MLW Worth Watching: Teddy Hart! Mance Warner!

Teddy Hart vs. Maxwell Jacob Friedman MLW Fusion #45 2/2 (Aired 2/16/19)

ER: Man I love Teddy Hart! I've always enjoyed him to some extent, sometimes because he does stupid things, sometimes because he's a great punching bag, but 2018/2019 Hart is different. This feels like the best version of Hart. He's always been great against mean brawlers, but now he IS a mean brawler. I think Hart is my favorite current puncher in wrestling, and mid 2000s Hart wasn't a guy I was watching to see punches. Now I want to see him throw punches and uppercuts more than I want to see him do moonsaults, and this match was a great showcase for both of those things. Friedman's whole deal isn't something I look forward to, but he's not a hack, and occasionally surprises me with a laugh. Here he and Hart did a posedown and when the fans booed him MJF hissed out a great "Are you kidding me??" through clenched teeth. Hart takes a great sprawling bump to the floor, bouncing himself off the guardrail, and we basically start with a long grounded MJF headlock, like 3 minutes, but I dug it. MJF was interesting working a side headlock (in fact he was interesting working all his holds this match) and Hart had cool things he would do to try and break it; fishhooks, trying to work his own cravate, going after the eyes, a bunch of nice things to fill a 3 minute headlock. The real money comes once they're on their feet, as that's when Hart can wallop MJF in the corner with a punch, then throw his whole body into an uppercut. Who would have guessed Teddy Hart would have a better European uppercut than Cesaro? I wouldn't have, but here we are. MJF and Hart come up with a real smart, real fun way to move into Hart's flipping piledriver, and I don't think I've ever seen the move set up this well. Hart is up top, and MJF catches him and starts throwing at him, Hart throws a few nice punches back (sitting on top turnbuckle throwing punches at a guy who is standing on the middle rope isn't an easy spot to throw from, and these looked good), and Hart gives MJF an enormous wedgie. Just a quick yoink and MJF drops to his feet pulling trunks out of his ass. And while he's doing that Teddy jumps off with his piledriver. Great spot, great set up. MJF worked over Teddy's arm nicely, really liked MJF's Fujiwara armbar and he was not someone I expected to work a nice Fujiwara armbar. He also robbed Teddy's rope leverage piledriver which feels like a move that makes more sense for MJF to use than current Teddy Hart. There was some unnecessary ref stuff that kept this from list, but I dug this a lot.

Mance Warner vs. Jimmy Yuta MLW Fusion #46 2/2 (Aired 2/23/19)

ER: This is Mancer's MLW debut and it's a fun showcase. He does a lot more cosplay here than I'm used to seeing from him, but if you're gonna cosplay he at least picks some good idols. He is billed from Bucksnort, TN and also dresses like Bunkhouse Buck, does a nice Tenryu chop/jab combo in the corner, and does the Arn fake punch/DDT spot on the apron. If a guy is gonna steal, stealing from Arn, Tenryu, and Buck show his head's at least in the right place. Yuta doesn't do a ton for me, but he's a nice Mance punching bag. Those corner jabs looked pretty gnarly, and there were some amusing spots around eyepokes (Yuta isn't the kind of guy who is going to sell an eyepoke for more than 1 second, so they're kind of wasted). Yuta hits a dive, Mancer takes a big bump into the guardrail, we get a nice headbutt from Mancer to cut off, and the best thing about this is easily Mancer's running knee shiver. Yuta leans right into it and Mancer throws a great knee to the side of the head. The follow diving lariat for the finish doesn't look nearly as good. Reverse the order of those two or really lace into Yuta with the lariat.