S04E17 – The Moth and the Butterfly6 -
Last time- Jack Evans tried to quit, but instead got put in a match with Matanza and sacrificed when he lost.
- The New Rabbit Tribe showed up to watch the trios title match. The Reptile Tribe defeated XO, Joey, & Ivelisse to retain the trios titles. The challengers were then attacked by The Rabbits.
- Jake Strong defeated Aerostar and Drago in a nunchucks match, he then snapped Drago’s ankle.
- Penta won a 4-way against Dragon Azteca, Mil, & Cuerno to become the number one contender.
During the match:
- Fenix showed up and approached Melissa, which prompted Dragon Azteca to abandon the match to defend her/attack Fenix
- Mack returned and attacked Mil to make sure he wouldn’t win, and then he challenged Mil to a death match
Recaps of- Killshot and Havoc’s ...incompatibility
- The White Rabbit telling XO, Ive, and Joey, with the focus on Joey: “Tick! Tock!”
- Aerostar bringing back Fenix, or something that is hitching a ride in him, and his actions since.
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♫ When this old world starts getting me down
And people are just too much for me to face
I climb way up to the top of the stairs
And all my cares just drift right into space ♫
Aerostar is joined up on the roof by Melissa, who understandably wants some answers.
The spaceman says that he should not have undone what time had already done… but Fenix was his friend. Melissa says that he was her everything.
When Catrina consumed his life force, her spirit infected it, like a disease. Of course, he was never meant to get it back, so it wouldn’t have been an issue, but she has changed him into… something EVIL! Dun dun dun!
I did have this thought the other day but didn't get round to mentioning it, that the energy had been corrupted from spending time in Catrina.
Melissa insists that she can save Fenix, but Aerostar is adamant that there is no saving him, he’s already gone…
This is all getting a bit Star Wars, hope she isn’t secretly related to Fenix.
Melissa asks how the time traveller can be so sure, and he says, looking at Piedre Immortal, that he’s seen the end (in a little over a month from now?)… the end of EVERYTHING!
Aerostar is going super dramatic today.
Melissa and Aerostar stand in silence, staring at the setting sun
s of Tatooine.
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Into the Temple for the classic intros. Once that’s out the way, Striker talks a bit about Marty. How, when he first showed up, people thought of him as nothing more than a joke, but now he’s LU champ and tonight he will be here to address the believers, the doubters, and Penta.
Joey Ryan, Ivelisse, & XO Lishus vs The Rabbit Tribe (White Rabbit, El Bunny, & Paul London)This has potential to be great, but it could also all fall apart easily, just have to wait and see.
How would you even begin to explain that image to some non wrestling fan?
WR looks like a killer (bunny), or at least some sort of enforcer, just somebody that you can tell is dangerous.
He has kind of a Charles Bronson (the British criminal, not the actor) vibe about his look. It also made me think of the cover for Natural Born Killers.
Interesting pre-bell stuff. The mind games may have already started and are targetted at Ive.
Odd since Joey was the focus last time. Ah. Ive’s partners turn around and back her up, which leaves them open to the sneak attack from the rabbit minions as White Rabbit smirks at the outcome.
London is super creepy now (in a good way). He’s not over the top, but simple stuff like when Ive took him down, he sat and grinned at her. The expression combined with the already half-wiped away face paint was just a little unsettling.
What is it with him and smiling?
During the match, WR has just been standing on the apron, not moving much, showing no interest in getting in the match. He does show some annoyance and frustration when things aren’t going his team’s way, with the expressions and head shakes.
Even when it’s 3 on 2, or even 3 on 1, he shows no movement to help out. London was getting pinned near his corner and he could almost have reached it with a kick to break it up without even getting in the ring, but left it for Bunny. It’s very clear that this sort of stuff is beneath him, even if his involvement would drastically increase the chances of victory. Hope we do get to see him do something though.
He eventually makes a tag, it is obvious that it is his choice, he just laid his hand on London’s shoulder for the tag. Ive and XO are on the outside and London and Bunny make sure it stays that way so that WR can have some time alone with Joey.
Joey hits a couple of superkicks and the only thing that changes is WR’s anger level when he turns back after each of them. The lollypop from the trunks gets launched into the crowd, who now probably need to get decontaminated, and WR hits a hard suplex.
As Joey is lying, seemingly unconscious from that one move, Rabbit pulls a white glove out and dons it.
Magic time? Something with a hat? …nope, it’s a mandible claw.
No, that’s not a badly timed screenshot where you land on that one frame with a weird expression, he actually does look like that throughout.
The ref doesn’t even bother lifting Joey’s arm
five times three times as he starts convulsing. When he releases the mandible claw, the white glove is now a red and white glove.
Well, I guess that’s how you put somebody over as a threat. And repeating something I said last time, he didn’t actually do a whole lot. Since he was the focus, I didn't even really mention anything anybody else did, but it was all solid from the other team. London and Bunny were fun to watch as usual.
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We get the beginning of the Ultima Lucha Cuatro hype as commentary take us through the matches that are already set:
Death Match: Mil Muertes vs The Mack
2 out of 3 falls: Dragon Azteca vs Fenix
LU Title: Penta vs Marty
Yup, that sounds like a good start to me.
Killshot vs Son of HavocPlease give this a good chunk of time.
The ref just manages to get out of the way when the bell goes as Killshot immediately targets the mask of Havoc in retaliation for being unmasked himself.
He’s almost obsessed with unmasking Havoc as he goes back to it every chance he gets. Hit a move > try and unmask him.
When he does focus on doing damage, he’s pretty vicious. Standing on Havoc’s hand while slapping him, and a Pete Dunne like stomp to the arm while it is up at a funny angle with the hand flat on the mat.
Havoc survives the opening onslaught and gets fired up.
A great little sequence of counters and countered-counters:
You can see Havoc having to adjust his mask as it is no longer 100% secure, I think this will play a significant part of the finish to the match.
I’m just watching and enjoying, this one is just as good as you would expect from these two.
Ooh, nice. Trading role ups and Havoc blocked one which left him in position to hook Killshot’s leg and get a quick, unexpected pin. That’s a win for Havoc. Hopefully we get something at UL between these two with an added gimmick.
I was wondering (since I asked earlier for them to get some time), and it turns out that was only 7 minutes or so bell to bell. It felt so much more than that (in a good way), amazing what you can squeeze in when things work well.
And to nobody’s surprise, apart from Havoc seemingly, Killshot isn’t letting that be the end of things and attacks, catching him with a knee to the head.
Killshot grabs the dogtags and with them wrapped around his fist, starts laying into the defenceless biker.
Aaaaand back to taking the mask off. I think if we get another match between them, the gimmick will be pretty obvious.
Killshot manages to demask Havoc. He parades around with his trophy and pushes over the ref while Havoc tries to cover up.
This brings out Antonio, who is looking a little rough these days.
Papa Cueto says that Killshot knows how much that mask means to Havoc, because his mask means just as much to him. Both men are on the run, and those masks are symbols of the new warriors they have become.
Commentary did talk a little about this during the match, how the mask protects them from their past.
At UL4, it will be Killshot vs Son of Havoc… Mask vs Mask!
Oh, I was thinking a blindfold cage match. Mask vs mask is a much more sensible plan.
As usual, UL is looking stacked.
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Melissa grudgingly introduces the new champ.
Either Marty has grown more legs, which wouldn’t be totally out of the question, or there is another person behind his fancy cape.
Marty has a huge grin on his face, Mysterious woman has a spiderweb drawn on hers.
Attention to detail hasn’t slipped, Marty has his tribe represented by the decorative seals on his new cape.
He starts by making sure everybody knows who he is and introduces himself. He continues, over the Cero Miedo chant, by recapping the start of his journey which began three years ago when an egotistical, egomaniacal, Sexy Star embarrassed his family.
(After Star claimed the moth medallion in season one, Marty challenged her for it and was made to tap)
We get a name for the mysterious woman, Reklusa, and find out that she is why Sexy Star has disappeared. Marty sent this queen of the arachnids after her and she terrorised Sexy Star for a year, and then finally beat her outside of her house so bad the only thing left was her stupid, silly mask. Hmm, I feel like there’s more to those words if you go deeper than the surface.
Obviously, things for this didn’t play out 100% as planned due to real life.
There’s one person who humiliated Marty more than Sexy Star ever could, and that is Penta. The mention of his name starts the believers chanting again.
Penta broke his arm and he hasn’t forgotten that, but he took from Penta the only thing he cares about: The Lucha Underground Championship.
There’s one more person that he hasn’t forgotten (quick guess: Mariposa). Someone more beautiful he says as he looks down to ringside… and gets a Cero Miedo sign from Melissa, but it’s not her that he’s talking about, it’s his sister, Mariposa.
If she comes out, I don’t know how it’ll go as they have a proper sibling relationship where they may be best of friends today or hate each other.
When he was at his lowest point, she forced him to focus. And for that, he owes her. So his first title defence will not be against Penta, it’ll be against sis.
Let’s do it right now! Let’s play just like we did when we were kids. Uh oh.
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Lucha Underground Championship: Marty “The Moth” Martinez w/Reklusa vs MariposaThe title is obviously in no danger of changing hands here, it’s all about how the relationship is between the siblings during and after the match.
Mariposa starts the fight with a headbutt while Marty was stroking her arm. Marty responds with something that I can't imagine feels too good even with lack of external equipment.
Commentary have been handed a note that Marty requested this be no DQ and Antonio agreed.
Y’know at some point one of them will go too far (whoever’s older) and actually hurt the other, prompting them to beg the younger one to please stop crying and not tell mum.
Marty continues his assault, even going as far as to rip at his sister’s mask.
There’s a guy standing behind commentary in a suit who sticks out a bit.
Ow. As Reklusa looks on happily, Marty smashes his sister’s face into a chair that is braced against the commentary desk.
Commentary is focused on the blood, but it also looks like she might have broken a finger somewhere along the way by how she’s holding her hand. Or maybe she just needed to pop something back in place as she looks to get over it pretty quick.
Ooh, this is surprisingly brutal. A powerbomb on the outside lands with a solid thud.
Reklusa hands Marty a chair when asked, before returning to her chosen spot of sprawling on the apron.
Mariposa dodges the chair shot, kicks it back into Marty’s face and then returns the low blow from earlier.
Mid match promo as Mariposa grabs a mic to address her bro, “Hey, Marty! You wanna play with chairs? Let’s play, bitch!”
Despite what she said, it doesn’t look like she’s playing around:
She goes on for so long, just throwing and hitting him with chairs, that it goes from awesome to ridiculous and loops back round to awesome again.
AAH! They got me! A drop toehold onto the chair and top rope missile dropkick leads to as near to a three count as you can get without it happening.
Another not quite as close near fall following a samoan drop through the chair.
I said the title wasn’t in danger, but they’re really doing a good job of making me doubt that.
As Mariposa goes for the butterfly effect, Reklusa finally gets directly involved, running in and kicking a wide open Mariposa.
Marty takes advantage, throwing out a Cero Miedo and nice package piledriver to pick up the win.
Vamp was not pleased about the disrespect to Penta with that.
Well. That was one of those that you go into not expecting too much, but it turns out to be a very pleasant surprise. The no DQ helped it out a lot, but just when you thought there was a clear winner for match of the night, this one comes along to usurp the title.
Post-match promo from the other sibling.
Marty tells her that she was the one who gave him the focus to beat her. It’s that same focus that will keep him Lucha Underground Champion. He wants to challenge Penta at UL4 to a… Cero Miedo match!
WOW! I have no idea what that is, let me go check my records… oh. Remember when Vamp got put through a flaming table? And the light tubes? And all the blood? Yeah, that was a Cero Miedo match (S01E39).
Looks like we’re going out with a bang. Maybe. I think there’s a fair chance we actually end everything with somebody new showing up as a huge cliffhanger.
When Marty beats Penta in his own match, he will dedicate it to his sister. Aww.
And he dedicates this next thing to Penta… and breaks Mariposa’s arm!
Here comes Penta with a chair of his own. A quick stand-off and chair dodge and Marty retreats.
Penta asks if Marty is really challenging him to a Cero Miedo match?! Then Penta has good news, he accepts.
It’s for one simple reason: Tonight, he promises all these people that at UL4 he is going to break Marty’s bones!
We end with Penta playing to the crowd.
Top notch episode, this one. Really enjoyed it.
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Next time: Spiders and Skeletons
Post Episode & General Thoughts/Questions- Just starting the first match and this write up is already movie reference heavy.
- Post watch. Turns out all the references stopped as soon as I noted them.
- Next episode sounds like Penta will be smart and try to take out Reklusa
- If that's the last we see of Mariposa, she went out on a high note (no, I'm not talking about the screaming)
Ivelisse rolled out the way of the legdrop a little early there. And by ‘a little’, I mean ‘a lot’. After she started moving, Dragon took another step to get in position and she basically rolled into his leg, forcing him to jump over her.
and then take the dive himself.
