“The Fallen Angel” Christopher Daniels has been announced for NJPW Strong’s Nemesis taping on Thursday, December 9 in Los Angeles, California.
An appearance by Daniels was teased during Monday’s Strong Detonation tapings in Riverside, California, and NJPW made it official today.
In a post-match promo after teaming with Hikuleo to defeat Alex Zayne and Yuya Uemura in Riverside, Jay White issued a challenge to Daniels. White vs. Daniels has not officially been announced, but appears to be the direction.
Daniels is AEW’s head of talent relations. He and SCU partner Frankie Kazarian lost an AEW World Tag Team title match to The Young Bucks on the May 12 Dynamite this year, with the stipulation that Daniels and Kazarian could not team together again if they lost.
Daniels has wrestled just a handful of matches since, including two bouts for Defy, one for Impact Wrestling, and a series of matches filmed on this year’s Chris Jericho cruise, but has not wrestled on AEW television since losing the Tag title match.
Tickets for Nemesis went on sale today. The event will be held at The Vermont Hollywood venue in Los Angeles.
Christopher Daniels will have his first Impact match in over seven years when he takes on Madman Fulton on Thursday’s Impact Wrestling.
One of the “TNA originals”, Daniels made his return to the promotion last Thursday, saving World Champion Christian Cage and Josh Alexander from an Fulton and Ace Austin-led attack.
Following Alexander vacating the title, a tournament to crown a new X-Division champion begins tonight with Alez Zayne vs. Trey Miguel vs. Laredo Kid. The tournament will feature three three-way matches, with the winners going on to another three-way match at October’s Bound For Glory to crown the new champion.
A new pair of number one contenders for the Knockouts Tag Team Championship will emerge when The Influence (Tenille Dashwood & Madison Rayne) take on Jordynne Grace and Rachael Ellering. The winner will get their shot at champions Havok and Rosemary at this month’s Knockouts Knockdown.
Eddie Edwards can’t seem to rid himself of W. Morrissey as the two find themselves in another match, this time in& a street fight.
The BTI pre-show will see Raj Singh take on Matt Cardona. Singh made his Impact return last Thursday, marking his first appearance in the company since November 2019.
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Matt Cardona (with Chelsea Green) defeated Raj Singh (with Rohit Raju) on BTI
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Opening video recapped Josh Alexander’s challenge to Christian Cage for a title match at Bound For Glory. In addition, last week’s Alexander vs Ace Austin main event, which led to the return of Christopher Daniels to Impact after 7 years.
Trey Miguel defeated Alex Zayne & Laredo Kid in an X Division Championship match qualifier
After the X Division title was vacated by Josh Alexander, D’Amore booked a tournament to crown a new champion at Bound For Glory. Each week will feature a 3-way qualifier match to set up the participants of the BFG match. Alex Zayne is making his Impact debut in this match.
First couple of minutes saw all three men pair up in different combinations for a couple of fast paced sequences of counters and reversals, ending with Miguel dropping Kid with a rana from the apron to the floor, followed by a moonsault by Zayne.
Back in the ring, they did a couple of 3-person spots, mostly showcasing Zayne’s ability, but constantly trading momentum between the three men. Kid at one point hit a springboard rana on Miguel and a springboard cutter later on for a near fall. Finish eventually saw Zayne take out Kid, but Miguel ran in, removed Zayne from the ring and hit the meteora to win and advance to Bound For Glory.
During the match, we saw footage of Matthew Rehwoldt watching the match. Commentary mentioned that he seemed to be interested in Laredo Kid. After the match, Matthew Rehwoldt cut a promo on Laredo Kid, saying he and Kid were similar, because both of them were misunderstood by the world, and so he wanted to challenge Kid to a match.
– We got footage of Callihan being checked in by doctors after Morrissey and Moose broke his ankle. This is the story to write off Callihan.
Eddie Edwards cut a promo about knowing that he and Callihan were getting into it when they went to war with Moose and Morrissey. He told the latter that Morrissey had always been taken care of, but on Impact, he faces reality.
The Influence (Tenille Dashwood & Madison Rayne) (with Kaleb) defeated Jordynne Grace & Rachael Ellering in a Knockouts Tag Team Championship #1 contenders match.
Grace and Ellering have their history with Dashwood, but have never faced the team of Dashwood and Rayne, which recently came together a couple of weeks ago. This match was booked by Gail Kim after The Influence made the intentions to go after the tag team titles at Knockouts Knockdown, the all women show coming up on October 8th.
Match started with Ellering and Dashwood, with the former dominating the ring and the lock exchange. The Influence were able to take control of the match when Kaleb tripped Ellering, causing her and Grace to change their focus and allowing Dashwood and Rayne to attack them from behind.
The Influence’s control didn’t last long, as Ellering was able to overpower Dashwood and it was now her that found herself cut off from her corner, as Grace and Ellering worked over Dashwood’s lower back. Rayne would eventually get a cheap shot on Grace to allow Dashwood to tag out. Dashwood and Rayne worked over Grace before she powered out of their control and tagged in Ellering for the hot tag.
Ellering came in with a TKO on Dashwood and a spinebuster on Rayne. They followed with some double team moves before setting up a Vader Bomb from Grace on Rayne, but Kaleb was there to place Rayne’s foot on the ropes for the near fall.
Finish saw Grace and Ellering once again get distracted by Kaleb, allowing The Influence to hit their new signature move for the win over Ellering.
It will be The Influence vs Decay for the tag team titles.
– Gia Miller interviewed Christopher Daniels about returning to Impact. Daniels said that he didn’t need to knock on the forbidden door of the house he built. Josh Alexander and Christian Cage walked up and thanked Daniels for the help last week, but Cage and Alexander quickly got on each other’s nerves.
– We got a skit with Brian Myers training his Learning Tree, with VSK over showing everyone and making everyone jealous.
– The Good Brothers cut a promo from their vacation house, talking about beating up people. They promoted Impact’s YouTube subscription service, talked trash about some of the tag teams on Impact, and realized that they need opponents for Bound For Glory, so they proposed FinJuice vs Bullet Club in a #1 contender match.
– We then got a video of Deonna Purrazzo arriving at Mickie James’ ranch. Purrazzo found James and attacked her in a barn. They brawled for some minutes and at one point, Purrazzo tried to use a rake to attack James, who ended up spraying water on Purrazzo, which worked for some reason, but soon after, Purrazzo recovered and finally took out James.
– FinJuice cut a promo about being attacked by the Bullet Club last week, and always being outnumbered. Chris Sabin joined them and agreed to take on the Bullet Club next week. Robinson’s hair is something special.
Christopher Daniels defeated Madman Fulton (with Ace Austin)
Daniels returned last week and confronted Austin and Fulton as they attacked Alexander and Cage. This is his first Impact match in about 7 years.
Story of the match was that Fulton had the power advantage and dominated Daniels when he got a hold of him, so Daniels had to rely on his speed to run and dodge around, to get offense on Fulton. After running wild for a bit, Fulton was able to cut off Daniels with a big slam from the second rope, he mostly tried to choke and hurt Daniels’ head.
Daniels made a comeback, but was cut off by Austin’s interference, so Josh Alexander ran down for the save and brawled with Austin to the back. In the ring, Fulton kicked out of the Angel’s wings, but fell to the BME.
– Over at Swinger’s Palace, Swinger prepared himself to meet with Scott D’Amore about cancelling the Vegas tapings. D’Amore obviously didn’t take him seriously and shut down Swinger’s Palace permanently. I think we’re done.
– Madman Fulton and Ace Austin went to D’Amore and demanded that he do something about all the men getting involved in his matches. D’Amore booked Austin and Fulton vs Alexander and Cage for next week.
– Violent By Design came down to the ring for Rhino’s answer after Eric Young gave him an ultimatum on whether he was with VBD, or against them. Rhino walked out to the ring and after the fans chanted for a Gore, Rhino was surrounded by Doering, Deaner, and EY. At that point, Heath made his long awaited return from injury and went straight to brawl with Deaner and Doering. Heath cleared the ring, but Rhino never joined in, he neither attacked VBD, nor he attacked Heath.
– We got a commercial for a new title Impact is introducing, the ‘Digital Media’ Champion. There will be a tournament to crown a champion at Bound For Glory. First matches Are Zicky Dice vs John Skyler and Hernandez vs Crazzy Steve.
Also next week, Black Taurus vs Maclin vs Petey Williams in another X Division qualifier match, FinJuice & Sabin vs Bullet Club, and Austin & Fulton vs Cage & Alexander.
Eddie Edwards defeated W. Morrissey in a Street Fight
These two have been feuding for months now, they’ve already clashed in weapon matches, but this is somewhat more personal after Morrissey powerbombed Alisha Edwards at Victory Road. Morrissey and Moose also took out Edwards’ ally in this war, Sami Callihan.
Even with a weapon in hand, Edwards was early on taken down by Morrissey, who straight up broke a wet sign on Edwards’ head, but he was able to comeback with a tope suicida and a belt shot to bring Morrissey down. The brawl continued with Morrissey ramming Edwards around into the guardrail and steel steps, including a chokeslam onto those steps.
Back in the ring, the table got filled with a table, chairs, garbage cans, and other weapons. Morrissey stayed in control, but Edwards slowly made a comeback attacking Morrissey with some of the weapons, ending with a weak blue thunder bomb on the garbage can.
Edwards brought out a barbed wire wrapped chair, but failed to use it on Morrissey, and instead took a couple of chair shots himself. Morrissey tried to slam Edwards onto a bed of chairs, but Alisha ran down for the save and attacked Morrissey with a kendo stick, allowing Edwards to slip out and powerbomb Morrissey on the chairs, but he only got a count of 1 before the kick out.
Edwards attacked Morrissey with the kendo stick, followed by a Boston knee party to the barbed wire chair and Edwards finally got the pin.
After the match, Moose attacked both Edwards and Alisha, spearing Edwards through the table in the ring. Alisha checked on Edwards, when Moose and Morrissey grabbed her and made her watch as Moose attacked Edwards’ neck with several chair shots. The chair wrapped around Edwards ended up all bent. Good little post match angle.
Christopher Daniels and El Phantasmo both made their returns to Impact Wrestling Thursday.
Current AEW roster member Daniels made his surprise return after the main event that saw Josh Alexander defeat Madman Fulton. After the loss, Fulton attacked Alexander and was aided by Ace Austin. World Champion Christian Cage then ran down to help out Alexander, but the two didn’t see eye-to-eye which gave Austin and Fulton the opening to jump them both.
Daniels then ran out and took out both men, teasing hitting the Angel’s Wings on Fulton before the heels ran away. After the show ended, Impact tweeted a clip of Daniels explaining why he was there. Scott D’Amore walked up and Daniels said he wasn’t here for just run-ins but to compete in the new Impact. D’Amore then booked Daniels vs. Fulton for next week.
Over two stints, Daniels spent more than ten years in TNA/Impact, holding the X-Division title four times, the Impact Tag Team titles twice, and the NWA Tag Team titles six times when they were defended in the company. He left the company in April 2014.
ELP’s return came earlier in the show as he aided fellow Bullet Club members Hikuleo and Chris Bey.
After David Finlay defeated Hikuleo, he and Juice Robinson were about to deliver a doomsday device until ELP ran out for the save. He, Hikuleo and Bey then left FinJuice laying.
ELP worked three matches for Impact in the late-spring, earning an X-Division title match and losing to then-champion Josh Alexander at May’s Under Siege. He has spent the last few months working for NJPW in Japan.
The first five AEW talent announcements have been made for this year’s Chris Jericho cruise.
It was announced today that AEW Women’s Champion Britt Baker, Orange Cassidy, Frankie Kazarian, Christopher Daniels, and Colt Cabana will be part of the Jericho cruise. It’s sailing from Miami, Florida to Grand Bahama Island from Thursday, October 21 to Monday, October 25.
“Excited to announce that @realbrittbaker, @orangecassidy, @frankiekazarian, @facdaniels, and @ColtCabana have been added to our incredible wrestling lineup! More additions to come SOON – stay tuned! #JerichoCruise,” the announcement said.
Chris Jericho will be the master of ceremonies on the cruise.
AEW has a live episode of Dynamite being held in Orlando, Florida on Saturday, October 23. Dynamite is being moved to a Saturday on both October 16 and October 23 due to a scheduling conflict with the NHL on TNT.
Jericho sent out a tweet earlier this week noting that there would still be AEW talent on the Jericho cruise despite the Orlando Dynamite episode taking place while the cruise is happening: “Hey @jericho_cruise rockers!! Just letting you know that even with the #AEWDynamite event on Oct 23, there’s still gonna be an amazing roster of @AEW talent aboard the #TripleWhammy! @TonyKhan & I are putting together the great talent list & the first announcement is this Thur!”
The first two editions of Chris Jericho’s Rock ‘N’ Wrestling Rager at Sea took place in 2018 and 2020. This year’s Triple Whammy version of the cruise was originally supposed to happen in February but was pushed back due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Cruise attendees must be fully vaccinated at least two weeks prior to departure.
Matt and Nick Jackson bragged about spending thousands of dollars on their Nike clothes and shoes.
The Elite —
Trick Shots with Nick Jackson saw Nick hitting some trick shots.
Kenny Omega was shooting hoops backstage as Brandon Cutler filmed.
Cutler filmed footage of some of the exhibits at the Double or Nothing fan fest.
Footage from the Double or Nothing PPV was shown, including a behind the scenes look at Omega filming a backstage segment.
The Bucks were shown paying off referee Rick Knox in an airport, so a heel referee may be part of their act going forward.
BTE Championship —
Brandon Cutler defeated Ryan Nemeth in a desktop basketball game to retain the title.
Miscellaneous bits —
Matt Hardy and Private Party cut a promo on Christian Cage. Hardy said Cage has always been a piece of sh*t and if it wasn’t for Matt and his brother, Christian and his partner never would have gotten over. Hardy, Kassidy and Quen promised to get revenge on Cage.
Matt and Nick Jackson mourned the loss of their Dior shoes, stolen by Jon Moxley and Eddie Kingston on last week’s Dynamite.
The Elite —
Trick Shots with Nick Jackson saw Nick hitting some trick shots.
Footage from Young Bucks vs. Varsity Blonds was shown.
Nick hit more trick shots.
Brandon Cutler regained the BTE Championship from Charlie from Sammy Guevara’s vlog.
Matt cut a long promo on Jon Moxley and Eddie Kingston.
Dark Order —
The group drew pictures as a coping mechanism following their recent struggles.
Miscellaneous bits —
Ryan Nemeth continued his Hollywood trivia bit, asking Rebel who played the hunky spokesperson for Venmo commercials. Rebel had no idea that it was Nemeth.
Peter Avalon wrote a note in a book for Leva Bates. Alex Reynolds intercepted the book and signed the note.
The Bunny and Brandon Cutler’s dormant feud continued. The Bunny acted as though she was calling for a truce, but it was a swerve. The two declared war on each other.
Rocky Romero and Best Friends all kicked John Silver below the belt.
Nemeth asked Trent a trivia question. Trent knew the answer, but only because Nemeth had bragged to him about it before.
Best Friends and Romero answered questions from fans in a BTE Mailbag segment.
Avalon, Nemeth, Cezar Bononi and JD Drake met in a hotel room to do yoga together. Bononi brought a “yoga book” that turned out to be a kama sutra book.
The show began with a strong Christopher Daniels promo.
Daniels was being cleaned up and stitched up following SCU’s loss to The Young Bucks last week. Daniels cut a promo talking about a Dusty Rhodes retirement promo that he remembered from more than 30 years ago.
Daniels said that he always knew that one day he would walk out the door of an arena and that would be the last time he would walk out as a full-time wrestler. Daniels wept and pleaded that he wanted to stay, but then walked out the door.
The Elite —
The Young Bucks and Brandon Cutler experienced travel delays as the made their way to Dynamite last week.
Nick Jackson cut a promo on a fan that stalked their hotel for free autographs for a year.
Trick Shots with Nick Jackson returned. Nick hit several trick shots in and around his home swimming pool.
Footage from The Bucks vs. SCU from Dynamite was shown.
There was a pointless segment with The Good Brothers goofing off with The Bucks.
Dark Order —
The group had a picnic but everyone forgot to bring food.
Miscellaneous bits —
Ryan Nemeth introduced Hollywood Trivia. He asked Matt Sydal to name who played Andy the sexy cowboy on this past season of Jimmy Kimmel Live. The answer was Nemeth, but Sydal didn’t get it right. One of Sydal’s guesses was Nick Cannon.
Matt Hardy and Private Party discussed their upcoming match against Dark Order. They laughed at the thought that they might lose.
Nemeth asked Ashley D’Amboise to name the actor who played a hunky drill sergeant on Nickelodeon’s Unleashed last season. D’Amboise also could not name Nemeth and guessed Nick Cannon.
Peter Avalon made another attempt to rekindle things with Leva Bates, but was interrupted by Alex Reynolds.
Ryzin, Vickie Guerrero and Nyla Rose set up a confessional backstage and listened to confessions.
SCU are no longer a team following tonight’s match against The Young Bucks.
Frankie Kazarian and Christopher Daniels faced the Bucks for the AEW World Tag Team titles on tonight’s Dynamite, with the stipulation being that they would break up if they lost. During the match, Daniels was superkicked into the ring post, causing him to bleed heavily. The finish of the match had Daniels kicking out of a pinfall after being laid out with an air can, but was then struck with a double v-trigger by The Young Bucks, with Matt covering Daniels for the win.
After the commercial break, Daniels and Kazarian hugged, signifying the end of their run as a tag team.
Since last fall, Kazarian and Daniels had agreed to a stipulation where if they were to lose one more match as a team, they would split up. Since then, they have won every single tag team match they have taken part in, including a four-way tag match last week that cemented themselves as the number one contenders for the AEW World Tag Team titles.
Kazarian and Daniels have been teaming regularly since 2011, first calling themselves Bad Influence in TNA, then later The Addiction. They would eventually join forces with Scorpio Sky as SoCal Uncensored, and later went to AEW under the same name.
AEW has announced the full list of participants for this Sunday’s Casino Tag Team Royale at AEW’s Revolution pay-per-view event.
The company confirmed this afternoon on social media that the following fifteen teams will be in the battle royal:
PAC and Fenix
Bear Country (Bear Boulder and Bear Bronson)
Varsity Blonds (Brian Pillman Jr. and Griff Garrison)
10 and Allan ‘5’ Angels of the Dark Order
Evil Uno and Stu Grayson of the Dark Order
Peter Avalon and Cezar Bononi
Mike and Matt Sydal
Ortiz and Santana
Alex Reynolds and John Silver of the Dark Order
The Butcher and The Blade
SCU (Frankie Kazarian and Christopher Daniels)
Private Party
Austin and Colten Gunn
Dustin Rhodes and QT Marshall
Luchasaurus and Jungle Boy
Wednesday’s show ended with most of these teams coming out and brawling after The Dark Order made the save for John Silver and Hangman Page, who were being attacked by Matt Hardy.
The winner of the Casino Tag Team Royale on Sunday will get a future AEW World Tag Team title match. The Young Bucks currently hold those titles, and are scheduled to defend them against Chris Jericho and MJF on Sunday.
Frankie Kazarian and Christopher Daniels have agreed if they lose one more match, they will split as a team.
The two discussed the current status of their career on tonight’s episode of AEW Dark. Kazarian talked about their run as a team so far, noting that they have lost more than they have won. He said despite everything in 2020, he could rely on Christopher Daniels until now, pointing out their loss to The Acclaimed on last week’s AEW Dynamite.
Kazarian talked about how he met his wife thanks to this business and put over Christopher Daniels as one of his best friends, and apologized for speaking out. Daniels told him not to apologize, he was the one that needed to apologize as he was the one who lost his passion. He let injury and adversity beat him. He said that perhaps this was a sign that he should walk away.
Kazarian stopped him, saying he knows Daniels as a fighter, and asked him to fight one more time. That was when Kazarian issued the ultimatum. Daniels started to walk away, but then told Kazarian he’d do it. They ended the interview by calling out TH2, who were in the crowd.
Daniels and Kazarian have been teaming regularly since 2011, when they were together in Impact Wrestling under the Fortune stable before eventually teaming together on their own under the team name Bad Influence. After leaving Impact in 2014, they appeared in Ring of Honor and continued to team together under the name The Addiction. When they joined forces with Scorpion Sky, they started working as a trio under the name SoCal Uncensored.
Jon Moxley made his World title defense against Kenny Omega official on last night’s AEW Dynamite.
After Omega signed the contract last week for their match at December 2nd’s Winter is Coming, Moxley put pen to paper on this week’s Dynamite. Before signing, Moxley laid Omega out with a Paradigm Shift.
Hikaru Shida defeated Anna Jay to retain the AEW Women’s World Championship on Dynamite. After the match, Abadon entered and left a blood stain on Shida’s title belt.
In the Dynamite opener, Hangman Page defeated The Dark Order’s John Silver. Dark Order’s Evil Uno made a recruiting pitch to Page after the match.
A week before Cody Rhodes and Darby Allin face Team Taz’s Powerhouse Hobbs and Ricky Starks, Taz choked out Rhodes with a Tazmission.
Chris Jericho and Jake Hager of The Inner Circle defeated SCU’s Christopher Daniels and Frankie Kazarian after MJF hit Daniels with his Dynamite Diamond ring. Scorpio Sky saved Kazarian and Daniels from a post-match attack from the entire Inner Circle.
In the show’s final match, Butcher and Blade beat Death Triangle members PAC and Rey Fenix after an assist from Eddie Kingston. Kingston and his family assaulted Death Triangle after the match, but Lance Archer ran in to make the save and attacked Kingston.
For more of what you missed, including TH2 vs. Top Flight and Powerhouse Hobbs in action, scroll down.
In this week’s BTE cold open, Brandon Cutler took a call from Hangman Page. Page was checking on a video that he had asked Cutler to make featuring photos of Page with Matt and Nick.
While Cutler was on the phone, Tony Schiavone knocked on the door to interview Matt on Dynamite. This was the promo that aired on Dynamite where Matt destroyed Tony’s phone.
After Schiavone left, Matt destroyed Cutler’s computer, ruining the video that Cutler was putting together.
The open ran nearly six minutes, as Matt dropped elbows on the computer and hit it with superkicks.
Matt kept speaking to someone off-camera who we were supposed to believe was Nick, but it was pretty clear that Nick wasn’t there.
Other highlights from the episode included:
Matt and Nick went to another store in search of their action figures.
Evil Uno told Five to cut his hair because he keeps finding it in his underwear.
Stu Grayson was still looking to kill John Silver but Uno still didn’t want him to. Grayson tricked Uno into telling him to kill Silver. Grayson left but Anna Jay dragged him back to the Dark Order lair by his ear.
This week’s Speaking Spanglish was a telenovela. Ortiz confronted Dasha Gonzalez. Dasha said that their love was true. Jake Hager and Kip Sabian told Ortiz that Dasha is not who she says she is. Ortiz prayed to Thunder Rosa for help with Dasha. Rosa revealed Dasha to be Marko Stunt.
Cutler met with Matt Hardy. Hardy was concerned about Matt and Nick. Hardy offered to help Matt and Nick if he could.
Cutler asked Hardy how he was feeling. Hardy said his fall at All Out changed him and he feels more complete than ever.
Christopher Daniels cut a great promo. Daniels said that this has been the worst year we have ever lived through. He said his bad year started in October 2019. Daniels said he got attacked and injured and had to watch SCU win the Tag titles without him. Daniels said he hasn’t felt elite in a long time and has thought about retiring. Daniels fought back tears as he said that he wants to write his own ending to his story. He said he has a path to walk but he doesn’t know where it leads. He said this is not his best day, but it’s not his last day. Not yet.
Dark Order were in their lair. They were singing Cody’s entrance song. Mr. Brodie Lee entered and asked where Alex Reynolds was. Silver said that he was at his father’s bris. Lee opened his coat and flashed the group. Silver made a video call to Reynolds. Reynolds said he was at fencing camp. Lee flashed Reynolds. Jay again attacked Grayson.
We saw Cutler Cam footage from Dynamite.
Swole gave a Public Swole Announcement. She chastised slow drivers for driving in the fast lane.
Eddie Kingston cut a promo on Sour Patch Kids.
Best Friends and Orange Cassidy planned to kill Cutler by putting him in a microwave. Silver entered and tried to recruit all of them. They agreed to join Dark Order if Silver killed Cutler.
Silver attacked Cutler. Trent and Chuck were upset that Silver simply attacked Cutler and didn’t make it cute enough or give him sexual favors before he attacked. They helped Cutler to his feet and told him they would kill him in a cool way later.
This week’s retro MLW Underground featured Christopher Daniels vs. Homicide in his promotional debut and a tag team match of debutants as EZ Money and Julio Dinero took on Nosawa and Masada.
Show Review:
We opened with the closing moments of last week’s MLW World Heavyweight title match between Kojima and Johnny Smith including the stuff we didn’t see during the commercial break like when Smith came off the top with a missile dropkick but Kojima roared up from the aerial attack and forearmed Smith to the ground.
Joey Styles then welcomed us to his week’s Underground by letting us know Hybrid Hell was the most-attended MLW show to date and began to hype the next TV taping back at Taboo in Orlando, Florida.
Hot Commodity (EZ Money and Julio Dinero) defeated Nosawa and Masada (9:37 aired)
Hot Commodity jumped their Japanese opponents as Styles told us Nosawa and Masada were a pair of the top junior heavyweights in CMLL (at the time). Commodity caught Masada off a dive but Nosawa took them all out with a baseball slide into his partner. Nosawa was giving everyone the middle finger in the early going, including the fans at ringside, and he enjoyed it so much that he didn’t notice Money tagging in and taking a cheap shot while his back was turned.
Masada hit a nice hurricanrana on Money as Nosawa clearly told the referee in English to “f*ck off” when he didn’t count the three for his team. Money fought back and locked in a reverse Boston Crab and moved into a pendulum as Dinero came in and they hit a nice elbow off the top/side slam combination. A corkscrew brainbuster followed for a close two count and a nice spin kick caught Masada right on the jaw. Dinero then busted out a pump handle fireman’s carry slam as they really started to wear down Masada.
Money hit a standing backflip splash on Masada for a two count as we went to a commercial. Nothing much changed after the break as Hot Commodity were still in control. Money went to the top but took too long. Masada caught him with a low blow as he landed and hit a German suplex.
Nosawa got the hot tag and went to work kicking and striking Hot Commodity. He came off the top with a frog splash on Money before they both powerbombed the larger Dinero. Masada got caught in a hurricanrana attempt and was powerbombed on the floor while Nosawa hit Dinero with a Michinoku driver inside the ring. But, Dinero took down Nosawa seconds later and he and Money hit a double team Ocean Cyclone suplex to pick up the win.
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– Styles reviewed the feuds between Jerry Lynn and Paul London and Raven and CM Punk before hyping up the power of Mike Awesome by showing him power bombing Tanaka out of the ring and out of their match as he was not able to continue. We then heard from Tanaka as he cut a promo in Japanese with no subtitles with Styles explaining it was in response to Awesome and his power bomb.
– Styles caught us up with the Samoan Island Tribe-Los Maximos feud and listed off the Samoan family lineage. We heard from the Maximos as they were at the same spot the Samoans jumped them a few weeks ago. They said if they thought they got all of them, they only got a small piece and should expect the unexpected.
– Next up for Styles was the Extreme Horsemen-Dusty Rhodes/Steve Williams/Terry Funk feud where he told us the legends will be out for revenge.
– Before the main event, we saw a nice video package for Satoshi Kojima and his title win that kickstarted Kojimania with clips from his defense against Mitsuya Nagai.
– Styles wrapped by talking about the pairing of Francine and Michael Shane before we cut to a Simply Luscious promo where someone has done her wrong and Styles cant wait to find out who.
Homicide defeated Christopher Daniels (w/ Jerry Lynn) (4:22 aired)
This was a shame we saw so little of it. Homicide hit an amazing cannonball dive through the ropes before booting Daniels in the face in the corner. Lynn got involved but was knocked off the apron, but this was enough of a distraction for Daniels who took Homicide down face-first as we went to a break.
After the break, Daniels was still in control. Homicide had a brief hope spot by landing on his feet off a monkey flip and hitting a crossbody. Daniels smoothly took him down again with a quick urinage to regain his control. Homicide fought back with a suplex, a clothesline, a charge in the corner, and a hurricanrana off the top rope. He missed a diving headbutt and ate a urinage and a triple jump moonsault but he still kicked out at two.
Daniels went for Angel’s Wings but Homicide reversed to the Cop Killa but Daniels wriggled out of it. Daniels collided with Lynn on the apron and got a two count with a schoolboy. Homicide then hit a low blow while they fought for leverage in a backslide and then kicked Daniels in the head with the Mafia Kick to pick up the win.
Lynn and Daniels got their revenge by double-teaming Homicide as Underground went off the air.
Let me take you back to pro wrestling in the spring of 2003 for a minute.
WWE was two years removed from winning the Great Wrestling War and buying WCW, a a year removed from changing its name from WWF, ECW was a few months removed from having its assets purchased by WWE in bankruptcy court, Ring of Honor was a year old, while another group — Major League Wrestling — was coming up on its first birthday.
The vision of former WWF writer Court Bauer, MLW was his effort at filling the void with a mix of the familiar, the indie, and the future. (Sound familiar, AEW fans?)
Their first effort at a TV show was MLW Underground, a one hour program that ran on Florida’s Sunshine Network from April 2003 through February 2004, a span of 34 episodes. With the pandemic thwarting efforts at live shows and having run through all of their recently taped content, Bauer and company launched a seven episode Anthology series featuring old footage and now, they have revived Underground for the first time since it originally ran.
Here’s a look at this week’s debut of sorts, a show that proves we are very spoiled in today’s era with how smoothly production is made to look.
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An unexpected bonus: original music. That means viewers get to hear Powerman 5000’s “When Worlds Collide” in the intro every week, a nod to a style of the alternative music of the era. They were pushing themselves of “hybrid wrestling” and that all styles would be represented, hammered home by the lone voice on the show, Joey Styles. He was also sure to mention that this wasn’t sports entertainment, but rather pro wrestling, several times.
Styles and the fact the first taping was done at the 2300 Arena in Philadelphia gave this a real ECW feel. Fans of that era like myself will get nostalgic when they see the entrance and especially the familiar camera shots.
Unfortunately, the taping, or at least these matches, were marred by a bad audio track. While you could hear chops and certain moves, the crowd noise was a consistent murmur with no pops for big moves. At first, I thought it was a crowd unfamiliar with the talent but especially in the show’s featured match, fans would pop for highspots and the crowd level never changed which took away from the show.
Jerry Lynn defeated La Parka
La Parka was really playing up his love of chairs pre-match but the LWO-adorned chair he brought to the ring never got involved. For those who never saw Lynn, he was a great wrestler and a standout as a lighter weight wrestler. If he had his prime in this era, I have no doubt he would be one of the most coveted guys in the game. Perhaps he wouldn’t be “the” guy but he’d be in the mix for sure.
Overall, this match was fine with nothing too standout. Fans of the current era used to seeing a ton of highspots and high risk moves in every match will likely think matches like this are a bit boring given the big spots were a Lynn top rope dive to the outside and a Parka running twisting dive over the top. The aforementioned audio didn’t help matters either.
A missed corkscrew dive by Parka led to a Lynn DDT and sudden finish. Also, apparently this was a tournament match of some sort but that was never explained — odd considering this was their kickoff TV show.
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– A hype video for “new MLW World Champion Satoshi Kojima” aired with “the encore heard round the world” that apparently was an in-ring English promo he did after a match at New York’s Manhattan Centre. This finished with “Kojimamania est. 2003 USA”. I’m glad they are running these episodes again, but there’s some out of context stuff like this that make me wonder what someone is thinking stumbling onto the show.
– We had another case of production lapses as we got the first of some quick promos but with no namebars. Our first which I had to look up was Fuego Guerrero (aka The Amazing Red) who was talking about how that once he hit Zero Gravity, it was over…and something about someone needing to watch out on May 9th. The next was Taiyo Kea who said he was coming to kick someone’s ass.
– We then transitioned to “Chapter 1: The Rise of the Horsemen” which was footage from a show where the Extreme Horsemen (Steve Corino, Simon Diamond and CW Anderson) attacked Dusty Rhodes, Terry Funk, and a referee. I’m not sure what the context was or the significance of this.
– We then jumped to the current day for a Richard Holliday ad for Dynastic Coffee coffee cups and a plug for the MLW podcast network.
– Back to action, Styles explained that over the next month, they would crown the first MLW Global Tag Team Champions. Teams involved include the Samoan Island Tribe, “Dr. Death” Steve Williams and PJ Friedman (future WWE developmental talent J. Bronson), Nosawa and Masada, The Blue Chippers, Diamond and Anderson and Los Maximos (aka the Spanish Announce Team).
That led into a strange Maximos promo where they were acting like they didn’t know what to say and were having issues with their lines. It ended with them asking, “That good, Court?” to Bauer off camera.
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Taiyo Kea defeated Jerry “Malice” Tuite
Kea spent the majority of his career with All Japan and was with MLW for about a year while Tuite was best known as The Wall in WCW, passing away from a heart attack in December 2003.
In a big difference from today’s wrestling, Tuite flipped off the crowd and there was a giant red X blocking it.
Again, the strange crowd audio hurt this even though you could hear the chops. This was a fairly straightforward face/heel match with Tuite hitting a slew of power moves including a superplex and a second rope leg drop. The end came when Kea hit a northern lights suplex with a bridge to get the pin.
In doing some Wikipedia searching, these singles matches are apparently from the 2002 MLW World title tournament which is odd considering Kojima was featured in a video earlier saying he was the champion. There’s a reason for all this which we’ll get to in later recaps.
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– After an MLW shop ad, we had another promo with two large men that I assume is the aforementioned Samoan Island Tribe because they mentioned Polynesian people and that one of their names is Mana. Again, no namebar so I wasn’t sure who they were.
– We got a Steve Corino promo talking about King of Kings (a past event) and beating both Rhodes and Funk in the same night. He directed the majority of the promo at Funk and challenged him to a match.
– After a very ECW-style cut to Styles, we learned that in two weeks, the tag team tournament would begin with brackets released next week.
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Vampiro defeated Christoper Daniels
The night’s featured match had two WCW alums in Vampiro (with no paint, no dreadlocks, and doing a lot of MMA/”shootfighting” training) and Daniels who Styles said is “a sadistic master of manipulation” was was apparently a very despised heel. That he’s still working at a high level 17 years later in AEW is pretty remarkable.
The crowd noise issue really hurt this match, especially at the end. The first half was a lot of grappling and various body locks with both men including a nice looking roll through into a kneebar attempt by Vampiro. Later, Vampiro would go to the outside, grab the hammer for the ringside bell, and hit Daniels between the legs but didn’t get DQ’d which Style said was due to the ref being lenient.
After the methodical pace, things really picked up after the commercial break and especially at the end. Daniels hit the BME (to no reaction0 and when he went for it again, Vampiro sprung up and hit an overhead throw that saw his opponent sail 3/4 of the way across the ring. After a chop battle, Vampiro hit the rock bottom (called a sambo suplex) for the pin and win.
Styles says he advances in “the tourney” and we transition to a clip of Raven lighting a picture of Vampiro on fire. Unlike in the Anthology series, there was no inclusion of Pulp Fusion.
Final Thoughts:
For someone like me, this was a fun nostalgia watch that was marred by the audio issues and not understanding a lot about the state of MLW in 2003. I’m looking forward to future episodes though because, you know, wrestling.
This week’s episode of BTE opened with the weekly Colt Cabana cameo. Cabana and Chris Harrington reviewed how Cabana’s segment with Chris Jericho on Dynamite last week did in the ratings. Harrington again threatened Kenny Omega who said he wants Cabana off BTE and Dynamite.
Brandon Cutler approached Best Friends and Orange Cassidy. Cutler said they still owed him a bit for last week’s BTE. Trent and Taylor took off running while Orange Cassidy continued avoiding Cutler.
Matt Hardy explained the insider term “rib” using broken brilliance.
A Stadium Stampede video package played.
Christopher Daniels told us that he just turned 50 and just had a colonoscopy. He explained the process of preparing for and receiving a colonoscopy in excruciating detail. Daniels had a couple of polyps burned off but his colon is otherwise healthy.
Highlights of Omega and Hangman Page vs. Kip Sabian and Jimmy Havoc from Dynamite played.
Alex Abrahantes, Santana and Ortiz explained the “Spanglish” term “botella”.
Cutler showed off his new custom die made especially for his entrance.
Best Friends and Cassidy again struggled to come up with a bit.
Matt Jackson tried various ways to bust himself open hard way so he could get out of a video call with Nick and Cutler.
