Lucha Underground Recap (June 15, 2016): Survival Instinct

Lucha Underground was back last night (June 15, 2016) to crown the #1 Contender for the Lucha Underground title. Let’s get to it.

The show opens and jumps right into the Six to Survive Elimination match. It’s Johnny Mundo, King Cuerno, Fenix, Ivelisse, Taya, & Pentagon Jr. The winner becomes #1 Contender for Matanza’s title at Ultima Lucha.

The first big point of note is early on, Cuerno is about to take out Fenix when Mil Muertes returns! He goes right after Cuerno and beats the hell out of him. Being ever the opportunist, Johnny Mundo then hits the End of the World on King Cuerno and pins him to eliminate him.

Mil’s back! And he's clearly pissed because of the whole being encased in glass. Which is totally understandable. That’d peeve me too. And those red eyes that came with his latest resurrection? You better believe they're still around. They don’t fire laser beams (yet) but they’re still sick.

As soon as Mil was freed by Catrina last week, you knew he’d show up to the temple to enact his revenge. Though it would have been cool if he just chilled in Cuerno's den sitting in his huge chair waiting for him to get home too. But Mil seems like more the proactive type.

It looks like it will be the master hunter against the man of a thousand deaths at Ultima Lucha II. I’m not loving Cuerno’s chances in this.

Ivelisse has herself some nice moments in the ring, beating on Fenix (who was stupid enough not to hurt her because she was a woman), Pentagon briefly, and then facing the double team of Johnny and Taya. While she is able to neutralize Johnny, the one on one fight between her and Taya leads to Ivelisse’s elimination.

Johnny and Taya came in with a plan. They are looking out for each other, including preventing the other from elimination, likely until the end. Then Johnny will be his scumbag self and roll her up when she’s not expecting it because it's all about him. But until then, since it helps him stay alive, he’ll go with it.

What was Fenix thinking? He didn’t want to hit Ivelisse because she's a woman? C’mon, dude. You've been in the temple long enough. Everyone can kick everyone else's ass.

Ivelisse has some clear hatred towards Johnny and Taya. I would definitely enjoy Taya/Ivelisse at Ultima Lucha 2.

Pentagon goes after Taya for awhile, including a Shattered Dreams kick and then kicking her in the arse outside the ring. But soon enough Team Johnny and Taya take control of the other two men by working together. Eventually, Fenix and Pentagon are able to fight back. Pentagon hits a package piledriver on Taya to eliminate her.

The Johnny/Taya teamwork had such promise, but you can’t keep a good bad man like Pentagon down. And unlike Fenix, Pentagon doesn’t gender discriminate who’s ass he kicks. He's just got one goal in mind and that’s revenge against Matanza. Pentagon is going to run through whoever is in front of him.

Even without Taya, Johnny is able to more than hold his own against Fenix and Pentagon. In fact, they have to work together to cover and eliminate Johnny.

Johnny was looking good tonight. It took a combination of both Pentagon and Fenix to eliminate the Hollywood native. One of these days, I want to see Johnny win the Lucha Underground title. But today wasn’t his day. It will be eventually, though. He’s got that combination of talent and cunning where it can’t elude him forever.

This leaves Pentagon and Fenix, who destroy each other before Pentagon is able to hit two piledrivers to win the match and become #1 contender. Dario and Matanza Cueto walk out to the top of the steps and stare down at him. Pentagon grabs a microphone and tells them that not only is he going to break every bone in Matanza’s body at Ultima Lucha, but he's going to do the same to Dario too.

The match is set. Pentagon Jr. versus the Monster Matanza Cueto. It had to be this way. Could you imagine if Pentagon healed a broken spine just to come back and fall just short? After you heal a broken back with little more than a pulley system, candle wax, and a beating from Vampiro, you should be able to face anything.

He’s not joking around when he says he has Cero Miedo. Pentagon just told the boss that he’s going to break every bone in his body. And how did El Jefe respond? HE SMILED! The dude frickin’ smiled. He doesn’t have much fear either, but that’s probably a result of having a brother who will destroy and maybe eat people.

So where does this leave Vampiro? He didn't seem to be rooting for Pentagon in the match. He was calling it as he’d call every match, even once lamenting that Fenix didn’t cover Pentagon’s leg and that may have cost him a win. I’d say that maybe it’s because his meds are working, but they can’t be working that well because he was still able to rehab Pentagon in full on Vampiro mode. It’s more likely that Vamp is in full control and he has just decided for now, Ian's purpose is at the desk. So maybe we’ll get to see the evil pope stand face to face with El Jefe before this feud is through.

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This was the first episode that I remember with no video segments in the backstage or outside the temple. It was just the elimination match from start to finish. That’s cool because it makes this 6-way match feel like a big deal. Main eventing Ultima Lucha II is a big deal. But watching a Lucha Underground episode without an awesome backstage feels weird. It's like tuning into an episode of Game of Thrones that has no violence or nudity. Sure the episode can still be really good, but it just doesn't feel like Thrones.

Otherwise, tonight we got Mil with the red eyes back and his collision with King Cuerno is inevitable. And we have our Lucha Underground main event. The direction of other four people in the match hasn’t been made clear yet, but that’ll be revealed to us in due time.