil Muertes and Catrina were hanging out. Cueto congratulated the pair, but Catrina called out Cueto, saying that “Mil Muertes learned long ago that you can’t keep darkness locked away forever.” Does Cueto have skeletons in his closet? A horrible alter ego, like some kind of Jekyll and Hyde situation? WHO’S TO SAY?

Match 2

Son of Havoc (w/Ivelisse) versus Mascarita Sagrada

We got us a mini match! Mascarita wasn’t having any of SoH’s taunts, going right after the taller competitor. Ivelisse saved Havoc’s bacon a couple times, pulling the bearded fella out of the way of the mini-estrella. Gorilla presses, standing moonsaults, and taunting followed as Son of Havoc gained the upper hand, but a mysterious lady in vinyl appeared on the steps of the Temple, distracting commentary as she watched the match. She took off as quickly as she popped into the Temple, though, so we didn’t get any immediate follow up. 

Ivelisse again cheated on Havoc’s behalf, but Sagrada got revenge (?) with a dive out of the ring that would have ended with him on his head if Ivelisse didn’t reposition herself to catch him. The commentary obviously played this as an intentional Sagrada attack, but it looked pretty gnarly to me. Fortunately, nobody died! 

Mascarita Sagrada hit a top rope dive on both Son of Havoc and Ivelisse, and then caught Havoc back in the ring with a tilt-a-whirl head scissors that rolled into a pin for the victory! 

You know, this match wasn’t half bad! It’s hard to call a mini match -- sometimes they feel like a carnie thing from a bygone era, usually used for a cheap pop or even cheaper heat. Other times you gotta respect the athletes taking part in the match, and the long history of mini-estrellas in lucha libre. Mascarita Sagrada held his own here, taking a lot of offense and doling out his own in dives and assisted maneuvers. Overall, I’ll go with a 5/10 for this one.

No time for vignettes here, as we rolled straight into the next match.

Match 3

Sexy Star versus Chavo Guerrero, Jr.

Star has had issues with Ivelisse, Son of Havoc, and Chavo Guerrero already, and we’re only on episode five of this series! Vampiro let us know that Blue Demon, Jr. is already on the mend after Chavo attacked the masked legend with a chair a couple shows back. Chavo did exactly what you’d expect after his heel turn -- lots of pie faces, forced kissing, shoves. Star retaliated by knocking him out of the ring, grabbing a steel chair, and kicking the ref in the wiener when the ref dared to suggest he couldn’t do that. So that’s a DQ, obviously.

Pentagon, Jr. then arrived and yanked the chair out of Star’s hands, but after a delay Penta allowed Chavo to grab Star. Fenix then ran into the arena, flying up the top rope and springboard kicking Penta’s chair into his face. Fenix hit Chavo with an enziguri, and he helped Sexy Star up and over him into a pop-up head scissors on Penta. The good guys posed as Chavo begged off up the stairs, and that was that.

Not a match to be rated, but a really fun segment regardless. You always love to see a good guy make a save in wrestling, and if we get a tag match with the four of these luchadores, it’s bound to be fun.

And again, no intermission, right into the main.

Main Event

Big Ryck (w/Mr. Sisco and Cortez Castro) versus Prince Puma

Seems a little unfair to do a street fight and have two guys with chairs accompany one of the competitors, but what do I know? Vampiro blamed Konnan for Puma getting into this situation, but Puma’s not gonna back down. Ryck got a really cool entrance, lit from behind and flanked by his associates. Puma came down the stairs, looking a little nervous but not scared. The two faced off and Puma got a handful of strikes off before getting absolutely merc’d by Ryck. Puma got a little offense in before Sisco and Cortez interfered, giving Ryck the upper hand until Puma hit a crazy looking corkscrew dive out of the ring and onto all three of his enemies. 

The match was 80% Ryck slowly beating on Puma with his pals interfering when needed, and for some reason Cortez bled despite barely being involved in the fight. A kendo stick helped Puma even the odds after a lengthy beating that saw Ryck seated on a chair in the corner, but Ryck would fight back as his buddies grabbed a ladder and table. Puma looked about to get murdered on that ladder when Johnny Mundo appeared on the balcony and flew into the ring to make the save! Incredibly cool shit.

Mundo proceeded to get Puma off the ladder and dump Cortez and Sisco from the ring, and then tackled Ryck with a Thesz press and punches. Johnny cued up a chair, but a quick roll from Ryck led to Mundo laying out Puma. The goons took out Mundo, and put Puma through a table to end this show the same as the last: with Big Ryck and friends standing tall.

Prince Puma had some good hope spots, but in the end the odds were overwhelming, even with Johnny Mundo’s help/chair shot. Mundo did roll in after the baddies left so he could check on Puma, so I don’t think any ill will was intended.

A good street fight has a few things -- interference, weapons, and some fun spots. Even though the pacing of this was kinda slow, it did tick all those boxes, and Johnny Mundo’s dive from the balcony of the Temple into the ring was phenomenal. 6/10. This was the only match from this show that Cagematch gave a rating to, and it was a 5.8/10.

Closing Thoughts

So next episode we’ll get to see if this is like every other wrestling show ever, where nobody can watch the show and understand that the accidental attack was just that. I assume Prince Puma won’t trust Mundo immediately; I also don’t trust Konnan to not blame Mundo for Puma’s loss. 

This was a solid episode. No big standout matches like in previous ones, but good stuff and heavy lore building happened throughout. Sometimes you just gotta keep things moving, and it’s always good to establish your heel faction early on so that the good guys can assemble against them, Avengers style.

So Long For Now

Follow me on BlueSky for updates and live watch-along commentary for AEW Dynamite and Collision (occasionally). And, if you’re looking into purchasing anything from a smart fridge to a new drill, check out the tech writing I do over at SlashGear -- my lists are heavily researched, and ranked after thorough aggregation of expert opinions, reviews, and my own experience as a professional auto mechanic, an unprofessional handyman and a somehow even less professional homeowner. 

Until next time…Let’s Watch Some Wrestling!