MAJOR LEAGUE WRESTLING
FIGHTLAND
OCTOBER 7, 2021
2300 ARENA
PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA

Watch: VICE

MLW MIDDLEWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP
TAJIRI DEF. MYRON REED © , AREZ & ARAMIS

This being the legendary 2300 Arena, the crowd loved TAJIRI. Reed and TAJRI went to the outside very early on and then Arez and Aramis did their thing in the ring. At one point everyone except TAJIRI did big dives to the outside. TAJIRI blew the mist in Reed’s face while the referee was distracted and pinned Reed with the Buzzsaw Kick. This was obviously just a spotfest with big move after big move and TAJIRI picking his spots, but it worked for what it was. I should add that Reed is really coming into his own as a worker. I thought this was one of the best performances of his I’ve ever seen. Now that MLW has a title on one of All Japan’s bookers, you have to wonder if there will be collaboration between them going forward. ***½

We got the debut of MLW Embedded hosted by Alicia Atout and featuring. Raj Giri, Andreas Hale, Emilio Sparks and Dave Meltzer. They talked about if WWE is for sale, the next big AEW signings and announced Will Ospreay will be coming to MLW this Fall. All of the contributions from the wrestling journalists were good, but talking about WWE and AEW rumors on your big VICE debut is not the kind of different thinking that MLW needs.

MLW WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP VS. MLW NATIONAL OPENWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP – NO DQ
ALEXANDER HAMMERSTONE (NATIONAL CHAMPION) DEF. JACOB FATU (WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION)

This was announced as a No DQ match on commentary as the wrestlers were making their entrances. This started at a very fast pace with some big suplexes and Lariats from each man. Both men also got dueling chants from the crowd over the course of this. The match slowed down in the middle as Fatu worked over Hammerstone. Fatu hit an awesome-looking Moonsault off of the guardrails. Hammerstone made a comeback with some more impressive-looking suplexes. In the closing minutes, there were lots of big bombs exchanged with some flying too. Josef Samael hit Hammerstone in the chest with a spike on the outside and Fatu grabbed a table. Hammerstone kicked out of a Double Jump Moonsault on a table at 2.9, made a comeback and pinned Fatu with a TKO to win both titles. This was pretty good, though I thought the set up for the table spot took too long and the finish felt a little flat. The hot crowd in the 2300 Arena also added a lot to this match. To MLW’s credit they really put in an effort to hype up this match and it felt like a big deal. ***¾

FINAL THOUGHTS

Between the matches and Embedded, there was a CONTRA cut-in with Mads Krüger cutting a promo and another backstage segment where Krüger and E. J. Nduka got into a brawl, which Cesar Durand said was to prevent Contra from interfering in the main event. I’m not looking forward to Krüger versus Nduka from a workrate perspective, but it would be a hell of a way for Nduka to make a big splash, as it’s clear he’s in for a big push in MLW, and certainly deserves one.

The main event mostly delivered. While I’m not the biggest Hammerstone fan, this was one of his best performances. And it was also time to take the world title off of Fatu, who, though incredible, had run through everyone in the company. MLW’s latest episodes of Fusion have been quite good and with the Opera Cup matches beginning to air next week, featuring Tom Lawlor versus Davey Richards, they are going to be regaining a lot of momentum.