Jump to content
Pro Wrestling Only

MLW Fusion, anyone watching it?


sek69

Recommended Posts

I like some of the direction that MLW are doing right now as it feels like they have options going forward, which I'm a fan of. I don't like Lawlor winning the Opera Cup but, I mean, there wasn't really anyone in it that I thought should win it, so it's whatever. But Lawlor winning does cement him as having credibility again going forward if MLW wants to make him a challenger for the title again, which they might. Especially if they have Hammerstone beat Fatu for the title. And they made sure he beat Low Ki in the finals in doing so, as they have a history.

Hammerstone right now is dealing with the side hurdle of The Black Hand, Mads Krugger. He's still friends with Richard Holliday as a part of The Dynasty. The Von Erichs have also been entangled with Contra Unit, so they could theoretically set-up another MLW War Games match of like Hammerstone, Holliday & The Von Erichs against Contra Unit (Simon Gotch, Jacob Fatu, Mads Krugger & either Josef Samael or Ikuro Kwon).

You also have Salina de la Renta bringing in Mil Muertes on the horizon too.

I don't know what MLW will do or where they're going but it's nice to have some intrigue as a fan in pro wrestling again during the pandemic.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 533
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

A couple of random musings from the last couple of weeks of Fusion... I thought the final of the Opera Cup between Low Ki and Tom Lawlor was really good, although like Coffey, I was expecting Ki to win, as I thought they would set up him using that to challenge Jacob Fatu for the title, which I don't think is a match they've done yet. Given Lawlor is a heel like Fatu, that maybe adds more weight to Coffey's theory that Fatu may lose the belt to Hammerstone (who has been leaning more face the last few months) and then Lawlor will challenge him

Like the idea of Salina bringing in Mil Muertes again, although like I think EL-P highlighted, outside of the heavily produced world of Lucha Underground, where he looked amazing and an absolute killer I do fear him getting a little bit exposed as a standard 'walk and brawl' type, but I'm a sucker for wrestler's having consistent characters across different companies/universes so love them leaning into the Lucha Underground background for his character.

So far, Kings of Colosseum doesn't look the strongest card on paper, although there's still matches to be announced I would think to flesh out the crowd. One thing that is scheduled that I'm hyped for is the Myron Reed vs Lio Rush match which could be great. I've liked Rush's promos in the buildup.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Muertes looks like his old self, but without LU's great production and with MLW's annoying production (what's up with that odd fake crowd noise in an empty building ?), he just doesn't comes off the same at all (and I still can't endure Fusion's awful pacing). Damn, I wish Salina would work in a promotion I can care for...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

The issue to me is that what made Lucha Underground so great was 1/the awesome production 2/the roster full of legit great workers and then can't-miss prospects (yeah, I know, Ricochet in WWE, lulz) 3/the awesome setting.

MLW has exactly none of this. They don't have the budget nor know-how to do the great vignettes, the roster is gone, their setting is really cheap-looking. What's left ? I mean, they brought back Mil Muertes which should be cool but they have done nothing of note with him and without the great production he looks like Gilbert El Boricua with a mask. They did a really bad "jungle fight" last week against Savio Vega which was basically a bunch of brawling in some suburb park pretending to be Aztec jungle or something, it was really lame honestly and I love this kind of ideas and I also don't mind old Savio doing nothing but hard chops.

So, people are talking about Dario Cueto showing up, ok, but in the context of a B-movie version of what used to be a great show (not the 4th season, ok) without 97% of the cast and none of the budget nor the directors. So... Yeah honestly, this is cool "on paper", like a lot of things with MLW, but MLW never delivers. This is the only thing that made me look at some MLW lately, and like I said, I ended up disappointed. So, a part of me is like "wow, this is pretty cool" but the main part of me is like "meh, MLW".

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, El-P said:

The issue to me is that what made Lucha Underground so great was 1/the awesome production 2/the roster full of legit great workers and then can't-miss prospects (yeah, I know, Ricochet in WWE, lulz) 3/the awesome setting.

Also, and this is really fucking important: it was goddamn different from EVERYTHING ELSE EVERYONE WAS DOING! That's what made it cool. That's why I was able to get into it & buy into what they were selling, like the over-the-top "he's really a Dragon" vignettes & what not.

MLW re-doing Lucha Underground just means the originality, one of the strongest if not the strongest things about LU, is gone. Makes me think of Vince McMahon bringing the nWo into WWF.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I will readily admit that I've not checked out MLW nor do I know the contract situations of the original wrestlers (except Ricochet, of course) so I was excited by the chance this could be a reboot (considering El Rey network is no more). Not a rehash but a continuation of where things were left.

I had high (pipedream?) hopes this would be the same guys getting a chance to run with it, again. If it isn't, I'm going to still give it a look, as LU was so different and so unique it made for an amazing weekly product. I totally get the brakes you guys are pumping, though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm also sort of interested that they feel comfortable doing this, since they're obviously referencing LU and those guys have been super litigious with their contracts, and I'd think that would extend to their IP. Possibility that some of the original behind the scenes people are involved with this?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...

I watched the last three weeks as the product has had a renewed focus on what I liked ie Salina de la Renta with Los Parks, and I admit watching Mil Muertes is kinda cool still despite not having the awesome LU production. There's no way Dario Cueto is not El Jeffe (either that or it's a total old-school carny tease). If only to see the promos between him & Salina, I'm gonna watch a little bit more (with the remote in hands to FF through the many segments I don't care for, like some Gringo Loco match or Von Erich promo).

Also, whatever happened with Alicia Atout signing with AEW at the start of the promotion and ending end working in MLW ? She's really good at what she does.

Calvin Tankman, Lio Rush, Richard Holliday & Alex Hammerstone are also good guys there.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 5 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...
11 hours ago, Enforcer said:

Apparently, Dario Cueto was on the last episode of MLW. I might start watching it again now. 

Just the very end of the episode... looks like its setting up stuff for the July 10 Philly show, don't believe they're doing new episodes before then.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This should be fun. The MLW reboot has been fun since its inception. It's good to see they are continuing to re-invent the company. I mentioned it earlier in this thread, but I always found SDR a little too try-hard. She's gotten a little better in her role over time, but she still does nothing for me. Apparently both WWE and AEW are interested in her services, but I feel Impact or ROH would probably be a better situation for her. It's going to be interesting to see where she lands. El Jefe in MLW is going to create some must see TV and if WWE an MLW are working together then we can possibly see Lucha House Party, Escobar and his crew, Humberto, and others.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, well, well...you knew it was coming, but was still a great moment when Dario Cueto actually appeared on screen. Where they go from here has definitely got me intrigued. It was interesting to see that the part with him in looked to be filmed much more in the style of Lucha Underground, with the increased production levels - Court Bauer at one point was involved with LU right as like a consultant or something I'm sure? So he will have those relationships, he's tight with Konnan and he has also has lots of links into the Mexican wrestling scene as well. I've got no idea where any of it goes (which is a good thing!) - does that mean Dario Cueto will be a character that appears in front of live audiences now (which was implied by him saying that he would be in Philidelphia on the 10th for the restart) and do they in any way look to try and pick up storyline threads from the end of LU? 

As for the rest of the product, I've said on here that I am a fan, even if I can see (and accept) the criticisms that others have. I just really like the presentation, and I'm hoping that the move to Vice and the 'draft' they are talking about means they can beef up their roster with some new additions as it's very thin currently. One of the biggest, and most legitimate criticisms is that the big matches they have always seem to fall flat, however I feel like over the last few weeks they've settled into a nice pattern of a couple of squash/angle advancement matches before a longer main event that has been decent. For the last 4 episodes I would say the main events were all good matches - not ***** classics or anything, but fun TV main events, which is all I want. Again, not saying it's earth shattering or anything, but I thought the Lio Rush/Myron Reed match last week was really good, and overall I'm excited for their return in front of fans in a couple of months.   

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, TonyPulis'Cap said:

As for the rest of the product, I've said on here that I am a fan, even if I can see (and accept) the criticisms that others have. I just really like the presentation, and I'm hoping that the move to Vice and the 'draft' they are talking about means they can beef up their roster with some new additions as it's very thin currently. One of the biggest, and most legitimate criticisms is that the big matches they have always seem to fall flat, however I feel like over the last few weeks they've settled into a nice pattern of a couple of squash/angle advancement matches before a longer main event that has been decent. For the last 4 episodes I would say the main events were all good matches - not ***** classics or anything, but fun TV main events, which is all I want. Again, not saying it's earth shattering or anything, but I thought the Lio Rush/Myron Reed match last week was really good, and overall I'm excited for their return in front of fans in a couple of months.   

I had fallen way behind and binged the last 2-3 months to catch up since I'm going to the Philly show. I'm with you that they've done a better job than most with pacing the empty arena shows, not going too long with dead matches and keeping the show moving. It's made the main events going longer seem more palatable and helped perception of them, I think. I'm guessing the roster has been intentionally thin for these empty arena shows - they've really focused on the guys they want to promote and haven't tried to spend money on anyone else, which has worked okay for the way they build the show. 

I also like the idea of doing an off season and a season premiere! Totally fine to watch some 2003 episodes while the main show is on a break.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Ol' Davey was quite the whipping boy on PWO and DVDVR back in the day. Say what you want about the guy, but he should have become a much bigger star. Early 2010s Davey would be a main eventer in any promotion in the world today. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing is up to you. And as far as I know, he's not a sex pest or a COVID denier, which practically qualifies him for sainthood by pro wrestling standards. What better place for him to make his return than the island of misfit toys?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...
2 hours ago, Blehschmidt said:

So, I can tell that the episodes of MLW that are airing on Vice are older footage. Can someone who knows the product better tell me how far behind the Lucha Undergriund stuff what is currently airing on Vice is?

They haven't done any proper LU stuff on the TV show, other than teases.

The TV that's airing is the stuff from right before the pandemic - they're in February/March of 2020 right now (they'd taped some stuff right before everything went dark, so they had new episodes for a while). 

They did best ofs and 2003 episodes for a while. TV from November - April was all empty arena stuff - that's where Muertes first appeared and they started indicating Selina was being funded by "El Jefe." You can probably catch up with that pretty quickly on Youtube - they posted a lot of the Tv shows as clips, so you can just watch, say, the Selina vignettes or Muertes-Hammerstone.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.


×
×
  • Create New...