Major League Wrestling Fusion – June 8, 2018: The Filthy Bunch
IMG Credit: Major League Wrestling
Fusion #8
Date: June 8, 2018
Location: Gilt Nightclub, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: Rich Bocchini, Tony Schiavone
Things are starting to change a bit as evil manager Salina de la Renta is coming after World Champion Shane Strickland. At the same time, Tom Lawlor is still a jerk and tonight he gets to face the rather talented Fred Yehi. We’re still at the point of having people debut here fairly regularly around here so we might be seeing some new faces again. Let’s get to it.
Here are last week’s results if you need a recap.
Video on Shane Strickland. Is there a reason to have this if he’s not here to start the show?
Opening sequence.
Tom Lawlor vs. Fred Yehi
Lawlor has Team Filthy, including Simon Gotch and the still unnamed third man (though his jacket says Sanders), with him. Yehi takes him down to the mat and grabs a front facelock but Lawlor spins back up for a standoff. Now it’s Lawlor’s turn to wrestle him down but Yehi spins out and grabs him again, sending Lawlor to the ropes. This time Yehi stomps on Lawlor’s hand but Lawlor pulls him down by the leg.
That goes nowhere so Yehi gets two off a great looking fisherman’s suplex. Lawlor is right back up and grabs a seated abdominal stretch to slow things down again. It’s off to a butterfly lock on Yehi and we take a break. Back with Lawlor stomping away and getting two off a suplex. Lawlor grabs a dragon sleeper with a hammerlock (allowing Tony to talk about the Andersons, which had to make him smile) and then a guillotine, which is countered with a hard slam.
Yehi’s dragon suplex gets two so he fires off a long string of knees to the face. A layout powerbomb gets two more and Lawlor is rocked, which doesn’t happen very often around here. With the referee checking on Yehi, Lawlor takes off his forearm pad and knocks Yehi cold with the metal forearm. A rear naked choke finishes Yehi off at 13:41.
Rating: B-. Lawlor is one of those guys that MLW owner Court Bauer hyped up to a nearly ridiculous degree when he was promoting the show but he’s turned into one of the best things around here. He really is one of those guys who lives up to his building and the Filthy name suits him perfectly. Yehi is someone who could hang with him on the mat and I had a good time with this one. Well done.
We look back at Maxwell J Friedman attacking Joey Janela last week. He’s been fined $5,000.
Friedman really doesn’t think much of the fine and doesn’t want to talk about it but Janela’s manager Aria Blake comes in to yell at him. This goes nowhere and Friedman is out.
We look back at de la Renta threatening Strickland last week.
De la Renta has put out a $20,000 bounty on Strickland’s head. It’s worked before and it should work again.
Jimmy Yuta and Jason Cade, a fairly unsuccessful tag team, are at a photo shoot where Cade won’t let Yuta get much of the spotlight.
Leon Scott vs. MVP
Scott, the big bald guy who has been following Sami Callihan, is named for the first time here and has Callihan and (Sawyer) Fulton in his corner. MVP goes right at him to start but Callihan comes in for the DQ at 47 seconds.
Post match MVP tries to fight them off but gets caught by Fulton, whose presence seems to surprise Tony, even though he was present and active during Callihan’s match last week. The beatdown is on but Kotto Brazil, who Callihan attacked last week, comes in for the save. That doesn’t last long but he did try. Callihan beats them both down with the baseball bat.
Strickland doesn’t think much of the bounties on his head because it comes with being the World Champion. Low Ki comes in and, in a very low key voice, offers some help dealing with de la Renta and hands Strickland a business card. Shane isn’t interested and Low Ki walks away.
Rich Swann and ACH meet and might be a team in the future. So I guess Swann is just a cocky face? That’s hard to pull off, though not impossible.
ACH vs. Rey Fenix
Fenix is part of de la Renta’s Promociones Dorado but is still rather popular and fan friendly. ACH takes him to the mat and we’re back up to the standoff almost immediately. They take turns flipping around to another standoff but ACH gets in a double stomp to the back, followed by a sliding dropkick to put Fenix outside. You don’t do that with a flier like ACH so there’s the first dive. Fenix is right back up with a dropkick to the floor and the suicide dive takes ACH down as well.
Back from a break with a high angle Swanton giving Fenix two. They trade loud strikes with Fenix getting the better of it and ACH almost looking surprised that Fenix would kick him in the face. ACH is right back with a backbreaker and a snap German suplex for two of his own. Fenix snapmares him down and rolls into a frog splash, followed by a missed moonsault. That’s fine with Fenix, who keeps rolling and catches ACH with a cutter. Cool spot, albeit incredibly contrived. A chop to ACH’s chest makes me cringe and another puts ACH down.
Fenix jumps up top and tries a high crossbody, which ACH rolls through into a Death Valley Driver for two more. That’s enough of ACH on offense so Fenix knocks him to the apron and kicks him in the head. Back in and ACH returns the favor to knock Fenix off the top in a heap. ACH doesn’t exactly have the same prowess with the chops, to the point that Fenix sticks his chest out and tells him to do it. Fenix kicks the heck out him but charges into a superkick to keep ACH strong. The frog splash misses though and Fenix grabs a Muscle Buster driver (egads) for the pin at 14:44.
Rating: B. While maybe not the most classically formulated match in the world, this was a lot of fun with both guys flying around and hitting a variety of big moves, which is more than you get in a lot of matches like this. ACH isn’t likely to win much around here, but he’s regularly putting in entertaining performances on TV. Fenix needed the win a lot more though and that’s what matters most here.
Post match they stare each other down and shake hands after a few seconds to end the show.
Overall Rating: B+. After last week’s really weak effort, it’s a good sign that they can still pull off something like this. You had two good matches and angle advancement up and down the show. That’s a good way to use your hour of TV time and even though there’s only so much to draw from, this was definitely one of the best episodes of the series so far.
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Observation: You like to use the phrase “around here” a lot, which is fine, but three times in the first paragraph may be a bit much.
….egads.
Yeah that’s bad.