MLW Reloaded Tour - Night #1

1. Stampede Bulldogs vs. Bobby Quance and Puma - 3
2. Richard Criado and Chad Hart vs. Shane Twins - 2
3. Matt Martel vs. P.J. Friedman vs. Chasyn Rance - 1
4. Dark Fuego and Pete Wilson vs. Roderick Strong and M-Dogg 20 - 3
5. Chris Hero vs. Chad Collyer - 4
6. Sonjay Dutt vs. Jack Evans - 2
7. Havana Pitbulls vs. Los Maximos - 5
8. Teddy Hart vs. American Dragon - 4
9. Michael Modest vs. Jerry Lynn - 3
10. Raven and Vampiro vs. Steve Corino and Sabu - 2
11. Homicide vs. Low Ki – 6

The production on this show was a fucking disgrace. The hard camera was out of focus, they tried extreme zooms like the worst of ECW’s days, and throughout the entire show the announcers were inaudible with hardly any volume on their commentary (possibly a good thing). Show started decently, for prototypical American independent bullshit, with the Bulldogs keeping the match on their side of the ring and doing basic tag stuff fairly well. Puma wasn’t making me believe any of the stuff he was eating, and when Quance finally got in I was chuckling at his over the top bouncy set of kicks that’d make Ron Killings wince. The referee’s lack of paying attention to legal man issues aggravated me here and throughout the show. Still, this wasn’t too bad, they just weren’t seasoned but it ended up being some of the least offensive stuff off this entire show.

Criado I can’t forget from an earlier MLW show where he bumped off a stage in a wheelchair and nearly died. This was short and real bad. Hart looked green and Dick, or Richard, has terrible facial acting. Shane Twins are immobile and I can’t believe they were immortalized as action figures by WWE. The three-way is barely a minute long and shit save for a decent tilt-o-whirl backbreaker by Martel.

Jesus, the next tag deserves to be seen by all, as it’s quite possibly the shittiest match I’ve seen all year. Just so bad that it’s impossible to pull your eyes from the ensuing carnage. Pete Wilson is just unbelievably awful. He looks like a kid from a trailer park that idolizes Jack Evans, just pasty and white as hell and is more worried about buttoning up his pants than selling throughout the whole match. Strong is the only saving grace, just being a stiff prick and that’s all fine and all, but there’s so much heinous stuff constantly happening that it doesn’t matter. Fuego and Wilson do simultaneous moonsaults from a balcony but neither gets caught and both end up splatting on the floor in an ugly spot. The finish sees both M-Dogg (terrible name) and Strong laid out in the center of the ring and Fuego and Wilson do simultaneous 450 splashes on them, of course Wilson overshoots, landing face-first on Strong’s knee and probably breaking his jaw.

Hero and Collyer is fine, save for it feels out of place on such a desperate show, and the lousy crowd aren’t giving them any respect. My biggest issue with this is Hero’s still at this point way too over the top in the selling department, just doing a lot of wide-eyed, goofball sells of stuff that are quite business exposing and blatantly unnecessary. Evans and Dutt suck dong. Evans is crap in this, completely choreographing his shit, yet still managing to fuck all of it up. He overshoots a spot to the floor so bad that he completely goes over Dutt’s (balding) head and lands awkwardly against the guardrail.

I liked the Maximos match more than any of theirs I’ve seen in years, largely because it wasn’t a spot fest of epic proportions, which are tired and cliché and all of Whipwreck’s students have made high flying hackneyed and passé. This is more of an old school tag match, not exactly, but closer to traditional than most of their stuff and its for the better. Reyes and Romero hold up their end, including some good double-team sequences. Adam said Danieslon and Hart were putting him to sleep—I didn’t feel that way though. Even back then, Dragon was a smooth operator and was able to keep Hart from going overboard. The finishing sequence didn’t work for me, though. Coming off a crazy aerial spot Teddy acted like he’d seriously injured his arm, Danielson capitalized with “Cattle Mutilation” but Hart easily rolled out into an armbar that Dragon immediately tapped to. If Teddy was indeed hurt, how could he use his injured limb to apply the proper pressure to make his submission work? And, if he was just playing possum, why didn’t they do a better job getting that across?

Lynn and Modest was fine for a few minute match, I like the way Modest moves about the ring and transitions, his Japan experience shows in subtle ways. They never left first gear, though, and interference by Homicide ruined this one. The tag match, featuring arguably the show’s biggest names, was just a complete and total waste of time. Raven turned on his partner Vampiro after just a couple minutes; strangely, he hit Vampiro with his finisher (“Even Flow DDT”) and went out to the apron, only for Vampiro to continue wrestling the rest of the match as if oblivious to that significance. This was just sloppy beyond any explanation and these guys were all clearly just collecting paychecks, which is inexcusable in my eyes.

The main event was solid and felt completely unlike anything else on this miserable show. These guys know each other well, inside and out of the ring, so that familiarity allows them to respectfully take each other to another level. Adam made mention of its pace, especially in the earlier stages, feeling that it was slow; again, I disagreed, explaining that it was too soon to tell and suggesting to watch as the context unfolded. Low Ki was a real general here, controlling everything and looking fabulous while doing so. My respect for this man continually grows. The crowd was dead (all night) so they didn’t help elevate this, but the workers didn’t seem to notice or care, as they still brought their trademark intensity in spades. The aftermath featured some random interference, but the real fireworks took place near the show’s end, as some rube in the crowd threw a drink in Low Ki’s face, only to be viciously mauled by Low Ki until security dragged the slob away. This was followed by the company’s owner getting whacked in the face by Homicide with a broom which he sold like it literally killed him.