Viewer discretion is advised—we're back in God's country, and the Temple is getting messy.

This week, Kelsey and I return to Lucha Underground Season 1, Episode 5: Boyle Heights Street Fight, where the drama is escalating, the cinematography is still ridiculously good, and Dario Cueto continues proving why nobody should trust this man.

Between Mil Muertes dominating Drago, Sexy Star's increasingly personal rivalry with Chavo Guerrero, and Johnny Mundo looking like he walked straight out of Mortal Kombat, this episode has a little bit of everything.

And then there's our main event, where Prince Puma takes on Big Ryck in a Boyle Heights Street Fight that ends with one spectacularly unsuccessful rescue mission.

In This Episode:

• Konnan & Dario Cueto: Tensions rise over Big Ryck and his crew.
• Mil Muertes vs. Drago: Catrina continues to steal our attention while King Cuerno lurks in the shadows.
• Son of Havoc vs. Mascarita Sagrada: A fun matchup featuring the always-entertaining Ivelisse.
• Sexy Star vs. Chavo Guerrero: Things get personal as Pentagon Jr. and Fénix enter the picture.
• Prince Puma vs. Big Ryck: Weapons, interference, and a street fight that gets completely out of hand.
• Johnny Mundo's Big Mistake: Sometimes trying to save the day only makes things worse.

Five episodes in, and Kelsey and I are completely hooked. The storytelling, the characters, the atmosphere—Lucha Underground just keeps delivering.

Welcome back to New to the Temple.

The New To Wrestling Podcast follows two friends who enjoy wrestling but are in different stages of their fandom. Xavier Cruz serves as your guide through generations of professional wrestling while Kelsey Silva experiences these matches for the first time. Climb into the ring weekly to relive the famous matches beginning with the Attitude Era!

Wrestling is real, and books are too! 📚

Welcome back to Reading the Ring, the New to Wrestling Podcast book club! Life has been life-ing, so Kelsey and I are taking a break from our regularly scheduled shenanigans this week. But don't worry, I'm not leaving you empty-handed.

This time, I'm diving into We Promised You a Great Main Event: An Unauthorized WWE History by Bill Hanstock, a book that reminded me why I love professional wrestling while also reminding me just how ridiculous, complicated, and occasionally shady this business can be.

We're going all the way back to wrestling's carnival roots, where some of the traditions we still recognize today were born, before making our way through Vince McMahon's rise, the Monday Night Wars, the Attitude Era, and the evolution of WWE into a billion-dollar entertainment empire.

And because this is wrestling, things get weird.

We're talking about outrageous gimmicks, questionable business decisions, larger-than-life personalities, and some genuinely uncomfortable chapters of WWE history that don't always get the same attention as the company's greatest moments.

One of the things I appreciated most about this book is that it doesn't ask you to stop loving wrestling. It just asks you to look at the whole picture. The incredible stuff, the absurd stuff, and the things we'd probably rather not think about.

For longtime fans, there's plenty to revisit and reconsider. And for anyone who's newer to wrestling, I think this is a fantastic way to understand how this strange little world became what it is today.

So grab a book, get comfortable, and join me for a little wrestling history, some questionable characters, and probably more Vince McMahon discussion than any of us really need.

📚 This episode's book: We Promised You a Great Main Event: An Unauthorized WWE History by Bill Hanstock.

🎙️ Watch or listen to the full episode of Reading the Ring on the New to Wrestling Podcast!

Wrestling is real, and books are too.

The New To Wrestling Podcast follows two friends who enjoy wrestling but are in different stages of their fandom. Xavier Cruz serves as your guide through generations of professional wrestling while Kelsey Silva experiences these matches for the first time. Climb into the ring weekly to relive the famous matches beginning with the Attitude Era!

Viewer discretion is advised—we are officially back in 1998, and I dragged Kelsey with me to WWF Fully Loaded 1998.

After spending some time in the Temple, we returned to the Attitude Era for a three-hour, nine-match pay-per-view that had us recording at midnight, questioning several life choices, and standing on business because we said we were going to watch it.

And honestly? For a show I kept putting off, this one kind of delivered.

Fully Loaded 1998 is a very strange mix of genuinely great wrestling, very 1998 nonsense, and moments that remind you nostalgia can be cute—but she is not always correct. I walked Kelsey through Val Venis making his pay-per-view debut against Jeff Jarrett, D’Lo Brown and X-Pac putting together a sneaky fun mid-card match, a completely bizarre tag situation with Terry Funk, Scorpio, Faarooq and Bradshaw, and a Vince McMahon-approved meat spectacle between Vader and Mark Henry.

But the real pillars of this show are easy.

Owen Hart and Ken Shamrock have a Dungeon Match in the Hart family basement that feels less like a wrestling match and more like found footage from a crime scene. The Rock and Triple H go nearly 30 minutes in a two-out-of-three-falls Intercontinental Championship match where you can feel two future stars fighting to steal the show. And in the main event, Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Undertaker challenge Kane and Mankind for the Tag Team Championships, despite the fact that Austin and Taker absolutely do not trust each other.

Beautiful nonsense. Exactly what we came here for.

We also, unfortunately, have to talk about the Sable and Jacqueline bikini contest, Jerry Lawler being on his absolute worst behavior, and the parts of the Attitude Era that people love to conveniently edit out when they talk about how great everything used to be.

### In this episode:

- I bring Kelsey back to the Attitude Era after our New to the Temple detour
- We break down the full WWF Fully Loaded 1998 card
- Val Venis makes his pay-per-view debut against Jeff Jarrett
- Yamaguchi-san joins commentary and calls Jerry Lawler “Hamburger King”
- D’Lo Brown and X-Pac have a solid mid-card match with Chyna looking incredible
- Terry Funk, Scorpio, Faarooq and Bradshaw end up in one of the strangest tag pairings imaginable
- Vader and Mark Henry collide in a true big meat spectacle
- LOD and DOA continue fighting over Paul Ellering for reasons we are still trying to understand
- Owen Hart and Ken Shamrock have a Dungeon Match that feels fully illegal
- The Rock and Triple H wrestle like two future main-eventers trying to prove they are next
- We suffer through the Sable and Jacqueline bikini contest so you do not necessarily have to
- Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Undertaker challenge Kane and Mankind for the Tag Team Championships
- We continue asking the only question that matters: are they in cahoots?

If you’re going back to watch **Fully Loaded 1998**, my three match recommendations are simple: **The Rock vs Triple H**, **Austin & Undertaker vs Kane & Mankind**, and **Owen Hart vs Ken Shamrock in the Dungeon**.

Everything else? We’ll guide you through it.

The New To Wrestling Podcast follows two friends who enjoy wrestling but are in different stages of their fandom. Xavier Cruz serves as your guide through generations of professional wrestling while Kelsey Silva experiences these matches for the first time. Climb into the ring weekly to relive the famous matches beginning with the Attitude Era!

Lucha Underground episode four, “The Thrill of the Hunt,” opens with a live band and the Temple absolutely lit. Honestly, if we could travel back to one wrestling show, this might be the one.

Sexy Star and Ivelisse kick things off by slapping the entire taste out of each other’s mouths. Fénix and Pentagon Jr. then give us another impossibly fast match between two brothers who seemingly communicate through flips, violence and complete trust. Somewhere in the middle, King Cuerno hunts tonight—or, as we immediately decided, c*nts tonight—before making his debut against Drago.

Meanwhile, Dario Cueto has paid Big Ryck a generous bounty to put Johnny Mundo in the hospital. Prince Puma is warned to stay out of it, but Cortez and Cisco make that decision for him before helping Big Ryck leave Mundo underneath a broken table.

Highlights include:

• The Temple transforming into the hottest party in Los Angeles
• Sexy Star promising to destroy the Guerrero family name
• Ivelisse introducing Sexy Star to her MMA background
• Dario demanding that Drago impress him
• Pentagon Jr. demanding the respect he deserves
• Fénix and Penta moving faster than our notes can handle
• A Penta Driver that nearly stopped the show
• King Cuerno’s completely unhinged hunter video package
• The tallest taxidermy deer entrance gear imaginable
• Drago folding King Cuerno into an expedited Christmas package
• Konnan warning Prince Puma to mind his business
• Big Ryck wrestling in his comfies and still looking terrifying
• Johnny Mundo selling like Big Ryck actually ran him over
• Cortez and Cisco ensuring Mundo’s evening ends underneath a table

The bounty has been collected, Johnny Mundo may need a hospital and Dario Cueto remains one deeply satisfied supervillain.

The New To Wrestling Podcast follows two friends who enjoy wrestling but are in different stages of their fandom. Xavier Cruz serves as your guide through generations of professional wrestling while Kelsey Silva experiences these matches for the first time. Climb into the ring weekly to relive the famous matches beginning with the Attitude Era!

We’re still cheating on 1998 Raw with Lucha Underground—and frankly, we have never felt more alive.

Season one, episode three, “Crossing the Border,” introduces us to Fénix, Pentagon Jr. and Drago before throwing all three into an absolutely ridiculous main event. Somewhere between Penta’s showmanship, Drago’s unique offense and Fénix launching himself from the roof of Dario Cueto’s office, this became our favorite Lucha Underground match yet.

Elsewhere, Mascarita Sagrada runs circles around El Mariachi Loco, Chavo Guerrero continues his violent spiral and Vampiro conducts an interview with all the restraint of a Housewives reunion. Konnan warns Chavo to disappear, Katrina promises that he will eventually belong to Mil Muertes, and Johnny Mundo fights his way into Dario’s office to demand Big Ryck.

Highlights include:

• Dario Cueto giving the people “more lucha”
• The triumphant return of short-boy propaganda
• Mascarita Sagrada reminding us why everyone is the same height on the mat
• Chavo Guerrero explaining why he’s done living in his family’s shadow
• Vampiro abandoning journalistic objectivity—and being incredible at it
• Konnan delivering the line of the night in a dimly lit hallway
• Katrina appearing from the darkness and licking another man’s face
• The earthquake origin story of Mil Muertes
• Johnny Mundo turning a backstage fight into a full action sequence
• Dario paying Big Ryck to put Mundo in the hospital
• Pentagon Jr., Drago and Fénix making unforgettable Temple debuts
• Fénix taking a completely reasonable 30-foot dive from Dario’s office
• Another mysterious ending that immediately has us begging for the next episode

The wrestling is incredible, the drama is delicious and every person responsible for this show’s lighting, editing and sound design deserves to be filthy rich.

The New To Wrestling Podcast follows two friends who enjoy wrestling but are in different stages of their fandom. Xavier Cruz serves as your guide through generations of professional wrestling while Kelsey Silva experiences these matches for the first time. Climb into the ring weekly to relive the famous matches beginning with the Attitude Era!

We apologize for any audio or visual issues in this episode. The technical demons were working overtime, but we pushed through because the Temple waits for no one—and this episode was simply too good not to release.

After spending entirely too much time wading through the racism and sexism of 1998, we’re returning to our favorite elective: Lucha Underground. Episode two wastes no time reminding us why we love this show.

Johnny Mundo and Prince Puma put their differences aside to face Cortez Castro and Cisco, delivering ridiculous athleticism and an immaculate double 450. Ivelisse makes her debut in an intergender tag match that lets the women be wrestlers—not attractions or afterthoughts. Then Mil Muertes arrives with Catrina and enough supernatural energy to make us deeply concerned about whatever she’s carrying in that stone.

Highlights include:

• Big Ryck smoking the fattest cigar imaginable from the Temple stairs
• Prince Puma doing things that should not be physically possible
• Johnny Mundo and Puma casually inventing tag-team offense
• Ivelisse making an immediate impression
• Sexy Star getting her revenge on Son of Havoc
• Catrina delivering a “taste before a thousand deaths”
• Mil Muertes making his terrifying in-ring debut
• Vampiro continuing to be everything we want from a commentator
• Chavo Guerrero betraying Blue Demon Jr.
• Chavo handing out chair shots to referees, luchadors and even Sexy Star
• The Temple crowd telling Chavo exactly how they feel

We came for the lucha, stayed for the drama and left with one question: Chavo, girl…what was that?

The New To Wrestling Podcast follows two friends who enjoy wrestling but are in different stages of their fandom. Xavier Cruz serves as your guide through generations of professional wrestling while Kelsey Silva experiences these matches for the first time. Climb into the ring weekly to relive the famous matches beginning with the Attitude Era!

We’re six days away from Fully Loaded 1998, which means Raw should be firing on all cylinders. Instead, the July 20, 1998 go-home show earns a generous five out of ten and has us considering another emergency trip to the Temple.

Vince McMahon opens the night with a presentation on reflection, respect and retribution before ordering The Undertaker to face Kane and Mankind. The Undertaker responds by leaving the building, so naturally Stone Cold Steve Austin inherits the handicap match—and proves once again that he may be the most effective employee in the entire company.

Highlights include:

• D’Lo Brown and Triple H delivering the match of the night
• D’Lo becoming the new European Champion
• Dr. Death nearly committing a televised crime during Brawl for All
• Val Venis rescuing Kyoko from a deeply uncomfortable public punishment
• Owen Hart reminding everyone that he is not a nugget
• Jacqueline and Sable escalating their Fully Loaded bikini-contest feud
• Edge appearing from the crowd to attack Marc Mero—and the cameras missing the whole thing
• Shawn Michaels returning to commentary and repeatedly calling a referee a narc
• The Rock and X-Pac tearing it up over the Intercontinental Championship
• Stone Cold stunning everyone in sight, whether they were technically helping him or not
• The word “cahoots” continuing to hold this company in a chokehold

Was The Undertaker trying to help Austin? Was he trying to hit him with a chair? Is he secretly working with Kane? We still have no answers, but Stone Cold isn’t waiting around to find out.

The New To Wrestling Podcast follows two friends who enjoy wrestling but are in different stages of their fandom. Xavier Cruz serves as your guide through generations of professional wrestling while Kelsey Silva experiences these matches for the first time. Climb into the ring weekly to relive the famous matches beginning with the Attitude Era!

We’re back from summer vacation and returning to the Attitude Era with the July 13, 1998 edition of Raw Is War—and honestly, New Jersey welcomed us home with absolute chaos.

Shawn Michaels returns with a Lord Farquaad haircut and a seat at the commentary table, Kane and Mankind capture the Tag Team Championships, and The Rock’s star power becomes impossible to ignore. Meanwhile, Brawl for All continues to make us ask why there’s so little wrestling on our wrestling show.

But the question of the evening is simple: Are The Undertaker and Kane in cahoots? Stone Cold Steve Austin would also like an answer, especially before he has to team with The Undertaker at Fully Loaded.

Highlights include:

• Shawn Michaels returning to Raw—and immediately doing entirely too much on commentary
• Kane and Mankind becoming the new Tag Team Champions
• Stone Cold investigating some deeply suspicious brother behavior
• The Rock, Owen Hart, Triple H and X-Pac continuing the DX–Nation war
• X-Pac debuting the X-Factor
• Sable and Jacqueline serving looks, tension and an incoming bikini contest
• Val Venis debuting his latest “film” on the TitanTron, because apparently that was allowed
• Two rounds of Brawl for All reminding everyone why they came to see wrestling
• A chaotic main event featuring approximately the entire roster
• The word “cahoots” being used more times than any serious situation should permit

Cahoots: it’s the word of the week. Use it in a sentence.

The New To Wrestling Podcast follows two friends who enjoy wrestling but are in different stages of their fandom. Xavier Cruz serves as your guide through generations of professional wrestling while Kelsey Silva experiences these matches for the first time. Climb into the ring weekly to relive the famous matches beginning with the Attitude Era!