MLW Worth Watching: Acey Baby! Gotch! Gringo! Myron! Park! Mancer!

Ace Romero vs. Simon Gotch MLW Fusion #48 3/2 (Aired 3/9/19)

ER: Dug this battle a lot and thought it was going to land safely on our list until the Contra run in (and after we witnessed Contra run in to attack every fat guy on the NYC show we were at, how was I not expecting this!?), but what we got was awesome. Gotch was throwing hard shots and looked like he was genuinely overwhelming Ace to start, really smacking him around. Ace really only had two pieces of offense, but they were HUGE pieces of offense, hitting a giant fat guy Pounce and then following up with a completely bonkers dive, maybe the fattest dude I've ever seen hit a suicide dive. What could possibly be going through both men's heads during this moment. What chance does Gotch - or anyone - have at successfully catching a 400 pound man, safely? What chance does a 400 pound man have of landing safely? Romero is nuts and I appreciate his Headhunter-like abuse on his body (while acknowledging that he is likely bigger than either Headhunter was at their biggest). Gotch is able to go back to leg kicks, chest kicks, and in one great spot throws an awesome thrust headbutt at Romero's stomach and sells it like he just clonked heads with an Islander. There are great details that Gotch throws into matches sometimes that show he really gets it. This was shaping up to be pretty special before Contra's attacks on the obese. And now I'm sad that Contra don't wear black hoodies with black bandanas tied around their faces. They could still carry their flags, but they should have been called Antifat.

Gringo Loco vs. Myron Reed MLW Fusion #50 3/2 (Aired 3/23/19)

ER: While I thought this was a bit too planned out at times (helping opponents kick out of pins because it rolls into the next bit of offense too well!), I still like what these two bring, and appreciate how Reed brings some personality and attitude to his flips and flops. A chubby guy springing all over the ring is always going to entertain me. It's also weirdly entertaining hearing Cornette do commentary on this one as it really feels like nothing he would have ever talked kindly about before. There could have been more selling in this one, it was definitely all about the spots, but I appreciate Reed selling a piledriver like Tenryu, even though he didn't stay down long for it. When you are at least visually acknowledging that a move hurt your neck, that will put you ahead of those types that are just concerned about their next move. We get some great stuff here, and they do a couple neat things that plays into their spotfest, like Reed doing a couple extra superfluous somersaults and getting caught in a huge sitout powerbomb. Loco hits a killer tope con hilo, there's an awesome battle over a top rope Loco powerbomb/Reed frankensteiner where you honestly don't know which way it will go (Reed won, and Loco took that frankensteiner with a super late rotation that looked deadly), Reed hits a big springboard 450, Loco hits a kooky twisting press to win, just a super fun 7 minute spotfest. Glad they matched these two up, and I think the face/heel alignment works even better now (Loco face/Reed heel) than if they had matched them up a month or two prior.

LA Park vs. Mance Warner MLW Fusion #50 3/2 (Aired 3/23/19)

ER: This was a really great brawl for the first 2/3 that sadly went on too long and experienced some major slowdown in the final third. I actually liked the layout of this as I had a blast watching Warner dominate Park to start. Park is usually the guy to rush his opponent with an attack, so Mancer going after him with eyepokes, great worked chair attacks (he knows how to stab at someone's body with an edge of a chair without murdering them), smacking him through the crowd, beating him with a kendo stick, hits a killer tornado DDT off a chair, totally looks like a guy who can hang with Park. The Bunkhouse Buck cosplay is obvious cosplay, but he's more than just suspenders and crazy eyes, and I'd rather have guys cosplaying Buck than Shawn Michaels, obviously. It's fun to start with Park eating a beating because you know it will turn into Park paying back that beating. And sure enough, before long Park is sentoning Mancer through a table, powerslamming him through a different table, absolutely crushing him with a full force senton off the top (Mancer seems like enough of a worker that he'd swallow a condom filled with pig's blood, would have been a great time for a whale spray of blood), and we build to a fun tradeoff of belt shots and suspender shots, both guys whipping each other in the face and head, Park bashing him in the head with a table, Mance throwing that table hard from the ring at Salina (and her surprised reaction was fantastic, Salina even did the Park dance during their entrance!). It was all great at this point. This could have been a tremendous 10 minutes brawl.

Sadly, Park appeared to gas out pretty hard down the stretch and the final few minutes got a little painful to watch. Maybe I was reading too much into it but the pace just came to a stop and Mancer was put into the difficult spot of  working around a much bigger guy (MLW is billing Park at 233 lb., which is only slightly less believable than trump's 243) who could not move. They still somehow try a couple of spots off the top, which could have gone awful, and the production inserts a replay over one of the top rope spots, I assume on purpose as the set up and landing were probably pretty ugly. Park looked tired enough that I'm surprised they didn't cut straight to a finish, and it looked like Warner had to improvise a couple workarounds to planned spots to compensate. It looked like Park at one point was going up top for another planned spot but thankfully reconsidered. There were still cool moments down the stretch, and I loved Park's mammoth spear finish, but this was a pretty thankless final 5 minutes for Warner. It looked like he did the best with what he was given, but basically had to get crushed by a giant dude for a few minutes. Very surprised some kind of audible wasn't called.