Lucha Underground hit the wrestling scene hard last year and into this year. Not only did they bring out great lucha libre action, but they also gave us great athletic big men that aren’t a norm in pro-wrestling. Johnny Mundo, formerly John Morrison in WWE, has been one of their top stars as well as Prince Puma, a man who can literally dazzle a crowd with almost anything. With Matt Striker helping to call the action and a network in El Rey giving them a chance, one could imagine that Lucha Underground was in the upswing.
Sadly, they could be on the way down.
According to The Wrestling Observer , Lucha Underground talent is not so sure about the company’s future right now. Current talent haven’t heard anything about upcoming TV tapings yet, which is strange for many as they usually know when sets of tapings are set to occur well before now. The sad part about the situation is that current Lucha Underground talent under contracts with the organization cannot book other Independent dates in August or September because Lucha gets first priority to them.
On top of this, Lucha Underground tapes on the weekends when a good bit of Indie events take place. So even if someone could book an Indie event to work while with Lucha, they’d have difficulty keeping them because it would be impossible to do both.
Many believe that Lucha Underground is a great product, and most who have seen it claim the wrestling there is some of the best on television. The issue is that it is new. Most pro-wrestling companies that are new barely last a year. Lucha at least has TV to work with, which most do not even come close to getting — even locally. This puts Lucha Underground ahead in a major way. However, funding for all of this is not cheap, even when taped.
Unless TV tapings begin soon, most of the talent will want out of their deals to at least take some bookings to survive. These wrestlers aren’t paid guaranteed money if they don’t get in the ring, so every day they don’t get to wrestle is another day without money. This is basically like putting people in a cage to starve. Season 2 as a whole would be in jeopardy if they don’t get to taping soon. One would imagine that Lucha Underground will start taping soon, but you never know. Let us hope we do not lose a promising new promotion so soon.
[IMG Credit: YouTube]
