SPOILERS: ‘MLW: FUSION’ TV Taping Results from Chicago, IL

This Thursday night our team had the pleasure of attending Major League Wrestling’s first ever television taping event in Chicago, IL. The following report contains major SPOILERS for upcoming episodes of MLW: FUSION, but first…

MLW: FUSION airs every Friday night at 8PM ET on beIN SPORTS, and if your cable package does not include that channel, every single episode is uploaded for free to the official MLW YouTube channel every Saturday night at 5PM ET. We have included the latest episode of the show above for your consideration!

MLW Fightland
November 8, 2018
Cicero, IL

— Looks like a legitimate sell-out here in Chicago with a very diverse crowd. I would estimate about one-third is the usual hardcore wrestling fans I see at most AAW events, and a good two-thirds is families there with their kids.

(1) Ricky Martinez def. Rex Bacchus. I didn’t see much of this as I was still getting settled in. It’s possible this was a dark match.

— MJF came out to a ridiculous amount of heat, and it only got louder the longer he spoke. As the crowd was predominantly Hispanic he of course played the ultra conservative, over-the-top elitist, one-percenter angle beautifully. He mocked the Mexican flag and said it should have a chicken on it, because eagles belong to America (or something), and mocked Puma King, drawing a line down the middle of the ring and telling him not to cross it. Just next level heat.

(2) Puma King def. MJF in a Flag Match. Puma got the win in a solid match, after hitting a crazy Last Ride powerbomb from the top rope, then climbing up and retrieving his flag.

(3) Marko Stunt def. Gringo Loco. Quick match. I thought it was okay but the referee did get in the way of Loco’s big spot, a standing moonsault into a top rope moonsault.

— Simon Gotch came out and basically said he was so confident he was issuing a $10,000 challenge to his opponent tonight, and had a bag of money with him.

(4) Simon Gotch def. Ariel Dominguez. Complete one-sided squash match. Lasted made two minutes. Just to give you the visual, Ariel was about the same size as Marko Stunt and he got absolutely ragdolled. Gotch hit a ripcord big boot, a nasty looking Buckle Bomb, then killed him with a Gotch Piledriver for the win. After the match he gave Ariel another piledriver just for good measure. RIP.

(5) Myron Reed def. Ace Austin. I loved this match. If you’re not familiar with either please look them up. Reed is one of Elgin’s top graduates and has been making waves on the indies for a while now. Ace I saw for the first time earlier this year, and I believe he’s the product of Callihan and/or the Crist brothers. They really laid in a lot of their striking, working a fast-pace with plenty of big, explosive moves. Great stuff.

— Joey Ryan came out and revealed that he had suffered a torn pectoral muscle last night during a match, and that he hadn’t seen a doctor yet because he wanted to fulfill his promise to Chicago, and would be seeing the doctor tomorrow, and will more than likely require surgery. Actually, even though he came out in a sling, he was dressed to compete so a lot of people actually laughed, thinking it was a jab at Triple H somehow, and even as the match got started most people thought it was a work. When he actually started working and couldn’t take bumps, and his opponents’ offense was clearly nowhere near him, it became clear he was legit injured.

(6) Joey Ryan & Hornswoggle def. The Dirty Blondes. I won’t lie to you, the match is not great. But they did the best they could given the situation. The Dirty Blondes “beat down” Joey and kept him outside most of the short match, but again, their strikes and stomps were about three feet from landing. Hornswoggle German suplexed the bigger Blonde, which got a great pop. Ryan came back, hit a few superkicks, and Swoggle got the win (I believe with the Tadpole Splash).

(7) Koto Brazil def. Trey Miguel. Another really good high-flying spectacle, a bit more focussed on the big aeriel spots than the Reed/Austin match. I haven’t seen too much of Koto, but he made me a new fan tonight.

(8) Tommy Dreamer def. Brian Pillman Jr. They hugged it out after the match, until Pillman kicked Dreamer in the nuts and laid him out with… I guess it would be a swinging straightjacket DDT? Teddy Hart came out and celebrated with Pillman, who hit another DDT on Dreamer for good measure.

(9) Ace Romero def. Marko Stunt. I loved this match. I loved the concept of it on paper, and I loved their execution and delivery even more. Great work from both guys. Stunt’s selling is out of this world, and for obvious reasons he’s the perfect underdog babyface at all times. Romero, to his credit, laid his s–t in and did not hold back while attempting to murder Stunt, in particular with a loud, monstrous splash in the barricade that sounded like a cannon going off. Stunt nearly won the match with a sunset flip powerbomb (yes, seriously) off the top rope, but he just came up short and Acey Baby got the win.

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(10) Filthy Tom Lawlor def. Sami Callihan in a Chicago Street Fight. What I saw of this brawl seemed awesome. The problem was, I just couldn’t see about 80% of the action. Part of the problem was they were brawling around the arena and it just wasn’t laid out for anyone to have a good view of that kind of action, but also a large group of people who bought GA tickets just decided to stand in front of us next to the front row, blocking our vision. ANYWAYS — I really want to see how this one comes across on TV, because I just don’t have enough information to tell you how I feel about it.

— Intermission

(11) Teddy Hart def. Jason Cade. I missed most of this match due to coming back late from intermission, unfortunately. I’ll have to catch it on TV.

(12) Rush def. Sammy Guevara. I think most people would consider this the true best match of the entire night. These two tore the house down. You could tell a large percentage of the crowd was there for the lucha libre stars, because for the first time all night the crowd REALLY kicked it up to the next level for this match. Rush cut a promo after the match in Spanish and, while I only caught about 30% of it, the crowd absolutely loved it.

(13) PCO def. Brody King in a No Disqualification match. This was another wild brawl, and I knew I wasn’t going to be able to see anything (stupid people standing in front of me) so rather than getting upset about it, I just went out and caught up with a few other wrestlers to talk about their matches. I’ll catch this one on TV.

(14) Low Ki (c) def. Shane Strickland to retain the MLW Heavyweight Championship. Solid main event style match focussed on a whole lot of stiff strikes and two tough dudes beating the hell out of each other. I thought they had good chemistry together, but then Strickland right now is in a whole different league than most. At the end they did a ref bump and all kinds of shenanigans with Low Ki’s team at ringside.

— Strickland was pissed off after the match and got on the mic, saying that he was sick of all the bulls–t like we just saw. He talked about deserving to be champion and blamed MLW management for being incompetent, specifically name-dropipng Court Bauer as the problem behind MLW”s booking. A bunch of official looking people came out and tried to get him to stop, and eventually they had to cut his mic, just as he was screaming that he was “terminating his contract” with MLW. Great segment.

(15) Pentagon Jr. & Rey Fenix (c) def. LA Park and El Hijo de LA Park to retain the MLW World Tag Team Championships. This was an absolutely insane match. This was so obviously the match that 90% of the crowd was there to see, because other than the MJF promo, this had so much more heat than everything else. Some may call it the best match of the night, but I still give that to Rush/Guevara because this one was more about being a spectacle and doing a million ridiculous moves one after another really quickly. There were so many crazy moves and kick outs that for awhile they actually killed the crowd, which makes sense because at a certain point, if the last 400 moves (most of which are usually finishers in any other match) didn’t get the job done, I’m just gonna sit and wait for whatever the finish is. They got the crowd back though when Pentagon and LA Park, both in black and white, went crazy on each other. This was definitely a spectacle worth checking out.

— The show ended with all four lucha stars celebrating and fans throwing money into the ring. The Lucha Bros. left with their titles and allowed LA Park to have his moment with the fans. LA Park’s music played for a long time and the fans went absolutely insane for him and his son to close out the show.

Overall it was a solid show with several very good matches, and a few you definitely need to go out of your way to see in the weeks to come (it’s not really “out of your way” considering it’s all on YouTube for free).

I think it’ll all come off much better on television, with the exception of maybe the MJF promo just because I don’t know how much you can capture just how much heat he was generating and the feel of the live energy. I don’t have many complaints, and those that I do have (mostly not being able to see a lot of the brawling) will be fixed once the show airs.

My favorite bout goes to Rush and Sammy Guevara, with the main event being an awesome lucha libre spectacle that a whole lot of people are going to enjoy. Next comes Acey Baby and Marko Stunt, and then the MLW title match, and the two earlier matches with Reed/Austin and Brazil/Miguel. I think the Callihan/Lawlor match has the potential to be up there as well, but again, I’d need to actually see it.

Definitely check out MLW if they come to a town near you. My only hesitancy in doing this again is that four hours on a Thursday night is a whole lot when most of us have a long drive home, and have to be up early for work the next day.