Major League Wrestling Fusion – February 1, 2019: Kickoff!
IMG Credit: WWE
Fusion #42
Date: February 1, 2019
Location: Scottish Rites Temple, Miami, Florida
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Rich Bocchini
So because I’m not allowed to get caught up with all the shows I’ve missed over the last month, there’s this show, which aired the night before their big SuperFight special and isn’t even on their YouTube page. I can’t find a single mention of this show on their site either, but for the sake of completion, let’s get to it.
Here are last week’s results if you need a recap.
Opening sequence.
Ricky Martinez vs. Fred Yehi
Well if I just have to deal with more Salina. Yehi muscles him over with an early German suplex and hits some loud strikes in the corner. A running kick to the head makes it even worse as it’s all Yehi so far. Martinez goes simple by ax handling him in the back of the head, followed by a dropkick to the side of the head for two. A pop up knee to the face keeps Yehi in trouble and Martinez does the Madison Rayne faceplants into the mat. Yehi blocks the last one though and pops up with a brainbuster for two of his own. Back up and Martinez gets in a quick poke to the eye, setting up a rollup for the pin at 3:57.
Rating: D+. This was a weird one as they were setting up a back and forth match and then just ended it out of nowhere. What we got was good enough and both guys are capable of having a rather nice match, but instead they went with the short form idea. Martinez going after the eye ties into his feud with Kotto Brazil, but they could have expanded this one by a good while.
Video on Tom Lawlor vs. Low Ki.
Low Ki is in Orlando and talks about everyone he’s beaten as champion. You get to the top based on skill instead of who you train with and Lawlor will find that out tomorrow night.
We see clips of Low Ki’s reign of terror, including winning the title, taking Fenix’s mask, ripping off Daga’s ear and stabbing Konnan.
SuperFight Control Center, including the matches taking place in the upcoming weeks.
Lawlor is tired of hearing all the talk from Low Ki and Salina so on Saturday, it’s time to fight. He still can’t talk very well, but he’s certainly trying.
We look at Lawlor’s path to the title, starting with Battle Riot and wins over Jake Hager, Shane Strickland and Sami Callihan.
Brian Pillman Jr. vs. Tommy Dreamer
Empty Arena match taped earlier in the day. Pillman comes through the stands and brags about being trained in Calgary, which brings Dreamer up the steps for some very un-PG language as the fight begins. Pillman sends him head first into a wall and into what looks like a closet where Dreamer gets hit with a metal sign. Back down the steps we go and Dreamer gets a chain put in his mouth.
Dreamer is back up with a trashcan to the head as a referee asks if Brian wants to quit. Uh, the lack of an audience doesn’t mean there aren’t rules here. Could we have some control here people? They fight outside with Dreamer being sent into a wall and calling down some steps. They choke each other a lot until Dreamer suplexes him on some grass.
It’s time to head back inside again and they wind up in a kitchen, with Dreamer getting both mayonnaise and a door stop to the head. A low blow gets Dreamer out of trouble and Pillman starts to beg off from the threat of a light tube to the head. Pillman crawls out of the ring and says thank you as the fight ends at about 6:45.
Rating: D. What am I supposed to say about this? It wasn’t a match by any traditional definition and it wasn’t particularly good as they didn’t do anything that hadn’t been done before. The ending means we’re not done yet and for lack of a better term, Dreamer won. This felt like they had an initial idea but didn’t bother to figure out where it was going to go in the end.
One last rundown for SuperFight wraps us up.
Overall Rating: D+. This was the most skippable show the company has ever had as it was more or less their version of a Kickoff Show. I can understand why it wasn’t immediately uploaded to their YouTube page because it’s not like anything on here was meaningful in the slightest. It’s not the worst show in the world and it did a nice job of setting up the main event, but this might as well have been some kind of special instead of a regular show.
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