MLW Worth Watching: Lawlor! Gotch! Ace! Brazil! The Biggest Boys!

No Holds Barred: Tom Lawlor vs. Simon Gotch  MLW Fusion #36 12/13 (Aired 12/21/18)

ER: We've been seeing a lot more of the NHB no ropes unsanctioned matches as a gimmick and it's a fun monkeywrench to throw into a feud. This didn't reach the potential heights of the gimmick, but was kept to a brisk 6 minutes. I think they could have made good use of more time, but I also like the stip worked within a 6 minute sprint. There were some issues, namely that Gotch started the match as an absolute killer and had a great first minute that he couldn't really sustain through to the end of the match, but he's a bigger guy than Lawlor and I liked seeing him bully Lawlor around. Gotch goes for an armbar right away and we get the now familiar moment in a no ropes match where a guy breaks a move by shifting his leverage and getting his feet to the floor; this gets a twist on that as Gotch breaks but shoves Lawlor into the guardrail, and the guardrail flies backward and makes a ton of fans jump, great visual. Also loved Gotch rolling him onto the mat from the floor but holding onto an arm, wrapping it around a ringpost, and booting Lawlor in the face. The in ring strike exchanges had a couple misses, but the strikes were thrown in more of a worked shoot style with weird angles and disrupted rhythm, so a few poor strikes thrown in get blended a bit better than if you're doing a turn trading strike exchange. Lawlor is good at these types of exchanges (makes sense) so while a couple of Gotch's shots looked weak by comparison, that's something I'm okay with because Lawlor *should* tool him at that type of thing. Finish was a little off as Gotch looked like he tried something beyond his level, like he was going for a Negro Navarro-like rolling kneebar and did it slow and looked like he was purposely leaving his arm out there, didn't come off very natural, but I dug Lawlor sinking in the rear naked off that. I was expecting a little more from this one and think they could have done more, but also like that Lawlor ended him quick in a fight that was more his own element.

Simon Gotch vs. Ace Romero  MLW Fusion #37 12/14 (Aired 12/28/18)

ER: I wish this would have got more time, it only goes a little over 2 minutes, but it was a really fun 2+ minutes. Romero answers Gotch's open challenge and smacks him around, Gotch spills to the floor and Ace teases a dive, but ends up yanking Gotch up to the apron and into the ring by his mustache before slamming him in a fun worked spot. Gotch's strikes to comeback all looked good, peppering Ace with cupped slaps and body shots, but Ace just yoinks him up and slams him, then hits the best possible version of Abby's running elbow drop, absolutely crushing Gotch. What we got was good, but we should have got more. Romero is a big fat guy but he's not like Barrington Hughes, we've seen him work longer matches. Still, big strikes and a fat guy finisher is gonna make me recommend something.

Kotto Brazil vs. Vandal Ortagun  MLW Fusion #41 12/13 (Aired 1/25/19)

ER: I liked this showcase for the returning - still with eye patch - Brazil. I'm unsure if it was a true eye patch or a fake, as he hits some pretty impressive flying here that would seem tough/crazy to do with one eye blocked. But Brazil's lack of optics helps with the match optics, really making him seem like a loon who wants to return early. He crashes into Ortagun with three big dives, and Ortagun spills nicely into the barricade for them. Schiavone has been a really great part of the MLW return, as he seems so into the product and I don't think I realized how much I enjoyed Schiavone as a commentator until his MLW comeback. He was around so much during formative wrestling memories, but I think many of us got used to him beaten down and over-produced and just not into it. It's hard to call action you can't follow or aren't into, and he sounds clearly into guys like Brazil. As Brazil racks up dive after dive Schiavone's excitement really adds to the moment. Brazil is a guy with some cool stuff, and I especially loved him grabbing a sub after a pinfall, a sub that looks as finisher worthy as anything, as he locked Ortagun's arms behind his back using his legs, then locked on an awesome facelock while the legs were trapped. Sure, do a couple stunner variations, fine, but a cool sub like that needs to be highlighted. I also love that they established that Promociones Dorado straight up MAIMS people, going after eyes and kidneys and ears and braids; it makes payoff matches way more fun, and I'm more interested in seeing Brazil take on Martinez because of it.

Ace Romero/Barrington Hughes vs. Dirty Blondes  MLW Fusion #41 12/14 (Aired 1/25/19)

ER: This was merely a cruel tease, but I am contractually obligated to write about something with this many bigguns. Dirty Blondes were on the first MLW return ep, and were prominently featured, so I was misled into thinking that they would be continually treated like a big deal. Well, all these weeks later and they're one of the only teams left from those original tapings, but they've sadly never been treated seriously since. They're still here, but they're lower than Disorderly Conduct, which is weird on a roster with so much turnover. This threatens to start as Barrington vs. Ace, but you know that's just as tease and sure enough the Blondes come out, and we get a good minute of blubber flying. No reason they couldn't have given this 6 minutes and just hid Hughes on the apron for most of it, but even in one minute we get a lot of fun jiggly clubbering and two mammoth falling powerslams. Still, the Blondes deserve more, and should really go out of their way to be promoting their fat guys in actual matches. Fat guys are the one thing missing from the American wrestling scene right now, and they have the two fattest. We need more fat guy screen time. Watching the Rumble the other night it just bummed me out that we have no big fat guys in WWE right now. That's fucking criminal.

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MLW Worth Watching: Reed! Cade! Guevara! LA Park's Kid! Samoans! CARAMEL COLOSSUS!!

Jason Cade vs. Myron Reed  MLW Fusion #24 9/6 (Aired 9/28/18)

ER: Wasn't expecting to be writing this one up, although Cade has a much better shot at making one of these than his former partner Yuta. This match has flaws, and plenty of big moves get ignored, but this is getting written up due to the splendid style of the master of the cutter, Myron Reed. Reed is super young and already quite advanced. His nickname is Hot Fire, which is damn appropriate. This is the second time we've seen him in MLW, and he's surprised both times, and I love what they're doing with him. First match he had was against Kotto Brazil, and in what I thought was going to be a Brazil showcase, Reed ended up getting a great chance to shine. And now again I think we're going to get a Cade showcase coming off his split with Yuta, and we end up getting another instance of Reed outshining his opponent. I'll give credit to Brazil and Cade for being so generous in their coming out matches, but Reed is just too much fun. I really don't care about the negatives in this match, all I want to do is see Reed hit cutter variations for days. Reed hits 4 or 5 awesome versions here and none of them have implausible set ups. He makes cool use of his opponents location in the ring and hits a bunch of wild springboard variations that finish with great snap. Some get blocked, others land, all look great. This was on the same show as the WarGames, and at one point Reed does a bonkers high jump leap over the double ropes joining the rings and smashes Cade with a cutter (the slo mo replay is sick), and later he tops that by flying to the floor with a cutter that crashes all of them through Cade's boy Rhett Giddins. Cade is good. He's a guy working a modern indy "execution over substance" style, but he's better at it than many. But Reed is seeming like the guy with major potential, and I'm glad MLW isn't just using him as cannon fodder.

El Hijo de LA Park vs. Sammy Guevara  MLW #27 10/4 (Aired by 10/19/18)

ER: Totally coconuts spotfest that makes up for some of its precision problems with a lot of imagination, and a lot of fearlessness. Park hits a wild dive that sends him into the crowd, rolls Guevara back in the ring and like a second later Guevara blindsides him into the guardrail with an unhinged top con hilo. The two crashed hard into the rail and send it and them flying up onto fans, and Park also hits a fun sloppy '96 ECW style moonsault off the middle buckle to the floor. You know that kind of ECW moonsault where guys who probably shouldn't be doing moonsaults to the floor started doing them anyway because the ECW atmosphere kind of encouraged it? And also the bad lighting. Park's felt like that. Park crashed both of them into the guardrail on a dive late in the match too, we always got great dive visuals of one of them momentarily suspending upside down into his opponent. Guevara has several fun ways to fling his body at his opponent, and he's good at making Park's ranas look good, decent at working spots off the apron. The finish was sick as Park just spikes him with a great over the shoulder piledriver. It looked like a piledriver that damn sure should end a match.

Samoan Island Tribe (Samu/Lance Anoa'i) vs. Smash N Dash Connection (Barrington Hughes/Kotto Brazil)

ER: Well damn did this one exceed expectations. Hughes I adore but he clearly hasn't been put in actual matches for a reason, though he did work a lot of WarGames and was directly involved in the finish so they're clearly giving him more trust. And Samu is 55 years old and hasn't been a full time wrestler in 25 years. But this match was awesome and really shows what a badass Samu is, having this involved a performance mere weeks before a cancer diagnosis. Samu is super fun here, not only from the apron, but throwing great punches, bumping big on a clothesline and missile dropkick, still working barefoot (!) and really blasting Brazil with a lariat. It suddenly made me want to go back and do a Complete & Accurate Headshrinkers. I don't think I'd seen Lance before, but he was a good new Samoan, had a couple nice superkicks (in one of my favorite moments of the match he superkicks Hughes, who winds up slumped and tangled in the ropes; it looked like King Kong stuck in a giant spider web), throws some headbutts with his daddy, and commits to a big missed splash at an important turning point in the match. We also got a great moment where Brazil leaps for a hot tag but gets caught midair by Lance into a hard Samoan drop. Awesome cut off spot. Brazil takes a big beating but fires back impressively, especially loved an impactful missile dropkick he had. The Hughes hot tag is fun with Hughes barreling in with nice right hands, and elbow, fat avalanche, and a fun double team finisher ending with him flattening Lance with a splash. This was a super fun old school feeling tag match, all guys impressed. Here's hoping Samu recovers strong and gets a cool final Samoan family WWE run.

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