Lucha Underground

[9.0] "Lucha Underground was a fascinating and ambitious experiment in wrestling television. Its first two seasons offered a fresh, cinematic approach, blending traditional lucha libre with American sports entertainment. The production values were top-notch, and the storylines were engaging, with creative vignettes and promos that elevated characters like Pentagón Jr., Rey Fénix, Mil Muertes, Prince Puma, and King Cuerno. Former WWE stars like Rey Mysterio, Johnny Mundo, and Alberto El Patrón added star power and credibility, helping the product stand out. The show excelled in giving talent exposure and developing unique personas, making it a memorable alternative to mainstream wrestling during its run. However, the mismanagement of the company ultimately led to its demise, and by Season 4 the product had lost much of its momentum. While still watchable, baffling decisions, most notably crowning Jack "Jake Strong" Swagger as the final champion, clashed with the company's lucha-focused identity, highlighting a lack of coherent vision in the later stages. Lucha Underground remains a highly enjoyable and influential show for its peak years, even if its decline was disappointing."

[8.0] "The closest thing my generation has had to an ECW. A unique presentation that's since been aped by other companies, a different sense of stakes from anything else in the medium, introduced a whole host of people who've since gone on to become big stars, incredible matches... and utterly, utterly fell apart after a certain point. They completely lost the plot after the second season. Their contract situation was also legendarily bad. Locking pro-wrestlers into non-compete contracts until the season aired is a terrible failure to understand the grift at the heart of the biz and was the death knell of the company. Two outstanding seasons of some of the best pro-wrestling North America had seen in twenty years... and then a slow, agonizing death."

[10.0] "I love Lucha Underground. The setting, the wrestler's and their characters, the matches, and the style is amazing and unique. This promotion sadly had to go, but it will always be my favorite."

[10.0] "This promotion tried an original path in their storytelling, which I appreciated. While it was airing, it may have been the best promotion on TV, but when they didn't get renewed and just let their talent rot with no source of income due to a non-compete clause, they proved how unprofessional they were. They made me appreciate John Morrison more than WWE ever did and Ricochet has never been better than he was in this show as Prince Puma. Pentagon and Fenix got their first exposure to wrestling audiences. Rey Mysterio was a later season regular, bringing some legitimacy to the promotion with his presence."

[10.0] "One of the 3 best "eras" of wrestling in my opinion - ECW, the WWF Attitude Era and Lucha Underground. It was unique for its time and nearly all of their roster went onto either AEW, WWE and/or TNA. Somehow Dario Cueto hasn't gone onto any of these and was out of the wrestling industry until MLW brought him back in 2021? ! Every show was entertaining both in-ring and most of the cutscenes. Very influential show, just gutted it never lasted longer than it did."

[10.0] "Incredibly influential promotion in hindsight whose phenomenal roster has gone on to shape the Main Event scene in North America over the past 8 years. One of the best wrestling shows of all time. It was slept on during its run but has garnered a dedicated cult following. If you are new to wrestling and enjoy the Lucha style watch this show. It was a masterpiece."

[8.0] "Lucha Underground was a very special project and it is a damn shame that it ended. The matches (although sometimes lacking ring psychology) were mind blowing, and a lot of their stars are now the leading men in the wrestling business."

"[10.0] This is my favorite wrestling promotion of all time. It's so cinematic, it's so unique, such a distinct personality, all while the in-ring work was sensational. I'd take a reboot of Lucha Underground over AEW any day!"

[10.0] "God I love Lucha Underground. Perfect mix of genuinely amazing wrestling and goofy ass supernatural shit. Dario is such a great heel promoter, all of the wrestlers are great (Mil Muertes, Matanza, King Cuerno, and Drago especially), solid women's inclusion (with intergender matches! ), Pentagon spends a while just breaking arms, Chavo spends a while just whacking people with chairs, oh my god, chefs kiss, give me 14 more of these bitches."

[8.0] "One of the best atmospheres in wrestling ever. Some of the storylines and characters were a little cringey to me at times BUT it was a really refreshing take on wrestling. I wish it was still around I would definitely be watching weekly."

[10.0] "Such a shame Lucha Underground went out of business. So many great stories, a packed roster and a unique atmosphere. I admit, I wasn't watching LU when it was being displayed on weekly basis, but it must have been refreshing to watch LU at that time"

[10.0] "When they first formed they were by far the best promotion to watch on the Planet. Refreshing ideas and a great roster. As the years went on they only dipped slightly but never lost their magic. Really sad to see them gone. We miss you Lucha Underground."

[9.0] "For the time this show was on it was my favorite wrestling show. I thought it was good or better than what any other company was doing at the time. It was different and very groundbreaking by featuring intergender matches. So many stars came out of this promotion it's crazy! I'm sad it's gone but they also didn't treat their workers very well and was destined to fail."

"watched a couple matches and got really sad when I noticed it was based in Los Angeles. I could have went to some shows and now im sad lol for what ive seen, incredible promotion. no clue why it went under"

[10.0] "One of if not the best luchador promotion its cinematic vibes just hit different.Everyone in this promotion outcome as stars .Prince puma, martanza cueto, pentagon, mil muertes, fenix, johnny mundo, cage are among the most standout performers ."

[9.0] "When I started watching Lucha Underground, it seemed like a very interesting product at first, because it had great production and some great former WWE wrestlers, like Rey Mysterio, Johnny Mundo and Alberto El Patrón. And after watching the first two seasons, I loved it. The storylines were great, the vignettes and promos were fun, and I really liked the pace of the matches, taking some elements from american wrestling and some from lucha libre. Some pretty good wrestlers like Pentagón Jr, Rey Fénix, Mil Muertes, Prince Puma and King Cuerno really benefited from their exposure in this company, and I think it's a shame that Lucha Underground was mismanaged and eventually died, but we can still value them for the great breath of fresh air they were for a couple of years."

[10.0] "Lucha Underground surprised me quite a bit the first time I saw it, I was quite amused that it was like a TV series with episodes and so on, but the truth is that it's a great product and I think it deserves a high rating because it's like a fresh air for wrestling."

[8.0] "The matches were awesome, but the telenovela style storylines were boring and the overly loud slaps when they kicked were ridiculous, but other than that some great talent were involved in that show"

"Super underrated company. What really set them apart was the presentation. Just wish it lasted longer than what it did."

[7.0] "Show was normally really good to great. Introduced the US audience to some of the best Luchadors in the world along with great talents from the US indies which created a lot of breakout moments. Did not treat their talent right towards then end and the quality definitely dropped for the last season. Enjoyable soap opera meets pro wrestling show with a lot of unique ideas."

[9.0] "I have nothing but fond memories of Lucha Underground and as far as I'm concerned, its probably among one of the best promotion in recent years. The presentation of the show was phenomenal with the temple and Dario Cueto being perfect set pieces for the action. Everything had a great atmosphere to it and made the matches much more exciting as a result. The camera work, the commentators, Melissa Santos as the announcer and all the small details (the bands, Dario's office, the entrances) added immensely to the atmosphere. The roster was also incredible with a mix of established stars and a lot of younger wrestlers who eventually became famous as a result of the show. While not every matches were stellar, each episodes were so much fun in general that it's really worth for one to go out of its way and binge watch them."

"[10.0] Best wrestling show ever. They knew the story was the most important part of any wrestling promotion. I loved their style."

[9.0] "They created their own world that rejected reality, and everything they presented in service of that atmosphere made sense. I'm not even a big spot person, but those matches fit their world, unlike promotions with a supposed authentic appeal, doing things that make no sense to anyone with an authentic brain. It's a scripted wrestling TV show that didn't pretend to do traditional live wrestling at the same time. Other promotions on tv try to have it both ways by appealing to the network masters and also the live gate, which has always come across to me as a phony in-between thing. But they straight up made an f'n crazy fictional tv show with wild characters that settled their differences by pro-wrestling in a ring, and it was awesome. Hopefully this is the future of TV wrestling for the younger audiences that don't buy into the weird mix that everyone else is doing."

[9.0] "Great show that I wish was still around and we got a proper pay off. Thankfully we have Penta, Fenix and a lot of the best wrestlers from Lucha now in AEW getting their deserved national exposure."

"I was a massive fan of this promotion and I really wish it could've stayed around longer, but I understand the issues it had with talent which were pretty extreme. The production was the best of any promotion ever and the matches were exciting, but it was backstage stuff that screwed the promotion over. I got introduced to Prince Puma/Ricochet, Fenix, Pentagon, Aerostar, Drago, Brian Cage, AR Fox, Killshot/Shane Strickland/Isiah Scott, and Angelico because of this promotion and I'm forever grateful for it."

[10.0] "2010's cult phenomenon of a wrestling show that reminded me of how ECW was the ultimate cult phenomenon of 1990's North American wrestling. Season 1-3 were incredible, just plain dope. Season 4 on the other hand, was kinda TRASH, ex-WWE wrestlers took over the scene (Jake Hager becomes the World Champion), new setting location that did not fit the theme of Lucha Underground at all, lost too many key wrestlers (such as the ACE of Lucha Underground, Prince Puma (Ricochet). The magic was completely gone by Season 4. But Seasons 1-3 were too special to ignore, and left super strong memories."

[8.0] "Incredible stuff. I really do hope they get a second season because the storylines have been really fascinating, some interesting characters and great matches. It's really a tremendous promotion. EDIT: Updating my review to reflect how things ended up. The first couple of seasons of Lucha Underground were tremendously creative and fun. After that, the show started to go downhill hard. The storylines stopped making sense, Sexy Star, who had very little talent, was pushed. Storylines stopped making sense. Wrestler's "died"... I would describe Lucha Underground as being akin to a rock star that has a great start but flames out quickly because they couldn't control themselves. Lucha Underground had that same problem. It was a mismanaged company that ended with a whimper after a start that had so much promise."

[9.0] "I still reminisce about the first couple seasons of LU. I didn't watch the final season but the first two were amazing and the third was really good for the most part. I miss it so much."

[10.0] "Lucha Underground was one of the most unique wrestling promotions we've ever seen with some genuinely fantastic matches. I highly recommend people to check this promotion out."

[8.0] "Entertaining and enjoyable concept. I love the wrestling and the characters. I wish more people would watch it."

[9.0] "For a brief period of time, Lucha Underground wasn't just my favorite promotion on the planet, it was the only one I watched. While you can say that the show ended with a whimper during season 4, the first three years of LU featured some of the most memorable characters and had some of the best moments of the 2010s."

[10.0] "I miss everything about you Lucha Underground. Your crazy storytelling filled with mystical and amazing segments that actually advance the plot, the crazy match stipulations and who can forget the characters, hell even the arena made it feel more genuine. I wish LU would come back to us."

[10.0] "After I watched the first episode of this tv show, I knew the history is happening on my eyes. Till this day, I have never seen such exciting wrestling on TV like Lucha Underground. Almost every episode had a 5-star match and the storyline was always so interesting I could not wait till the next week. For many amazing wrestlers, Lucha Underground was a turning point in their careers. This is where I saw Drago, Pentagon Jr, Jack Evans, Matt Cross, Brian Cage, AR Fox and many, many more. Dario Cueto is still the best wrestling promoter I've ever seen. To sum up, Lucha Underground was the best wrestling TV show I've ever seen."

[5.0] "Once the hot new thing, this promotion/TV show derailed pretty quickly. LU has never shunned to market itself as a story-driven TV series just as much as a pro wrestling show and, for a while, it succeeded as both: the two first seasons built a gritty, almost B-movie-like world around some familiar faces and soon-to-be globally famous superstars, which served its purpose as a background to some formidable in-ring action. But then, season 3 came in and LU was already becoming plagued with problems behind the scenes regarding production, contracts and a turmoiled relationship with AAA. All of this reflected into the product: the main storylines were getting more convoluted, side-storylines were getting pointless at best and borderline stupid at worst, wrestlers came and went without (kayfabe) rhyme or reason and the in-ring action was reduced to spotfests that seemed to have little to no planning behind them (considering a good part of the roster had low morale and/or had little time to record their parts by then, it's somewhat justified). By season 4, not only the reduced budget and lawsuits had already made the show unsustainable, but the booking, the storylines and the matches were getting even worse. While many pleaded for a 5th season and the more optimistic even thought there was a way to make LU return to its glory days, the harsh truth is the show was beyond saving by that point. Ironically, what made LU special in the begining was it's curse at its end: hardly any storyline had a satisfying resolution, either feeling rushed or stepping into a cliffhanger. In that regard, LU, nowadays, is actually praised more for what they tried to do than what they actually accomplished: you'll see a lot of people complimenting them for implementing kayfabe-heavy storylines, but not the actual pay-offs to those. And the sad thing is all of that could be mostly forgiven, if they at least had strong booking and matches to make-up for it, but they weren't faring better as a pro wrestling show either. Now, one of their executive producers has expressed his desire of rebooting the entire show if they ever got a season 5 - while there is no possibility of a new season ever happening by this point, I would love to see a spiritual successor for that show in another network, with entirely new wrestlers, new storylines and even a new setting (as long as the team has learned from their mistakes, that is)."

[10.0] "It's 2019 and other promotions are still trying to catch up to what was done on this show back in 2014."

[8.0] "I have decided to up my rating from a 6 to an 8. I still hate their over the top storylines and gimmicks but goddamn are the matches great! They also get points for standing out."

[9.0] "Admittedly, it took me a while to get into LU. I was not a fan of the copious amounts of editing done to the matches & the anti-sports feel in favor of the sci-fi nature. But after giving it three or four different chances, it won me over & I really grew to love it as something very different. I'm really quite sad that it seems to be dead and never even got a farewell special."

[8.0] "Lucha Underground proved to be something different from every other promotions. Great roster, perfect storytelling with a stronge keyfabe. The first season had a huge impact. Its roster was amazing: Son of Havoc, Pentagon Jr. , King Cuerno, Mil Muertes, Prince Puma, Johnny Mundo and so many others brilliant wrestlers. From the second season it started to lose popularity even with some big names like Rey Mysterio, and some bad decisions about contracts got it to its end after a boring fourth season. I think it's a lost opportunity because it was an amazing project, but it did not last its expectations."

[8.0] "For a long time, this was the only wresting show I would watch, because I did not consider it as a wrestling show. I saw it as a television drama series that included great wrestling, and that is what Lucha Underground it. Different, but mesmerizing. The stories told, the matches they have produced which, I find, many are MOTY caliber. I gave it an 8 because it seems to be dwindling down and becoming just another wrestling company, with a very average 4th season, but I'm leaving this open to a future review based on what's coming next, if there is anything coming."

[9.0] "Fantastic. I started watching it this summer, i fell in love with it. at a fisrt look i didn't understood it at all, it seemed to me too much stereotipes, too much cartoonics, but nowdays that I started being familiar with it, I really love it. Storylines are great, sometimes to much fantastic but I loved it (Fenix death and ressurrection was fantastic), Characters are "larger Than Life" pictoresque as I love them (Jeremia Snake mil muertes Fenix, Penta are my favorites), Matches quality is great, great storytelling and really great athletic ability, plus bloody fights and wars. Lucha has also something of "grudge, horror" scene. I really really love it. I give it 9 and not 10 because it is not a real federation: i love the concept i love the fact it is a "TV series" style of company, but its very far away from a classical wrestling company, it should be considered differently from other companies. Plus 9 not 10 becouse titles doesn't mean much in lucha, it is more about the carnival and the spectacle than the "competition" itself... but it is great, i like watching it , it could possibly be in my top 3 federations in the world right now easly."

[5.0] "You've got a pre-taped show which means you can cut out and potentially re-do the worse parts of matches but somehow the match quality still isn't consistently great. Combine that with some incredibly convoluted and (at the point where I quit) downright confusing booking."

[10.0] "Consistently excellent. Lucha Underground brings everything that's great about the wrestling business - larger than life characters, slightly ridiculous escapism, feats that are genuinely athletically impressive, fantastic in ring storytelling. Striker and Vampiro are the best commentators in the business, hands down, and bring a real "watching with your mates" kind of vibe. The competitors on show remain consistently good - with mainstays like Penta, Mil, Mack and Killshot helping to raise the profiles the best up and comers in the business and well-integrated new faces each season. I was worried that the move and lower budget could cause some problems but they continue to use imagination and storytelling to outdo other promotions."

[9.0] "first i wanna say Lucha Underground is another thing :D of some The angle things are unreal :D BUT this is a different between LUG with other companies :D Fantasies are little bit much :D Matches are very hot. i love this promotion cuz they are different and make me laugh sometimes :)) i'am not mocking believe me but i think in long time this would be boring :-s they must think so hard and make a great plans cuz if they wanna continues they need big plan."

[6.0] "The wrestling is hit-and-miss, the angles and storylines border on the surreal, and the announcing flits between decent and horrendous."

[10.0] "Unlike anything you'll watch in pro wrestling today. Best way I can describe it is a cross between Mortal Kombat and a DC Comics TV show, so dark and gritty and awesome, if you take it for what it is (a TV show about a wrestling promotion where dudes can be dragons and time-travelling astronauts who have tag team nunchuk fights in bathrooms backstage) The new season (4) has really lost some of the mystique though (the new ring and temple kinda suck) and the roster has been depleted a bit but hopefully it'll pick up. Still one of the most entertaining and unique shows in pro wrestling and there'll likely be nothing like it again. Brilliant promotion."

[7.0] "An interesting hybrid wrestling/adult drama unlike anything else. Sadly it's almost impossible to watch legally in the UK and I've been unable to watch it for the last few seasons. Production values of the "backstage" skits are second only to WWE but the crowd always feel like they've been bussed in to fill seats. The in ring work is always very good, the hour long slot can sometimes lead to short matches but overall the shows never seem overlong which is the main problem with wrestling on TV these days."

[10.0] "Corny cut scenes sure but that's part of the charm. It offers great character development with some real world scenarios instead of that happened last week forget about that wrestling logic. Melissa Santos who is the ring announcer was once attacked by one of the performers which was years ago now but she still looks nervous around said performer. it's little things like that, that really shape the characters and makes the feuds really pop."

[9.0] "LU is awesome. Been a fan of them since season 1. Different approach, great wrestlers, interesting stories, that's why they stand out in the current era!"

[5.0] "Lucha Underground is fine. Lots of fun, excellent production values and interesting storytelling. But it doesn't belong among the ten best promotions of all time. Historically, I think it'll be barely remembered. Right now it's more notable for the number of contracted wrestlers it has that can't get jobs in WWE until it folds."

[9.0] "Yes Lucha Underground is a bit of a spot fest, but it's a really entertaining spot fest. I have seen things in LU that I haven't seen anywhere else and there are often genuine holy shit moments. I have enjoyed every season of LU (although season 3 hasn't been as good). The crowds are always great too. I like the soap opera type of story telling and don't get why people object to it so much, as wrestling is incredibly over the top anyway."