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MLW v2
- Thread starter Lazgistics Supervisor
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King Kamala
Integral Poster
The Promised Land: Court Bauer Finally Steers MLW to Overnight Success After a 20-Year Journey
With Major League Wrestling set to debut on REELZ with ‘MLW Underground,’ the MLW CEO reflects on the two decades it took to get there
www.theringer.com
King Kamala
Integral Poster
Peacock Inks Deal With Reelz Channel, Including Live Linear Feed
The deal brings the police reality show 'On Patrol: Live' to the NBCUniversal streaming platform.
www.hollywoodreporter.com
Poor Court Bauer.
King Kamala
Integral Poster
You can't teach that.
Fightful Select aid it was because he wasn't willing to put people over. It's comical Enzo Amore thinks he can pull the "That doesn't work for me, brother" card in 2023.
Fightful Select aid it was because he wasn't willing to put people over. It's comical Enzo Amore thinks he can pull the "That doesn't work for me, brother" card in 2023.
Epic Springs
Epic Reine
Impact is the perfect place for him. Can easily be a top guy for them.
Lazgistics Supervisor
Making dumb observations since 2002
He may very well just want to do bodybuilding full time, too. He clearly put a greater focus on it than on pro wrestling around when they put the belt on him, as he increased in size and could hardly move. The guy has loads of charisma, though, and any company that can affore to pay his price should consider it.
Sex Machine Gun
Kotzenjunge
He's a dude I've seen and really liked and I hardly watch anything that isn't on national TV. He'd be better for AEW but could maybe make something work in WWE. You just never know the real relative size of these dudes when they're on the indies or even the prominent indies.
King Kamala
Integral Poster
MLW assuming that AAA was going to tell talent that MLW has released them is the dumbest assumption from a wrestling promoter since Billy Corgan assumed The CW wasn’t going to watch any NWA PPVs.
Lazgistics Supervisor
Making dumb observations since 2002
God dammit, Court...
King Kamala
Integral Poster
Lazgistics Supervisor
Making dumb observations since 2002
MLW uploaded their first 2024 show, Reload, on YouTube in mid January. I'm about halfway through, and two things keep sticking out to me.
1. Holy fucking shit is this company offering the best presentation for a modern wrestling product today. This has been MLW's greatest strength since the relaunch, and it makes point #2 all the worse.
2. Holy fucking shit is most of the talent barely beyond "high school gym for local charity" level. Maybe it's the fact that so many are MSL trainees, maybe it's because Court and MSL are so stringent on paydays that anyone worth a damn just picks up a date elsewhere, maybe it's the awful "one 5 hour show a month" schedule they usually go with...but jeeeeeeez. Sami Callihan, who I'm a much much bigger fan of than anyone else here (possibly because I'm his only fan here), shouldn't come off as a bona-fide superstar compared to anybody else, but he does.
What's hurting this Reload show is the abundance of matches between talents who are clearly greener than goose shit. 3 out of the 4 matches in the first hour are generic New Generation level in terms of quality, at their best, and the only worker involved in these bouts who seems to have a real presence (besides my girl Salina) is Delmi Exo...which is undoubtedly because of her time in Beyond, getting to work with talents that have actually been places.
Good for Rich Palladino, though. Best ring announcer in the business, and a cool dude to boot.
Man...I really want MLW to be a worthwhile promotion to watch, I do, but if shows like this are any indication then Court needs to hire another booking team and give his production crew some serious raises.
1. Holy fucking shit is this company offering the best presentation for a modern wrestling product today. This has been MLW's greatest strength since the relaunch, and it makes point #2 all the worse.
2. Holy fucking shit is most of the talent barely beyond "high school gym for local charity" level. Maybe it's the fact that so many are MSL trainees, maybe it's because Court and MSL are so stringent on paydays that anyone worth a damn just picks up a date elsewhere, maybe it's the awful "one 5 hour show a month" schedule they usually go with...but jeeeeeeez. Sami Callihan, who I'm a much much bigger fan of than anyone else here (possibly because I'm his only fan here), shouldn't come off as a bona-fide superstar compared to anybody else, but he does.
What's hurting this Reload show is the abundance of matches between talents who are clearly greener than goose shit. 3 out of the 4 matches in the first hour are generic New Generation level in terms of quality, at their best, and the only worker involved in these bouts who seems to have a real presence (besides my girl Salina) is Delmi Exo...which is undoubtedly because of her time in Beyond, getting to work with talents that have actually been places.
Good for Rich Palladino, though. Best ring announcer in the business, and a cool dude to boot.
Man...I really want MLW to be a worthwhile promotion to watch, I do, but if shows like this are any indication then Court needs to hire another booking team and give his production crew some serious raises.
alkeiper
Welcoming our new insect overlords
We don’t tolerate Notorious Mimi slander in these parts.
Lazgistics Supervisor
Making dumb observations since 2002
Is it slander if it's true, though?
King Kamala
Integral Poster
TIL Satoshi Kojima is the MLW World Champion. ‘00s Nostalgia is in!
BruiserBrody
Integral Poster
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RELEASE THE TAPES
Epic Springs
Epic Reine
Am I a prophet or what?
RedJed
Rasslin' Rambler
So did anyone peep their Intimidation Games ppv last night? Weird night to do a ppv and kind of strange to do another one this quickly especially since they had just done another one already back in the beginning of Feb, SuperFight. But I get they were trying to avoid being close to AEW's ppv or something.
Whatever the case, I do like their new way they go about presenting their product. Basically they tape another ppv style two hour show right after the live ppv, and then drop that a few weeks later on YouTube for free. It just flows better than your typical weekly Fusion schedule, although the hype machine behind some of the bigger matches is lagging when you essentially have no weekly show to promote those larger scale ppv bouts. But this is a much more easier way to digest the product since I found myself falling behind keeping up on Fusion weekly last year.
So it seems like MLW has amped up production costs with that 20 million dollar settlement with WWE. That was very apparent last night, things just looked so professional and clean in the broadcast. Am hopeful this settlement leads to bigger talent being brought in, and digging the continued NJPW alliance too. Last nights Kojima/Suzuki main event for the MLW title was really fun, for Kojima still clearly being injured, Suzuki carried him to a physical match that felt more like an Ishii/Suzuki match often. The opener was just as awesome with Mistico and Rocky Romero. High recommendation to check this show out if you have been snoozing on the promotion for awhile, it was very solid.
Whatever the case, I do like their new way they go about presenting their product. Basically they tape another ppv style two hour show right after the live ppv, and then drop that a few weeks later on YouTube for free. It just flows better than your typical weekly Fusion schedule, although the hype machine behind some of the bigger matches is lagging when you essentially have no weekly show to promote those larger scale ppv bouts. But this is a much more easier way to digest the product since I found myself falling behind keeping up on Fusion weekly last year.
So it seems like MLW has amped up production costs with that 20 million dollar settlement with WWE. That was very apparent last night, things just looked so professional and clean in the broadcast. Am hopeful this settlement leads to bigger talent being brought in, and digging the continued NJPW alliance too. Last nights Kojima/Suzuki main event for the MLW title was really fun, for Kojima still clearly being injured, Suzuki carried him to a physical match that felt more like an Ishii/Suzuki match often. The opener was just as awesome with Mistico and Rocky Romero. High recommendation to check this show out if you have been snoozing on the promotion for awhile, it was very solid.
JHawk
Thank You, Fuck You, Bye!
Kojima-Suzuki is a match I would have loved to have seen main event the Tokyo Dome 15-20 years ago
Lazgistics Supervisor
Making dumb observations since 2002
Going off of what @RedJed posted there, Burning Crush was a very fun show. Only minor gripes from me are...
-Alex Kane's segment ran too long. He's a fine guy and I'm excited for his future, but having him threaten retirement after losing one match was odd given the whole spirit of the Boma Ye Fight Club. AJ Francis instantly got over with me during the taped interruption...but man, they should've had Kane's rebuttal and challenge happen a few segments later. Let it breathe.
-The WTF faction is petty, but at least it's the fun kind of petty. MSL is whatever as a big heel manager, but leaning into the comedy works well. (Tom Lawlor is still dogshit in the ring, despite being an entertaining guy in segments.)
-I want to like Mads Krueger, I do, because having a big scary unstoppable masked monster is a trope sorely missing in the years since Kane unmasked and Abyss turned face (and then retired), but the dude is just so boring in matches. Jacob Fatu practically killed himself to make that match work.
-Alex Kane's segment ran too long. He's a fine guy and I'm excited for his future, but having him threaten retirement after losing one match was odd given the whole spirit of the Boma Ye Fight Club. AJ Francis instantly got over with me during the taped interruption...but man, they should've had Kane's rebuttal and challenge happen a few segments later. Let it breathe.
-The WTF faction is petty, but at least it's the fun kind of petty. MSL is whatever as a big heel manager, but leaning into the comedy works well. (Tom Lawlor is still dogshit in the ring, despite being an entertaining guy in segments.)
-I want to like Mads Krueger, I do, because having a big scary unstoppable masked monster is a trope sorely missing in the years since Kane unmasked and Abyss turned face (and then retired), but the dude is just so boring in matches. Jacob Fatu practically killed himself to make that match work.
Epic Springs
Epic Reine
I'm guessing a lot of people here won't be following MLW anytime soon.
King Kamala
Integral Poster
Lazgistics Supervisor
Making dumb observations since 2002
Court is always chasing anybody he can that has some name value, and he did it back when MLW first started, too. It's just kind of a shame because I'm really enjoying the team of Joe Dombrowski and Christian Cole. Dombrowski is basically Mauro without the stupid habits, and Cole is a perfectly fine color guy.
EDIT: I won't lie, I had to look up their names. In doing so, I found out that Raven is a Producer, which explains so goddamn much about why the shows have been structured so well. I'm sure @RedJed would agree with me, there.
EDIT: I won't lie, I had to look up their names. In doing so, I found out that Raven is a Producer, which explains so goddamn much about why the shows have been structured so well. I'm sure @RedJed would agree with me, there.
King Kamala
Integral Poster
Lazgistics Supervisor
Making dumb observations since 2002
King Kamala
Integral Poster
Davey Boy Smith Jr has aged a lot in the 4-5 years since I last saw him wrestle. I guess tagging with Teddy Hart will do that to ya.
Lazgistics Supervisor
Making dumb observations since 2002
He actually does pretty solid here, but I'd be lying if I didn't say that most of the MLW roster worth a damn aren't in featured positions.
Just like most other companies.
Just like most other companies.
Lazgistics Supervisor
Making dumb observations since 2002
Holy shit, I wish I had Triller+ because I'd watch War Chamber in a heartbeat if this was the epilogue.