Some Lucha Underground talents are frustrated by the postponement of their taping schedule for Season 4.
The Los Angeles based show, which airs on the El Rey Network, will not be taping more TV until next fall. They were originally going to begin taping during weekends starting in February, but those dates have been pushed back to autumn 2017.
According to The Wrestling Observer Newsletter, some Lucha Underground talents are reportedly frustrated by this. They had kept these late winter and spring weekend dates free, or if they had gigs scheduled, many had to cancel them. Now these talents have to procure new bookings for February through April.
Lucha Underground has always been strictly seasonal work. And with talents locked into contracts that last seven seasons, wrestlers are not allowed to explore working in places like WWE, New Japan and ROH. Some of the top talents are exploring legal options to free themselves from the deals and try to get work elsewhere.
Most of the talent is still happy to have a seasonal home in "The Temple" because when it's in season, it’s a regular paycheck. Of course, there are cases like the one with Rey Mysterio, who is on a guaranteed annual big money deal, but most wrestlers are is paid per episode they appear on at the time the show is taped.
But beyond all that, beyond the schedule changes and the booking headache, beyond the seasonal work, is that many believed that by this far into season 3, the show would be bigger than it is. Many weeks they barely break 125,000 viewers. The hope was that they’d be more of a force, particularly in the Hispanic community, but they still don’t have a Spanish language outlet.
A house show tour of the American Southwest earlier this year was a modest success, but many talents hoped they'd be touring more frequently and that they'd be making money off merchandise sales. Only a handful of performers have personal shirts that are being sold through the Lucha Underground online shop.
One final note:
Forty episodes of Season 3 were filmed. The season premiere aired on September 7, which meant that the 40th episode would air on June 7.
However, after the most recent episode aired, this Tweet went out from LU's official Twitter page:
If this means the show is taking a hiatus after its 19th episode airs on January 11, then depending on how long that hiatus is, Season 3 might not finish airing until the fall or winter of 2017, which could be why they moved the tapings back several months.
We shall see.
