This week’s MLW Fusion was taped in Philadelphia at the famous 2300 Arena earlier this month with Joe Dombrowski and Matt Striker on the call.
The Second Gear Crew (1 Called Manders & Matthew Justice) w/ Mance Warner defeated The Calling (Cannonball & Talon) in a Texas Tornado match
This week’s continuation of the SGC vs. Calling feud was a tag team weapons-filled brawl. The Calling had chairs thrown at their unprotected heads in the early going, and the chairs had a strong presence throughout the opening.
The SGC came back into the match when Talon went crashing through a seated chair with a missed senton. Manders then powerslammed Talon into Cannonball, squashing him in the corner.
The massive Cannonball broke up a double pin by splashing and crushing everyone, coming after Justice and Manders had taken Talon out with a spear and clothesline at the same time.
Cannonball dropped Manders on his head with an underhook piledriver. Justice then took out Cannonball with a senton dive to the floor followed by Manders flooring Talon with a clothesline. Justice got the win after a top rope splash.
- Love, Doug continued his quest to win the heart of featherweight title no. 1 contender B3CCA this week by practicing singing her a song backstage.
- TJ Crawford and Tony Deppen both attacked and injured MLW newbie Kevin Blackwood last week. This week, Deppen said he is only here for money, but he saw a younger version of himself in Crawford and they are both there to take over MLW.
- After being on the end of an “expose” last week that hinted at him breaking away from MLW to form his own organization, Mr. Saint Laurent responded by calling it slander and preposterous.
Shane Strickland defeated Ricochet (2017)
- We had a special match from October 2017 when MLW returned with MLW One Shot where Strickland defeated Ricochet. There was a video package that introduced a “This Week in MLW” segment where we saw MJF, Darby Allin, MVP, Sami Callihan, and others perform on the show. But it was Strickland and Ricochet that had their main event match shown in its entirety. Tony Schiavone helped call the action, which was really good as you would imagine.
The match, perhaps surprisingly, started slow and involved Ricochet playing heel while mat wrestling Strickland to the ground, but they were pacing themselves as they ended up going over 30 minutes with crisp great action. They incorporated some strong strikes in between a great showing of athleticism and innovative feints and dodges.
Ricochet burst out a poisonrana, a rolling Northern Lights suplex into a brainbuster, and a springboard 450 splash but it was Strickland who got the submission win with an armbar. I would highly recommend checking this out.
- We heard from MLW Champion Alex Kane who called his mystery opponent tonight a ho, saying he will send him to Ho Island because it doesn’t matter who it is.
- After announcing Rocky Romero as part of her stable last week, Salina de la Renta strongly hinted this week that she is behind the new CMLL partnership. She said the deal would come at a price and that she would see us at Slaughterhouse.
- AKIRA responded to the announcement of his match vs. Rocky Romero at Slaughterhouse. He said Romero will need his eyepatch for real after he is finished with him.
MLW World Champion Alex Kane defeated Snisky in a non-title match
Saint Laurent’s mystery opponent for Kane was the muscle man from his World Titan Federation, Snisky. The former WWE wrestler brought out a gurney with him, but it played no part in the match.
The commentators questioned how Kane would be able to suplex Snisky given the size difference between the two, but we found out almost immediately as Kane hit him with a normal suplex and then two Germans.
Snisky slowed it down with a big boot, a series of elbow drops, and a body slam, but when he went up to the top rope, you knew it would be trouble. Snisky missed a somersault senton which gave Kane the opening to take his back, lock in the rear naked choke, and pick up the submission victory to close the show.
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