Major League Wrestling Fusion – November 23, 2019: Points For Creativity
IMG Credit: Major League Wrestling
Fusion #85
Date: November 23, 2019
Location: Gilt Nightclub, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: AJ Kirsch, Rich Bocchini
We’re still in Orlando tonight but things should be interesting as the main event is Mance Warner vs. Jimmy Havoc in a Falls Count Anywhere match, which very well may go anywhere. I’m not sure what to expect from the match but hopefully it can live up to the hype. Let’s get to it.
Here are last week’s results if you need a recap.
Marshall Von Erich has been attacked by a masked man. That’s quite the epidemic in wrestling.
Opening sequence.
Tom Lawlor has signed a new deal to end all of those issues.
Mance Warner vs. Jimmy Havoc
Falls Count Anywhere. Mance jumps him during the entrance and slams a chair into Havoc as they fall down the steps. A beer can to the head has Havoc in trouble but Warner’s chop hitting a steel post evens things up a bit. Jimmy grabs a pair of chairs but Mance hits him in the head with one of them before loading up various pieces of plunder.
A board is set up in the corner and it’s the Bionic eye poke to stagger Havoc again. The thumbtacks are brought out but Havoc pokes him in the eye…and leaves. Warner is in pursuit and Havoc steals someone’s car, sending the man into a lot of swearing. With Havoc leaving, Warner gets someone in another car to give chase, wisely bringing the referee and cameraman with him. More on this later.
Alex Hammerstone and Richard Holliday are by the pool with Hammerstone working on his Hogan tan. Holliday still wants to know what the big present is, with guesses of a big egg (Hammerstone: “No one would give a big egg on Thanksgiving!”) and giant Air Pods. Whatever it is, Holliday gets it on Thanksgiving.
Zeda Zhang vs. Spider Lady
There is no info on Spider Lady, who wears a mask and has big eyes. We’re not getting a handshake to start so Spider goes for the eyes to take Zhang into the corner. Zhang glares her back and hits some strikes to the chest as we hear about Spider sending harassing phone calls to Zhang over the week. A half crab takes Zhang down but she’s in the ropes in a hurry. The leg gets wrapped around the rope as this is already not going well. The Mandible Claw of all things goes on with Zhang in the rope and that’s a DQ at 4:37.
Rating: D. Yeah this really didn’t work and that was clear about a minute in. It was a match that was happening and just happened to have women involved with nothing interesting. I know they’ve waited a long time to get to the women’s division and I’m just not sure if this company needs it. Not a good match and hopefully that is going to get a lot better in the future.
Post match the Spider Lady unmasks as….Priscilla Kelly, who puts the Claw on Zhang again and beats up the referee.
Warner pulls up to Havoc’s apartment complex and goes inside, with an exchange of cookie sheet shots to the head. They fight into the bathroom where Warner puts Havoc’s head in the toilet for a flush. Havoc is back with some frying pan shots and a shoe to the head but the chase is on again. The fight goes outside again with the car chase starting for a second time. Of note: Havoc’s apartment is perfectly normal, which even commentary noted as being a surprise.
Marshall Von Erich is out of next week’s title match, with his brother Ross replacing him.
Here are the brackets for the Opera Cup:
Davey Boy Smith Jr.
Shinjiro Otani
Alex Hammerstone
Maxwell Jacob Friedman
Timothy Thatcher
Richard Holliday
Brian Pillman Jr.
TJP
Priscilla Kelly is here to shock people, as only she can do. She is here to get inside all of the women’s heads and question their sanity.
National Openweight Title: Alex Hammerstone vs. Douglas James
Hammerstone is defending and Holliday is on commentary. James goes with some early rollups for two each before hitting a dropkick. A cutter gets two and it’s time to kick away at Hammerstone’s chest. Hammerstone powers him into the corner though and starts slugging away, setting up a very delayed butterfly suplex.
Another kick to the chest gets James out of trouble for a second but Hammerstone kicks him in the face to stop that in a hurry. We hit a quickly broken bearhug, followed by a good looking overhead belly to belly for two on James. Hammerstone’s superplex is countered into a German suplex off the top, setting up a running flip DDT (cool….I think) for two more. A running Meteora gets two more as the fans are getting into this one.
Hammerstone slams him off the top though and it’s a bicycle kick into a release German suplex. The Batista Bomb gets two and a reverse FU gets the same as Hammerstone is getting frustrated. For some reason James slaps him in the face, setting up the Nightmare Pendulum to retain Hammerstone’s title at 9:30.
Rating: C. This had no business to be good and while the title change wasn’t ever a real possibility, it was nice to see Hammerstone showing off everything that he could do out there. He’s an athletic freak and has the look to back it up so seeing him get to bust out all those big moves was a rather good use of him. James looked fine too and takes a good beating, which can keep you around for a long time.
Havoc and Warner arrive at….Full Sail University. This could go in a variety of ways.
We run down the Thanksgiving show.
Tom Lawlor says he re-signed to get the World Title back. Oh and the Von Erichs are great.
The fight is on in the Full Sail parking lot, with the driver of the car Warner stole, apparently his uncle, throwing moonshine in Havoc’s eyes. Warner rolls him up for two but Havoc is back with some bites to the ears. Havoc gets thrown into Warner’s uncle’s car and Warner chokes away in the backseat. Havoc: “THIS IS KIDNAPPING!” Warner: “I KNOW BABY! I DONE IT A COUPLE OF TIMES BEFORE!”
MLW is working with AAA. And yes, we did just jump from kidnapping to this with very little transition.
Back from a break and they return to Gilt with Warner stapling dollars to various parts of Havoc. Warner gets some dollars stapled to him as well and they get back in the ring…where all of the weapons they set up in the first segment are right where they were before. Well done on keep the illusion up there people.
Warner wedges a chair into the corner but gets sent face first into another one. A Death Valley Driver through the board and another onto the thumbtacks give Havoc two. Havoc drives a fork into the head but misses the Acid Rainmaker, allowing Warner to roll him up for the pin at 44:56 (going by the timer on YouTube as this whole show hit some time warp).
Rating: C. I have no idea how to rate something like this as it wasn’t a match and there was a lot of stuff going on throughout the entire thing, but then the time mess took me out of a lot of it. That being said, they were creative with the apartment and the Full Sail deal thankfully wasn’t a disaster, so I’ll put it right in the middle. This is one where your mileage is going to vary quite a bit, but it could have been FAR worse.
Post match Havoc attacks him with the fork, because THIS IS GOING TO CONTINUE.
Contra is ready for Thanksgiving and have something special planned for the Von Erichs.
Overall Rating: C-. I’m not sure what to think about this show. You have the big, show long angle, the bad women’s match and the rather nice Hammerstone match, plus the Von Erich attack. It wasn’t a bad show, but it was the kind of show where it felt like they were trying something different and it didn’t quite work. What they did was different though, and that’s the kind of welcome change that you need around a wrestling company every now and then. Points for trying, but not so many for execution.
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