Mil Muertes in Lucha Underground

Lucha Underground was a real iconoclast in the wrestling landscape of the last 10 years. Similar to WSX, it was a TV show with some pro wrestling rather than a traditional pro wrestling company, and offered a studio 'sports entertainment' product WWE could only wish of re-creating in NXT. It helped elevate the careers of countless guys who were outside the WWE bubble but too big for the indies - Ricochet, Fantasma, Pentagon, Fenix, Shane Strickland to name a few. As a pro wrestling purest, there's always an asterisk watching their shows as you know they have multiple edits and re-shoots, rather than capturing the full lived match with warts and all. Still, when they put on a big gimmick match, it was always an event worth watching, and no one delivered in more of those matches than Mil Muertes.

Muertes AKA Ricky Bandaras AKA El Mesias has been around for over 20 years with an interesting career that features years as a top guy in Puerto Rico, a cup of coffee in TNA and a headline run in AAA amongst others. He's a guy I've always enjoyed wherever he's popped up - a Vader like big man who can brawl but with an impressive amount of agility too. The Mil Muertes character was one of the best acts in LU and his big gimmick matches were some of the highlights of the show. Here I will revisit the best of his run there.


Mil Muertes vs Fenix, 18/3/15 [Grave Consequences Match]

This was a fucking awesome pro wrestling match. Banderas once again delivers in a Big Match and Fenix holds up his end. It plays to their strengths - Fenix gets brutalised and bloodied, gets to hit big highspots for his comeback, Muertes beats the shit out of him and looks like a monster. Loved the brawling, all the big spots, and the tease above the crowd. There was a real sense of danger in places because Fenix is genuinely crazy enough to take a big spill. Perhaps what makes this stand out from the usual LU stuff is that the action between all the big spots was solid and it never felt like a stunt show. We get a real apuestas-style bloodbath with Mil ripping up Fenix’s mask and him bleeding a gusher. Great storyline finish to tie a knot on it, and I loved this. This was Lucha Underground’s absolute peak and probably the best match of this type that I’ve seen to boot.

Matanza vs Mil Muertes, 11/5/16 [Grave Consequences Match]

Dug the old monster vs new monster vibe off this. We’re so used to seeing Muertes be the destroyer, not the guy getting tossed around, but that’s how this goes down. We get plenty of Godzilla vs Mothra destruction of the ringside area and Cobb’s strength is really on show here as he throws Muertes around like he’s a cruiserweight. The big casket bumps all looked pretty great, though the Flatliner off the apron on to the caskets probably came too early and felt like it was brushed off way too quickly for what was the biggest spot in the match. Muertes donning a chainmail glove was pretty unique and lead to an awesome spot where he punched through the casket to escape, real schklocky moment but it was rad. The back end of this kind of lost some steam and there was a bit too much time trying to position the caskets for the spots, but I still dug this as an exposure to a different side of Muertes.

Mil Muertes vs King Cuerno, 13/7/16 [Deathmatch]

I am all for a Monster mauling a dirtbag heel and that’s what this was all about. Cuerno had been built up as one of the top guys in LU, which made it even more surprising just how one-sided this was. I am a low-voter on Fantasma – he’s a 20+ year vet who’s done hardly anything memorable but became quite popular over the last 5 years due to LU and AAA getting more western exposure - but he’s in the tier of guys like Pentagon who only have one or two tunes to play and nothing else to offer. He has a tremendous tope – great velocity and distance for a tall guy – and a couple other nice high spots, but he’s a middle of the road dude in a brawl. More interested in leg-slap enziguris than throwing fists (unlike Muertes, who unloads some great looking meat-hooks).

Still, this was 2 dudes braining each other with any inanimate object they could get their hands on, chairs, bar stools, mics, garbage cans, and it all looked ouchy. It lacked the blood and danger of the Fenix match, and there was a bit too much time spent setting all the various set pieces up, though it did pay off with an awesome ending with Mil power-bombing Cuerno through 3 separate tables one after the other. He just killed this guy, and then cracked him with a crowbar for good measure. Probably Cuerno/Fantasma/Escobar’s career best. I also loved Mil no-selling getting his head put through a glass window, before popping up behind Cuerno to pay him back, that was some real Jason Voorhees shit.