MLW Worth Watching: MJF! Pillman! Anoa'i! Reed!

One year ago, I was fully caught up on MLW TV, and then attended an MLW TV Taping that sucked such a life force out of me that I have not watched any MLW TV episodes since. I have nothing against them, I just got my one night fill and it kept me satiated for an entire year. But I'm going to pick up right where I left off and continue cherry picking and linking to my favorite stuff.


MJF vs. Brian Pillman Jr. MLW Fusion #53 4/4/19 (Aired 4/13/19)

ER: This was taped at the show Phil, TomK, and myself attended, but this was the match happening when we arrived so we missed almost all of it. Jim Cornette on commentary talks about how much he hates this city (NY) because it takes an hour and a half just to get across the street. Ain't that the truth, and us making the mistake of journeying into Brooklyn that night instead of just staying put in Jersey was a real hindsight regret. But I'm glad I watched this match eventually, because it's one of my favorites from both, and maybe my very favorite MJF performance. Early on Pillman misses a corner charge and rams his kinesio taped shoulder into the turnbuckles, leading to some fantastic bits of MJF attacking that arm. I'm not sure I've seen MJF go after anything as hard as he went after Pillman's arm here. He really bent it around, and Pillman's selling was good enough that even if MJF had only been doing cursory attacks it still would have come off well. But MJF took his time extending the arm, stomping it, standing on Pillman's wrist to open his hand and then stomp on his hand, and it kept getting meaner. He escalated to dropping knees on the arm, and my favorite thing in the match, MJF doing a freaking SENTON on the arm! Honestly MJF's senton was so good that he really should be using that in his actual offense, not limb specific offense that I haven't otherwise seen him use. But having unique offense depending on what kind of match you're working or what specific limb you're working is a trait that I LOVE when I see it, so MJF gets full credit from me. I used to not that about Mark Henry, how by 2006 (at least) he had different offense depending on the match he was working. Pillman's comebacks were good, and I like how he still sold his left arm while chopping with his right, smart enough to know that the momentum of throwing with your good side will still send shock waves through your bad side. The close roll-ups were done real well, and with a slightly better finish (one that didn't seem like a banana peel) this would have landed on our MOTY List.


Lance Anoa'i/Jimmy Yuta vs. Myron Reed/Rich Swann MLW Fusion #54 4/4/19 (Aired 4/13/19)

ER: I liked this one live last year, especially getting standing in the perfect spot to see the best angle on Myron Reed's great flying cutting from the rampway, but this held up better on second viewing than I would have remembered. Lance Anoa'i had a total superstar wrecking ball performance here that I don't remember being so explosive. I don't like Jimmy Yuta, so it was funny and kind of sad to hear Cornette kind of brutally trash his physique and conditioning on commentary. The opening Yuta/Reed pairing was a little dull, but the second it was Swann/Anoa'i the match got super fun. Anoa'i has a bunch of nice agile heavy landing spots, like his big moonsault or heavy dropkicks, but he took it over the top by doing a Samoan drop while doing a running dropkick. Cornette rightly flipped out for that. At the time the three of us wished we could have seen him as a heel tag team with Jacob Fatu. But here I really appreciated him as a heavyweight fiery babyface. He's already a really great hot tag, and his missed 450 splash was insane for a guy his size. I don't know why we weren't all more into it then. Swann was hitting hard with chops and Reed was taking high bumps with an especially nice backdrop. The Swann 450 kneedrop/Reed 450 1-2 is a great finisher for two guys who make them look good, and that Reed cutter from the ramp looked just as good today.