(last updated 2015-11-03)

Lucha Underground is returning?

Yes! Lucha Underground announced they’d be return for a second season back on September 21st.

Is it still going to be good?

Sources say “yes.”

Is this mostly the already known info, just put in one place for ease of access?

Also yes. But if there’s anything else I’m forgetting, please ask in the comments. This’ll be updated until the TV debut date.

When will Lucha Underground be back?

We know some of this, but nothing everything.

The show began doing preliminary film work on November 3rd. These are probably vignettes and extra material for the show, and not everyone on the show is there yet.

The show will start taping on Saturday November 14th. They’ll also be taping on this month on 15, 21 and 22nd. All public tickets for these tapings appear to be given out at this point; you’d have to know someone to get it.

Lucha Underground will also tape on December 12 & 13 and on January 9, 10, 16, 17, 30 and 31. There may be days beyond those, but those are the only known ones. Ticket information for the shows are usually announced a couple weeks in advance and are closed out within hours. If you’re interested in going, your best bet is to follow @LuchaElRey on Twitter and set it up to get a notification every time they post a message, just to make sure you find out ASAP when the tickets open up again.

Lucha Underground has said they’ll start airing in January. El Rey and Unimas haven’t said anything about a return date (or anything else involving the show) yet. Assuming they’re staying on Wednesday, January 13th is the most likely El Rey debut date. It gives them a little space from the holidays to promote it, and it means they’d have about eight weeks of TV taped before the first one airs. We’ll obviously know this date for sure once it gets closer.

Will I be able to watch Lucha Underground this year?

There is not good news here: you probably will only if you could last year. Nothing has really been confirmed about the TV situation outside of returning to El Rey in January, but the best information suggests the status quo will stay the same.

There’s been no known change in the TV situation: the shows will continue to air first on the El Rey Network. The El Rey Network has expanded slightly, but it’s not available in many areas of the US. SlingTV, an internet based cable-like service, also continues to offer El Rey.

The show will probably continue airing a few days later on Unimas, though there’s been no official announcement. And that might be it.

The only news on TV for other markets is Mexico. LU has been working on getting on one of Mexico’s Televisa networks since before “Lucha Underground” has been a thing. There’s hints that deal may be finally done, but it’s one that’s been said to be close to done many times in the past. Since nothing is official, it’s also unclear how episodes would air in Mexico – would they be a season behind? – or when they’d start airing.

There is new real news about online video services. Lucha Underground has said they’re talking to a specific provider (suggested to be Netflix in the past), but have noted they have not completed a deal and the current situation is not great. It is not great! Illicit uploads of the show will continue to be available to the dedicated YouTube searcher.

Is everyone coming back from last season?

Most people are, but there are a few exceptions. The confirmed departures:

Alberto el Patron has returned to WWE, after what’s been framed as a mutual agreement to part ways.

Giving Hernandez his official release came off as the first order of business after Lucha Underground restarted, which is still kind of hilarious. He will not be returning.

Big Ryck told German promoters he was retiring. He then told his agent he wasn’t retiring. Then he told people he’s not coming back for season 2. Who knows!

There’s a lot of other names who’ve come up as possibly leaving, but it seems like most of them are sticking around.

Angelico & Prince Puma have come up as names WWE are interested in, and may have looked into signing, but they’re still under contract to Lucha Underground. Prince Puma’s secret twin Ricochet has been back in Japan for Dragon Gate & NJPW in his time off and there have been hints NJPW would be interested in signing him as well, but he’s still with Lucha Underground at the moment.

Disciple of Death Barrio Negro kind of left for a couple days. It’s all fine now. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, you don’t want to know.

Sexy Star had an exciting off season of marriage, semi-nude magazine spreads, and not much wrestling. She broke her collarbone over the summer and got out of a sling in October or so. She appeared at a recent AAA press event and is listed as making her in-ring return about a week before LU starts taping, so she may make it back just in time. There’s an obvious storyline reason they could use to hold her out if she’s not quite ready yet.

There probably will be other people leaving we don’t know about yet. AAA’s mentioned in the past a desire of giving everyone a shot on this show, which might mean others people leave for a little while. I’d think anyone who got a big send off last season like Fenix & Pentagon are safe, but those less central to plot lines are less certain to return.

Similarly, expect some normal turnover with the non-AAA wrestlers. Lucha Underground holds the option on bringing people or not, so the stars aren’t going anywhere but characters who didn’t work out well might not be back.

The Temple itself is coming back too. The shows will be held in the same Boyle Heights location and early pictures has indicated the set will look largely the same. The closing moments of season 1 suggested a new location for the show, which appears to have been really in play for a while, but that move won’t be happening now.

Is there anyone new coming?

Yes! There’s a lot of people rumored to be coming, a few of them official.

Rey Mysterio Jr. has been connected to Lucha Underground seemingly since before there was a Lucha Underground. He’s now a central part of AAA since leaving WWE. Season 1 of Lucha Underground ended with a green question mark, which could be a hint towards Mysterio in season 2. Mysterio continues to say he hasn’t signed yet. LU held back word of Alberto signing with the promotion until the moment he debuted in front of the crowd, and would probably do the same with Mysterio. We’re due a press release on the plans for the new season and that could easily be tied in with announcing Rey’s arrival.

My belief is Mysterio will be on Lucha Underground as part of Season 2, but it’s not been officially confirmed.

Jeff Cobb may not count as new – he wrestled in warm up matches on most of the 2015 tapings – but he’ll still be new to people when they finally see him on screen in 2015. Indy vet Cheerleader Melissa was also a frequent warmup match participant on the last few Lucha Underground tapings. Both are expected to make their TV debuts this season. Diva Dirt reported Melissa will be a masked character connected to the Lucha Underground mythos. Cobb’s role has not yet been reported.

Speedball Mike Bailey, best known for his PWG work, is also expected to be part of season 2. He’s started with AAA recently.

Tijuana based luchador Rey Horuz and Mexican Dragon Gate regular Flamita have both been talked about as coming in for season 2. Horuz seems a pretty good bet. No one’s quite sure what’s going on with Flamita – well, maybe it’s better to say everyone thinks they know what’s going on with Flamita, but the answers seem to be conflicting. His situation may clear up in the next few days now that he’s back in Mexico.

Lucha Underground has mentioned added more in-ring women to the show is on their wishlist. There’s no specific names connected. LU officials were at the Stardom USA shows (run by Melissa), scouting women there. It’s also possible more women from AAA may be brought in. Taya Valkyrie has been advertised on US indie shows as a Lucha Underground luchadora; that seems like mostly marketing (more people in US care about LU than AAA), but she also seems a pretty likely bet to end up in LU at some point.

The one restriction to talent is they have to be located in North America for cost/availability reasons. Will Osprey, a talented British wrestler, was mentioned as offered a role (in LU and AAA), but would’ve had to relocate to Los Angeles and was not interested in doing that at this time. There were talented wrestlers from Japan on the Stardom show, but they’d also be out of play unless they wanted to move to the US full time.

Last year, Lucha Underground was generally able to keep quiet who was coming in until they appeared before the crowd, and added more wrestlers during the season. They’re more established now, but the roster will likely remain fluid.

Of note, there’s been no rumors of a new announcer being added to the show. Lucha Underground could be keeping it quiet, but the most likely outcome appears to be Vampiro resuming his role as color commentator on both the English and Spanish versions despite the events at the end of Season 1.

Are you going to be covering Lucha Underground…

Sure, of course

…with spoilers? [dramatic thunder crash]

Oh.

I think I can get spoilers again. Multiple people kindly shared results with me last year. Some of those people might do it again! I feel like I’m going to find out what happens, even if I don’t post anything, and it’s important for to do so because it’ll inevitably have an effect on AAA and lucha libre far before the show starts to air. So that’s half of it.

I do this website to help make lucha libre more enjoyable and accessible. Some people find reading the taping results enjoyable. Some people find not knowing until it airs more enjoyable. Last season, I did my best to make it work whichever way you wanted – you didn’t see the spoiler unless you went out of your way to click on something or put in warnings before you saw it. Other people have different purposes to what they do, and different effort levels in doing it. I have no control of that, but that means once I do whatever I do, and whatever I do to have it both ways, someone else will likely not care all that much. That goes against the general goal. I can’t change other people, but I could change myself.

Better way of saying it: every time someone went to wikipedia, saw a title change and was really upset about it, I felt a little bad about it. Then I wondered why they were looking on wikipedia for information about a show taped months in advance of airing in front of a live audience. Then I wondered if there was a better way of doing it.

Still haven’t come up with one. And, for all my Hamlet-ing, I wasn’t the only person posting results and probably won’t be again anyway. My default position is to stick with carefully posting spoilers, but I may not decide until the first taping happens.

Anyway, if you’re concerned about spoilers, stay off wikipedia and be careful the podcasts you listen to.

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