ACH vs. Matt Cross has been added to MLW Kings of Colosseum 22.
The event takes place Friday, May 13 from the 2300 Arena in Philadelphia, PA. Matches on the show will be taped for future episodes of MLW Fusion.
“Styles make fights and both Matt and ACH can do it all,” said MLW CEO Court Bauer. “From technical to lucha to strong style, this fight showcases not only the depth of our roster but the versatility of MLW fighters and their fighting styles.”
The updated lineup for the show is as follows:
MLW World Heavyweight Champion Alex Hammerstone defends against Richard Holliday (w/ Alicia Atout)
Taya Valkyrie vs. Holidead to crown the inaugural MLW Women’s Featherweight Champion
Weapons of Mass Destruction match: Jacob Fatu vs. Mads Krugger
MLW World Tag Team Champions Hustle & Power (Calvin Tankman & EJ Nduka) vs. The Von Erichs (Ross & Marshall Von Erich) vs. 5150 (Slice Boogie & Danny Rivera)
A National Openweight Championship bout is the latest addition to the card for MLW’s next Azteca Underground tapings.
Alex Kane will defend his National Openweight title against Puma King, ACH, and Myron Reed in a four-way match at the April 1 Azteca Underground tapings in Dallas. The show is taking place on the Friday of WrestleMania week.
Last November, Kane won the vacant National Openweight title in a ladder match that also included ACH, Reed, Alex Shelley, and Zenshi. The title was relinquished by Alex Hammerstone after he became MLW World Heavyweight Champion in October 2021.
Reed is the current MLW Middleweight Champion.
The Azteca Underground tapings are being held at Gilley’s Dallas. The venue will also host a set of MLW tapings on Thursday, March 31.
The updated card for the Azteca Underground event is listed below:
Azteca Apocalypto match: LA Park vs. Jacob Fatu
Bandido vs. Flamita
MLW National Openweight Champion Alex Kane defends against Puma King, ACH, and Myron Reed in a four-way match
Mexican strap match: Aramis vs. Gino Medina
Aerostar, Microman & El Dragon vs. Arez, Mini Abismo Negro, and a mystery partner
Title matches have been announced for the next two weeks of MLW Fusion episodes.
– MLW Tag Team Champions Marshall & Ross Von Erich will defend their titles against Los Parks on MLW Fusion next Wednesday (January 13). Tom Lawlor will be the special guest referee for the match.
In storyline, the Tag Team title match was made by Salina de la Renta as the executive producer of next week’s MLW Fusion episode. De la Renta said Los Parks haven’t been the same since they left her side, but she cut a deal with LA Park for Park and his sons to re-join Promociones Dorado if she could get them a title match.
The Von Erichs have been MLW Tag Team Champions since November 2019. They retained their titles against The Dirty Blondes (Leo Brien & Michael Patrick) in a Texas Tornado Bunkhouse match at this week’s Kings of Colosseum event.
– The MLW World Heavyweight Championship will be on the line as Jacob Fatu defends against ACH on the MLW Fusion episode that premieres on Wednesday, January 20.
Fatu has been MLW World Heavyweight Champion since July 2019 and most recently retained the title against Davey Boy Smith Jr. in November. CONTRA Unit’s Fatu, Simon Gotch, and Daivari attacked Injustice’s Myron Reed and Jordan Oliver at Kings of Colosseum.
ACH took part in MLW’s 2020 Opera Cup tournament and made it to the semifinals before losing to Lawlor.
“Filthy” Tom Lawlor booked his spot in the 2020 Opera Cup finals against Low Ki by defeating ACH in a great main event. National Openweight Champion Alex Hammerstone vs. Mads Krugger was made official for Kings of Colosseum while Jordan Oliver challenged Simon Gotch for the January special event.
Show Review:
In a nice comedy segment to open the show, Alex Hammerstone and Richard Holliday fought off some CONTRA Sentai Death Squad members in the parking lot, but Holliday was more aghast that Hammerstone exposed his obsession with Alicia Atout rather than the attempted ambush. He also stopped Hammerstone from throwing one of the members into his car because it was a rental.
Bu Ku Dao (w/ TJP) defeated LA Park Jr. (w/ LA Park and El Hijo de LA Park) (4:44)
This was a battle of MLW debutants as LA Park’s son took on Vietnam’s Dao. Park Jr. was junior in name only as he was every bit the height of his dad and not too far off his size too. He towered over Dao as he hit him low with a kick and flattened him with a dive as Dao was taking a much needed breather on the outside. The Parks also interfered behind the referee’s back at any opportunity.
Dao used the ring well and fought back after his early setback with a face-first slam coming out of a Bossman slam. The finish came when Park Jr. had Dao tied up in a guillotine, but Dao was able to fight out and lock in a small package to pick up the upset win.
— In a vignette, Injustice team member Jordan Oliver challenged Simon Gotch to a match at Kings of Colosseum. Oliver harkened back to Gotch taking out Kotto Brazil earlier in the year — an attack that caused Brazil to leave MLW. Interestingly, Brazil was mentioned twice and was seen on an old MLW.com article on this week’s Fusion. Could we see a return on the horizon?
Mads Krugger defeated Budd Heavy and Daniel Starling in a 2-on-1 handicap match (:58)
We were told Hammerstone was being restrained backstage by MLW officials so he could not come to ringside to exact revenge on Krugger in this short squash. After his reverse tree slam which squashed Starling on top of Heavy, the Sentai Death Squad put both fallen victims in body bags.
Once Krugger was backstage, he and Hammerstone finally got their hands on one another as the backstage area was described as chaos and the cameras had a hard time capturing all the commotion. Later in the night, Hammerstone’s scheduled appearance was pushed back to Kings of Colosseum instead where he will defend the National Openweight title against Krugger.
— The PWI Top 10 of MLW stars was as follows: 10. Mads Krugger, 9. Calvin Tankman, 8. Richard Holliday, 7. Laredo Kid, 6. ACH, 5. Myron Reed, 4. LA Park, 3. Tom Lawlor, 2. Low Ki, 1. Alex Hammerstone. Interestingly, Laredo Kid is 0-1 in this MLW relaunch but is ahead of Krugger, Tankman and Holliday who have all won matches in recent weeks. LA Park has yet to wrestle and is no. 4, Hammerstone has won one 20 second squash and is no. 1, so I guess pre-lockdown reputations and records still matter.
— Salina de la Renta continued her vignettes in the build-up to the debut of her latest acquisition: Mil Muertes. She was back amongst the Aztec ruins with a blood-soaked rag, dimmed lights, and a pentagram drawn in blood. She laughed as she told us that Muertes is coming.
2020 Opera Cup semifinal: “Filthy” Tom Lawlor (w/ Dominic Garrini and Kevin Ku) defeated ACH (12:29)
This was fantastic and hopefully a prelude to what should be an amazing final next week with Low Ki.
Lawlor had previously beat ACH in MLW and earlier said ACH didn’t have the brains to compete with him and would use his better speed to beat ACH. However, it was ACH who got the better of the two when the pace picked up by rocking Lawlor with a dropkick to the face.
Earlier in the night, ACH said he had improved since their last match in MLW and he certainly showed it. He bettered Lawlor on the ground, repeatedly using the side headlock in his favor, keeping Lawlor from making any real offense until the nine minute mark.
Lawlor tried to lock in a rear naked choke, but ACH dodged. However, he missed a double stomp and found himself locked in Lawlor’s grasp. They did the Bret Hart-Steve Austin Survivor Series ’96 finish, but Lawlor kicked out. ACH then reversed the choke into a victory roll for two.
The match went from zero to 100 almost instantly as ACH hit a barrage of quick strikes and floored Lawlor with a sit-out powerbomb. Lawlor got his knees up as ACH came off the top rope, rolling him up to pick up the pin, booking his place in the finals of the Opera Cup next week.
After the match in a backstage promo, Lawlor called himself “the king of the mat,” that his first round match “was a bit Rocky for my opponent,” that his win against ACH was “super” and that now he is going to go 3-0 and undefeated against Low Ki in MLW.
El Phantasmo has won the Super J-Cup for the second year in a row.
ELP and ACH made it to the finals. ELP jumped ACH before the bell rang, attacking him with the Super J-Cup trophy. The two proceeded to have a back and forth match. The finish had ACH go for a 450 splash, but ELP got the knees up and low blowed ACH for a near fall. ELP then connected with a superkick, then finished ACH with the CR2 for the win.
After the match, ELP was awarded the broken trophy and the Super J-Cup gold jacket. He proceeded to further decimate the trophy and threw the jacket to the floor.
He cut a promo saying that the Jr. division was his. He called out Hiromu Takahashi, saying he was making the match: himself vs. Takahashi. He said he would see Takahashi at Wrestle Kingdom 15.
ELP also won the Super J-Cup last year, defeating Dragon Lee in the finals.
The first round of MLW’s Opera Cup tournament will conclude on next week’s episode of Fusion.
MLW has announced that both remaining first round matches in the Opera Cup tournament will air on Fusion next week. The matches are: Davey Boy Smith Jr. vs. Low Ki and ACH vs. Laredo Kid.
The Opera Cup began with “Filthy” Tom Lawlor defeating Rocky Romero and Richard Holliday defeating TJP on this week’s Fusion. Lawlor will face the winner of ACH vs. Laredo Kid in the semifinals. Holliday will face the winner of Davey Boy Smith Jr. vs. Low Ki.
Davey Boy Smith Jr. was the winner of MLW’s first Opera Cup tournament, defeating Brian Pillman Jr. in last year’s finals. Smith Jr. defeated Low Ki in the first round of last year’s tournament.
“Held annually for nearly 50 years at various turn-of-the-century opera house locations from New York City to Boston, the Professional Wrestling Opera House Cup was a grueling multi-day tournament,” MLW wrote about the Opera Cup. “The best of the day competed in the tournament and would often be an entree to more success, including the World Heavyweight Championship of the day. After a 71 year hiatus, the Opera Cup returned in 2019. Soon thereafter, the league confirmed the ‘classic’ would be an annual tournament hosted exclusively by MLW.”
Gino Medina, Jordan Oliver, Hijo de LA Park, King Mo, Dominic Garrini, and Daga were announced as alternates for this year’s Opera Cup.
MLW Fusion premieres on the fubo Sports Network and YouTube at 7 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesdays. The show is also made available on-demand via DAZN. It airs on beIN Sports at 10 p.m. Eastern on Saturdays.
ACH is the latest name announced for the MLW “Restart.”
From the tone of the Tuesday announcement, he will be part of the Opera Cup tournament which MLW announced will be happening this year. He joins Davey Boy Smith Jr., Laredo Kid, Lio Rush, and Shawn Daivari as those either announced or known to be part of their late-October set of tapings in Orlando, Florida.
After his very public issues with WWE that resulted in his release, ACH worked a December 2019 tag team match for MLW, teaming with King Mo against Jordan Oliver and Kotto Brazil. He also worked frequently for MLW in 2018 after their relaunch.
He has kept a busy schedule since July, working around the country and making appearances for GCW, NJPW Strong, and other indies.
New episodes of MLW Fusion debut on Wednesday, November 18th, their first fresh content since a March set of tapings in Mexico.
The Super J-Cup 2020 tournament will make its return next month.
During the announcement of this year’s Best of the Super Juniors 27 participants, the company also announced that they will be holding a Super J-Cup tournament next month in the United States. Eight wrestlers will compete in a single elimination tournament, with the winner being crowned this year’s J-Cup winner.
Like with previous J-Cup tournaments, some wrestlers will represent different promotions across the United States. Impact, ROH, and Game Changer Wrestling will all have representatives.
Notable talent included in this year’s tournament include ACH, who will make his tournament debut, and Lio Rush, who will make his debut for UWN Primetime Live this Tuesday. Chris Bey, representing Impact, will also participate, while Rey Horus will represent ROH.
The participants for this year’s tournament include:
TJP
ACH
Lio Rush
Chris Bey (Impact)
Rey Horus (ROH)
Blake Christian (Game Changer Wrestling)
Clark Connors (LA Dojo)
El Phantasmo (Bullet Club)
In last year’s tournament, El Phantasmo defeated Dragon Lee in the finals.
The show, which will take place on one night, will air live on December 12 on New Japan World.
Two former WWE roster members will face each other at GCW’s Joey Janela’s Spring Break 4 as ACH and Lio Rush will go one-on-one.
ACH was released by WWE in November 2019 as part of a two month ordeal that began with a t-shirt design that was compared to blackface imagery. Since then, he has stayed busy with GCW, New Japan Pro Wrestling, an MLW appearance, and various indies.
Rush was let go in April as part of WWE’s pandemic cuts, later released an album, and made headlines in May for a social media war of words with Mark Henry. He is also reportedly on MTV’s next season of The Challenge. His first match after his release was in a loss to Janela at GCW Homecoming Weekend in July.
The show will be part of GCW’s The Collective, set for the weekend of October 9th. The Janela event is scheduled for Saturday, October 10th.
The card as of now with two matches left to be announced.
Joey Janela vs. Ricky Morton
4th annual Clusterf*ck Battle Royal
The Rascalz (Desmond Xavier/Zachary Wentz) vs. Iron Beast
Alex Shelley vs. Tony Deppen
Lee Moriarty vs. Jonathan Gresham
Matt Tremont vs. Alex Colon in Tremont’s final deathmatch
Tonight’s episode of NJPW Strong was titled “Road to Lion’s Break Crown,” a reference to the tournament the company has planned for next week.
Danny Limelight, Clark Connors, Logan Riegel & Adrian Quest defeated The DKC, Blake Christian, Jordan Clearwater & Barrett Brown
All-action opener. This was basically a preview of the matches we will see next week on Lion’s Break Crown. Even though these are all considered to be Young Lions, each member of the match seems to have at least a few years of experience, and come off as more professional and more seasoned than a lot of other rookies you see in the United States scene at the moment.
Adrian Quest and Blake Christian were in first for their teams. Christian is extremely athletic and it shows.
Connors and Jordan Clearwater were in next. Connors was aggressive with his mat wrestling, even cradling Clearwater for a nearfall early.
Later, when the DKC put Riegel in an armbar, all of the members of the match jumped into the ring and started going at it. Quick, wild brawl for a few seconds.
Connors put Clearwater in a Boston crab, but the DKC came in to break it up. Danny Limelight came in next. Barrett Brown was next with a tope of his own, and finally Blake Christian with the flip dive.
Back inside the ring, Logan Riegel made a blind tag to Brown, putting himself in the match and putting away Jordan Clearwater with a jumping spike DDT for the win.
All eight guys got into it with each other after the match, hyping up next week’s tournament.
PJ Black and Rocky Romero defeated Fred Rosser and Misterioso
Fine match. Rosser looked huge next to Romero inside the ring. Romero tried knocking Rosser off his feet with shoulder blocks but Rosser wouldn’t budge.
Rosser and PJ Black went at it next, and this is where Misterioso entered the match. He and Black double-teamed Black on and off for a while.
When Misterioso went for a moonsault, Black put his feet up and Misterioso landed face-first into them. Black next tagged out to Romero, who used his Forever Clotheslines on both Rosser and Misterioso. Black later landed a diving crossbody block for two.
Misterioso and Rosser used a 2nd-rope superplex on Black, though he recovered quickly, which led to Romero taking Rosser out on the floor with a pescado. Black went on to pin Misterioso after the Placebo Effect (springboard 450 splash) to pick up the win for his team.
Guerillas of Destiny (Tama Tonga & Tonga Loa) defeated ACH and Alex Zayne
ACH and Zayne were on offense for the early part of this. ACH has looked awesome on these recent episodes of NJPW Strong. He and Zayne double-teamed Guerillas of Destiny early on, but the Bullet Club brothers turned the tables not long after and went to work on ACH for a while. G.O.D slowed the pace and worked over ACH for a long while, until ACH finally rolled to his corner and tagged in Alex Zayne, who cleaned house. He’s flashy and uses innovative moves, but it’s clear he still needs those reps. That said, this was hands-down the best match I’ve seen him in ever.
Zayne used a super Frankensteiner on Loa for a very close two-count, but a minute or so later, Loa recovered and spiked Zayne with Apesh*t to put him away and nab another win. This was really good for what it was. This was textbook heel tag team work from G.O.D, and both ACH and Zayne looked better than ever.
Final thoughts:
Another solid one in the can for NJPW Strong this week, though I anticipate next week’s Lion’s Break Crown tournament to be very interesting. All eight wrestlers looked hungry and aggressive in their tag match tonight, and I’m hoping the vibe will carry over into next week’s episode of NJPW Strong, when all eight face off in singles matches in night one of the Lions Break Crown tournament.
NJPW has announced a new series of events that will take place on NJPW Strong.
Following the conclusion of the Fighting Spirit Unleashed series, NJPW has announced that its Friday night NJPW Strong show will play host to the Lion’s Break Crown tournament.
The single-elimination tournament will feature eight competitors, described by NJPW in this video as “the hottest young talents that we can find anywhere.”
As was the case with the Fighting Spirit Unleashed tour, Strong will be comprised of a series of Road to events, culminating with the NJPW Lion’s Break Crown event itself.
The first Road to Lion’s Break Crown event will air on Friday, September 18 at 10 p.m. Eastern time on NJPW World. That show will be headlined by a tag match featuring ACH and Alex Zayne vs. Guerrillas of Destiny (Tama Tonga and Tanga Loa).
Further information as to specific talent involved in the Lions Break Crown tournament and how long the series will last has yet to be released.
New Japan Pro Wrestling announced matches for this Friday’s Strong event while also announcing an injury.
The company announced this evening that Alex Coughlin has suffered a neck injury and as a result will not be competing in upcoming Strong events.
Coughlin last competed during the Lion’s Break Collision tapings in June.
Matches were also announced for this Friday’s New Japan Strong. In a six-man tag team match, TJP, ACH, and Alex Zayne will face PJ Black, Misterioso, and Blake Christian. This will be the first time ACH has wrestled for NJPW since 2018, working Lion’s Break Project 1.
In a tag team match, Clark Connors and Jordan Clearwater will face Logan Riegel and Barrett Brown..
The two semifinal matches in the NJPW Cup USA tournament will also take place on this card. KENTA will face Jeff Cobb, while David Finlay will face Tama Tonga. The winners of these two matches will face off in the finals on August 21.
On the same day MLW said farewell to a longtime roster member, they welcomed another one back as they announced ACH has made a return to the organization.
While not calling it a signing, he will be part of their January 11th Zero Hour TV taping in Dallas, Texas. The former Jordan Myles has been working several indie shows and has others booked after his WWE release last month, so it’s assumed the deal is not an exclusive one.
On Thursday, ACH made a surprise appearance at their Opera Cup TV taping in New York City, teaming with former MMA fighter “King” Mo Lawal to face Kotto Brazil and Jordan Oliver of the Injustice faction in a match taped for MLW Fusion.
The 32-year-old was last with the promotion in October 2018 before signing with WWE in early-2019. W
MLW has had a busy last few months, announcing the re-signings of Jacob Fatu, Tom Lawlor, and Josef Samael along with the signing of Logan Creed and broadcaster Alicia Atout. They alaos announced the release of Teddy Hart Friday.
ACH announced several indie dates Thursday as WWE confirmed he is no longer under contract.
The former Jordan Myles will face Chandler Hopkins this Friday night for San Antonio, TX, based Heavy Metal Wrestling, and has dates for Atlanta Wrestling Entertainment on December 1st and Pro Wrestling Revolver on December 27th. He tweeted an email address for bookings.
Thursday morning, he tweeted an image of him signing a legal document:
It’s unclear whether the document was the WWE release, but he later tweeted at Vince McMahon “Can’t hold me down no more. This is FOR THE WRESTLING CULTURE.”
The saga between Albert Hardie Jr. and WWE began in late-October following a t-shirt design that was compared to blackface imagery. WWE pulled the t-shirt and released a statement that said Hardie had approved the design, but the damage was already done. Since that time, Hardie has been vocal against WWE on social media, but the company has never responded publicly to any of the claims.
Last week, Hardie said he quit WWE, saying he hated the company and everything they stand for. According to Dave Meltzer, he hasn’t been at the Performance Center since the end of September when he did his last match for the company.
Less than a month after he said WWE had racist intentions with a t-shirt design, the now former Jordan Myles announced via Twitter Wednesday night that he is quitting WWE.
Myles (real name Albert Hardie Jr.) said, among other things, that he “would like to announce that I quit f*cking WWE. I am no longer an employee. I refuse to work with racists. I f*cking hate that company and everything they stand for.”
He also said to never call him Jordan Myles again, referring to it as a slave name, adding that “it’s ACH and don’t forget the Super.”
As of this writing, WWE has not responded to a request for comment. Other than a brief statement about the t-shirt design in question, they haven’t said anything publicly about the conflict or Hardie’s status with the company.
The problems began with a t-shirt design Hardie publicly said had racist intentions, calling out Vince McMahon and Paul “HHH” Levesque by name. It later escalated as he shared some now deleted email conversations with a company creative worker that appeared to contradict statements Levesque was said to have made internally about the design.
Stopping short of apologizing, he later said his now-deleted comments toward Jay Lethal and Ring of Honor were disrespectful and that he wanted to talk with Booker T on his podcast about the situation after some comments he made regarding the WWE Hall-of-Famer.
On November 3rd, Hardie tweeted, “If wwe doesn’t reach out to me by tomorrow I’ll make sure my voice and my movement will be heard.”
In a recent Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer wrote, “Hardie had disappeared from WWE in late September. He was on what has been labeled medical leave for something that was not an injury. One person with knowledge of what happened noted that Paul Levesque made the creative decision to go all the way with Jordan Myles, putting him over in the Breakout tournament which had the finals taped on 8/10 for television. This led to a match with NXT champion Adam Cole, taped on 8/15, where the booking concept was for him to come close in a championship match. His last match was 9/21 and he has not been at the Performance Center since his leave.”
