We start off the show with Cage working out in the gym until he’s confronted by Catrina. She warns him of the gauntlet’s all consuming power and advises he give it to her. He goes to backhand her, but she disappears in thin air. Looks like Cage is opting to take this the hard way.
Right after, The Temple’s local undercover cop Joey Ryan enters Dario Cueto’s office. Reporting suspicious behavior, Ryan tells Cueto he thinks Veneno, aka “guy in the spider mask,” is fellow undercover cop, Reyes. Cueto books “the rat cop” to face off against Sexy Star next week in a Mask vs Mask match, hoping for the rat to be exposed in the ring.
Tonight marks the Semi-Finals of the Cueto Cup with the first one pitting Fenix vs Prince Puma. The two former Lucha Underground Champions engaged in a slow feeling out process to start things off before things quickly disintegrated into a fight with loud, stiff blows. Then, in a moments notice, we got some flippy action, mostly from Fenix more so than Puma. In fact, this was the first time in awhile where Puma had enough aggression to match his new attitude, opting to hit more hard strikes than flippy dives. Not to say he doesn’t flip every once in a while. At one point, in what may or may not be a bit of foreshadowing, Puma hit a 619. Still, most of the diving is left to Fenix. One crazy spot saw him reverse Puma’s deadlift suplex with a hurricanrana.
In the end, Fenix gets distracted when Marty the Moth starts creeping on his boo-thang, Melissa Santos. Fenix dives outside onto Marty, but when he re-enters the ring, he’s welcomed by a high knee, a lifting reverse DDT, and a 630 Senton from Puma. Puma wins in a very good match. By the way, shoutout to the crowd guy caught on camera creepily caressing a sign of Marty the Moth’s face. Hope that gets some GIF worthy attention.
Backstage, Mil Muertes is training hard enough to make The Temple shake. Catrina tells him to save it for the ring, but before anyone realizes it, Cage attacks Mil from the darkness with a barbell plate. To add insult to injury, Cage drops that big plate onto Mil’s back. Ouch.
Bad timing because right afterwards, Mil Muertes vs Pentagon Dark is next. Mil shows up to the ring visibly injured and Pentagon takes full advantage from the get-go. Mil actually did a swell job selling. Mil didn’t just no-sell until it was time to grasp his ribs every five minutes. Whenever he did a move (most notably, when he hit The Reaper’s Trident), Mil couldn’t capitalize because the move hurt himself just as badly as it did his opponent. That’s good selling. In the end, after kicking Catrina to the curb (literally), Pentagon beat Mil with a diving foot stomp to the injured ribs. Not a bad match. Could’ve been better, but the match was less about having a good match and more about telling the story of Mil’s injured ribs and how he struggled to fight through the pain. I guarantee these two will have a much better match at a later date. Perhaps, and hopefully, at Ultima Lucha Tres. After the match, Pentagon tries to break Mil’s arm after the match, but Mil breaks out of it and escapes. Now, it’s official. The finals of The Cueto Cup will see Pentagon take on Prince Puma for the trophy and a future shot at the LU Championship.
Cueto hits the ring to remind us that Rey Mysterio vs Johnny Mundo for the Lucha Underground Championship is next week. Because he loves when his “luchadors talk shit to each other,” Cueto sends both men to the ring for final words. Mysterio arrives alone, Mundo is accompanied by his security. Surrounded and protected by about 5-6 guys, Mundo brags about beating up Mysterio’s son a couple weeks back. As soon as Mundo mentions that Dominic might not be Mysterio’s kid because he’s taller than his dad, Mysterio bypasses passed security to dive on top of Mundo. Security apprehend him while Mundo attacks Mysterio, but Mysterio fights them all off until The Worldwide Underground come down to help out their leader. This is when things get crazy.
To even the odds, Mysterio’s buddies (Dragon Azteca, The Mack, and Sexy Star) come down to even the odds. Then, Puma and Pentagon come out to add to the brawl, followed by rivals Cage and Mil Muertes. Within seconds, the entire roster spills out and duke out in the ring, at ringside, and in the crowd. Well, everyone except The Rabbit Tribe that is. They look on at the chaos from the crowd while providing their own commentary into their carrot. It gets to the point where there is way too much action to even try and call it all. It caps off with Mysterio hitting his 619 on Mundo and standing tall to end the episode.
What started off as kind of a good episode ended in the most insane way possible. They don’t make brawls like this anymore and this brawl in particular was extremely well executed. Best of all, it really was a great way to get us all excited for next week by taking the opportunity to tease next week’s matches (Puma vs Penta, Mundo vs Mysterio, Sexy vs Venemo) as well as progress other storylines (Mil/Cage over the gauntlet, Killshot vs Fox, Mariposa/Marty vs Fenix, etc). It couldn’t have been better and now, I couldn’t be more excited for next week’s episode.