Lucha Underground – May 31, 2017: All Night Long…..Again!
Lucha Underground
Date: May 31, 2017
Location: Lucha Underground Temple, Boyle Heights, California
Commentators: Matt Striker, Vampiro
So this still exists. We’re back into season 3 with the first show in four and a half months. The big story continues to be Johnny Mundo defending the Lucha Underground Title, which he’s putting on the line here in an All Night Long match against the Mack. In other words, that’s the only match on the whole show. Let’s get to it.
We open with a long recap of Mundo vs. Mack, the latter of whom won a mini tournament to get a non-title match against Mundo. Johnny won that one, allowing him to pick the All Night Long stipulation.
The house band is still here.
The announcers open the show and Vampiro can’t seem to sit still.
Lucha Underground Title: Johnny Mundo vs. The Mack
Mack is challenging and this is an Iron Man match with the show’s time limit. Mundo’s shoulders have no effect so Mack hammers away in the corner. A running knee drop gets two and it’s time to have crowd reaction shots because WWE does them. Mundo blasts him in the face with a running knee of his own, followed by the Moonlight Drive neckbreaker for two. A quick End of the World gives Johnny the first pin at 3:19 and we take a break.
Back with Mundo’s flip being countered into something like a Side Effect, followed by a running Bronco Buster/backsplash in the corner. Mundo gets in a Flying Chuck and looks to set up the End of the World but Mack is right there with a rollup, only to have Johnny roll him over and grab the ropes to go up 2-0 at 7:40. Mack dropkicks him outside for a flip dive, followed by a neckbreaker off the apron for a good sounding thud. Back in and Johnny kicks him in the head but springboards into a sitout powerbomb to make it 2-1 Mundo at 10:45. We get an on-screen clock showing 26:00 to go and come back with 25:59 to go.
Mack takes a few knees to the chest but snaps off a suplex for two. They trade hard strikes until Johnny grabs a standing C4 for two of his own. The champ takes too long going up top though and gets thrown down with a belly to belly superplex. Johnny grabbing the ropes to break it up at two annoys Mack even more so they both go up top. As you might expect, Mack isn’t quite up to Mundo’s skill level up there and gets sent outside. Johnny busts out a corkscrew dive but hurts his knee/ankle with just over 20:00 left.
We take a break and come back with a stretcher coming out. Mack helps Johnny up and of course is kicked low (not a DQ), followed by a DDT onto the back board (again not a DQ) for a pin (which is counted even though Mack’s shoulders are up) to give Johnny a 3-1 lead at 18:32. Mundo does some jumping jacks and actually gets booed by the crowd for a change. With Mack livid, Johnny bails up the steps, only to get pummeled up there as well. Mack puts him on the back board and shoves Johnny down the steps as we take another break. Back again with Mack grabbing the Stunner for the pin at 22:40 to make it 3-2.
Johnny hides underneath the ring as someone runs into the back. Mack follows whoever that was as Johnny comes back out. It’s PJ Black, who helps beat on Mack with some kendo sticks. Cue Son of Havoc to even things up with a stick of his own. Havoc goes to Dario Cueto’s office and gets some beer to revive Mack. PJ cuts Mack off again though and Johnny demands that the band play a victory song.
Cue Sexy Star to dive onto Mundo and Black so Havoc can take PJ backstage. Mack has set up a table and TOMBSTONES MUNDO OFF THE APRON THROUGH THE TABLE to knock both guys silly. Naturally Striker barely responds because he needs to go through his long statement about how amazing this is instead. That’s enough to tie it up at 31:42.
Both guys are spent but Mundo is able to roll outside and pull out another table. Mack finds a ladder with five minutes to go. Mundo hits him in the head with something from the announcers’ table to bust Mack open. The ladder is bridged over the middle rope with Mack tripping him face first into it for two. Another End of the World hits the ladder and Mack puts him on the table with 1:30 to go.
Cue Ricky Mandel to grab Mack’s foot before he can come off the ladder though. Son of Havoc comes out to deal with Mandel so Mack can splash Mundo through the table but the clock runs out at 37:09 (not counting time for commercials) before the three count. Mundo retains the title due to the draw.
Rating: B+. Good but not excellent match here. I’m not wild on the draw ending as this felt like the big blowoff match, though a bigger gimmick (TLC would make sense) for the final match would make sense. Mack has a certain charisma that can help carry him through matches and there’s nothing wrong with that. The interference was fine here as I’d rather have something like that than repeating the same stuff because they’ve run out of things to do with fifteen minutes left.
Dario comes out to say not so fast because we don’t have ties around here. Next week it’s one fall to a finish for the title. Mack Stuns Mundo to end the show. Is there a reason there was time for an announcement if this match was going ALL NIGHT LONG?
Overall Rating: B+. I kind of like the idea of going with the one big idea to come back here as having the Rabbit Tribe or whatever other nonsense (not a bad thing here) they have going on instead. What you got here was two guys fighting over a title and a few people coming in on either side to help their person win the title. The rematch will help as well as you can do one match with someone winning and other stuff filling in the hour. I’m glad Lucha Underground is back and hopefully it can figure itself out again.
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Even though the last spot had some mistakes, like Mandell coming too late, Mack climbing WAY too slow and Mundo laying WAY too long on that tabel… THAT… THAT was pure emotion and drama! Also the storytelling was flat out excellent. It couldn’t touch the first “All Night Long”-Match in terms of in ring quality but it excelled in terms of drama and Entertainment. I guess i missed LU quite a bit!