The main event of this past week’s AEW Dynamite was an unsanctioned, lights out match between former NWA Women’s Champion Thunder Rosa and Dr. Britt Baker, DMD. While I was expecting the usual chairs and kendo sticks, there were also spots involving tables…and even thumbtacks.
Dr. Baker took the brunt of the thumbtacks spot, being power-bombed on them by Rosa. Both ladies were busted open and Rosa picked up the pin after doing her Fire Thunder driver on Baker through a table on the outside. This match was widely lauded and may have started the long journey of rehabilitating AEW’s faltering women’s division.
But I saw something else in this match that made me reminisce of a show / promotion that may have laid some of the foundation for AEW as well as spread beyond to other companies: Lucha Underground. Rosa actually competed in LU as Kobra Moon, and this match’s grittiness really made me flash back to that time when the “Believers” in Boyle Heights witnessed “fighters” in pro wrestling and lucha libre shock and amaze us in the “Temple” that was the home of Lucha Underground.
Pentagon Jr. (now known as Penta El Zero Miedo) went on to an Impact Wrestling run, where he also had similar “Death Matches” with Sami Callihan before coming to AEW, but it was at LU where many mainstream wrestling audiences first got a glimpse of him.
But there were also a number of other talent that competed on Lucha Underground. While a number of them are currently in prominent storylines in their respective promotions, others have fallen by the wayside it is surprising to even fathom that they were once top competitors on LU.
Take Prince Puma, now known as Ricochet. Puma was the first Lucha Underground Champion, and being managed by Konnan, cultivated a following more significant while wearing a mask than when he removed it as Ricochet on NXT then WWE. Don’t get me wrong; Ricochet’s NXT run was very solid, making his in-ring debut in the six man ladder match to crown the first North American Champion, a title which he won later that year by beating Adam Cole. Ricochet and Aleistar Black, who on paper look like two completely different people, managed to become a credible tag team that competed across NXT and the main roster and he ended his NXT run by winning the Dusty Cup with Black.
In a sense, the bouncing around the main roster brands he and Black did as a tag team was an attempt to get both wrestlers more familiarized with a mainstream WWE audience, but after the draft that year that whole strategy was abandoned and he and Black were split up. Since then, Ricochet had a brief run as United States Champion, but had struggled and floundered in endless feuds with the Hurt Business and Retribution. While his NXT run by comparison was much better than how Ricochet is doing now, it cannot be argued that it was better than being Prince Puma. As Puma, there was much more depth to the man as a character and matches where the style was more loose and not as cookie cutter as WWE.
In contrast, Santos Escobar has been booked spectacularly (at least for the time being). The former King Cuerno was a compelling masked man doing the “Kraven the Hunter” gimmick from the Spider Man comics, a hunter seeking out elusive prey. Cuerno, portrayed by Escobar when he was known as El Hijo del Fantasma, had a devastating suicide dive that resembled a hunter’s spear. He had memorable matches with Puma, Rey Fenix and Mil Muertes.
On NXT, the build has been just as compelling. After winning the interim Cruiserweight Championship tournament as del Fantasma, NXT managed to tie him in with vignettes of bizarre kidnappings of Raul Mendoza and Joaquin Wilde. Fantasma looked like he was siding with the recently reinstated Drake Maverick when the kidnappers revealed themselves to be Mendoza and Wilde, but the newly crowned champion surprisingly unmasked himself after attacking Maverick, and with Mendoza and Wilde formed Legado Del Fantasma.
With this stable behind him, the Cruiserweight Champion (on the US side) has been reigning for close to 300 days as champion and turning back all challengers, including Shane Strickland (aka Isaiah Scott) who is another Lucha Underground alumnus and just had a brutal street fight with Karrion Kross, showing that Escobar can compete with more than just cruiserweights. With Takeover: Stand and Deliver coming up during Wrestlemania week, Escobar will face his UK counterpart, NXT Cruiserweight Champion Jordan Devlin, to finally determine the sole champion in the 205 division.
Scott himself was also once known as Killshot on Lucha Underground, and had a brief storyline with another wrestler named Dante Fox who played a character portraying an old army colleague of his. Together, they and Willie Mack won the LU Trios titles. Now on NXT, Scott turned heel and is doing a program with former NXT North American Champion Leon Ruff.
Other former Lucha Underground talent that have seen better things beyond the walls of “The Temple” include the aforementioned Moon, who as Rosa became an NWA Women’s Champion and just had that insane unsanctioned match on AEW. There is also John Morrison, who as Johnny Mundo became LU Champion and on Impact their world champion, but since returning to WWE has played sidekick to the Miz. Willie Mack’s career highlight in LU was having a match with Mundo that lasted the entire episode, but since going to Impact has maintained mid-card status but a reign as X Division Champion.
Even the idea of Lucha Underground itself has been revived in some form on MLW, as Mil Muertes has reemerged under the management of Selina Del La Renta, who also manage the team of Los Parks. Together they form a stable known as “Azteca Underground” with a mysterious boss known as “El Jefe” that has yet to be revealed.
So it’s been a mixed bag of success and failure for wrestlers who gained prominence in Lucha Underground, but whether you believed that it can be considered a genuine ‘wrestling company’ or a glorified reality TV show about wrestling, there is no denying that LU left a mark on the wrestling genre and industry that is still being felt today.
An average professional doing the 9-5 grind who really loves wrestling across all platforms. Here's hoping wrestlers finally get some basic workers rights in 2021.
Recent Comments