Tag: mlw anthology results

MLW Anthology results: The Lucha Bros

Posted on by Iain Oliver

Video —

Big Takeaways —

This week’s MLW Anthology episode highlighted one of the best tag teams in the world today: Pentagon Jr. & Rey Fenix, The Lucha Bros.

Before joining AEW, the current AAA Tag Team Champions showcased their amazing talents in MLW. Here we saw a spectacularly athletic and hard-hitting bout between them that main evented the debut episode of MLW Fusion back in 2018, along with the vacant MLW Tag Team titles being up for grabs in a three-team elimination match when Pentagon & Fenix faced The Dirty Blondes and the team of Jason Cade & Jimmy Yuta.

Full Recap —

Pentagon Jr. defeated Rey Fenix (MLW Fusion debut episode, January 2018) (14:08)

The Lucha Brothers clashed in the main event of the debut episode of MLW Fusion in a must-watch, amazing match. Within the first three minutes, we had superkicks galore and a suicide cannonball dive by Fenix that knocked the first five rows of fans off their seats.

Fenix was up to his usual tricks — walking the ropes with an alternating jump between top and middle — before adding a little back bump ONTO the top rope and arm dragging his brother across the ring. Incredible balance and control.

Pentagon & Fenix ended up winning the MLW Tag Team titles together later in their MLW careers, but here in episode one they were enemies as Pentagon was part of Salina de la Renta’s heel faction Promociones Dorado. And the brothers did not let their family ties hold them back at all. They chopped each other within an inch of their lives throughout the match and showed that they can do more than flip and fly, they could hit hard too.

They also made the most of not having a guardrail at ringside as Fenix hit a hurricanrana and planted Pentagon right into the laps of the fans in the front row.

If I were to list all the amazing athleticism on display to describe how terrific this was I would be here all night. Just be reassured they left nothing in the ring. Fenix had plenty of springboards emanating from everywhere inside the ring and Pentagon certainly had his superkick boots on this evening.

Pentagon picked up the win and a future title shot at then-champion Shane Strickland after a flury of high impact moves at the end: a destroyer, a pop-up flip powerbomb, a cross armbreaker, and his Penta Driver.

The Lucha Bros defeated The Dirty Blondes and Jimmy Yuta & Jason Cade to win the MLW Tag Team titles (MLW Fusion, June 2018) (16:49)

We were told there were no rules in this “anything goes” three-team elimination match for the MLW Tag Team titles — even though the commentary team then questioned why the teams set up on the apron for tags. The action was fast and furious from the start and the tags were immediately thrown to the side and forgotten as Fenix jumped in with a superkick to start off the mayhem.

The dynamics of all three teams were set out from the early going: Leo Brien and Michael Patrick (The Dirty Blondes) were the big powerhouse hoss team, Jimmy Yuta & Jason Cade (Team TBD) were the smaller, more agile and high-flying team, while The Lucha Bros were the superkicking, high-spot artists we have grown to love in recent years.

But not everyone stuck to their guns — Patrick hit a senton off the apron onto all the other competitors at ringside.

The teams took turns displaying their offense and it was during these early exchanges that Cade pinned Patrick to quickly eliminate The Dirty Blondes after coming off the top rope. This brought it down to Team TBD vs. The Lucha Bros and here is where the tempo stepped up another notch. The superkicks were out in force again here. After a double-team catapult senton and a double pin it looked like it was all over, but TBD showed their fight with a double kick out.

Yuta and Cade came off the same turnbuckle and hit Fenix with a double dropkick as the commentary team played up their surprise at how well they were doing against The Lucha Bros. Cade had a few comedy spots with Pentagon but was not laughing when he went for a back handspring off the ropes and while upside down was met with a dropkick to the gut.

Fenix made another late save for his brother after Yuta had hit a Samoan driver on Penta. And the favor was returned moments later after Cade eventually hit his handspring facebreaker on Fenix. Fenix then kicked out of the high-flying combo that put away The Dirty Blondes as we came to the closing stages of this great match.

A miscommunication between TBD led to a superkick/Penta Driver combination on Cade, then a double foot stomp/piledriver combination on Yuta that was enough to crown The Lucha Brothers as the new MLW Tag Team Champions — the first tag champs for the promotion since CW Anderson & Simon Diamond held the gold back in 2003.

Speaking of Anderson & Diamond, we saw a preview of next week’s Anthology of Steve Corino and The Extreme Horsemen where they jumped Terry Funk before an early MLW show. The Horsemen were in a limo pulling up to the building and saw Funk meeting some fans in line. After some jaw-jacking, The Horsemen jumped Funk, busted him open, and left him lying on the street.

Today’s MLW roster then had their time in the limelight as this week’s Pulp Fusion gave everyone a chance to keep us up to date with their current goings on.

– The Von Erich brothers welcomed us to this week’s Pulp Fusion with the news that MLW has signed a deal with DAZN.

– Filthy Tom Lawlor was home schooling his kids, but it all went wrong as they repeatedly took The Von Erichs’ side saying The Von Erichs were tougher than Lawlor, had higher IQs, were the champs when he wasn’t, and were also more handsome than he was.

– Alex Hammerstone and Richard Holliday were discussing Dynastic Coffee, but Hammerstone wanted his own Exotic Latin Muscle brand featuring his favorite Mexican “supplements.”

– Mance Warner was complaining about having no one else to fight and that Uncle Moonman was running around barefoot taking forever to build him his triple cage, so he decided he was challenging a bear to fight him in his cage instead of any humans. Warner said he “was going to hit the pay window on a big ass bear.”

– Dan Lambert was warning us all about Low Ki’s psychological state and told us that American Top Team was now up 2-0 on Ki.

– Myron Reed told us about Injustice’s fight, saying they were bigger, stronger, and more determined than before. Jordan Oliver laughed at CONTRA Unit and told us he could beat up Simon Gotch if given the chance. The joking was over when the newest member of Injustice, Saieve Al Sabah, then told us that every revolution needed a spark, and his knuckle dusters were his.

– We then cut to Mexico City where we saw a door open and a blonde in high heels stepping into the shot. As the camera panned up, the women turned and it was none other than Salina de la Renta announcing her return to MLW!

Next Week —

MLW Anthology: Steve Corino and The Extreme Horsemen.

MLW Anthology results and video: LA Park

Posted on by Iain Oliver

Video —

Big Takeaways —

MLW took a trip down memory lane as we visited 2002 and the early bouts of LA Park as La Parka as he took on Shocker and Sabu.

Full Recap —

As the global lockdown has prevented MLW from filming their next scheduled round of Fusion tapings, the league debuted their latest show, Anthology, to fill the void. This week’s episode focused on the legendary luchador LA Park, showing two matches from the MLW vault as the original voice of MLW Joey Styles called the action.

LA Park was originally known as La Parka and that is what he is known as back in 2002 when these matches took place.

We opened with a great video highlight package showing us LA Park’s recent accomplishments in Mexico and from the early years of MLW. We saw highlights of MLW’s first-ever event where Park took on Jerry Lynn from the ECW arena and transitioned that into our first match of the night.

La Parka defeated Shocker from the Manhattan Center in New York City in September 2002 (13:47)

Park suckered Shocker in for a slap to the face before they exchanged a lightening quick lucha-style back-and-forth pinfall/reversal sequence until nipping up to their feet simultaneously. Shocker kicked Park out of the ring and feigned a dive to the floor by hand-springing off the ropes and posing in the middle of the ring.

Park baited Shocker out of the ring and caught him with a boot coming in. A few moments later, he ran Shocker over with a hard shoulder block before he strut his famous strut across the ring. Park was dumped on the back of his head twice before being slingshot out of the ring and eating a springboard splash while on the floor.

A few moments and a swing in momentum later saw Park knock Shocker to the outside with a spinning heel kick and land a big corkscrew suicide dive. Inside the ring, he hit a big somersault senton bomb but only got a two count.

Park then brought a chair into the ring but ended up getting the chair dropkicked into his own face before being dumped on the outside. Shocker then went for a suicide dive through the ropes, but Park finally got him with the chair, mid-air, right between the eyes in a perfectly timed chair shot swing.

Shocker got his feet up when Park came off the top rope to give himself a bit of leeway, but Park then hit him with a dropkick when Shocker tried to come off the top as the match started breaking down. Park hit a missile dropkick but was crotched on the top rope moments later. Shocker then hit him with a big superplex from the top rope, a magistral cradle, a spear in the corner, and a Bronco Buster — but he couldn’t put Park away.

Park crotched Shocker with his boot on a second Bronco Buster attempt before heading to the top rope once again and won the match after hitting his signature springboard corkscrew body block.

– We saw some historical footage in the build to the next match between LA Park and Sabu, again from 2002. Park had attacked Sabu’s manager, Bill Alfonso, so when Park was talking to the MLW cameras he was jumped by Sabu and was spiked in the head for good measure.

Sabu (w/ Bill Alfonso) defeated La Parka from the War Memorial Auditorium in Fort Lauderdale, Florida in December 2002 (19:39)

Park threw a chair at Sabu’s face before the bell even rang, and that would have normally set the tone for the rest of the match, but they actually began with some chain wrestling as they both tried to gain the early upper hand. Park locked in an early Camel Clutch that Sabu escaped from, and rightfully so with it being one of his signature holds, and moments later to rub salt in the wounds he locked in his own version on Park.

They both found themselves on the top rope. Park was shoved off but landed on his feet on the apron and was still able to clothesline Sabu into the ring. Park missed a slingshot but rolled through and then ate a tornado DDT from Sabu. A second DDT was dodged and Park hit a spinning heel kick.

Park then launched Sabu head-first over the guardrail and into the first row. The crowd scattered as Park hit him with a chair to the head, whipped him into the rail, and then flew off the top rope and into the crowd onto Sabu with a huge crossbody.

Park then set up a table at ringside and rocked Sabu with another chair shot to the head. Park then set up Sabu to spear him from the apron through the table, but as he ran Sabu hit him with a dropkick to the knees that sent Park head over heels over the top rope and through the table.

Sabu got a pair of scissors and went to work stabbing Park in the forehead and ripping his mask away before dumping him into the crowd. Alfonso threw a chair to Sabu in the ring and Sabu then hit his chair-assisted top rope crossbody into the crowd on top of LA Park.

Park was bleeding heavily from his forehead as he slowly made his way back into the ring. Sabu pummeled him on arrival in the ring and went back to work on his forehead with the scissors. Sabu misplaced a middle rope slingshot, so Park hit a standing enzuigiri before setting up Sabu in a tree of woe and dropkicking a chair into Sabu’s face.

But Park then missed a spear in the corner and fell to the outside, only to be squashed by a somersault plancha over the top rope by Sabu. Alfonso helped set up another table at ringside for Sabu to hit his chair-assisted Arabian facebuster from the top rope and through the ringside table.

Sabu came off the top rope and ate a boot to the face, but Park only got a two count. Park went up top, but Sabu caught him and hit a springboard hurricanrana from the top rope and crushed him with a chair-assisted Arabian facebuster. Park kicked out, but a triple-jump moonsault moments later sealed the deal and won the match for Sabu.

Alfonso cut a backstage promo after the match and challenged Park to another match, but an angry Park jumped him and shoved him down, screamed at the camera, and then stormed off. 

From the extreme scenes of blood, guts, chair shots, and broken tables, we cut back to modern-day MLW and Marshall Von Erich was in his backyard chopping up some bamboo. This was the start of quick-cut mini promos from the Von Erichs, Myron Reed, The Dynasty on Zoom, Tom Lawlor, Mance Warner, and other MLW stars talking about their quarantine and lockdown adventures.

Lawlor had relocated the Filthy Dojo to his garage, Holliday has grown a mustache, Warner was out buying light beers, Savio Vega stood in front of a portrait of himself and called out Holliday, Lawlor and the Von Erichs bad-mouthed each other, and the show finished with LA Park telling CONTRA Unit to go f*ck their mothers.

Next Week —

MLW Anthology featuring Mance Warner.