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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MLW Worth Watching: Low-Ki! Lawlor! Hager! Havoc!

Low-Ki vs. Ricky Martinez  MLW Fusion #12 6/7 (Aired 7/6/18)

ER: This was Ki's TV wrestling debut here (he had shown up before to assault Strickland and yell at people from dimly lit hallways backstage), and we get to see him savage some guy. Martinez took a rough enough beating that I'd like to see more of him, as we got no offense from him, but a guy who can take his ears being boxed can't be that bad. Ki sprints at him at the bell and really hammers him with strikes. As Martinez is on all fours Ki stands over him and throws these nasty swiping strikes to his ears and head, and throws some violent downward elbow strikes in the corner that looked like they'd bust open the top of Ricky's head. Ki boots him with his running dropkick, then grabs Ricky's beard and uses it to bend him and then snap the back of his neck over the top rope. Damn. Sure, this was merely a squash, but Ki is a guy I'll go out of my way to watch squash someone. Martinez was a good sport and I hope they give him some time.

PAS: This reminds me of the way Kevin Sullivan or Ronnie Garvin used to mess up jobbers. Ki running over and kneeing Martinez in the head and then following with hooks to the body and head was super nasty, as was Ki grabbing his nose and flying backward. Purpose of this was to make Ki look like a vicious bad ass and it delivered. Great call by Schvione too "Why are people like this?" Why indeed.

Tom Lawlor vs. Jake Hager  MLW Fusion #13 6/7 (Aired 7/13/18)

ER: This was really cool, much more of a grappling and submission match than maybe any other Hager/Swagger match I've seen, and a perfect style match-up. Lawlor's plan is to just swarm Hager, leap on him and work for counters, and Hager's plan is to try to throw Lawlor off of his body. Any time Hager would grab Lawlor, Lawlor would latch on and work for a choke, or a limb. Hager goes for a Karelin lift and Lawlor instantly gets scrambly, locks him up, climbs up his body, just acting like a total nuisance. Sometimes Hager is successful at shaking him off, but it's always fleeting. Hager gets a big belly to belly and starts grapevining a leg, and there's Lawlor scrambling to get a kneebar. Lawlor is the one to start working strikes, hitting a couple hard mule kicks to the stomach and some nice elbows, seemingly one step ahead of Hager. Hager gets the ankle lock but Lawlor rolls through and works for the rear naked choke. The whole thing was a much more interesting style than we usually get from Hager (although I've liked his recent power style), and it's clear he has the ability to work this style more often. I assumed a big Stud Stable/Team Filthy brawl was going to break out, and naturally it does, but they at least gave us a good 8 minutes before it got to that point. This was really good, the grappling and struggle was great, and the trios feud should be gold. Give them a few matches, and we all win. It keeps the Blondes away from having to sell for Jimmy Yuta and actually puts them in with some talent. This could be a killer feud.

Tom Lawlor vs. Jimmy Havoc  MLW Fusion #14 7/12 (Aired 7/20/18)

ER: This is one of those violent matches where you hope the owners of GILT Nightclub aren't actually watching the professional wrestling that's taking place every month in their establishment. The death match worker is certainly a bizarre niche within our bizarre niche. Necro Butcher gained fame doing death matches and also having a fantastic name, but once he started getting work in normal indy feds he toned down death match elements and kept the big brawling, stiff work, and stupid bumps. Havoc is keeping the stupid bumps and #PopularJapaneseFinisher, but he's still slicing himself up like he's working a match in the parking lot of a metal festival. It's not really that weird I guess, but it stands out on a nightclub show. Sure, nightclub owners are used to seeing shootings, but a dude blading his fucking arm might be too unexpected for them. This match has plenty of geek show elements, but also had some big time crazy and some nasty bumps, and would have landed on our 2018 MOTY List if the finish hadn't been so flat and cut short.

Havoc hits an early dive into the crowd and both guys take bumps through chairs. A cheese grate and stapler get introduced almost immediately, having getting a permanent sheet of blood running down his face as his forehead gets grated, then gets various staples into the head and we get a gross shot of him frantically pulling the staple out of his head. There's an adorable young girl near them in the crowd who is simultaneously terrified that these bloody sweaty guys might fall into her, and loving this professional wrestling. There also does not seem to be an adult claiming her or shielding her. They're good about not just trading geek show spots, instead nicely fighting over these weapons, Lawlor fighting off a stapling, and Lawlor bridging gaps to these weapons by kicking Havoc. Schiavone is damn funny on commentary as he dives into his knowledge of cheese graters, what each side is best used for, detailing different ways to grate parmesan depending on the dish, and how grating parmesan with almonds is delightful; important to note, that Schiavone made the almonds comment right after Havoc fought his way back to control by getting ahold of the grater and slashing it across Lawlor's nuts. 

We get some painful stuff on chairs, Havoc ends up taking a German on some and later gets dropped hard on a set-up chair that had fallen on its side. Damn, son. Havoc always amusingly transitions back to offense by producing an unexpected weapon, and while fading in a choke he gets a piece of paper, and eventually cuts Riddle in the finger crotch. Afterward he produces a lemon and squeezes it onto Lawlor's hand. It's like sadistic Bugs Bunny, but was plenty fun to see. The ending comes so suddenly, and it's really odd: Lawlor slices Havoc's arm with a pizza cutter, drops him on that chair I mentioned...but then Havoc just kind hits him a couple times and does a really sloppy Rainmaker to win. Huh? I don't mind a sudden finish to a match, but this just made no sense to me. It felt like they had a hard 10 minutes allotted to them and they suddenly had to go home. Very unsatisfying finish, and it's also a weird visual as you had Episode 13 ending with Lawlor  nearly beating Swagger before a DQ, and then the first actual match of the next episode is Lawlor just losing after a clunky lariat.

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