2023 Ongoing MOTY List: MLW War Chamber!

 

AKIRA/Rickey Shane Page/Dr. Cornwallis/Delirious vs. Matthew Justice/Manders/Mance Warner/Alexander Hammerstone MLW 4/6/23 (Aired 4/18/23)

ER: MLW's Reelz run was short and fairly inconsequential in the pantheon of 20 episode wrestling television runs of our lifetime, but I will always love when pro wrestling is on television, especially when it's on a channel that runs no other pro wrestling programming of any kind. Somebody somewhere fell asleep during their daily COPS marathon and maybe they woke up during a cool Lio Rush match, saw Alex Kane suplex somebody on their head, or saw a match like this featuring several tough guys getting the edges of chairs thrown at their heads and faces while bleeding out, then falling asleep again and waking up during a daily marathon of JAIL. The War Chamber is basically just an open cage War Games with one ring, and it's an overall satisfying 30 minutes of fighting because it never forgets that the fighting and punching and bleeding is the most important part of a match like this. The worst of the indulgent NXT WarGames are a nightmare of time spent lying around or reacting to Big Moments. War Chamber has flaws and had some drag, but it knows exactly what it is and delivers more of a classic War Games feel than WWE has been giving us. 

If you thought wrote out a list of the 10 modern guys you think would be great in a classic WarGames, three of them are in this match: AKIRA, Matt Justice, and Rickey Shane Page. AKIRA spends the entire match kicking people hard in the face and chest, and then getting hit with chairs. Justice is a great guy to enter a WarGames early, and he's the one who brings in and starts throwing chairs, takes a great cage beating, and uses his body as a weapon (like letting Manders powerslam into RSP and AKIRA). Page is the guy they had start this thing, the first guy bleeding, the guy taking the disgusting suplex through chairs on a table, and the guy who had to have taken the most head trauma, while also being the guy stabbing people in the mouth and head with a fork. 

Beyond blood and punching, you know it's a good WarGames when a the most muscled up guy in the match gets a legit leg injury, and there's a big fat freak in a mask and bloody apron. I have no clue who Dr. Cornwallis is, but he looks more like Leatherface than Corporal Kirchner did, is fatter, and would have been incredible in W*ing. Kirchner could have kept Leatherface and just teamed with this guy's Buddy Bacon from Slaughterhouse. He moves well for a fat guy, and he fits well in the middle of all the chair throwing. Goons in cloaks and gas masks introducing a table into the ring feels like something you'd see in NWA Anarchy, a fed who knew how to do the best WarGames, and the big bumps and splashes that happened back to back to back at the finish was a great sudden escalation. Blood, fat guys, more thrown chairs than a Necro Butcher comp tape. Also, the team with the obese butcher is another Raven vague and undefined religious cult thing, so Raven stands at the top of the ramp the entire time looking like an old bloated Malcolm McDowell and their intro video heavily features that one photo of the Heaven's Gate cult leader, and I love that Raven's cult references are just so firmly rooted in 1997. 

This was MLW's crowning achievement on Reelz, the best thing they put on television over 20 episodes, and it looked like a promotion that belonged on television. 

 

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2022 Ongoing MOTY List: Real1 vs. Lince

 

30. Real1 vs. Lince Dorado MLW 5/13 (Aired 7/7/22)

ER: Look, it's been a long time since I've been accused of pretending to like - or dislike - a wrestler just to be a contrarian. Maybe it's the decline in message board usage, maybe it's that everyone now recognizes my honesty and ability to back up my opinions, or maybe it's because we all collectively give less of a shit about pro wrestling arguments than we used to. Why was Mark Henry such a lightning rod? What didn't people see in Comandante Pierroth? Who's to say. I have no interest in pretending to enjoy wrestlers who are actually bad at wrestling. My wrestling writing time is limited these days, so why would I spend time writing about bad wrestlers? I want to write about guys who surprise me, about guys who put in the work and got really good, who nobody else talks about because they - the wrestler - aren't cool in any way whatsoever. With that in mind, it brings me no joy whatsoever* to say that Enzo, the Real1, has gotten really good. 

Enzo and Lince Dorado had at least 30 WWE singles matches in 2017, including a 15 minute (!) lumberjack match on Raw. I'm not going to go back and watch those Enzo/Kalisto matches. Maybe I'll go back and watch the tag with Drew Gulak in it. But those 2017 matches would not be like this match, because these two were very different wrestlers then. I didn't care about Enzo in NXT, didn't care about his 205 Live run, didn't care when he got released, didn't watch anything he did on the indies. But, I am a big Reelz viewer. A Reelz Head. A Reelz1. You tell me where else I can watch Cops, On Patrol: Live, Cops Reloaded, On Patrol: First Shift, and maybe I'll leave my TV on another channel 24/7. One night a few weeks ago, turning on my TV expecting to see my little 4 hour block of Celebrity Autopsy, imagine my surprise when I saw Enzo Amore wrestling in MLW from like a year ago. And then, imagine my surprise when I realized that Enzo had gotten really good. 

Real1 looks like a freak. He's dressed like Ketamine Danny Davis with no tan and fried hair. He was always a big bumper in WWE, but he's evolved his big bumping into being actually good at taking offense. Big bumps are cool, but unique bumps catered to his opponent's offense and done like nobody else are much cooler. I never thought I would say that "I like how Enzo moves" but this is a real gotta hand it to ISIL moment. This match had cool matwork, a big dive, a couple of nasty bumps onto the concrete, and a scuzz bag from Hackensack who knew how to work with Dorado's inconsistent offense. The matwork opening was cool, and look at Real1 grind down a side headlock, or reverse one into a rolling ankle pick. He does some Finlay level violent shit, like yanking Dorado by the arm head and nick first into the top rope on a rope break, but knows that it plays different when he does it. When Finlay would do something like that, he'd come off as a guy leaving some guy's teeth in a pub. Real1 makes it look like something a dealer had to learn to keep his apartment from getting robbed. He fully stands his ground to catch a nice Lince tope suicida, really forcing the contact, generously leaning into everything. 

Dorado got shoved off the top FAR past the ringside mats, real dangerous looking leap to nowhere, but it probably wasn't as viscous as Real1 throwing him into a ringpost with a running splash mountain. He got a real head of steam and threw him accurate, and Dorado hit the concrete really hard. Disgusting. Real1's timing is really good. He knows how to move out of the way at the last step, or get his boot up into a charging Dorado at the last possible second. It makes sequences look more honest, not telegraphed. I loved his sell of Dorado's lethal injection, a move that I hate. He didn't bump to his knees. His soles stayed planted while he bent down into a squat, and snapped up into fast fall to his side, like a beaten rug. You remember Rashad Evans KO'd Sean Salmon, and Salmon's body slumped forward before whipping back like it was under his own control? Real1 did something like that selling the whip of this, the stupidest way anyone has ever hit a cutter. 

Maybe I am going to go back and watch the Enzo/Kalisto matches. 

2022 MOTY MASTER LIST

*it did

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Now I Ask Big Meech What He Know About Low-Ki

Low Ki vs. Ahtu  EVOLVE 1/14/12 - FUN

ER: A fairly infamous match, that doesn't actually feel as sadistic as it's been made out to be. This is Low Ki's Evolve debut, and he literally knocks Ahtu out with a rolling kappo kick to start the match. A lot of people on the internet hate Low Ki because a lot of people in wrestling weirdly side with management at any opportunity, but within the realm of pro wrestling shoot incidents this feels like one of the least malicious incidents. If you didn't know better before watching this, you might just think it's excellent selling from Ahtu to jumpstart a cool angle. The kappo kick looks no more savage than any other Ki kick I've seen. He has a great looking kappo kick, and this one hits Ahtu right in the temple and sends him timbering down to the mat. Call me naïve, but the KO blow didn't look intentional to me. There are way more blatant and efficient ways of knocking out an unsuspecting opponent, and this wasn't exactly Kurisu punting Jado in the head. Ahtu has that thousand yard stare, and Ki drags him to his feet (now that is probably the most inadvisable thing Ki did here), nails a handspring kick in the corner, then hits the Warriors Way on a potentially dead body to finish it (totally protecting Ahtu on it, although Ahtu also sells it like a man with a concussion who doesn't know he's just been double stomped). To add to the complete bizarro greatness of this spectacle, Ki gets on the mic and cuts a REAL wrestling is BACK promo and literally ends his promo quoting TAZ! I mean literally shouting out a man from Red Hook and saying "Beat me if you can! Survive, if I let you!" That's weird! And the crowd shouted along to every word! I wanted him to pick up Ahtu's corpse, give him a Stone Cold Stunner, and shout "And that's the bottom line, because LOW KI SAID SO!"

PAS: Eric wrote this defense of Low-Ki before he came out as a COVID denier, so there are actual reasons for the internet to hate Low-Ki now. Still it doesn't make sense to have wrestling be a place to go for morality and common sense, so fuck it, we are still Low-Ki guys. Ki obliterating a roids dude entertains me, and I agree that this looked unlucky rather then reckless, but either way it was bad ass. I wouldn't take health advice from Low-Ki or want to be in the ring with him, but I still love watching him.

Low-Ki vs. Ricky Martinez MLW Fusion #62 6/1 (Aired 6/15/19) - FUN

ER: Low Ki debuted in MLW a year before this, against Ricky Martinez. That match was a complete one-sided Ki squash, not a solitary moment of Martinez offense. But that was before he was The Sicario, and he fares a little better here. The match is a little underwhelming, as normally you can give Ki 4 minutes and expect something a little more cohesive than this. At a certain point they seemed to be killing time waiting for a run-in, but the interference never came so maybe they just got off page for another reason. Their interactions are good and I know they have a better match in them, and at minimum they're good at taking each others' offense. There are even a couple of callbacks to their first match (not brought up in any way on commentary), like Ki rushing Martinez at the bell. A year ago Ki did the same and landed a knee that was the beginning of the end for Martinez. This time Martinez just bails out of the ring the second Ki takes off running. Ki eventually gets into it with Salina de la Renta at ringside, leaving himself open to a great baseball slide dropkick from Ricky. In ring Martinez runs hard into Ki's boots in the corner, and Ki works a cool body scissors. The finish is odd, as Ki hits essentially an axe bomber lariat, and they stop the match with a TKO. Low Ki is a guy who can work a convincing KO finish if the match calls for it, and this lariat (elbow?) looked like the least KO move in the match, so it came off confusing to the crowd. MLW built Ki as a guy who can finish matches in unpredictable and violent ways - which is an awesome way to push someone like Low Ki - but this finish was not that. 

Low-Ki/Tom Lawlor/Marshall Von Erich/Ross Von Erich vs. Jacob Fatu/Josef Samael/Simon Gotch/Ikuro Kwon MLW 9/7/19 - GREAT

PAS: This was a match with some real peaks and valleys. It's main flaw is it's length,  it is hard to sustain the pre Match Beyond parts of the War Games, and this had some real dead zones. Gotch and Marshall had 2 minutes of cool stuff in the opening section, but they had to go five, and by the end of their one on one they were doing chinlocks. Samael was the best time killer in this, he bleeds a bunch, trash talks Kevin Von Erich on the floor, sets up a section with Low-Ki where they tried to gauge each other on the barbed wire, bites Lawlor in the ear, breaks the claw by jabbing Marshall with a spike. I thought Fatu looked good too, although his entrance into the match was the kind of super hot run of offense you want from a face, not really from a heel. Ki was a minor part of this match, but I did like his karate stand off with Ikuro Kwan to start. The other big problem of the layout of the match was the length of the Match Beyond, the last guy in the ring needs to be the start of the end of the match, but they had about five to seven minutes of wandering and brawling before the hot finish. The finish was what put this into great territory for me, you had the cool spot of Kevin Von Erich in Dallas putting the claw on a random masked Contra agent, a big near fall with Fatu hitting a huge Samoan drop, and the Claw doomsday device by the Von Erich's for the win. The match was really losing me, but that ending brought it back big. 

Low-Ki vs. King Mo MLW 2/17/21 - FUN

PAS: This was a no ropes match on Filthy Island which was MLW riffing on UFC. I don't really get what this whole Low-Ki vs. King Mo feud was trying to accomplish. Mo squashes him in the first match, and then Ki wins by tap in a minute and a half, when he locks in a choke by crawling on Mo's back. The curse of MLW since it first started was cool looking on paper things which don't deliver, and this feud didn't. I did like the vibe of the show OK, and the post match Team Filty vs. Ki and the Von Erich's brawl was fun stuff which does keep this out of skippable. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE LOW-KI

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Low-Ki Shock a Crowd Like a Bottle of Insulin

Low-Ki vs. King Mo MLW 2/1/20 - FUN

PAS: I appreciated what they tried to do here, although it was mostly ruined by an awful finish. I have been a King Mo fan since the Real Pro Wrestling days, but he isn't very good at non real Pro-Wrestling. This was basically worked like the first Ogawa vs. Hashimoto match. Lawal just destroys Ki for most of the match, he opens with a double leg and chucks him over the top rope, jacking Ki's thigh up. He taunts and mocks Ki while kicking his ass, and I really liked him checking his pulse. Lawal hasn't really figured out how to make pulled shots look good, and probably should have just stiffed Ki. We get a pretty good Ki comeback as he nails an overconfident Mo with a nasty Kappo Kick and locks on a hanging choke. There is a pretty terrible run in finish with Dom and Stevens coming out and shoving the Von Erich's, and the ref just leaving the ring to yell at them while Dan Lambert hits Ki with an umbrella to give Mo the win. Totally takes you out of the cool atmosphere with the hackiest and poorly executed rasslin finish. If you are going to do Hash vs. Ogawa, fucking do it and have Ki destroyed, or have Ki make the big comeback, doing this finish just shits all over the match.

ER: Yeah this felt like it was building to something potentially special but really fell apart down the home stretch. King Mo has presence and confidence and that would be enough to sustain him as a worker, even if his pulled shots don't look great. He hit one leg kick that made some sound, but all of his arm strikes looked really bad, and they couldn't really even be covered up in a "he's just mocking Ki" way because it looked like he was supposed to be wailing on him. It's funny, the past two Ki matches I've watched (this, and his match vs. Masada from a few months ago) have seen Low Ki get annihilated for much of the match. It's such an odd thing to see, as he's always been someone who's been very aggressive on offense regardless of opponent, and now I'm wondering if he's shifting into a different stylistic phase of his career. I really liked where this match was headed, as King Mo hoisted Ki up with a double leg and ran him across the ring, dumping him unceremoniously to the floor. Ki is someone great at selling a hamstring injury, and I loved Mo mocking him for being in over his head. Mo dumped him easily through the ropes with another double leg, and with Ki still selling that injury I was getting into either a Mo destruction or a big limping Ki comeback. Ki was all off balance without his leg, throwing desperate hands that were interesting because they were so out of character for him, and I wasn't sure what he was going to be able to land. But his kappo kick was thrown so perfectly, sending Mo flying and reminding me of all of Ki's available tricks. Still this finish was a real clunker, the kind of bad wrestling finish that is only made possible by making the ref look like an idiot. We get Lawlor running in to knock Low Ki out with an umbrella, and it's really silly to have Low Ki get knocked out by an umbrella than by a man who has knocked out many large humans, all the while the ref is still futzing around in the aisle dealing with Mo's crew. I had pretty high hopes for this one, and liked the early exchanges, but things got iffy once Mo started throwing strikes and others got involved. Shame.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE LOW KI

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2018 Ongoing MOTY List: PARK vs. PCO

75. LA Park vs. PCO MLW 10/4 (Aired 10/26/18) - GREAT

ER: I saw reports saying these two "under delivered" and I guess...I would have no idea what actual match people would have been expecting to see out of two 50 year olds, to then view the match as underwhelming. This had everything I expected and more, a compact hard hitting match relying on the charisma and craziness of both men. Both guys slam with hard shoulderblocks, Park eats some big shots including a stiff kick to the stomach, PCO hits his old guy moonsault and a big dive that crashes Park into the guardrail and sends the guardrail crashing into fans. That right there would have left me satisfied with the match. But we get the expected Park belt whipping, a big Park dive to give PCO his own chance to crash into the guardrail, and a great spot where Park catches a PCO kick and smashes him with a headbutt, then a lariat. I don't think I've seen Park use a headbutt that often, and it looked awesome here. They work Park's missed bump in the corner nicely, with Park doing his great upside down turnbuckle bump, allowing PCO to go back on control and hit a powerbomb and running knee strike. But as Park rolls to the apron, PCO - and this is part of why I have no idea what any actual reasonable person could have expected from this match - crashes and burns as he whiffs on a cannonball off the top, banking off the edge of the apron. Crazy bump for anyone to take, definitely a bump that shouldn't be taken by a 50 year old. Park's spear is a good finish, because Park has a fantastic spear. This delivered what I wanted it to deliver.

PAS: I think this could have used blood, and maybe a slightly quicker pace, but otherwise this was pretty rad. There are a lot of dives in wrestling now, but these are two guys who now how to make a dive look like it hurts. The PCO dive to the apron is a psychotic bump for a 180 pound 25 year old, much less a 300 pound 51 year old, and that PARK plancha which followed it up looked like it broke PCO's neck. PCO is a guy who sometimes suffers in between the big spots, but PARK is a guy who is great at filling space. Fun stuff well worth checking out if MLW fell through the cracks for you.


2018 MOTY MASTER LIST

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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.

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MLW Worth Watching: Daga! Teddy! Myron!

Daga vs. Ariel Dominguez MLW Fusion #51 3/2 (Aired 3/30/19)

ER: This was a cool Daga showcase and probably the best he's looked in MLW, Dominguez is a pint size guy who has done a lot of fun work getting squashed in MLW and here was his longest match - by far - in the fed, and as an added bonus we got to hear Jim Cornette talk about Negro Navarro and Misionarios de la Muerte. This was a long Daga beatdown, and Daga is way cooler when he's throwing downward angled punches and hard kicks to a pint sized dude. I'd much rather see that than the same dance spots every other indy kicker does. I dug how long Dominguez held on, even if his comeback offense looked a little light and stumbly (he's also still really new at this, not even sure he's been in wrestling for a year, so tiny guy with no offense is still a fine role for him) but it made for a fun story. The story of Dominguez holding on, Daga looking meaner than I've seen (building to the Low-Ki ear ripping revenge match), and the finish really made this worth watching. That damn finish was gross. Daga hit a fast release German at a cruel angle, looking like he bounced Dominguez off his head. As Cornette is going on about chiropractors, Daga picks him up and plants him with one of the most cursed Hashimoto style DDT/brainbusters I've seen. Kid got crushed. Very excited to see this Daga run it back against Ki.

Teddy Hart vs. Myron Reed MLW Fusion #51 3/2 (Aired 3/30/19)

ER: Reed is a guy I enjoyed a lot and wrote up several matches of when he was a babyface flier. But heel Reed is even more fun! There's something great about a wiry, shit talking highflyer. How infinitely more interesting is that than a sexy dance fighter who is worried about remembering the next step in his routine? Hart comes out with taped up ribs and Hart laces into Reed with some nice punches, Reed firing back with elbows, but both sold appropriately. Hart's punches look better and more painful than Reed's elbows, and both guys recognize that and sold to that level. Once Reed started working over Hart's ribs this thing jumped up to the next level, with Reed targeting a bunch of flying directly into Hart's ribcage, with Hart rolling around holding his stomach like my buddy who bought street tacos at 11 PM after a Mexico City lucha show. Teddy toned down most of his flash once Reed starting working his ribs, and he even threw in a cool tribute to Bret by running hard chest and ribs first into the buckles. He put his own spin on it, crumpling inward and slumping towards the buckles, instead of violently recoiling the way Bret would. Reed worked smart chestbreakers and Teddy would make inroads by dodging out of the way of springboard attacks. It was a really great twist on the flyer match formula. This was easily heading toward list, but the finish was a little uninspired: Reed argued with the ref for way too long and Hart just pinned him with a backslide. We certainly could have done better than that. Still, the bulk of this was really good, and that's the important part.

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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.

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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.

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Long Road Report to Hell 4/4/19, Show #3: MLW Rise of the Renegades

TKG: Bloodsport ends and we head into town for MLW. Originally this was scheduled to be LA Park v Rush and the thing I was most excited for. That wasn't happening. This was a long TV taping and had the real rhythm of a TV taping (angle followed by long showcase match, angle followed by long showcase match, angle followed by long showcase match ) and that rhythm eventually kills you. 

PAS: Hindsight is 20/20, but we probably should have just gotten a good dinner somewhere, rather then two long, expensive Uber rides into the city for this show. When we got these tickets we thought we were out of luck for Bloodsport and didn't want to fly to NYC for two shows, once we got Bloodsport tickets this became a mistake

ER: This show sounded like an excellent idea at the time. We had a gigantic gap in our schedule due to Bloodsport selling out sooner than we anticipated, and wanted to fill it with wrestling. WWN tickets at the same time were like $80, MLW tickets were $20. Easy choice was easy. In hindsight though we should have just had dinner and then rolled the dice on whatever was playing at White Eagle. Getting to Queens and back was a nightmare, and MLW didn't really book any interesting on paper match-ups. MLW has a several guys I really like, and they were all matched up against guys I don't care about. So we drive into the city and it's weird because in California the uber drivers never shut up. You go to the airport and you know you're going to be talking about the new elimination diet your food-allergic driver is starting for the duration of the fare. In NY they're nearly completely silent, so this driver had to listen to us talk about the tremendous hit our music collection will take if we were to cancel 60s rockers the way we easily cancel guys like Ryan Adams today when we find out what scummy dudes they are. Wrestling too. Tom talks about how many different musicians beat up Tammi Terrell. And soon, the talk turned to Ferriday, Louisiana and Jerry Lee Lewis. Phil talks about how Jerry Lee essentially killed two wives, with a "Ferriday's Most Famous Son" police report saying the women died from falling down and hitting their head too many times. Then Tom tells an incredible story about early 90s Jerry Lee tax troubles, and how he had a 900 number grift that Tom actually called, and to milk the time of the call Jerry Lee had *known stutterer* Mel Tillis doing the call intros!! Our driver sat in silence as Tom went into an extended "Now if-a you'd like to he-he-he-hea-hear Jerry Lee tell a story about E-e-e-el-ell-elvis then press 1, and uh if-a you'd..." I was in stitches. Phil tipped the driver handsomely.

Brian Pillman Jr. vs. Maxwell Jacob Friedman

TKG: Maxwell Jacob Friedman? Not Maxwell Jacob Goldstein? It was MJF and not MJG? We must have watched 30 matches of his and no one corrected me all the times I yelled “Don’t want drama, don’t want none” and “Hey 8ball says your mouth says no but your body says stick me”?

PAS: We came in during this match and headed to the bathroom and got situated, so weren't fully settled and focused on this. Both guys are fine, but this was mostly a set up for the six man later in the show. Pillman does look exactly like his father and I am happy to have a Pillman back in my life.

ER: We got there a little late and missed an Ariel Dominguez match which is a drag. He's a fun tiny babyface underdog in a gi. And like Dominguez, Pillman is a guy I like, who I haven't actually seen in a match I really like. This seemed to have a nice pace but as Phil said, we showed up as it was starting, used the restroom, found a place to stand (and I went over and pet Mr. Velvet in between peeing and finding a spot), so I only caught glances until the finish.

Jacob Fatu vs. Barrington Hughes

TKG: Fatu, Samuel, and Simon Grimm are working some kind of paper bag passing international brown solidarity heel team gimmick. MLW likes to use vintage managers and semi disappointed that Armand Hussein isn’t out explaining this. Is Armand Hussein still alive? 2019 Arman Hussein would be awesome ridiculous move. Fatu squashes the huge Barrington Hughes and the heel team bury him under either a balaclava or their team flag. Hughes is super obese guy from Florida so him getting knocked down is always scary.

PAS: Fatu is really explosive and fun to watch. No idea why they would fly in Hughes from Florida just to get squashed a couple of times, that guy is two airplane seats minimum, you might need to buy him a whole row. They are really burning through that venture capital cash in dumb ways.

ER: I got excited for Fatu's music as he's a Bay Area guy who had big early impact and clearly looked like a guy who would get national opportunities. He also had a great match against Boyce Legrande which was arguably my favorite match for Phoenix Pro Wrestling, the local group Tim Livingston and I do commentary for. And then the Caramel Colossus comes out and I'm stoked for a BIG big boy battle. But since it's a Hughes match, it only goes 1 minute. Hughes has really only worked 1 minute matches for MLW (other than their bad WarGames match) so I knew it would be too flukey that I would be there live for his first actual match. Jesus, give me 4 minutes of this dude working a tubby match and I'll get it on our list. Little did I know that we'd be seeing like 7 segments of Hughes getting jumped by Fatu's stable throughout the night. Phil and I were dying the next day talking about MLW buying 3 airplane tickets to fly Hughes up to just get jumped by Fatu's gang. I mean Hughes is gigantic, gigantic enough that you not only have to buy him 3 tickets, but they have to be tickets in an extra leg room seat, which can cost considerably more than other tickets. Just a wild use of $$ there. We saw so many obese dudes get jumped by Fatu's gang by the end of our time at MLW. It got absurd. I would have cried laughing if Hughes had shown up at the late night AIW show just to get jumped and rolled over slowly with kicks. Would have made me even more of a fan.

Rey Horus vs. Ace Austin

TKG: This was a long long showcase match. I think Ace Austin is working a “close up magic” gimmick and does lots of stuff built out of headstands. First juniors exchanges were fine and felt like they could have had a fun lightning match but then they try to a strike exchange section, and a throws section and a mask removal section and a finisher exchange section. This felt like had way more sections than needed and no one had any idea of how to move from one to the next.

PAS: This was a long singles match from two guys who clearly can't put together a long singles match. Maybe if either guy was with a veteran who could control the match and work around their spots it might have been OK, but we didn't have that guy and it suffered.

ER: This match felt so long. Starting from the time we walked to breakfast, we'd already been up and about for 9+ hours, and this thing was long enough that I assumed they were going to Mordor. Horus is good with a base like Steve Pain or flying in for trios spots, but god I did not need to see 20 minutes of him working on material. Austin is a guy I haven't seen much of, and then oddly saw the next day on the subway taking up a seat while women were standing, and he had some fun material and some unique body movement, but his shtick didn't work in an epic singles. The match already felt long when Phil managed to have enough time to get in four different and spaced out "How long IS this match?" riffs. The best was "How is Rey Horus vs. Ace Austin going to be the longest match we see this weekend!?"

Low Ki/Ricky Martinez vs. Mr Grim/Hollywood ?

TKG: I think this was Ki and Martinez v Grim and maybe Hollywood Shuffle. Guy had Hollywood on his pants and he was beaten into realizing that there is always work at the post office. I was pretty sure his name was Hollywood Shuffle but also thought MJF was MJG. Of the squashes on the show this was best as Ki squashes are always going to be nasty. They do a post match angle with the Fatu, Samuel Simon team burying Ki under cloth.

PAS: I think this might have been Ki turning face, as he was arguing with Salena De La Renta coming down the aisle and it looked like Ricky Martinez abandoned him before the Contra beatdown. Hard to turn someone face after this brutal of a beatdown. Ki ko's Grim with the first blow and ends up opening up Hollywood's jaw so he could break it with a punch. It seems like Ki's MLW run is based around his unprofessional rep, and he KO's Grim like he was Mace Mendoza or Elax. This was fun, but man what a waste of Ki, I kept hoping they would announce a cool Ki match, and when they didn't I was hoping for a surprise Ki match, and instead we just got a fun squash.

ER: Love Tom going for a "There's always work at the post office" joke. He didn't do that while we were watching the show. He sat on that one so as not to risk either of us stealing his Hollywood Shuffle joke even though Phil and I are going to be the two people who would have laughed at a Hollywood Shuffle joke. And I knew they were going to screw us like this. Segunda Caida might be the collective biggest Low-Ki fans in the world. We've probably brought more attention to the Low-Ki/Rey Mysterio match than JAPW brought to the Low-Ki/Rey Mysterio match. But the whole time leading up to the event, matches with everyone else kept being announced, and Low-Ki kept being announced as merely "appearing". We all knew that meant we'd get a 3 minute Low-Ki squash and not a Low-Ki match for our list. We can't have nice things from MLW. Luckily Low-Ki is a great guy to beat up a couple no names in a squash, you know he's not going to finish the match without at least a couple noteworthy moments. Here his double stomp landed so hard my stomach hurt (although my stomach also had two IPAs and a heavy mac and cheese still hanging out in it so...). Bummed we only got like 2 minutes of Salina De La Renta, too. She's my favorite manager in wrestling today, and I was excited to see how she works the crowd live when the cameras aren't on her. Sadly I saw barely any of her.

Myron Reed/Rich Swann vs. Jimmy Yuta/Lance Anoa'i

TKG: I don’t think I’ve ever seen Reed before but really liked him as cocky guy who wants to hit his stuff on opponents and runs away from getting hit.

PAS: This was pretty good. Reed and Swann seem to be work a heel Black Lives Matter gimmick which is problematic, but they were a fun heel team, cutting off both faces and feeding their comebacks well. Anoa'i seems kind of superfluous in a fed pushing Jacob Fatu so hard if they aren't going to be teaming or feuding.

ER: I've really liked all of the Reed matches that have been on MLW. He brings a lot to job work, getting the best matches in MLW out of guys like DJZ and Kotto Brazil. Swann kind of has a natural smugness to him, can't really put my finger on it, but always felt he would work much better as a heel (and he does), so this is a heel team with a ton of potential. Here he's an overlooked heel who now uses what had been used as flashy babyface comeback offense (like all of his awesome cutter variations that he would hit as a dramatic "3 point tying shot") as awesome sneak attack cheap shot flashy offense. He literally ran in at one point with a match turning cutter from the entrance ramp, and it looked even more spectacular as we were standing in the corner to the side of the ramp, so we couldn't see his starting point. We just saw Reed suddenly bursting into frame with a great cutter. I agree with Phil that it's weird having Anoa'i as a semi featured role while Fatu is getting a major heel role. It's like they purposely wanted to avoid teaming up the Samoan guys but really Anoa'i would be more effective as a monster Samoan in that angle than teaming with a dud like Yuta.

Minoru Tanaka vs. Daga

TKG: This was my favorite match on the show. These are two guys who know how to put together a complete singles lucharesu match, know how to put the lucha in the puroresu, know how to put the puroresu in the lucha, understood lucha in a real traditional sense, and understood the puroresu style before all of the Choshu and ”shoot” Inokiism was stripped from it. Really felt like a complete match where transitions between the mat work, strikes, and dives and back all made sense, didn’t feel like they were just done to check off boxes. And everything done on high, high level. Felt like it needed some type of stakes instead of just being two guys thrown together to give it some sort of added meaning. Like a championship, or if this was part of the MSG G1 show (people would have praised this highly if it were on MSG show). Best match on show but still thought it was weird match to throw money at….I don’t know. Also possibility that overrating it as response to Rey v Austin match.

PAS: I thought this was good, although I think I liked it less then Tom. Daga is a guy who is inspired by people inspired by Minoru Tanaka so there was nice synergy in the match up. Tanaka is pretty low on the list of BattlArts alumni I would be excited to see live, but he still can throw out some tricked out counters and submission attempts. This was also pretty stiff, although with added leg slaps. I agree it felt a little exhibition-y, but its shining competence was really needed at this point of the show. 

ER: Tom's enthusiasm helped me get into this one more. I think he was so insulted by the Avengers length Austin/Horus match, really Daga is a not as good Minoru Tanaka, and on the car ride back to White Eagle we talked about BattlArts alumni we'd want to see live less than Tanaka. Came up with junji.com, probably Mohammed Yone, consider Viktor Krueger but decide it would be cool to say you saw Viktor Krueger live, and maybe Tsubo Genjin. But Tanaka was a major part of my 2000-2001 wrestling fandom, a guy I actively sought out and remember being super excited for his first CMLL tour as Heat (which was disappointing and in retrospect the beginning of me drifting away from him as a worker), and that still means something to me. He was a real pro here and it was cool to see how hard even the lesser BattlArts guys hit in a live setting. You see guys like Rey Horus or MJF and then you see Tanaka throw a sidekick to Daga's chest and you're like "oh right, the BattlArts." This was a really fun match and felt like it was at a good spot on the taping, which I can't say for a lot of other things. Daga hit a great dive at one point and Tanaka really hurled himself into the railing off it, probably the best dive we saw at this show. Some of this really isn't my style of choice anymore, but it was a nicely done version of that match.

Dynasty (Alexander Hammerstone/Maxwell Jacob Friedman/Richard Holliday) vs. The Hart Foundation (Brian Pillman Jr./Davey Boy Smith Jr./Teddy Hart)

TKG: Is this the first time I’ve seen Teddy Hart live? This can’t be the first time I’ve seen Teddy Hart live? He comes across as a giant fucking bigger than life character in person wearing insane sparkles carrying his Persian aloft. A star from a different universe than our world cotidiano. Pre-match me and Phil bet on how many moonsaults he will do and when in match he would fake a knee injury. He only did two moonsaults but both done in the thrown out way only he does them, and he tweaks his arm near the end and angrily works at restoring feeling in hand, popping arm back into place. Anyways, superstar. Pillman had an injury angle early in the show and so match started 2 on 3 with Pillman eventually running in to make injured guy comeback save. This was at its best when Hart Foundation were kind of working as walking tall babyfaces in a tables match. Hammerstone I thought was amusing as heel powerhouse who just isn't as strong as face powerhouse. Him being challenged into dueling delayed vertical suplexes with Davey Boy Smith really got that whole thing over.

PAS: This was my favorite match of the show. Hart and Davey Boy work the first part of the match like Teddy Hart vs. Homicide with Teddy in the role of Homicide. They bumped all three heels around the ring with super stiff shots and for a while it looked like a fun squash match. The Dynasty got some big comebacks and Teddy took some big bumps. The spot where Hart hit a Doomsday Destroyer while leaping off the back of Hammerstone was maybe the craziest spot we saw all day, and we saw some crazy shit. Enjoyed this thoroughly, and Teddy is pretty much a must see guy at this point, really wish he worked Bloodsport.

ER: This was definitely my favorite match of the show. We were all pretty much in awe of Teddy Hart. The guy is a total megastar. He looks like if Colin Farrell had a hip hop producer role in Spring Breakers, coming out in a spectacular turquoise and purple glittery sequined jogging suit with matching tank, leaving him and the ring covered in glitter (which has been a theme of our day that Bloodsport sadly didn't honor). He was carrying Mr. Velvet - which is weird to see live and comes off borderline cruel - but we did get to see him placed on the turnbuckle and I'm sorry but that's cute. This was a really action packed garbage brawl with Teddy throwing the best punches in wrestling today, fans making fun of Hammerstone for looking like Jericho (although at least looking better than current Jericho), Davey Boy looked like a great powerhouse opposite him, we got a cool Pillman triumphant run-in, MJF did an actual funny spot when Holliday called for a tandem suplex and MJF had a great facial reaction that said "Man I'd rather not, my neck is still dead from an earlier bump" and the delay caused him to get suplexed. The ringside brawling was really intense, and Teddy did a bunch of great "popping my arm back into the socket" material right in front of us, into the barricade. The match was a tables match that didn't waste a bunch of time on table set up and didn't waste time teasing a bunch of table spots. They set up one table, and had a cool finish through it. Excited to see how this plays on TV.

Josef Samael vs. Ace Romero

TKG: I looked it up and sadly Armand Hussein has passed. I kind of liked Allen Martin as a manager. Is Allen Martin still alive? 2019 Allen Martin managed Contra would be an awesome ridiculous move. Samuel has heel Persian boots with exaggerated hooks on toe making him kicking an obese man low seem like he might get under the pannus to do some real damage.

PAS: Barrington ambled out to make the save and got beaten down for a second time, and this Contra war on the obese continued, really felt like they should have booked Simon Grimm vs. Fallah Bah or Big Slam Vader for continuities sake.

ER: We were trying to come up with more obese guys they can bring in, which highlighted the dearth of big fat guys on the indies right now. I like Romero a lot but this was more fat guys getting rolled over slowly with group kicks. I did enjoy my conversation with Tom about how a kick to Romero's groin would have no effect due to how his belly hung low enough to cover his genitals. Tom - without missing a beat - explained the physics of Samael's effective hooked boots ball kicking.

Gringo Loco vs. Puma King

TKG: This was true lucha and I will always take lucha over lucharesu. But this was lightning match lucha…and I could’ve watched it go on for another ten minutes happily. Gringo Loco’s hair was the most spectacular hair on a weekend of spectacular hair.

PAS: This had a couple of moments of real transcendence,  Loco is a elite level Lucha base, and they had some really great fast exchanges. When it got away from that into more extended runs of offense for either guy it got less special, still it had those moments. Loco is a long time favorite of mine and I was excited to see him live.

ER: Glad I finally got to see Gringo live. He's a favorite of the blog and a real artist, reminds me of watching Skayde matches for the first time. He'll throw in some World of Sport style handsprings but break out one of a few different headscissor variations, a cool cross ring cutter, can do great dives and catch dives great, and yes Tom is correct that his Mania week hair was spectacular. Crowd was a little tired so Puma's shtick didn't work as well as it typically does, but I thought this match was a nice pace and should also play well on TV.

Mance Warner vs. Sami Callihan 

TKG: These two work a two disgusting guys brawling indifferent to ref who DQs them early. Lots of spitting and snot rockets early. Kind of like imagine a Joel Goodhart booked Henry O Godwin v. Bastion Booger brawl. Holy fuck how awesome would Mark Cantebury v. Mike Shaw for Goodhart have been? Aww fuck. Back to actual match in front of us. Warner and Callihan beat each other around ring. Pretty early in the match they do the wearing chairs like necklace spots that I thought dragged down the Jay v Parnell match. After bitching about those spots earlier, those spots worked surprisingly well for me here, some of that is when in match they were used and some of it is these guys are playing such cartoonish caricatures that them obliviously not taking chairs off their necks works. Would Bastion Booger or Henry O Godwin prioritize taking a chair off their neck? No, of course not. Why would they? Two guys who wanted to beat each other up.

PAS: This was a day in which we watched a lot of brawling, this was solid violent stuff, but was overshadowed in my mind by the violence proceeding it, and the horrific stuff still to come. Callihan and Warner both bring a bunch of energy to what they do, and the execution was fun. Finish with the Hijo de La Park and Martinez run in, and crazy guy team up, served its purpose, but the whole match felt a little like they were working towards a run in.

ER: This was the kind of match that played great live and up close. They guys spent most of the match on the floor and when these two are on the floor somebody is going to get hit hard. They brawled over near us a bunch and the shots look so much meaner 7 feet away that through a TV screen. Seeing hard chops to the throat live is just cooler, and we got the added bonus of them trying to wrap beer cans around each other's head. The spitting stuff is gross, but damn hitting a guy in the side of the head with the EDGE of a beer can looks like it would instantly bust someone open. These guys really hit heard and Mancer is a cool MLW addition. The stuff around a chair was really nasty, and we get a ridiculous moment of a tombstone piledriver through a chair that had been set up. It got a 2 count, and this marks the first - but not last - time of the day we would see a piledriver through a chair get only a 2 count. Still, match was a fine asskicking.

TKG: Airwolf v Rey Fenix starts and we decide that we don't want to miss the AIW opener, so we pour one out for Jan Michael Vincent and Ernest Borgnine and leave.

ER: I make a "manager as Alex Cord with an eyepatch" joke but it gets minimal reaction. I silently assure myself that nobody heard it and that's why it got no reaction.

PAS: This show ran really long which was kind of a bummer, we came to see LA Park, and didn't get that chance, but I didn't want to miss any of the AIW show and we really made the right choice.

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MLW Worth Watching: Hart Foundation! Lucha Bros! Ki! Lawlor! Reed!

Teddy Hart/Davey Boy Smith Jr. vs. Rey Fenix/Pentagon Jr. MLW 2/2

ER: For a modern spotfest tag match, this had a lot more in common with an early 2000s JAPW spotfest with stiff vaguely uncooperative work, increasingly dangerous spots, and of course MLW/JAPW Original: Teddy Hart. This doesn't waste any time like other Pentagon matches, these guys get right down to it, and I loved Lucha Bros. controlling and double teaming Davey Boy for the first several minutes. I thought it was cool because it kind of flipped what I expected the layout to be (Smith dominates early, Hart eventually gets worked over to build back to Smith hot tag), and instead Smith gets swarmed for several minutes, unable to get out from the middle of it, Lucha Bros. working together more like hyenas than ninjas, one of them distracting while one attacks a leg or kicks him in the back of the head. At one point Davey Boy fought back with hard slaps and a big knee, but was quickly picked off again and I was impressed that Lucha Bros. really looked like they were picking apart the big man. I loved things like Davey picking up Fenix for a powerslam only to get kicked right in the patella by Pentagon. When Teddy comes in you know the laser light show is really going to start, that's when we get to the stiff "top that" stretch of those JAPW matches, with Hart throwing mean as hell right hands, sharp knees, breaking out moonsaults off of everything, his awesome moonsault elbowdrop that I've seen him nail the landing every single time but once, and some ridiculously escalating flipping piledrivers (obviously we were getting a crazy one on the apron, but I had no idea how far they would go until the finish). Finish is crazy with Fenix bursting into frame and hitting a bananas Jean-Claude Van Damme spinkick off the apron to KO Pillman, and then the Hart Foundation hitting what should be immediately inducted into the Indy Wrestling HOF: A flipping piledriver Doomsday Device. And you know everybody was at least partially expecting a kickout.

Low-Ki vs. Tom Lawlor MLW 2/2

ER: This is kinda weird as they spent literal months building to a match between these two, but after all that build they worked a short, brisk 5 minute match with a kind of sudden finish. Ki is really great at fitting a bunch of cool things into 5 minutes though, so that works for me (even though just like with the Yehi match I really wished we could have gotten twice as much). It's really weird because right before this was a Ricky Martinez match that was at least twice as long as this one, so was there some kind of weird timing issue with the live show? Did they go too long earlier and then suddenly had to end this match way short? Maybe Ki and Lawlor knew this, which was why they went out and had the awesome scrap they did. If this came from Worldwide it would certainly be legendary, as they really don't waste any time beating each other senseless. Lawlor even knocks Ki to the mat with an early left right to the ear, and Lawlor was throwing hard ground and pound, working for a choke, and from that knockdown Ki was really trying to tangle him up. Lawlor muscles Ki over with a cool suplex, nothing really coming easy in this match, Ki kicks out Lawlor's knee and boots him right in the chest. A freaking door gets involved, and we get a cool visual of Ki missing an attack and punching right through the door (particle board everywhere!!). Striker points out some cool Ki psychology when Lawlor tries to lift Ki and Ki is making himself as tough to lift as possible, scrambling his legs to the ropes so he can get leverage on Lawlor. I dig the shots these two were throwing on the top rope, nice body shots and some genuine struggle around a superplex attempt, and Ki ends up stomping Lawlor's kneecaps before hitting a big double stomp. Things after this feel like they got cut way too short, as Ki grabs the dragon sleeper but Lawlor somewhat easily (for someone who just got his sternum crunched) grabs a rear naked choke. I wanted more from this, but the 5 minutes we got was dynamite.

PAS: I really liked this, but it was really weirdly paced. I dug how they went right at each other, and the standing 8 count on the punch behind the ear was a really nice touch. I have seen Ki get hit with hellacious shots before, and would have liked Lawlor to lean into some of the body shots especially, still it was a neat and different start to a match. Ki was really good at countering Lawlor's straight ahead attack. I thought the door was a misstep, Ki punching it to shreds was a neat visual, and I liked how the hand injury tied into the finish, but it was really outside of what they were doing in the rest of the match, and for such a tightly paced match, we didn't need Ki wandering around outside like Sabu. Finish was pretty cool with Lawlor rolling through and using technique to lock in the choke. Fun stuff, although everything felt chopped.

Myron Reed vs. DJ Z  MLW Fusion #44 2/2 (Aired 2/8/19)

ER: I really like Reed, a flyer who still has some improvements to make but already has a handle on basic stuff that a lot of flyers jump right past. We have no shortage these days of ultra athletic flippers and floppers who can intersperse cutter variations with flipping piledrivers and pinball around a ring. Reed has the grace an easy movement to stand with any of them, but here you can see him actually aiming for where DJ Z's throat would have been on missed clotheslines, locking in a nice looking headlock (especially liked when he flattened out on it), and hooking deep leg during pins. I mean sure we get a cool dive past the ringpost from DJ Z and a nice dive from Reed, and a big somersault senton from Reed turned into a sitout powerbomb from Z, and while there were certainly some dance-y moments I really like what Reed brings to these matches. He's super young but works a ton, and he's already got a higher floor than most within his style.

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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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2018 Ongoing MOTY List: Callihan vs. PARK

Sami Callihan vs. LA Park MLW 12/13

PAS: This was a falls count anywhere in Miami match and was the closet to a US Indy version of a chaotic Park lucha brawl. Park started by lighting Callihan up with chops and weapon shots, only for Sami to get even when Park toped directly into a garbage can. They brawl back into the lobby and out in the street, at one point the ref is selling a broken ankle and the ring is festooned with chairs.  The finish was especially brutal with Park spearing Callihan right into a bunch of hard padded event chairs. There was a millimeter of give and it looked like it broke Sami's back.  Fun stuff which I imagine would have been a blast to watch live.

ER: There should be no mystery about what makes Park great, it's all right there on display, every yellow and black skeletal fold. We won't get to see Park/Rush at Mania, but Sami is a guy who has no problem slotting into a trademark Park brawl. Sami plays a tough act to pull off here: The Violent Stooge, and I like it. I like all the early match stuff with Park implying Sami is a weenie for wearing his flak jacket, taunting him into removing it before dishing out a chop so hard that it breaks skin. Sami sells it the way someone would if they were woken from a nap by getting waxed. Park also wins the mental battle by tricking Sami into revealing that he wears suspenders AND a belt. A sock garter reveal would have added to this, but two guys taking wild bumps will have to do. Park really runs impossibly hard into a trash can on a tope attempt, and I loved Sami celebrating with a terrible and great mimic of the Park strut, looking like Jack Donaghy walking while holding two coffee mugs. Sami gets tossed over the barricade into the chairs, and the venue has those hard "conference room at the Hyatt" chairs, and when Park suplexes Sami onto a section of barricade and starts chucking those chairs in the ring, and it's weird to think that a bunch of people will be sitting in those chairs at some point while attending a From Debt To Net! seminar. I love Park's brawling, love his commitment to running into a boot, loved him throwing loose ice as a response to getting a mini road cone thrown at him, loved Park crashing in with a downward strike headbutt, and Sami smashing a couple of beer cans into the back of Park's head. The finish is spectacular, with Sami setting up a 6 pack of those chairs that you sat in during that one day "How Smart is Your Smart Home?" class, ending with Park hitting a spear of all spears onto them. Park's spear is great enough to stand on its own, but this looked like something out of a Marvel fight.


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2018 Ongoing MOTY List: Ki vs. Yehi

74. Low-Ki vs. Fred Yehi MLW 12/13 

ER: I'm sure we were all hoping for something a bit different when these two squared off for the first time ever. They're the two best workers in the fed and you'd want to see a match between them as high end indy dream supermatch, but this is worked as a match within their respective spots in the MLW Totem, where one of these guys is the current Heavyweight Champ and the other is a guy who was ranked behind Simon Gotch while they were in Team Filthy. But it's these two, so obviously any time we get from them is going to work. We get cool stuff you'd expect like Ki trying to snap Yehi's arm over the ropes, and other great little moments like Ki heading off to the ropes but getting his leg grabbed by Yehi before he can run, and Ki lets him stand up (while Ki himself is on one leg) and peppers Yehi's eye with sharp elbows until he lets go. Ki spider monkeys himself to Yehi's leg and Yehi does these big exaggerated high steps to get out of it, and it all shows just how cool these two move. This gets really great once they start throwing blows, with Ki breaking out of the corner and punching Yehi under the sternum across the ring, then snapping off big kicks, but Yehi caught a kick and foot stomped him and legswept him. Yehi even gets a very believable nearfall off a high cradle, really looked like they would suddenly give him this huge and sudden win and then set up a big challenge with Lawlor and a big re-match with Ki. But that doesn't happen. The actual finish is crazy, with Ki winding up on the top rope, throwing elbows at Yehi's head, and then one MAMMOTH overhand strike down across Yehi's chest. That strike right there looked like a finish. You never seen shots thrown from that angle and this one looked like it hit with tremendous force. The Warriors Way pushes back out the portions of Yehi's sternum that Ki sent inching towards his spine, and Yehi is a sicko and wasn't even on the mat when he took it, just a huge stomp right to the tenderest part of the back. Damn, boys. Cannot WAIT to see these two match-up again, several times.

PAS: Ki wrestles so infrequently these days, that I fear this might be the only time we get to see them match up, awesome as fuck WCW Pro match isn't ideal, but this was an awesome as fuck WCW Pro match. MLW Ki wrestles so differently then other times in his career. He seems to be working as almost a counter puncher, waiting to land one or two big kill shots, waiting for openings, wrestling defensive and viciously landing shots when he can. I loved Yehi pushing Ki into the corner, and Ki unloading with four nasty body shots right to the ribs on the break. We got a couple of great Yehi flurries of offense, and then an absolutely killer finish, with Ki sitting on the tope landing a crossface shot on a standing Yehi across his jaw and onto his chest. Sounded like a baseball bat hitting a mango, and the a grisly double stomp on Yehi's back. Great stuff by both guys, would love someone to book a long rematch somewhere but if this is what we get, it was pretty great.


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2018 Ongoing MOTY List: PARK vs. Gringo

115. LA Park vs. Gringo Loco  MLW Fusion #38 12/14 (Aired 1/4/19)

ER: I wasn't actually expecting this to get competitive, especially after the first 5 minutes or so were just Park punching Gringo around the arena. That alone would have been enough for me to recommend, as I thought Park's strikes were among the tightest I've seen all year. His punches look great, he kicked a prone Loco in the head with the toe of his boot, hit him with the edge of a beer can, threw in a nasty short headbutt while they were touring the arena, everything Park threw looked great. We get a weird arena tour that literally resulted in nothing. They must have had something planned but it didn't happen, and fans didn't move, so we wasted time with them walking somewhere, standing somewhere, and then walking back. I assume Gringo is taking the loss shortly after, the way he gets handily tossed upside down into the guardrail, but Park misses a corner charge and takes his great flipping corner bump allowing Gringo to hit a cool cutter springing off the ropes, then a gorgeous (and impactful) tope con hilo. Gringo is a real chubbo now, and it's totally cool he hasn't lost an ounce of his grace or flexibility. We even get a Loco dive off the entrance rigging, all stuff I wasn't expecting. I love how suddenly competitive everything got even though we knew Loco didn't have a chance. Park didn't work quick in this one but he worked a nice steady groove, making his impact count on every spot, and I'm glad they took the opportunity to match up a couple of guys who I don't think would have otherwise crossed paths.

PAS: Loco is a guy who has been toiling in relative obscurity for years, and it is really cool to see him get a coming out party. He was part of the Gringos Locos vs. Terribly Cerebros feud in IWRG which is one of the all time great feuds in wrestling history, but outside of that has been mostly working midwest lucha feds which only sporadically make tape. Really happy to see him signed to a fed with TV and it is awesome he got a showcase match against a legend like PARK. I thought this would be a semi-squash too, especially after PARK started dancing and chugging fake beers, but Gringo got some really big moments, climaxing on that crazy rigging dive. Totally nuts match which exceeded expectations by a lot, this had a very WCW feel to it, where all of a sudden some random match on the Pro could totally own.


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MLW Worth Watching: Gringo Loco! Stunt! Familia Park! Lucha Bros! Ace!

Gringo Loco vs. Marko Stunt  MLW Fusion #32 11/8 (Aired 11/23/18)

ER: This was clearly designed to be a Marko Stunt showcase, and that's definitely the type of guy they should be bringing in and featuring, but I'm happier that the fed was smart enough to be in Chicago and bring in Gringo Loco as a base. That shows me that whomever is running this thing has a good head on their shoulders. I don't know if there is a base in the Chicagoland area that is going to give Stunt a more impressive showcase. This whole thing was worked like a Nitro lucha match, only with Schiavone actually talking about the wrestlers in the ring. Loco flies all around the ring setting up Stunt armdrags, and they do a killer Stunt rana off the top to the floor, which - even with a guy like Stunt who is 120 lb. - always looks impressive. Stunt leaping off the top to the floor onto Loco's shoulders, and we get that brief pause as the pendulum swing of momentum throws Loco. I love it. Loco is really fast and agile for a chubby guy, and really we need he and Steve Pain to just be permanently in NXT as a team. Team Base Gods. Loco really doesn't get a lot of offense, a press slam into a standing moonsault and then a gently overshot moonsault, then a missed corkscrew moonsault. But he wasn't in there to hit offense, he was there to convincingly get tossed around by a tiny human, and that he did.

LA Park/Hijo de LA Park vs. Fenix/Pentagon Jr.  MLW Fusion #33 11/8 (Aired 11/30/18)

ER: There's a lot to like in this match, just as there is an awful lot more to dislike, and yet more to really dislike. Pentagon is just Cero Interes at this point. He'll take a dumb bump and do a dive, and the rest of the time he can't even be bothered to sell or do anything other than his catchphrase. There were many moments here where he was just sitting on the apron or slumped in the corner watching the action, either completely unable to keep active in any way, or just completely uninterested in doing so. This match goes long, too long to keep Pentagon interested when he's not eating up nearly 30 seconds slowly signing his catchphrase (I counted the seconds, my time was appropriately wasted), but Fenix likes eating up time by making up new combos and ways to fly at his opponent, and Park always seems to try weird new things if he's given the time to do so, so both of those things happen and work. Park and boy are wearing their great skeleton leather jackets, and Hijo is wearing the legitimately great blue/red/gold aesthetic. That is a majestic color scheme and makes me gloss over those annoying parts of Hijo matches where there's always a 1-2 second delay between his opponents getting into position for a move, and him doing the move. He's got cold feet or trust issues or something, always leaving guys hanging before any flying move. We get a stubborn table that stands up to Park powerbombing Pentagon and Pentagon powerbombing Hijo, Park laughs at Pentagon's chops that he builds to by taking an eternity to remove his glove, Hijo hits a cool Spanish Fly variation while his pops is holding onto Fenix up top, everyone hits dives (hearing Schiavone flip his lid for Park's fat boy dive was great, as he had spent all match politely tip toeing around the fact that Park was smaller in WCW and Schiavone still sounds somewhat reluctant to believe that this is the same wrestler from WCW) and Fenix caps off the match with his whip fast tope con hilo that sends him into the crowd, Park hits a big spear on Pentagon...basically all the good was really good. But in addition to 2018 Pentagon working like 2018 Pentagon, we got a lonnnnnng and not very interesting Fenix/Hijo circle jerk (...straight line jerk?) where they just hopped around and did flipping piledrivers and other bullshit that apparently doesn't hurt that bad. I liked a lot of this and hated a lot of this. LA Park is eminently watchable. We'll go with that.

PAS: Park ruled in this as usual, he hit his awesome tope, wailed on guys with chairs, threw a crazy headbutt that looked like it legit dimmed his own lights, any time he was doing anything it elevated an otherwise weak sauce match. He also took his belt off and waylaid people, and then ended up eating a receipt belt shot to the mush. There were also some really cool Fenix highlights, with crazy speed on all of dives and a nice spin kick. Still this was at least half stinker, just goes way too long, including some long El Hijo Del LA Park showcase moments which showcased how much he has to learn. He really brought out the worst in Fenix. If this was a bit shorter and PARK had a better kid, this could be something great, instead it was just something OK.

Ace Romero vs. Marko Stunt  MLW Fusion #34 11/8 (Aired 12/7/18)

ER: I'm a big fan of the fatties and they don't come fatter in wrestling these days than Romero. I also like big/little matches and it will be tougher to find anyone bigger than Ace and anyone smaller than Stunt. On paper this looked like a fun mismatch on a Coliseum Video that I'd be excited about even though I knew it likely wouldn't be good ("Oooooooo Giant Gonzalez vs. Doink!"), but it's plenty fun. I don't really buy Stunt yet - couldn't be happier for his "overnight" success and am sad he got taken out so suddenly with a rough injury - but I don't think I've seen him do something that actually looks like his opponent should be selling it. I understand there's going to be some implausibility in play with a guy Stunt's size, but when you're talking a near 4:1 weight difference I'm just not going to be too interested in Ace taking a Code Red. I can't imagine he would even feel Stunt jumping on him. My dad was 300 lb. and one time while we were on a wilderness vacation staying at a cabin I rolled out of a bunk bed while asleep and landed on him and he barely stirred. I think 7 year old me falling onto my dad is a fairly apt measuring stick for Stunt falling on Ace. MLW is a fed prone to overkill anyway (earlier this episode Teddy Hart landed 3 backcracker variations, a Code Red, and a nasty as hell hammerlock DDT within the first 3 minutes of a match that went 9), so we're going to get Stunt kicking out of some silly things.

But I really liked the visuals in this, the size disparity when it's this extreme will always make me smile, and it had a ton of cool moments. Ace sets up a ridiculous spot while Stunt is prone on the apron, Ace starts climbing the turnbuckles like he's going to splash Stunt on the apron. Honestly I don't see a way that it wouldn't have just shattered Stunt's rib cage, but this crowd HAD just seen Jason Cade eat a top rope flipping piledriver. Ace misses his legdrop to the apron from the middle rope and it just looks crazy, like he easily could have snapped his own leg with his landing, and the missed legdrop leads to the most plausible offense for Stunt: A great superkick from the apron while Ace is standing on the floor, and an expertly shot punt, leading to a big tope. And I love that right after landing those things, while Stunt is celebrating, Ace runs up and just avalanches him into the guardrail. Ace has really fun fat guy offense, big running dropkick, big slams, excellent fat guy elbowdrop, and him squishing someone was never going to fail. Some of Stunt's comebacks where pretty preposterous, but you don't want to completely flatten the guy so I totally get it. MLW has made a bunch of smart moves by bringing guys like this in, guys without a TNA stink or who have been overexposed on super indies. It's part of what makes their show so easily digestible. Obviously we won't be getting more MLW Stunt for awhile, but I hope Ace gets bigger opportunities here. And literally as I type "BIGGER OPPORTUNITIES" we get an onscreen match graphic for Ace vs. Barrington Hughes, so....holy shit. Things don't get a whole lot bigger than that these days.


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Low-Ki Was Just About to Find God, Now Ma$e is Back He'd Rather Find a Menage

Low-Ki vs. Konnan MLW 12/14/18 - GREAT

PAS: This was less of a wrestling match then an angle, but it was a pretty great angle. This was no DQ and they start off nose to nose talking shit and the Ki decks the ref. Konnan pulls out a loaded sock and knocks Ki silly, busts him open and would have won the title if Ricky Martinez didn't pull him out. We get another couple of Konnan near falls until he just gets double teamed by Ki and Martinez, they throw a bottle into the ring and Ki puts it under Konnan's head and stomps the bottle, he uses the broken bottle to carve up Konnan and Martinez and El Hijo Del LA Park hold Konnan, while Ki beat on his kidney's (Konnan had Kidney replacement surgery.) Then Salina tosses Ki a shank and he stabs him right in the kidneys. They have done this meta angle about Ki's unprofessionalism for a while, with the ripping of Daga's ear and Strickland's hair, having him straight try to murder Konnan was a fun, if pretty crazy twist. Konnan wasn't a good wrestler before the kidney transplant and hip injury, but he played his role great and I dug him as a Miami native son (Guantanamara as entrance music and Wade Miami Vice, Heat City Jersey.) Love this feud between Konnan and Salina to dominate the lucha pipeline into MLW and love psychotic Ki.

ER: I'm not really a fan of the angle itself, as someone getting literally stabbed in the kidneys is a bit much. Sure it's a No DQ match but I don't actually want to see someone get shot in the stomach and bleed out for the next half hour in silence. Bringing a knife or a shiv into a wrestling setting, inside a ring, in front of people and cameras...I just can't imagine it not coming off incredibly stupid to me. And if I don't think it worked here, I'm really not sure how it could work, because the execution from all involved was absolutely top notch. The match was structured excellently considering one side had the most athletic wrestler maybe ever, and the other side had a mostly immobile man in his mid 50s who moves like a man who never actually ended up getting that hip surgery. Ki shoves the ref, Konnan blasts him with a loaded sock, Martinez drags Ki out of a pinfall, and Ki spends the next several minutes doing an awesome job of selling that loaded sock and also beating the piss out of Konnan's wrestling fan megamark kidneys. I was wondering before the match if Ki was going to go after the kidneys and holy lord did he go after the kidneys. This seems like a HORRIBLE idea, as in even worse than "let's work over Kobashi's knees in his comeback match" bad. WAY worse. He hits the running dropkick on Martinez by mistake, Konnan gets a low blow and another good nearfall, really loved the selling from everyone. And dammit I really love Salina de la Renta. I think she's my favorite current non-wrestling character. She has great presence, looks like a star, acts like a star, and is maybe the greatest fashionista in pro wrestling history. What other manager in wrestling would ever have the sense to pull off a gorgeous $3,390* Fendi jumpsuit? Paired with that draped belt!! Fucking megastar. If this wasn't No DQ and she threw in a glass bottle wearing that jumpsuit, she could probably convince the ref it's fine. Ki curbstomps Konnan on the bottle and shatters it, Konnan gets great color (Ki had a cool hardway-looking cut from Konnan's sock shot so we get duel color), and then we get the shiv spot. I don't think anyone in that ring could have played it better, and I'm sure I'm gonna love the violent Ki payoff match, but knife stuff is dumb and nobody in the crowd was buying it either. I feel bad for an announce crew trying to get over someone being stabbed in the fucking kidneys while also having to sell Tommy Dreamer as violent. How will they explain Low-Ki not doing hard time? Will his lawyer present a "Your honor, my client was wrestling in a NO DISQUALIFICATION match" defense? Stabbing aside, I cannot wait for more Salina and Ki all over my MLW.

*per Salina, magnificently

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE LOW-KI

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2018 Ongoing MOTY List: PCO vs. Homicide

96. PCO vs. Homicide MLW 7/19 (Aired 9/7/18)

ER: I think it's a smart move to have PCO's singles match debut not be a squash match. Instead MLW brings in Homicide for a one shot (well they also had him in their big battle royal that same day) and have these two beat the shit out of each other. Homicide works this match like he was the same size as PCO and brings the stiff work to back it up. PCO has no problem taking stupid bumps and working stiff, so clearly this is going to be a fantastic pairing. This is worked at a great pace (the best matches of the PCO revival have been the ones where his opponent pushes the pace) and it's nothing but the two crashing against each other a bunch of times. Hard shoulderblocks, clotheslines to necks, big yakuza kicks, kicks to the body, shots to the face, all of it metal as hell. PCO takes an exploder into the corner at a nasty angle, hits a great dive that smashes Homicide into the barricade, and we get a bunch of convincing nearfalls down the stretch. PCO takes the hardest shots Homicide has to offer, even taking the full force of a killer leaping Homicide knee from the middle rope. Homicide eats some big PCO chokeslams, and PCO just crushes him with his moonsault and a big splash, it was all great. This is my favorite PCO performance of the PCO comeback matches so far.

PAS: Homicide is really great at working at pace, this wasn't Corino or Teddy Hart level Homicide, but it was a quality example of what he brings to a match. We haven't has been as excited about the PCO run as other folks, but he is a unique presence, and his tope, moonsault, frog splash combo was great looking. I also loved the finish with both guys wailing away at each other, only for Homicide to run right into a great looking forearm which dimmed his lights. I still think the WALTER match is the best thing PCO has done this year, but this was quality stuff.


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Low-Ki Advent Calendar Night 8- Ki vs. Strickland 3

Low-Ki vs. Shane Strickland MLW 11/8/18

ER: This got kinda weird. I think this was overall better than their other MLW match. That one was too Strickland-y and this one felt more rough. But it also had a couple of unmissably awkward moments that were recovered from nicely enough but still stood out. Strickland whiffed on a slow leg sweep while Ki stood there, and later Strickland bumped late for an armdrag that didn't seem to happen. They looked weird, I'm not sure who did what weirdly, but they were there. But there was a ton of good, too. Strickland hit hard, hard chops, hard running elbow, big heavy arm running lariat that landed with a great thud to Ki's chest, hard knee in the corner; all that stuff is important because you know Ki isn't going to hold back on chops and kicks. The early Strickland control stuff was cool too, bullying Ki around, dropping him with a cool over shoulder backbreaker, and we got a really awesome fight over a suplex. Strickland tried a vertical suplex, Ki almost fought out of it with a knee, but Strickland managed to hoist him back up only for Ki to block it again. It was an awesome visual and my favorite part of the match, Ki fighting back while upside down in the air and Strickland repeatedly muscling him up. We get another cool moment later, also around a suplex, where Strickland lands a running knee in the corner then just yanks Ki up out of a seated position and drops him with a Saito suplex. Strickland needs to do more of that kind of thing, then suddenly I'd be looking forward to Shane Strickland matches. Ki finds smart ways to fight back from underneath, and throws in stuff I love like stomping on Strickland's foot when Strickland was on the mat but getting up. Our finish is kind of weird, kind of cool, with Ki doing one of his crash and burns, flying at Strickland from the top but getting the ropes instead and knocking the ref down. The ref really didn't seem to get hit but they sold it like he took one between the eyes and Strickland got a long visual pin. But the part I dug was Ki just starts ripping at Strickland's hair, trying to yank it out, then got a flash pin. It easily could have looked stupid, but Strickland sold it great and made it very believable that a guy could get a quick pin while someone is distracted by unfamiliar pain. I like the trend of Ki winning MLW matches by resorting to weird sudden cheapshot street fight violence, ripping at Daga's ear and now this. They are ways I wouldn't think to end a match, but I've liked them both.

PAS: I agree that this was better then their first MLW match, I especially enjoyed all of the early match scrambling on the mat, Ki is great at that stuff, but I thought Strickland was surprisingly good too.  The ref bump was really creative, and Ki is guy who will really mix in some nuts bumps. I think the awkward moments probably keep this from make a Match of the Year list, but I love that Ki is basically wrestling like a psychotic martial arts villain. I just watched the Night Comes for Us yesterday, and I can just imagine Ki taking a meat cleaver and cutting off Iko Uwais's thumb. Ripping off Daga's ear was lunacy, and finishing a match by ripping out Strickland's braids was completely extra. I am excited to see what sick thing he does to Konnan in Miami.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE LOW-KI

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