Melbourne City Wrestling
MCW100
August 18, 2018
Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre
Melbourne, Australia

Watch: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/mcwencore/

An announced 1,200 people came to MSAC to watch Melbourne City Wrestling’s big event and one of the biggest Australian indie events I can think of.

A stacked card featuring Robbie Eagles, Madison Eagles, Bad Luck Fale, Will Ospreay, and the man that got me to buy a ticket Tetsuya Naito. For the soul reason of Saturday night alcohol consumption a move-by-move review is quite frankly impossible but hopefully I can sway some of you to check the event out when it becomes available on their on-demand service.

Stone Age street fight for the MCW Tag Team Championship
The Brat Pack © Def. Prehistoric Death Cult

“A Stone Age street fight?” You ask. Yes, you read that right and that’s because the challengers are a caveman and dinosaur. This was a perfectly fine opener, filled with classic opening plunder match spots, including: baking tray sheets, trash cans and your quintessential Stone Age street fight weapons like animal skulls, pebbles and a caveman’s club wrapped in barbed wire. The highlights of the match was when Syd Parker (the dinosaur) tombstone piledrove one of the Brat Pack through a table from the second rope. The Finish came when Erika Reid (Prehistoric Death Cults manager) accidentally spit mist into Caveman Uggs’ (the caveman’s) eyes leading Ugg to inadvertently hit Erika with a black hole slam type move, which caused Syd to lose his shit and smack Ugg over the head with a stone, curb stomp him into the stone, then finally, the icing on the tag team break up cake, a con-chair-to with the club wrapped in barb wire. One of the Brat pack covers Ugg while Syd yells, “you’re supposed to protect her” while carrying Erika to the back. Fine opener, pretty good angle, and solid start. **3/4

“Lover boy” Lochy Hendricks Def. TD

Classic former best friends/tag team partners match. This was TD’s first singles back for quite some time after being injured. Hendricks has become quite the smarmy heel and oozes charisma. TD looks like he had a bit of ring rust but looks far more capable of having better matches then what this was. Hendricks wins with a roll up and a handful of tights, a bit underwhelming but I have full confidence these two will have much better matches as this feud continues. **

Triple threat match for the DEFIANT Women’s Championship
Bea Priestley © Def. Indi Hartwell & Avary

Best match of the show so far, which is extremely impressive considering the age and experience of all three wrestlers. Indi Hartwell will be a star one-day. There was this one insane spot where Avary was draped over the guardrail outside and Bea did a double foot stomp from the top rope to Avary. It looked nasty, and Bea did tell us during intermission that Avary was indeed busted open after the spot. This match is worth watching just to see that spot. Regardless, this was a pretty good match. ***1/4  

Pick your poison six-pack challenge
Tome Filip Def. Mike Burr, JXT, Stevie Filip, Bad Luck Fale and Robbie Eagles

The winner of this match gets an MCW title shot of their choosing, that’s what the pick your poison part was all about. Now that the explanation is out of the way…Robbie Eagles is THE MOST UNDERRATED WRESTLER IN THE WORLD! For how good he is, there is not enough fan fair about and can’t wait for him to kill it at BOLA this year. If New Japan is serious about global expansion especially into the oceanic region then Eagles should be a lock for the Jr. division. This match was a ton of fun, the Filip brother’s rule, JXT rules and this is the perfect match type for Fale – catch dives and power moves. Dives and flips everywhere, really sold a sense of urgency to win this match rather than just to entertain the live crowd, which I can appreciate. Amongst the chaos Eagles hits a 450 splash but Tome throws him out of the ring for the pin fall on his 450 victim. ***3/4

Fun Time Open Challenge
Fun Time Phil Def. Jake Andrewartha

I’ll be honest I had to look up Fun Time Phil’s opponent for this review. The gimmick of this was that Phil wouldn’t come out because he had lost his other open challenges, he was finally dragged out after a woman named Aria told him to come out, Phil had friends with him for support. This brought Andrewartha out who wore a judo kit, and my research of this man, uncovered he was a former judo Olympian…poor Phil. The bell rings then Andrewartha’s handler I guess started some promo that distracted Andrewartha leading to a Fun Time roll up and a huge pop. Aria and Phil kissed and he started eating potato chips. Pretty fun little segment. N/A

First blood match for the MCW Heavyweight Championship
Gino Gambino © w/Seb Walker Def. Dowie James

This was good and I don’t want to sound like I’m shitting on it, but it probably will. I can see why they wanted to do this match on their big 100 show but I feel like this would’ve felt like a bigger deal if it wasn’t on the same card as Ospreay and Naito. They both worked hard, some cool steps and ladder spots; Walker unscrewed the top buckle for Gino to use as a weapon. The finish saw a ref bump – pretty fitting since Gino was wearing his Bullet Club firing squad shirt, selling his allegiance to Fale. While the ref was down James was able to make Gino bleed however walker covered him with a towel, this brought Lochy Hendricks to the ring attacking Dowie James, busting him open just in time for the ref to come to his senses and call for the bell. Good match but would’ve been better suited to a different card maybe. ***1/4

Kellyanne Def. Madison Eagles

I love Madison Eagles, she rocks! I was somewhat surprised at the result but Kellyanne seems like someone that the company is going to push and her beating someone like Eagles puts her over strong. The match itself was pretty disappointing but it was cool to see Madison Eagles live. **3/4

MCW Intercommonwealth Championship
Slex (c) Def. Will Ospreay

Holy mackerel…this absolutely ruled!

I can’t praise this match enough. By far the best match I’ve seen live. Will Ospreay is an absolutely incredible wrestler, one of the best in the world. Slex is no slouch either, he’s another one of those guys that has great matches but everyone talks about how great his opponent was, he killed it against Okada last November and this match with Ospreay was even better. I’m not going to go through the moves because I don’t want to spoil anything. If you don’t have the MCW on demand service or the PROGRESS one where some MCW shows get put up, I assume this will also be added to New Japan World and is definitely worth your time. ****3/4

Tetsuya Naito Def. Jonah Rock

Finally, the main event! Jonah is another guy I can’t wait to hear kill it at BOLA this year and he killed it again here, he comes across as a legit monster and someone that can and will rip your head off. Naito is on another level of superstardom, his charisma is seriously something else and he really is a genius in the ring. The match told a pretty basic story and I might be over rating this match because I was in complete euphoria but the crowd reaction seemed to agree. ****1/4

Final Thoughts

Naito brought me through the doors and MCW regulars will keep coming back. A super fun show, one of the best I’ve been to highlighted by a great main event and an incredible semi-main. If you live in Melbourne it will be worth checking out their next show in September as it was announced Adam Brooks is on the card!