MLW Worth Watching: Aries! Dirty Blondes! Yehi!

MLW has a nicely resurgent indy run going, and we've reviewed a few matches recently that landed on our 2018 Ongoing MOTY List. I figured it couldn't hurt to skim through the existing episodes of Fusion while it's still at Episode 25, as it's a smarter plan than still thinking about skimming through episodes when they're at ep 125. It's early enough in the run that I can catch up to live, and write up a few notable matches along the way. Since they're all so short I likely won't be writing up many Barrington Hughes matches, but that's alright because you all know Barrington is worth watching without some goof like me telling you so.


Austin Aries vs. ACH  MLW Fusion #1 2/8 (Aired 4/20/18)

ER: A fine way to reintroduce people to the promotion, with a compelling sell job of the ribs by ACH, and Aries looking precise as ever. ACH comes in with kinesiology tape on the ribs and Aries starts not really focusing his attack on the ribs, but throwing in shots throughout as a means to open ACH for Aries' other offense. It's a cool strategy from Aries and it was nice seeing ACH committing to putting over these attacks. ACH's selling was fun as he never forgot about his ribs, even when it got him into stupid situations (stop going for frog splashes and 450s if your ribs are hurting!), but it gave a little dimension to his selling when he would take a move that didn't focus on his ribs. If you eat a dropkick to the chin, sure your chin will be feeling it, but your core is still screaming as well. Aries is good in control, everything he does always has nice snap, and his normal offense worked even better with ACH's hurt ribs, like Aries' great elbow drop just means more when it's to a guy's injury. Aries is also great at making offense look good. There was a spot where ACH got a boot up in the corner, and Aries flew into that boot like he was actually trying to do offense, not like he was just running into a boot because that's the spot. It looks more violent when you see Aries leaping in for an elbow and you see his trajectory get changed by a kick to the face. Aries is smart about suckering ACH into doing dumb things (those splashes!) and we get a good nearfall when ACH hits knees on a 450, with Aries then immediately rolling him over into the Last Chancery, with ACH getting the ropes. Aries' brainbuster looked like something that should certainly end a match, he really has a great one. There were some exposed wires in this, from little things like Aries putting himself back into a headscissors to complete a sequence or ACH waiting frozen for Aries to run into his kick, to bigger things like a violent death valley driver on the apron that's mostly brushed off 10 seconds later. That driver just felt really unnecessary, but if you're going to use it, treat it like a big deal. Still, this had a hot pace, and was a nice debut feature match.

The Dirty Blondes vs. Jason Cade/Jimmy Yuta  MLW Fusion #2 4/12 (Aired 4/27/18)

ER: I can't really recommend this as a good match because Jimmy Yuta really stinks (his timing is terrible and he runs through one of the more embarrassing hot tags in this match), but it's such a fantastic showcase for the Blondes and especially Leo Brien. Leo Brien is a cool fat Steve Corino and wrestles like the best southern heels. He throws great punches, cuts low and fast on clotheslines, throws great elbows, drops a tremendous kneedrop and elbowdrop, he's a guy who really gets it. Patrick isn't far behind and he won me over for eternity with a really nice fistdrop. Cade isn't bad, I liked him attacking Brien at the bell with a hard dropkick and laid in some elbows, eats offense well, a guy who I would look for more if he had a better partner. So, not really a good match, but the Blondes are legit.

Fred Yehi vs. Maxwell Jacob Friedman  MLW Fusion #4 4/12 (Aired 5/11/18)

ER: Yehi is really one of the top 10 workers in the world this year, and this is the first I'm seeing of MJF. MJF is really polished for a guy as young as he is, and he was a fun guy to get beat up by Yehi. Yehi tore it up, and looked like a guy who MJF wouldn't have any kind of answers for Yehi, as Yehi was running this show. He starts with a few hard shoulder blocks, switching up his rope running on one of them by rushing out of the corner followed hotly by MJF, then just cutting 90 degrees and blindsiding him off the ropes. Yehi hits a big back elbow, stomps hands, and hits a really cool German where he delays a little at first and then snaps him over. Schiavone seemed really impressed by that one. Yehi starts selling his left arm, and it comes about in a neat way: Yehi tries to Irish whip MJF, MJF holds onto the ropes tight, and right after Yehi shakes his arm out a bit. That would really be all it takes to tweak a limb, you miscalculate a step and end up taking it weird, suddenly your knee or foot feels funny, so I like that Yehi just built an injury like that from something believable. So that gave MJF a nice target, and believably slowed Yehi down enough, but it certainly didn't slow him down entirely. Yehi was still on the attack, throwing his heavy chops, using his dead arm for a backfist (why is that a theme with matches we review now??), blocking MJF's strikes in really cool ways, laying in that low dropkick (he hits that low dropkick better than almost anyone, and I dug how MJF came up rubbing out his jaw), and dropping a heavy dragon suplex (called as such by Schiavone, who genuinely feels reenergized and excited as an announcer). This was a fairly dominant Yehi performance up to this point, so the ending was both satisfying from a heel standpoint, and disappointing from a match standpoint, as MJF yanks the ref in front of himself as a human shield, then eye pokes Yehi, double stomps him, and rolls him up. The match at least did a decent job of featuring both guys, showing all of Yehi's damn cool offense, and establishing MJF as a decent heel. I wish it wasn't Yehi getting the loss, but hopefully he'll be featured more.