Dragón Azteca Jr. vs. Matanza [cage]: ok+
The oversimplified summary of the first part of this match is that it's one part Dragón Azteca Jr. doing a crazy moonsault off the top of the cage to start the match and about 15 parts Matanza throwing Azteca around like a rag doll.
Matanza actually throws Azteca literally through the (in retrospect, obviously gimmicked) cage at one point; Azteca takes part of the cage with him as he falls to the floor. The bell is initially rung and Dragón Azteca declared the winner. An upset Dario has other plans, though, and orders the match restarted with pinfall or submission as the only possible outcomes. Azteca initially goes after Dario, but Matanza sees to it that Azteca resumes his ragdoll physics simulation.
The best sequence of the latter part of the match involves a multi-layered series of counters starting from an attempted Misteriorana. At this point, though, Black Lotus runs out to interfere, allowing Matanza to hit his Wrath of the Gods on Dragón Azteca Jr. for the win.
Post-match, Black Lotus fouls Matanza, powerbombs him, and calls Dario a liar. However, when she confronts Dario, Matanza hits the Wrath of the Gods on her.
This is certainly more of a match than Dragón Azteca Jr.'s Última Lucha 2 encounter, and it's decent until the end, but it sucks that, for all his talent, Azteca perpetually feels more like a plot device than a standalone character.
Mil Muertes vs. Cage vs. Jeremiah Crane [Gauntlet of the Gods]: great
Before the bell rings, Dario makes this an elimination match.
This comes with a good dose of Lucha Underground's typically well-done hardcore insanity. The particularly crazy spots that stick out for me are Jeremiah Crane DDT'ing Cage after pushing a few skewers into his opponent's head and Cage suplexing Crane onto a table with Mil Muertes already lying on said table.
Cage eliminates Crane with Weapon X, but Crane exacts a bit of revenge with a chair even after having been eliminated. There's no DQ here, so Mil is free to flatline Cage onto a chair for the win.
Dario presents the gauntlet to Catrina to give to Mil. As Mil punches the mat with it, the lights go out. As the Temple lighting returns, so does King Cuerno, who lays out Mil and takes the gauntlet.
We now get to see Taya's documentary of Johnny Mundo that she's been filming all season. It's as self-absorbed as you'd expect, and works as a good prelude to...
Johnny Mundo Ⓒ vs. Prince Puma [Lucha Underground title vs. career]: excellent
This GIF says more about the level of athleticism in this match than I could possibly convey in words, so here you go:
Puma is doing stuff beyond humanly possible rn. #UltimaLuchaTres #LuchaUnderground pic.twitter.com/9xKtGlTONY— (scary nickname TBD) (@TypeAndrew) October 19, 2017
Remember how I wrote that I like my lucha matches to stretch the bounds of reality? That spot is what I was referring to in a nutshell. That's not the only wacky spot in the match, of course, but it's the one that sticks out the most by far, and it occurs rather early on, setting the tone for the match.
There's a mess of interference after a ref bump in the middle of the match, involving – you guessed it – the World Wide Underground. But wait! For the second Última Lucha in a row, Angélico makes a triumphant return mid-match. Things take an even weirder turn (though not unheard of south of the border) when replacement referee Rick Knox goes for a dive. It's as if they're asking us not to take this part of the match seriously. Fortunately, all of this dies down early enough so that Mundo and Puma can have a serious, unimpeded finishing stretch. Puma hits the 630 senton for the win.
This would have been better without the distractions in the middle, but if you're going to bring a resolution to that long-abused annoying mass interference trope, I guess that this is a relatively sane way to do it, with enough time remaining to restore an air of weightiness to the match and to avoid undermining the craziness of the named participants too much.
I like Prince Puma vs. Rey Mysterio from Última Lucha 2 more, based on its straightforwardness, but this match is definitely one to be remembered.
Dario comes out of his office afterward and insists that Puma has one more match tonight:
Prince Puma Ⓒ vs. Pentagón Dark [Lucha Underground title, career]: great
"Rules are like bones: they are made to be broken."
— Dario Cueto
With that memorable quote, Dario brings in Pentagón Dark, who redeems his Gift of the Gods championship for this match. The rub? Dario furthermore makes it career vs. career.
When this match aired on TV, I had goosebumps even before the match started. It's been a long while since I've felt this emotionally invested in a match that I wasn't attending in person.
Pentagón breaks Puma's arm early in the match, and so the story is that Puma has a lot going against him: he's not only (probably shoot) physically exhausted, he now is down to one good arm as well.
This isn't athletically at the level of the previous match – there's no way that it could be – but it has its moments of wackiness. The sequence that I remember most begins with Puma rolling through Pentagón's attempt at a Mexican Destroyer and ends much later with Puma hitting his own Canadian Destroyer. The match also partially makes up for less of a video-game feel with inherent drama, at least until the finish. The hot crowd also helps.
The finish is a bit jarring: Vampiro interferes to pull Pentagón out of the way of Puma's 630 senton. Pentagón then hits a package piledriver to win. Despite Vampiro's actions to the contrary, this is still a great match.
Penta cuts a post-match promo, saying it's his temple now. Perhaps it should have been at the end of season 2, but that ship has sailed.
As Puma leaves the Temple, he unmasks with his back to the camera and drops the mask on the ground.
In the other closing vignettes (à la season 1, and perhaps à la old-school JRPGs):
- King Cuerno is in his trophy room with his new-found gauntlet.
- At a meet-and-greet, Sexy Star is given a gift box with tarantula and a warning: "She hasn't forgotten about you."
- Mascarita Sagrada promises to bring Rabbit Tribe to the "white rabbit".
- Catrina watches Fenix and Melissa leave together, and Crane watches all of them.
- Daga returns with his sword to behead Pindar.
- Vampiro has a new master.
- Matanza and Rey Mysterio are both in the Temple prison cells.
- Agent Winters shoots Dario for losing the gauntlet. As he dies, Dario tries to call out for help.
OVERALL: Qualms about Vampiro's interference aside, this episode really delivers the payoffs that we've been waiting for. The big-picture problem is that LU has taken a really long time to get here, and the quality in the middle has been uneven, so it's easy to become exasperated before getting to this point.
Última Lucha Tres shows what Lucha Underground can be and why it should continue, even if perhaps a hypothetical season 4 would be better served by increasing the density of meaningful matches while the season is ongoing.
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