AEW Five Fingers of Death 2/2 - 2/8

AEW Collision 2/7/26

Parking Lot Brawl: Eddie Kingston/Ortiz/Zachary Wentz/Dezmond Xavier vs James Drake/Zack Gibson/Big Bill/Bryan Keith

Here's the thing about pro wrestling. It's like life. It doesn't end. It doesn't have off-season. You can shut your eyes but it doesn't go away. It's still there. It's always there. It's always pulling and prodding you. It's always tugging you. It's always pulling you back into the ring.

Eddie Kingston had finally done it all. 

Before that though, he had been on the verge of selling his boots, of giving it up, (of being free), during the pandemic, but he cut a promo with nothing to lose and it opened the last door left for him.

Behind that door? At first, nothing. An opportunity. Not even fans in seats. But he made the most of it, made his mark, and when the world started back up again, it welcomed him with a loving roar.

So he fought and climbed and scraped, and it was all rewarded. He met his idols. He even battled against some of them. He won New Japan gold. He defeated his hated rival to win the ROH title. He put that on the line against all of his enemies and one of his few friends and he triumphed in the first Continental Classic. Top of the world. He earned the American Dragon's respect.

A wonderful end to an embattled story. 

But pro wrestling never ends. Life goes on and it's so damn hard. He lost one title after the next. He lost his ability to walk. He lost a year and a half of his career. 

And yet, here he is, back once again. 

Wrestling saved his life. It gave him purpose. It gave him direction. It gave him a way out from a far darker fate. And the price he paid for all that? Only everything that he ever was and ever will be. That's pro wrestling for you.

It's just like life. You can have amazing moments, weddings, the birth of your child, promotions, but the Earth doesn't care. It's going to keep spinning. The sun isn't going to care. It's going to rise the next day. 

Over time, we get old. Some things get easier.

Getting up? That's not one of them. 

Eddie Kingston is 44 years old. Something they don't tell you at 14 or 24 or even 34 is how hard 44 can be. At some point, it becomes harder to sleep through the night without having to pee. At some point, it becomes harder to just sit up. To roll out of bed. To bend down to tie those shoes. And that's without a lifetime of getting battered around the ring.

Eddie knows it. Eddie shows it. He needs to fight, hell, want to fight, but he wants finality too. When it's time for something to be over, for a grief to be settled, he wants it to be over. He's even managed it since his return. He somehow managed to move on from LFI without facing RUSH. 

He couldn't move on from the GYV though. They wouldn't let him. 

They've been off in their little corner of the world waging a private war. Eddie came out of his match with Samoa Joe wanting to stretch, wanting to show what he still had left in the tank, so he ran right through Nathan Cruz, a young associate of Drake and Gibson. That drew their ire so he fought his way past one and the next. No shame to either. They've been tagging. He's Eddie Kingston. They gave him a fight. He was ready to move on.

They didn't let him. 

Instead, they ambushed him after the Gibson match, and it was up to Ortiz to return to make the save. Ortiz and Eddie beat them with the help of an errant (more like purposeful) madball. Eddie was ready to be done. They weren't. Wrestling's wrestling though. You fight long enough and you're going to draw others into your circle. A magnetic pull, the sweet allure of violence.

So we have the Rascalz helping their Uncle Eddie and Bill and Keith bounty hunting their way beside GYV.

A parking lot, but not the claustrophobic garage attached to Daily's Place. They're up on the rooftop, the Vegas skyline behind them. 

Room to move. Room to breathe. Room to wage war.

And war they did wage. This had all the bells and whistles of cinematic pro wrestling. The Rascalz got to show off, leaping off cars, pulling Keith into a limo to smoke him out. They bled, a baptism by fire in their second match. Welcome to AEW. Hope you survive the experience.

And of course Bill was Bill. This was a perfect showcase for him. When he pressed a Rascal over the limo, it looked like we were back in 1995 and he had tossed him right off the building. Then, giant that he is, he leaned back the car, took his jacket off and brought a foot up so Eddie could run right into it. 

So yeah, while it may not have had the emotional stakes of some of the previous parking lot brawls, it had the right mix of chaos and creativity, of broken glass and nasty bumps. At one point Isla Dawn came out and it sort of made you wonder why she didn't come out earlier or later and why Reed came out only to counter her. They'd just been hiding behind cars the whole time? You say it's fun and not to question these things, but if someone had questioned and came up with an answer, everything could have been tighter and still just as fun. 

In the end, during the DDT that won the match, but well before it, certainly after it, the camera found Eddie. He's a photogenic bastard in his own way. Why? Because he's the must human wrestler there is. Maybe the most human wrestler that ever was. The pain, the agony, the effort, it all just radiates off of him, the consequence that gives pro wrestling meaning and weight.

When Eddie wants to wrap up a backstage interview, wants to get out of the ring and get back to he hotel, wants to avoid all the bullshit that everyone has to go through in order to put pro wrestling on tv, it's not because he doesn't care. He spends his whole life caring. He cares too much. When that bell rings, no one cares like Eddie does. 

It's that he's spent. He's tired. He hurts. He aches. Inside and out. The eyes reach the soul and the soul is a weary thing.

But still he fights on, because life keeps coming at all of us and it comes at him more than anyone. Scowl on his face, muttering all the way, letting out a groan that we can feel in our gut, Eddie Kingston will fight on, and hey, if he can fight on, then so can we. That realization, more than anything else, is what makes him so precious and special in a world that gets harder for all of us each and every day. Just maybe don't tell him that, because that's the last thing he wants to hear. Life's hard enough without having to inspire people.

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Scenic City Invitational 2022 Night 1 8/5/22

Adam Priest vs. Cole Radrick

ER: This is probably worth seeing just for the woman in the front row who lunges hard at Priest as he casually walks to the ring, and Priest acts like he doesn't even see her, two feet in front of him, as she's being hauled away in a rear waistlock. Stunt Granny? Perhaps. I really liked Priest here. He acts like an asshole, and works like a modern Jamie Noble. He's really explosive when the move calls for it, putting a lot of snap on everything. I dug how he snuck in attacks around the ref's blindspot, sneaking in a punch past the ref's shoulder and a back elbow over his back, and I liked how he did bratty little things like lightly kicking a rolling trash can towards a kid after rolling to the floor. All of Priest's strikes looked good, he missed offense with intent, took all of Radrick's offense well, and made everyman moves like the DDT look like actual finishers. Radrick is a mix of some things that work and some that don't. I thought he had some really nice fired up babyface punches (with Priest doing an excellent job feeding into them), like  Robert Gibson coming in on a hot tag. He had a nice diving elbow to the back of Priest's head, and hit a cool Hitman elbow off the top rope. He really didn't do anything at all with the "bad knee" part of the match, but Dylan Hales on commentary did a good job covering for that, adding to an awkward botched cutter by pointing out the bad knee couldn't adjust to the loose bottom rope. 

Hoodfoot vs. Orion Bishop 

ER: I'm kind of surprised by how much I disliked this. Scanning the card, this was one of the SCI matches I was most excited for, but hardly anything about this worked. They started with some unnecessary quick rope running stuff and then both seemed to hit a gas tank wall 10 seconds in. Hoodfoot looked like he was on tranquilizers through a lot of it, like he could barely lift his arm to throw strikes. Now, I love in a hermetically sealed bubble and miss a ton of what is happening in pro wrestling, but I did hear that Hoodfoot lost an absurd amount of blood in a deathmatch against Slade. There's a chance he isn't fully recovered, and if that's the case then I'm impressed by the grind. Also, if that's the case, I would rather him fully recover. His missed standing swings to set up Bishop's offense were some of the most quarter assed swings I've seen, and every shot of his that landed was telegraphed a mile away and thrown at half speed. At one point they both trudged passed each other and ducked offense that neither man threw. Hoodfoot took a nasty suplex bump and hit a nice cannonball in the corner, but this felt like a match where no exchange came off properly. Even the finish looked bad, as Bishop hit a spear ("hit" doing a lot of work there) and Hoodfoot flinched on the 3 count, making it look like he was supposed to kick out but couldn't lift his limbs. The ref made the bizarre choice to not verbalize a single thing, merely holding up two fingers and a thumb that didn't clear anything up. Instead of just saying "ring the bell", she kept alternating between holding up an index finger those other three digits. Shockingly little about this worked. Did both guys put in a couple hours on the bike before this match? 

Myron Reed vs. Eli Knight

ER: Now this, I liked, even though it had a finish that I sincerely did not understand. The ideas and some of the execution dipped in the latter half, but there was more than enough to make this a really good 8 minute match. I'm not super familiar with Eli Knight but came away a fan. The man has springs in his legs and has amazing form on his moonsault, and I loved how he jumped Reed before the bell with a super high and impactful running dropkick and then a gorgeous moonsault press to the floor. Reed is a clever wrestler who is good at setting up some complicated sequences, and Knight is a guy who can execute some complicated stuff and make it look effortless. Knight had a really cool dropkick from the top rope to the apron, and then kipped up on the apron and grinned right into the hard cam. Both guys hit strikes with some nice jolt, and on the couple occasions where something didn't quite work they just quickly moved along into something more spectacular. Reed had a big flip dive over the ringpost, and I liked how Knight was able to use his moonsault as both a feint and as a strong nearfall. The finish might have sounded better on paper, but I don't think it worked in reality at all. Knight hit a moonsault, but Reed slightly lifted his head and neck off the mat as it hit, and apparently this meant that Reed hit a kind of grounded cutter on Knight? It just looked like Reed was sitting up to take some of the impact and I don't think anyone would have thought it was supposed to be Reed catching Knight with a reversal. Nonetheless, even with the dodgy finish this was probably my favorite match of the first three. 

11. Daniel Makabe vs. Damyan Tangra 

MD: I've bumped my head against this review a couple of times, but it was my favorite match from SCI this year and it's worth writing about so I'm going to power through. Phil talked about the great Makabe vs Garrini matched from Night 2 on the Ringer, but this was pure, unbridled move chaining and gamesmanship, build and payoff, total engagement.

How about some examples? Makabe previously beat Tangra with a seated triangle. One of Tangra's big moves is a swing into a gutbuster from a Saito Suplex position. Early on, Tangra went for it, Makabe turned it into the triangle, Tangra had an answer and could escape. When Tangra finally hit it, it was out of Makabe escaping a Fujiwara Armbar, which Tangra had put on through cleverly countering something else. The match had high points that were built to like that, that were teased earlier, countered, worked for later, but they're more a microcosm of the endless struggle. Makabe laid traps, Tangra was ready for them, and it became about which wrestler could take advantage of where they ended up after the counter to the counter.

It should have been exhausting, a endless cacophony of noise and counters of counters of counters of counters, of limbs provided and capitalizing technique, but it wasn't. These weren't two wrestling robots, two drilled out shooters driving forward at each other. They are human beings, characters, wrestlers, entities with emotional stakes written on their sleeves (or in Makabe's case, underneath his wrapped up fist). When Tangra got an especially impressive counter, you could see it on Makabe's face. Not overwrought, not over the top, but human and appreciative and consummate to the moment. Tangra, sympathetic, with an ever-growing connection to the crowd, expressed a real sense of desperation in escaping Makabe's holds, escaping late hammer and anvil shots, in avoiding Makabe's punch at all costs (right up until the point he couldn't, of course). When the wrestlers care, when they let things sink in, when they let them matter, those things matter to everyone watching as well.

The turning point of the match was Tangra making the most of a cleverly captured leglock, both legs viced together in a way that wasn't sustainable, that wouldn't draw a submission, that led to a quick ropebreak, but that did lasting damage to one knee. By no means was this the singular story of the match. It gave it color, like any of the other elements. It enhanced instead of dominating. In key moments, Makabe couldn't capitalize due to the leg. In key moments, it provided Tangra a target. It gave him an edge, but against Makabe, you need dozens of them. On this night, he had just enough to survive and to score a believable, well-deserved, still shocking upset.

In watching this on Night 1, we (or at least I) didn't know what we'd learn about Makabe's physical condition on Night 2, that there's a possibility that his in-ring career is winding down. Looking back, that makes this feel like a potential changing of the guard, one that embraced and highlighted so much of what makes Makabe special and unforgettable, while letting Tangra not just hang with the master (no small thing), but also show his own worth and uniqueness and reinforcing the notion that he might carry the torch forward in years to come.

ER: This was so good, easily the match of Night 1. Matt covered this about as thoroughly as I've come to expect from Matt, so I'm not sure how much I have to add. I dug how this was a real Makabe showcase in the front half until he got slowed by his leg, and then those same tangled holds he was breaking out in the first half were given a sense of desperation down the back half. Makabe is so good at taking a sequence that you think you've seen before, and then suddenly taking it in a direction you've never seen. Early on they went into a series of inside cradle reversals that ends with Makabe reversing into a nasty head and arm choke. I swear, there are always at least three moments in a Makabe match that look like something that could plausibly finish the match, and this would have been a cool way to do a sudden surprise finish. This wasn't the venue for that, but the point stands. Dan really glued himself to Tangra like a spider monkey here, keeping himself close for several minutes, constantly tying Tangra up, climbing around his body before rolling into one of the cleanest triangles I've seen. I thought Tangra's body scissors takedown into a heel hook was a really cool way to counteract Makabe's clinginess. 

Makabe getting his leg worked over changed the pace and the strategy, and I really liked how Tangra threw kicks at every angle to Makabe's knee. Some guys get locked into throwing the exact same kind of leg kicks, but Tangra was kicking it from the inside, outside, upper patella, lower hamstring, just throwing them all over the target. Makabe is one of the best at selling a limb, dragging himself up by the ropes while favoring his good leg, trying to hold a bridge with one leg and then getting instantly reversed when he flattens the bum wheel, slowing his reaction time during standing exchanges. He still had several answers to whatever Tangra tried throwing, and I especially liked him wriggling out of a fireman's carry by quickly getting a crucifix on Tangra's arm. Once Tangra made this into more of a strike battle, Makabe kept trying to unload that Logan Gilbert right hand, mostly getting countered due to his slowed down wind up. Makabe getting slowed face Tangra openings to show off on the mat, and he had an awesome STF where he choked Makabe out with his own arm, while also hammer fisting his bandaged hand. That didn't finish things, but it could have, and having multiple ways to finish and be finished is one of the things that makes this pairing so engaging. 

Dominic Garrini vs. Kevin Ku

ER: I didn't really like this. I don't think I really like them against each other. This started at one level, and basically stayed at that level nearly the entire match, and never really let the crowd in on where they were going. They came out and took turns throwing chops, then took turns throwing kicks, and I'm not sure they even looked beyond the ring during any of it. These matches feel like they're done for the weird enjoyment of the two guys in the ring, as I never got the sense they would have done anything differently regardless of the crowd reaction. Obviously this crowd did not hate the match, and I was amused by a couple of girls chirping in reaction to several of the chops, but I think this needed just an ounce of direction or purpose. I think I would have liked it more had Dom's scoop spinning tombstone ended things. Up until then it had been mostly perfunctory strike exchanges with neither really acknowledging that they had been struck, but that tombstone was nasty and would have made a fun "fuck it I'm tried of being hit" finish. Not for me, but no problem if it works for thee. 

Jaden Newman vs. Ashton Starr

ER: This kind of odd pantomime wrestling just does not appeal to me. Why are some guys so silent in the ring? It always comes off so bizarre. The Soddy-Daisy fans have a real connection to every wrestler on these SCI cards. It's a good crowd to work in front of, positive and eager to support. But this silent play acting wrestling just doesn't connect. At one point Newman hit a complicated but slick swinging DDT from the apron for a two count, and just sat there doing silent mouthing and hand signing. Every time either man appealed to the crowd it was done silently, going out of their way to not use any kind of words. This is a crowd where you can hear individual reactions of everyone in the crowd, so it plays even weirder when both guys are trying to stay so silent. It was so jarring when Jaden let out a grunt after being hit, as I had assumed neither could make sounds, but it's possible they just can't turn those sounds into words. I liked Starr's high extension kick while Newman was on the top rope, and liked how Starr whipped his head into the mat on Newman's swinging DDT, but mute reaction wrestling is so weird. 

17. Manders vs. Masha Slamovich

ER: Manders was the replacement for Trish Adora, which is a cool swap. I thought this was really good, playing to both strengths. Masha often goes really big in her matches, starting them with some big spots that can leave the endings of those matches underwhelming. Here, that made a lot more sense, as she actually felt like the underdog against Manders. Manders can absorb a lot of punishment and wasn't going to work this 50-50, so Masha breaking out all her big stunts felt like the only way she was going to pull off a win. She's such a fighter, but I liked how Manders overwhelmed her at times, starting the match by wasting her with a clothesline, throwing her through chairs, throwing hard targeted headlock punches. Her openings are all from fighting dirty, and I love it, like how she went after his nose and eyes to break out of a headlock. Her strikes all looked good, and Manders didn't sell them 1:1, instead he treated them more 3:1, making her land several hard elbows or a couple kicks before being moved. Once she started stacking strikes, it gave her more openings to hit big stunts. 

She dropped Manders with some big things, like an electric chair that bounced him off a couple of chairs, and it turned into Manders having to brute force his way out of things. He was taking real damage from Masha, but was always able smash when things got bad. I dug Masha throwing several elbows and kicking him across the chin, and it wasn't like he wasn't selling them, they just needed to come in bunches to keep him down. He was still able to dump her with a big powerbomb or flatten her with a lariat, but they were smart about adding that extra time or breath so this never felt equal. Manders really hammered her with a lariat that looked like it would be the finish, but had such a head of steam that he went right through the ropes to the floor. He still almost got the win (with a great pin leaning his weight way back over her shoulders) but that extra time gave Masha the breathing room she needed. The finish looked botched but in a way that I think benefitted the match. Masha piledriving Manders off the turnbuckles into a pair of set up chairs was pretty crazy, with both landing hard, and Masha basically just landed on Manders for the three. Whatever the spot was supposed to look like, I don't know. I didn't look totally clean, but I came away thinking that whomever was lucky enough to end up on top after the crash landing was the one who was going to win. A crash landing doesn't have to look clean, it's supposed to look like an ugly pile-up, so Masha being the one who got lucky on the landing works well as a finish for me. 

Robert Martyr vs. Billie Starkz

ER: I really liked a lot of this, but the Starkz win really didn't work for me. Maybe there was a way to set it up that would have worked, but I don't think this was it. Pretty much everything up until the finish worked. I loved how they started things, with Martyr being a little prick and then getting his circuits scrambled with a hook kick, actually doing one of the only good "stiffened legs while my lights went out" sells that I've seen in wrestling (I always hold up Jimmy Yang's silly "4 limbs in the air" off a Tank Abbott punch as the worst example of this). Starkz getting a flash KO pin would have been awesome, but as I said earlier in this review, this wasn't the venue for that. But I dug Billie getting that quick advantage and then having it erased when Martyr blocked a tope and ran her into the post, then hit a gross powerbomb on the apron. Martyr seethes into the camera "I'm gonna kill this girl!" and he kinda backs that up. He had some really disrespectful boot scrapes, punishing corner lariats, and a big layout powerbomb. All of his stuff looked pretty killer. 

I didn't love the forearm exchange, but only because Starkz has bad looking forearms that wouldn't look like they'd move even a small guy like Martyr. However, everyone probably knows the moment this match was building towards, and that was one of the greatest splats I have ever seen in wrestling. Billie splats across the floor of Soddy-Daisy with an insane swanton off the top, Martyr slipping out of his seat at the last second, chair absorbing none of Billie's weight. The chair might have slightly slowed her down but not much. This girl just leapt off a one story building to her concrete death. As everyone checks on her, Martyr is the one in the ring yelling at the ref to get the hell in and start counting her out, and I love that look on him. When she barely beats the count and crawls right into a brainbuster, I thought that was it. If that was it, this match would be going on the list. But the finish didn't work for me. I thought the electric chair set up was frankly stupid for someone who was holding the back of her hand to her lower back ever since the apron powerbomb, and I just didn't buy the set up or the win, no matter how sick a Rubik's Cube can look. Criticism of the finish aside, this was still probably my third favorite match of Night 1.

2022 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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Matches from Glory Pro Thunderstruck 9/22/19

Myron Reed vs. Jody Fleisch

ER: Reed is one of my favorite young flyers, Fleisch is a guy who was a fun highlight on the first M-Pro tape I bought 20 (!) years ago, and it's really not a stretch to view Fleisch as someone who paved the way for the wrestlers who paved the way for wrestlers like Reed. Flyer vs. Flyer isn't really a match I love, but I was curious to see Reed against a doppelgänger and see some guys springing around, and was not disappointed. They kept it to a quick 10, and we certainly got some springing. Fleisch is a jacked old man now (he is the same age as I) but still seems as flexible and bouncy as ever, hitting several different flipping kicks and a super impressive no hands poison rana. He took a couple of comically large bumps, perfectly acceptable here, my favorite being him hopping up and bouncing over the top rope to the apron after taking a chestbreaker. Shades of Macho Man jumping over the top rope after a Yokozuna kickout in the '93 Rumble. Reed has my favorite current cutter in the biz, and after Fleisch spills to the apron, Reed hits a fantastic running cutter over the top rope, taking both to the floor. I love how Reed sticks the landing on his cutters, dropping jaws right over his shoulder and holding it. A couple things didn't go off as clean: Fleisch runs up a wall and kinda grazes Reed with something that I think was supposed to hit harder, and a one man Spanish Fly kinda mucks up the finish, but this was still a fun old Spider-man pointing at young Spider-man match, delivered what I wanted.


Rock N Roll Express vs. Mat Fitchett/Davey Vega

ER: I am into this very recent RNRX respect surge, suddenly feels like a few prominent current names dig them enough to champion them on shows and I'm way down for a couple guys in their 60s getting some new exposure and sell some polaroids. Fitchett and Vega are mostly in their to set up stuff for RNR, with most of Fitchett's offense being running at Robert several times to get hiptossed. What I was not expecting was 63 year old Ricky to look as good in ring as he did. Robert was a little wooden (though still does things like grab a sleeper off the ropes or even throw a simple stomach kick with the kind of professional snap that is lacking in many modern wrestlers), but here's Ricky looking like someone I actively want to seek out in 2019. he takes a leaping knee to the back and takes a nice bump through the ropes to the floor, throws hard kicks and punches, hard shoulderblocks (including a great spot where he collides with Vega, Vega goes down and Ricky crumbles to the mat grabbing his nose), Ricky is a guy out there looking motivated! I love to see that kind of thing. Match ends in a double DQ, but seeing Ricky still bring something to the table in 2019 left me with a smile on my face for days.


Manders vs. Myron Reed

ER: I was into this, liked what they did, liked how everything looked, but didn't like the layout at all. Reed had already worked a match against Fleisch, so not only was Manders the fresh man, but he's bigger and hits harder. Manders wound up taking basically the first 80% of the match, before Reed just came back and won quickly and without much trouble. That was a let down. But getting to the let down was fun! Because that meant we got Manders hitting a couple press slams, used well (one he hits early and really holds it, the next one he holds long enough that Reed slips out), big chops, big elbows, nice powerbomb, diving shoulder tackles, the stuff you want to see Manders hitting. They were careful about doing silly 50/50 strike exchanges, with Reed playing cocky and trying to go toe to toe but getting leveled each time. And I dug how Reed slipped in some sly kicks instead of coming straight at Manders, dug the cutter (and really liked Manders' surprised, hunched sell of the cutter), and we build to Reed hitting a great tope con giro that Manders catches perfectly, spilling them into chairs. Things as a whole just wrapped up a little too neatly, with Reed going onto offense a little easily and showing no effects. Manders being so dominant early made it hard to escape the feeling that he was getting a visual showcase before calmly losing, which is what happened. Still, Reed's winning springboard 450 was nice, and I liked everything they did within the match, just wish they had gotten to some things differently.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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MLW Worth Watching: Brazil! Reed! Hager! Gotch! Callihan!

Kotto Brazil vs. Myron Reed  MLW Fusion #15 7/19 (Aired 7/27/18)

ER: This is a pretty shameless spotfest that has a few dumb moments of one guy taking a big move, then selling that move by getting up immediately to do their own big move. That stuff's dumb and it makes no sense, but sometimes it looks pretty enough or cool enough that I laugh and enjoy it anyway and stop being a total critical nard. It had a fun vibe as Reed was a total unknown to me, and now that I've watched 15 episodes of MLW TV over the past couple weeks, so the patterns they've established are pretty fresh to me. They've often started episodes with a match that never starts due to interference, or a quick-ish squash. They've been establishing a "Brazil climbing the ladder" story and I assumed this would be a Brazil dominant showcase to give him his first dominant showcase win. But it grew into something with a little more fireworks, and the fans reacted really big to it (like maybe they were also surprised at the competitive spotfest nature). There was a lot of mirror action in the beginning that usually feels played out, but these guys move interestingly enough that it feels a bit more fresh. Nice senton, nice corner dropkick, big collision on a mirror crossbody, all worked at high speeds. But the match ramps up when Kotto bends Myron's spine over the guardrail on a great tope and follows it right up, but then Reed cuts off a third with a dropkick and hits a nutso plancha, landing more like a Super Calo senton and landing right on Brazil's face. Reed hits a springboard elbow to a running Brazil, and Brazil leans way in and gets spun nicely by it. The finish is dumb fun and brainless big spots, but you knew what this was at this point and you don't totally regret it. We go into a few cutter variations that actually looked good, especially when we got to Reed hitting a really cool unexpected Stunner/Diamond Dust when Brazil was lifting him up for a back suplex. Brazil naturally sold it about as much as if he had been the one doing the move, and got up and hit his own (admittedly nice looking) Sliced Bread to immediately win the match. MLW Fusion has given us more lame finishes than not, and now that I think about it the only major weakness of the Fusion show so far is more lame endings than not. There have been a lot of run-ins or sudden or otherwise flat finishes. It's a problem with an easy fix, at least.

Jake Hager vs. Simon Gotch  MLW Fusion #16 7/19 (Aired 8/3/18)

ER: I'm really liking these compact Hager matches, this felt like one of those competitive 4 minute WCW Saturday Night heavyweight sprints. Hager jumps him before the bell, then jumps him at the bell, hits a great double leg slam and the Vader Bomb. He works over Gotch's arm, slams it into the post, and Gotch has a nice fired up one armed comeback, throws some running strikes onto Hager in the corner and hits a boss Saito suplex. Team Filthy has nicely babyfaced themselves after Lawlor's great match-long performance in Battle Riot, and to his credit Hager has been an effectively stoic heel. Lawlor battling through Hager's ankle lock was easily the best part of Battle Riot, Lawlor crawling up the ropes and clinging to the top, kicking at Hager to break. It was such a great babyface performance that it easily turned him, and now Hager is taking it out on his boy. Hager hits a really nice gutwrench powerbomb and then just kicks him in the face for the win, and I am digging this feud.

Sami Callihan vs. Kotto Brazil  MLW Fusion #17 7/12 (Aired 8/10/18)

ER: A match that happened when Brazil saved his boy Barrington Hughes from a Death Machines beatdown turns into Callihan assaulting Brazil for 10 minutes while Schiavone yells like he thinks it's a shoot. Which is all pretty great. Sami works really violently the whole match, every move looks like it would basically snap me in two. Apron powerbomb, headbutts, fast Flatliner, ground and pound, hard kicks to the face, choking him over the ropes, brutal lariat, just a rough beating. Brazil was lucid and fighting back, reminded me of some of this year's Darby Allin vs. Monster matches, as he would pepper in his own strikes, hit a Code Red, a big tornado DDT, always in it, always working to surprise, but fighting an uphill battle. Callihan sets up chairs on the floor and puts one chair with the legs facing up, and Schiavone's flip out is awesome. "Who would do that!? Who would set up chairs like that!? Someone is going to get impaled!!" Schiavone is filled with passion for pro wrestling these days and I'm kind of surprised at my own reactions to it. Maybe I've spent too long listening to death years Tony, but I'm really loving him on commentary in 2018. Dude sounds like he's having a blast. Brazil's luck runs out when he goes for a rana and Callihan spikes him with a powerbomb, then the piledriver. Schiavone says that Callihan looked like he was trying to murder Brazil and I don't think he's incorrect. Callihan fought this with such viciousness that it made me even more excited for WarGames. He was working fast and violent, like it was the blow off to a big stip match. If he works like this in the cage? Daaaaaamn.

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