Garth Reviews MLW

Welcome back to more Major League Wrestling, originally presented for our home viewing in the graveyard hours of regional sports networks (I was aware of it through the Sunshine Network in Florida, which later turned into Sun-Sports). We dipped our toes into MLW waters a while ago, and if you’re reading about it for the first time, they would run a show with 8-9 matches, spread them out across multiple episodes of TV, film some promos, and hype the next live event. In the TV timeline, this is the 5th episode, as we’re finally approaching our next event, with at least three events in the can taped from June through December 2002 (yes, that is quite the gap, but better late than never).

Last week on Underground TV… Steve Williams and P.J. Friedman defeated Jimmy Yang and Mike Sanders, and Simon Diamond and CW Anderson defeated Los Maximos to advance to the Global Tag Team Championship Tournament Finals (don’t ask about Hot Commodity)… We continue building the card for MLW Revolutions on May 9th at Tabu NightClub in Orlando, FL, including Satoshi Kojima vs. Vampiro for the MLW Heavyweight Title, Terry Funk vs. Steve Corino, The Finals of the Global Tournament, Jerry Lynn vs. Paul London, Mike Awesome vs. Masato Tanaka, and the debut of CM Punk (and more!)… We were treated to Steve Corino vs. Terry Funk vs. Dusty Rhodes from MLW King of Kings, where the Extreme Horsemen formed (at least in MLW lore).

Last week on Underground TV… We’re still killing time waiting for the next show to take place (that will be May 9th at the Tabu NightClub in Orlando, FL), so several matches taped in September from the Manhattan Center are packaged together, including an over-booked mess between Terry Funk and Chris Candido, as well as the match between Satoshi Kojima and Jerry Lynn to crown the “1st” MLW Heavyweight Champion (Shane Douglas’ reign and involvement is erased from history)… The brackets for the Global Tag Team Championship Tournament are announced: Dr. Death and PJ Friedman face Mike Sanders and Jimmy Yang, while Jose and Joel Maximo take on CW Anderson and Simon Diamond… The Samoan Island Tribe are furious over being snubbed for the tournament… Paul London, CM Punk, Mike Awesome, and Masato Tanaka are new names advertised for May 9th… Raven has a problem with Vampiro… La Parka attacks Bill Alfonso and challenges Sabu to a Mexican Massacre.

Last week on Underground TV… Major League Wrestling premieres on late-night regional sports cable networks and throws a bunch of stuff at the viewers! Steve Corino is presented as the top heel in the company and calls out Terry Funk… Satoshi Kojima is the new Heavyweight Champion, and he’s just happy to be here… We had the announcement of the Global Tag Team Championship Tournament, which I guarantee will be made up of matches already in the can, but we’ll pretend it’s all happening live… Raven set a picture of Vampiro on fire… Joey Styles only made 2 or 3 cheap swipes at WWE and Sports Entertainment.

Salutations! I’m Garth Holmberg, you might remember me from covering Smoky Mountain Wrestling for a cup of coffee quite a few years ago, and occasionally getting actively involved in some ridiculous arguments that can best be described as a bunch of geeks in Comic Book Guy’s Android’s Dungeon yelling back-and-forth about nonsense. With that intro out of the way, I have the itch to recap some wrestling, and as usual, I don’t want to cover the same old stuff. I thought of going back to SMW, but at the end of the day, I settled on something short term, just to get me back into a groove of things without feeling like I need to commit myself to years’ worth of shows to cover… which brings us to MAJOR LEAGUE WRESTLING (Version 1).