Reality and fantasy collide in Lucha Underground, El Rey Network’s innovative wrestling show.Lucha Underground gained a passionate following last season for its mix of captivating storylines and characters, high quality cinematography and amazing in-ring action. Professional wrestling is often compared to superhero comics, there’s probablyno finer example than Lucha Underground, which truly feels like superhero storytelling in a live format.Tonight, Lucha Underground begins its second season and to prepare believers, both old and new, we’ve created a handy guide to the show to get you caught up to date.
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Embracing the Fantasy in Wrestling
Watching professional wrestling typically requires a certain suspension of disbelief from its viewers. Every professional wrestling skeptic or critic will often point out how wrestling “is a fake sport” because the shows are scripted beforehand and the matches are pre-determined. That’s because professional wrestling is “sports entertainment”; it’s like watching a play about a sport rather than an actual sporting event. While the results of a wrestling match is pre-determined, a good wrestling match contains just as much drama, intrigue and excitement as an actual sporting event.
Some wrestlers have embraced that fictional element to professional wrestling more than others. The Undertaker, one of the WWE’s greatest wrestlers, often flirts with the supernatural, teleporting into the middle of the ring and “summoning” lightning from his hands. However, most wrestling promotions want you to believe that wrestling takes place in our world, the one where fantasy exists in books and movies and not in the wrestling ring.
Lucha Underground, on the other hand, embraces the fantastical side of professional wrestling. Lucha Underground‘s cast of wrestlers includes dragons, aliens, vampires and undead monsters with colorful gimmicks and backstories. This is a world where monsters lurk in the shadows, often wearing a luchador’s mask. While many of Lucha Underground‘s characters seem unreal, the wrestling in the middle of the match is as real (and crazy) as it gets.
A Cinematic Wrestling Show
Professional wrestling is all about telling a story. While much of that story takes place inside a ring, many promotions use backstage interviews to explore a wrestler’s motivations and backstory. While Lucha Underground features occasional interviews, the show primarily relies on cut scenes and trailer-esque promos to advance the plot of the shows and explain wrestler’s (fictional) backstories. These cut scenes have a gritty, cinematic feel to them, like a telenovela mixed with a Robert Rodriguez grindhouse film. (Rodriguez is an executive producer on the show). In addition to setting the mood for viewers, Lucha Underground‘s cut scenes allow the show’s writer to tell stories in a new and innovative way. A popular saying about Lucha Underground is that it’s not a wrestling show on television, it’s a television show about wrestling.
The Temple
Lucha Underground takes place in the Temple, a dingy arena run by the show’s villainous owner, Dario Cueto. Cueto’s motives for opening Lucha Underground are unclear, but he loves violence and he has a seemingly limitless supply of cash that’s attracted some of the most savage and ruthless fighters around the world to fight for him. Cueto had one other secret in the Temple during the first season: his monstrous half-brother Matanza, who he kept locked up in a cage in the basement of the Temple.
The Temple is as important to Lucha Underground as its wrestlers. With bleachers practically on top of the ring and a stage for musical performances in between matches, the Temple gives Lucha Underground a unique, intimate atmosphere for its Believers (the nickname for Lucha Underground‘s fans). Many matches often incorporate the Temple in some way, with fights spilling out of the ring and into the crowd and wrestlers leaping from the bleacher, stage, or the top of Cueto’s office.
The Art of Lucha
As its name suggests, Lucha Underground focuses primarily on lucha libre, a style of wrestling popularized in Mexico. In addition to many of the luchadores wearing masks that conceal their identity, lucha libre usually features fast paced matches with plenty of complex moves and high flying acrobatics. While not every wrestler on Lucha Underground is a luchadores (the show features several former WWE wrestlers), you’ll see at least one or two crazy dives and jumps per episode. Another key difference between lucha style wrestling and American wrestling are tag team matches. While American tag teams usually consist of teams of two, lucha tag team matches are trios matches, with three wrestlers per team.
To get a feel for what a Lucha Underground match feels like, check out the main event from last season’s first episode:
Descended from the Ancients
As with other wrestling shows, Lucha Underground‘s cast can be divided into heroes (known as tecnicos in lucha-speak) and villains (also called rudos). Each wrestler has their own motivation for entering the temple, but most are interested in chasing one of Lucha Underground‘s three title belts: the Lucha Underground Championship, the Trios Championship and the Gift of the Gods Championship.
The main protagonist of Lucha Underground‘s first season was Prince Puma, a silent luchador from Boyle Heights. Puma’s high-flying style made him a fan favorite last season and he held the Lucha Underground Championship for most of the year, taking on all challengers including many of Dario Cueto’s thugs and lackeys. Puma’s main ally was Konnan, a retired wrestling legend who wasn’t above bending the rules to ensure that Puma won every match.
Puma’s other friend in Lucha Underground was Johnny Mundo, a former WWE wrestler who blends parkour with hard strikes. Mundo and Puma teamed up to fight the Crew, a gang of thugs hired by Cueto, and battled against each other in a series of main events that culminated with Puma winning the Lucha Underground Championship. Mundo eventually turned on Puma and battled him in an epic Iron Man match, that ended with Puma retaining the championship Mundo turned on Puma towards the end of the season and challenged his former friend to an epic “Iron Man” match that ended with Puma retaining his championship.
An Unlikely Trio of Champions
One of Lucha Underground‘s first wrestlers, Son of Havoc wracked up a series of embarrassing losses, culminating in him breaking up with his pushy, overbearing girlfriend Ivelisse halfway through last season. Unfortunately, Dario Cueto paired the two of them with the lanky South African wrestler Angelico to participate in the inaugural Trios Champions tournament. While the three were dysfunctional outside of the ring, the three managed to win the tournament, beating far superior teams and winning the hearts of the Believers in the process. The unlikely trio of heroes faced one final challenge before winning the Trios Championship: an impromptu match against the Crew. With Ivelisse sporting an actual broken foot, the three unlikely partners persevered after Angelico performed the most breathtaking stunt of Lucha Underground‘s first season: an insane dive off Cueto’s office into the ring to save his partner.
Angelico’s insane leap became Lucha Underground‘s signature moment last season and proved to its viewers that literally anything could happen on the show. The full match is below, but Angelico’s jump takes place around 6:20.
Death Comes to Lucha Underground
The main villain of Lucha Underground last season was Mil Muertes, an imposing giant with ties to the underworld. After surviving an earthquake that killed his family and destroyed his hometown as a child, Muertes became one of Lucha Underground‘s most fearsome wrestlers. Accompanied by the seductive Catrina, Mil Muertes destroyed every opponent he faced…until he lost an “Aztec Warfare” match to Prince Puma for the Lucha Underground Championship. Afterward losing out on the Championship, Catrina betrayed Muertes and convinced Fenix, a high flying luchador known as the “Man of a Thousand Lives”, to challenge the “Man of a Thousand Deaths” to a “Grave Consequences” Match (seen below). After a bloody and brutal match, Fenix tossed Mil Muertes into the casket to win the match, not knowing that it was all a ruse by Catrina to make Muertes even more powerful than before…
An Arm Breaking Sensation
While most of Lucha Underground‘s most popular wrestlers are tecnicos, one of the show’s breakout stars is a villain through and through. Pentagon Jr. destroyed many of Lucha Underground‘s wrestlers last season, breaking their arms in tribute to an unknown master. After threatening Lucha Underground‘s ring announcer and feuding with Sexy Star, the show’s top female wrestler, Pentagon Jr. turned his sights to Vampiro, one of Lucha Underground‘s TV commentators and a retired lucha legend. Vampiro agreed to come out of retirement for one final match, which would be held at Ultima Lucha, Lucha Underground‘s jaw-dropping season finale…
Ultima Lucha
Nearly a full year worth of storylines culminated in Ultima Lucha, a two part special event that served as Lucha Underground‘s season finale. After her Disciples of Death defeated Son of Havoc, Ivelisse and Angelico for the Trios Championship, Catrina ushered in an Age of Death to the Temple when Mil Muertes defeated Prince Puma to win the Lucha Underground Championship. The only belt not retained by Catrina and her followers was the new Gift of the Gods belt, which Fenix won by defeating six other wrestlers hand chosen by Dario Cueto. The Gift of the Gods belt allows Fenix to challenge Mil Muertes whenever he wishes for a chance at the Lucha Underground Championship, provided Fenix can hold onto the belt.
Meanwhile, Pentagon Jr. and Vampiro faced off in a gruesome “Hardcore Match”, where the wrestlers used light tubes, thumbtacks and flaming tables to beat each other down. When Pentagon Jr. finally emerged victorious, Vampiro revealed that he was Pentagon’s master all along and declared his disciple ready for an unknown undertaking.
In the aftermath of Ultima Lucha, Dario Cueto fled the after his brother’s murderous past caught up to him, shutting down the Temple downin the process, but not before a mysterious luchador sprayed a question mark on the iconic Lucha Underground sign.
A New Chapter Begins
This season of Lucha Underground promises even more thrills than last season. With former WWE superstar Rey Mysterio joining the cast this year, we’re all but guaranteed even more excitement and jaw dropping matches. If this primer got you interested in Lucha Underground, check out El Rey’s “37 Hours of Lucha Underground in 37 Minutes” video, which recaps even more of last season and tune in tonight at 8 PM for the next chapter of Lucha Underground!
