wrestling / Columns
411 Fact or Fiction Wrestling: ROH/Lucha Underground Edition
Welcome back to the latest edition of 411 Fact or Fiction, Wrestling Edition! Stuff happened, people loved/hated it and let everyone else know. I pick through the interesting/not so interesting tidbits and then make 411 staff members discuss them for your pleasure. Battling this week: Dylan Diot and Bob Colling for the ROH statements, and then Mike Hammerlock and Wyatt Beougher for Lucha Underground.
1. Alberto El Patron’s participation at the ROH 13th Anniversary PPV will lead to more casual fans checking out the product.
Dylan Diot: FICTION – If Alberto El Patron’s ROH debut occurred on this show, then my answer would have been fact. If they had waited and let Patron debut on the PPV, they could have spent the past two months hyping it up as a major event in the wrestling industry and the hype could have stirred greater interest in the PPV among casual fans. Instead, ROH had El Patron debut on one of their TV tapings. So now the question becomes did Patron’s initial impact drive an interest in casual fans in ROH and has his work on ROH TV convinced those casual viewers to put down money to watch him wrestle Jay Lethal for the TV Title at the PPV? I have heard little to no buzz for his match with Lethal heading into the final week before the show, so it looks like at the moment, the answer would be no.
Bob Colling: FICTION – I don’t see the casual fan being interested in seeing Alberto El Patron compete in Ring of Honor. Prior to his run in ROH, he was working for a company that is largely targeted towards kids. For most of his run, El Patron was a heel and hated by the fans. I don’t see that translating all that much to wanting to see him compete in another company. Hell, I recall a lot of people not enjoying his work in the WWE to begin with, and to be honest, I found him to be quite boring. Sure, he has some name value, but not enough for the casual fan to want to check out a show he is on, in my opinion.
2. ROH should book New Japan’s Bullet Club (Styles, Young Bucks, Anderson and Gallows) as often as possible.
Dylan Diot: FACT – I am a huge fan of the Bullet Club act in New Japan Pro Wrestling and I feel like bringing the act to Ring of Honor seems like a natural fit. I believe the use of the Bullet Club brand enhances the significance of certain ROH matches and makes victories over the likes of Styles, the Young Bucks, and Anderson all the more impact to the advancement of the ROH talent. The association with the Bullet Club gives these guys defined roles in ROH rather than making them special attractions and the level of talent and work quality of these guys makes it more than worth ROH’s time and money to bring them in as often as possible.
Bob Colling: FICTION – If you book a hot commodity on every show the quicker that interest fades away. It is similar to the Brock Lesnar issue. I have no problem with the Bullet Club being booked once every few shows. If ROH were to book them on every single show then their unique value to the company would quickly go away. They should be booked on the major shows and nothing more than that, really.
3. Jay Briscoe vs. Michael Elgin vs. Tommaso Ciampa vs. Hanson is a weak PPV main event.
Dylan Diot: FACT – Right now, the biggest match ROH has at the moment is Jay Briscoe vs. AJ Styles, but the politics involving AJ Styles being the IWGP Heavyweight Champions is probably going to prevent this match from happening. I also think Adam Cole’s injury affected the original plans for this show, so this four way match is likely the best option available at the moment. The issue here is that Elgin and Ciampa’s storyline about being angry about their treatment by ROH and their feud leading into Final Battle wasn’t very good, so neither man has real momentum heading into this match. Jay Briscoe has been stuck in a filler feud with The Kingdom over the past few months and Hanson is still in the infant stages of his ROH career, so this might be too early for him to be in the main event of one of ROH’s biggest shows of the year. The build to this main event doesn’t nearly have the emotion heading into it as most major ROH main events and while it will likely be a good main event, it doesn’t scream must see.
Bob Colling: FACT – I was trying to find a way to express interest in this one, but I simply can’t. I enjoy the work of Briscoe and Ciampa. Ciampa probably should be the champion at some point. Elgin is very annoying after his most recent worked shoot issues with ROH that included a ridiculous Highspots interview. Hanson impressed while he was in the Top Prospect challenge a year or so ago. However, when you have guys like Styles, Sydal, El Patron, and Roderick Strong but none of them are in the main event picture, then something is wrong. I have no interest in spending money to see this pay per view main event.
SWITCH!
4. Lucha Underground has done a poor job of booking Intergender wrestling thus far.
Wyatt Beougher: FICTION – I would say that Lucha Underground has done a competent job of booking intergender matches thus far. Have those handful of matches been as well booked as I feel like they could have been? No, but they also have not been nearly as bad as they could have been, either, so classifying the booking as “poor” at this point rings false with me. Sure, Angelico using a match with Ivelisse as little more than an excuse to put the moves on her was far from gender progressive, and Matt Striker and Vampiro seemingly only being able to talk about women as sexual objects detracts from the overall product, the but fact that Sexy Star has been able to hang with the men on multiple occasions and has not been booked to look out of place or over her head is a testament to how much more forward-thinking Lucha Underground is than most of their domestic competition. Imagine if last week’s match between The Crew and Sexy Star/Mascarita Sagrada/Pimpinela Escarlata had happened in a WWE ring (we all know that the WWE would never book this type of match or even hire Pimpi in the first place, but play along for the sake of argument) – do you think there would be any chance that Sexy Star would be the hero of the match, essentially playing the role that Dolph Ziggler played for Team Cena at Survivor Series this past November? I think it is far more likely that Sexy Star would have been easily dispatched and spent the entire match laying around on the floor while JBL LOST HIS DAMNED MIND about Pimpinela Escarlata. And while the prospect of JBL suffering an aneurysm on-air because of an exotico would sometimes seem like a preferable option to him constantly burying everything that’s happening, combined with random bursts of horribly out-of-touch pop culture references, I think I will keep my trust in Lucha Underground to be the sole source of these types of matches on domestic television, thank you.
Mike Hammerlock: FICTION – I get the criticism and I somewhat agree with the statement. Yet I think LU has been working a slow burn on its female characters. They didn’t automatically start out kicking ass against the dudes, but they are building in that direction. Sexy Star went toe-to-toe all three members of the Crew last week. Meanwhile, Ivelisse started planting the seed that she can outfox her male competitors. I suppose it would have been easier if they started off with the women on even par with the men, but I think they’re opting to develop these characters. Over the course of six months Sexy Star and Ivelisse will prove themselves and then their position in the company might feel earned rather than gifted. Also, if they blaze that trail, the women who come after them will have more immediate legitimacy. I do read spoilers, so I know both women have some payoffs coming. Anyway, I’m giving the intergender booking time and space to develop because it looks to me like LU is trying to have these women work their way up the ladder so that we’re along for the ride – kind of the opposite of what WWE has done with Roman Reigns.
5. Adding Alberto El Patron to the mix and billing him as the AAA Champion could devalue the Lucha Underground title, which is in its infancy.
Wyatt Beougher: FICTION – I’ll be completely honest here in stating that I do not know the specifics of Alberto El Patron’s AAA contract, specifically how it pertains to the number of appearances he will make in Lucha Underground; that said, at this point, the Lucha Underground writers have done a good job of bolstering their roster with a well-known talent like El Patron while simultaneously making their title feel like something that is still important. To this point, El Patron, his title, and the feud with El Texano Jr have been treated as a huge important deal, which they absolutely are, but in my eyes, they haven’t overshadowed the LU title yet. Since El Patron’s appearance at the end of episode thirteen, neither title has been defended, nor has El Patron easily beaten someone from the LU championship scene, and while the AAA title has been more visible the past two weeks, that is largely because of the angle surrounding the Lucha Underground title – namely, the Machine Called Cage beating down the champion and his mentor and then physically destroying the belt. Under normal circumstances, this probably would not be a huge deal, but considering that Dario Cueto made a point when introducing the title to point out that it was made of gold from each of the seven tribes of Aztec warriors, Cage not only destroying the belt but then demeaning its worth during a backstage segment in Cueto’s office has truly established him as the number one heel in the promotion. Sure, El Texano Jr has a problem with Alberto El Patron, but Cage has a problem with lucha libre as a whole. Combined with an utter lack of respect for the tradition of the sport and especially the principles that LU was founded on, Cage is going to remain the rudo of all rudos ever after El Patron and Texano have taken their beef back to AAA, and, conversely, Prince Puma is going to be all the more heroic when he finally puts an end to the monster’s rampage. In simpler terms, in a fed with less emphasis on storytelling and tradition, I think it would be easy to say that El Patron and El Texano’s feud has overshadowed the LU title picture, but LU has earned enough goodwill (and continues to put enough relevant pieces of the story in place) that I cannot in good conscience say that we have hit that point yet.
Mike Hammerlock: FICTION – It may confuse some people who are used to wrestling promotions that pretend the rest of the world doesn’t exist, but Alberto brings eyeballs to the product. When I weigh the positives and negatives, having the best known (active) Hispanic wrestler in the world on your show counts as a good thing. Some people may wonder what AAA is and what makes that belt different from the LU title. They’ve provided a quick, surgical explanation, and an Internet search can answer it in more depth for those whose curiosity has been sparked. I probably should note the vast majority of LU viewers watch the show’s Spanish language broadcast on Univision. Those folks already know what AAA is and they’re probably pumped that LU is bringing the AAA champion to their television screens. As long as they don’t turn the Lucha Underground champ into a jobber for the AAA title contenders (like the WWE does with its Intercontinental champs), then El Patron and the AAA belt should provide a nice boost for the new promotion.
6. At this time, the El Rey Network is committed to airing 39 episodes of Lucha Underground. The series will end up as the latest short lived wrestling experiment and not make it past 39 episodes.
Wyatt Beougher: FICTION – By all indications, El Rey and AAA are happy with the ratings that Lucha Underground has received, and I would not be surprised if it is consistently one of the better rated programs on El Rey. In my pre-debut look at Lucha Underground, I mentioned how important network synergy was going to be for the promotion, and, in this instance, I think that is especially true. Part of Robert Rodriguez’ mission statement for El Rey was to provide entertainment from a wide variety of genres to second- and third-generation, English-speaking Latinos, and sports was one of the genres that was specified. To the best of my knowledge, Lucha Underground is the only exclusive content that fits (even loosely) into that category, so while there may be some cost-cutting measures implemented between now and the third set of tapings, I would be very surprised if Lucha Underground does not surpass that 39 episode mark. The other possibility to consider is that, because the ratings are so much higher for the Spanish broadcast version of LU that airs on UniMas, after the initial thirty-nine episodes are up, LU could switch exclusively to UniMas until such time that El Rey feels they have suitable network penetration to resume airing the show. I honestly feel like the market is there, as Lucha Underground has been one of the two most consistently entertaining promotions in the US since their debut back in October, and I think that the lack of cable systems that currently carry El Rey is the biggest roadblock to them reaching their maximum audience at this point. Now that Dish Network has agreed to carry El Rey, we should be able to see what kind of an effect that has on LU’s ratings, as Dish’s fourteen million subscribers will increase the number of households El Rey is available in pretty significantly. Honestly, if we only get thirty-nine episodes of Lucha Underground, it will be a real shame, as it has been far better thus far than either Wrestling Society X or Lucha Libre USA.
Mike Hammerlock: FICTION – I mean, maybe that will happen, but I’ve seen no indication that LU has the Sword of Damacles hanging over its head. The Univision partnership strikes me as the ace in the hole for LU. The show is connecting with the Latino population in America beyond El Rey’s current reach. Honestly, if that business model doesn’t work, you’ve got to question whether the network can survive. By itself, El Rey can’t deliver massive viewing numbers. Lucha Underground is original programming that’s branching out beyond the network and hopefully creating demand for the network. I’ve requested my cable operator pick up El Rey mostly so I can watch Lucha Underground in English. It’s probably better brain training for me to watch it on Univision, forcing me to dust off my Spanish skills, but I can watch it three days sooner on El Rey. Anyway, LU is as close to a hit as any original programming that’s aired on El Rey. It certainly seems to hit the younger male demographic the network desires. If it turns out to be an experiment, then it’s been a glorious one. Yet hopefully El Rey got into this venture with realistic expectations. Modest early numbers were to be expected and the real key is whether this is a show that can help El Rey make a name for itself and grow. From a purely subjective point of view, I haven’t enjoyed a wrestling program this much in ages. So I think they’re onto something here. It probably all comes down to market segmentation and focus group feedback. If it’s resonating with the right audience, then they’ll tape episode 40 and beyond.
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