Matt Riddle is hoping to start his 2025 with a World Championship victory.
It’s been confirmed that Riddle will challenge Japanese wrestling legend Satoshi Kojima for the MLW World Heavyweight Championship at the promotion’s Kings of Colosseum event on Saturday, January 11. The show is taking place from North Richland Hills, Texas and will air for free on MLW’s YouTube channel.
Riddle got this shot by winning MLW Battle Riot 2024. If he defeats Kojima, this would be Riddle’s first championship reign in MLW. He made it to the finals of a title tournament in 2018 (when MLW returned as a promotion) but lost out to Swerve Strickland.
Kojima has been champion since dethroning Alex Kane this 2024. It’s the second time Kojima has held the title, with his first World Championship reign happening in 2002-2003 during the original incarnation of MLW.
Before Kings of Colosseum, Riddle has a match against Donovan Dijak at Eric Bischoff’s MLW One-Shot event in New York City on Thursday, December 5. Kojima will be defending his MLW World title against CMLL’s Ultimo Guerrero on the TV taping portion of that show.
MLW presented Kings of Colosseum on Saturday at the 2300 Arena in Philadelphia.
The show featured Alex Kane defending the MLW Heavyweight Championship against Richard Holliday and Matt Riddle vs. Jacob Fatu.
MLW Kings of Colosseum notes:
TJPW’s Hyper Misao made her MLW debut on the show. She was defeated by Featherweight Champion Janai Kai after being distracted by Salina de la Renta on the outside.
Josh Bishop and our own Tom Lawlor were unsuccessful in winning the MLW Tag Team Championships from Second Gear Crew’s Matthew Justice and 1 Called Manders. They were defeated after Justice gave Bishop a death valley driver onto a set of stacked tables, although the tables did not break.
Bishop and Lawlor wore gear inspired by Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz. They attacked their opponents after the match and left them laying before heading to the back.
Sami Callihan was revealed as the newest member of The Calling. He helped Rickey Shane Page defeat AKIRA in a bloody Taipei Death match to retain the MLW National Openweight Championship.
Love, Doug was victorious in a “Love is Blind” blindfold match against Brett Ryan Gosselin. The angle here is that Doug had been obsessed with B3CCA, only for Gosselin to reveal he is her boyfriend. After Doug was victorious, someone handed him flowers at ringside because now he has his own admirers.
A video announcing the legendary Mistico will make his MLW debut on February 3 at Superfight aired.
In the semi main event of the evening, Alex Kane successfully retained his MLW World title for the seventh time. He defeated Richard Holliday via referee stoppage with a rear-naked choke.
After the match, they announced Kane has set a record for most choke-out victories as MLW Champion. It was also announced that his next challenger will be the first-ever MLW World Champion, Satoshi Kojima. The Bread Club leader then came out and was presented with some celebratory bagels, which he tossed into the crowd.
Callihan then came out to confront Kojima. He also spit water in the ring announcers face before getting into a pull apart with Kojima. A match between the two was later announced for MLW Reload on January 20. The show will air on YouTube and BeIN Sports.
Salina de la Renta and Rocky Romero discussed Mistico coming to MLW in a backstage segment. Salina was not happy that MLW is bringing him in. She announced Averno will wrestle Mistico at Superfight.
In the main event, they played up on commentary how Riddle has faced members of Fatu’s family, alluding to his matches in WWE against the Bloodline. The finish here saw Riddle with Fatu in a rear-naked choke but he then transitioned to something of a crossface and Fatu tapped out.
After the match, Fatu and Riddle hugged and showed each other respect.
Matt Striker’s commentary during the main event caused some controversy. Striker said of Riddle during the broadcast, “Let’s talk about the elephant in the room. The court of public opinion would love to see Jacob Fatu slap the taste out of Matt Riddle’s mouth. But the court of public opinion does not convict, I’m sorry. I know it’s the world in which we live but, it’s not the case.”
I’ve given this a lot of thought. Could not sleep. My critics are right. I was wrong. Tone deaf. Trying to use the guise of art or character portrayal is self preservation. Thank you to those that shone light on this. It is now on me to stand in that light. I will be better
There were also a series of technical interruptions that caused the screen to briefly distort during the show. This is likely to set up a future angle.
MLW Kings of Coliseum 2024 results:
Alec Price, Dylan McKay & Marcus Mathers defeated Griffin McCoy, TJ Crawford & Tony Deppen
MLW Women’s Featherweight Champion Janai Kai w/Salina de la Renta & Jesus Rodriguez defeated Hyper Misao to retain her title
MLW Tag Team Champions The Second Gear Crew (Matthew Justice & 1 Called Manders) defeated Tom Lawlor & Josh Bishop w/Mister Saint Laurent & Zayda
MLW National Openweight Champion Rickey Shane Page defeated AKIRA
MLW World Heavyweight Champion Alex Kane defeated Richard Holliday to retain his title
Coming up next for MLW:
MLW Reload on January 20 on YouTube/BeIN Sports announced lineup:
Satoshi Kojima vs. Sami Callihan
Good Brother #3 (rumored to be Mance Warner) vs. Steph de Lander
Nao Kakuta vs. Moka Miyamoto
Zayda w/Mister Saint Laurent vs. Notorious Mimi
Matt Riddle vs. TBA
MLW Superfight on TrillerTV February 3 announced lineup:
MLW World Heavyweight Champion Alex Kane defends against Satoshi Kojima
This week’s Kings of Colosseum edition of MLW Fusion opened with a video package hyping up tonight’s main event and the steps leading to the clash between the former Dynasty partners.
That included the growth of the Dynasty stable (which also included AEW’s MJF) to Holliday being drawn as an alternate in the Battle Riot that Hammerstone won to Hammerstone beating Jacob Fatu for the title all the way to Holliday’s betrayal earlier this year in Dallas and the vicious and bloody attack at MLW SuperFight that left Holliday’s pure white suit covered in the champion’s blood.
Joe Dombrowski and Rich Bocchini welcomed us to the famous 2300 Arena in Philadelphia.
Brittany Blake defeated Zoey Skye
The commentary team talked this up as a top contender’s match in the women’s featherweight division.
Blake was making her return to MLW after debuting last year while Skye has a Liv Morgan feel to her look and character as she started off the match coming off the top rope with a missile dropkick and continued moments later with a crossbody from the top as well.
Blake came back and kicked Skye off the apron and hit her with a 619 to the face while Skye was on the floor. A tornado DDT followed and Blake then put Skye away with an arm-trapped seated Texas cloverleaf.
This was a good opener, but I would have liked to see these two get a little more time. It did serve its purpose in pushing Blake further up the rankings and showcasing what Skye can do in the ring.
– Backstage, EJ Nduka added some hints to a future potential heel turn. He was asked about the main event tonight and with a serious face, he started questioning why he was not in the main event getting a shot at the title… only for him to laugh it off and pretend he was joking. Do you believe him? Look for this story to develop in the coming weeks.
– MLW’s new t-shirt partnership with Hot Topic was announced.
– Richard Holliday was then interviewed about his title challenge tonight. He told Hammerstone to reminisce about their time in the Dynasty, but he wants him to know all those memories didn’t mean anything to him. Money, winning, and championships are the only things that matter to him.
Matt Cross defeated ACH
Despite putting in solid performances every time he is in the ring, Cross seems to have lost more matches in MLW than he has won, so this was a great victory for him to get back some momentum.
This is an example of a match that is nearly impossible to recap move-for-move. The action was great, crisp and evident these two are fantastic performers with years of experience. However, we were also told that this was, amazingly, the first time they had ever faced off with each other.
The story seemed to be whoever could bring out something new that their opponent hadn’t seen before may have the best chance of winning.
Cross used his springboard crossbody and double foot stomp from the top, while ACH brought out his slingshot crossbody to the floor, enzuigiri and a suplex as both struggled to get the advantage.
The end of the match saw Cross land on his feet as he jumped out of a German suplex attempt followed by him hitting a springboard cutter and finishing ACH off with a top rope shooting star press. This was a great match by two great performers and an example of it being absolutely fine to put on a great wrestling match with no need for a backstory or angle leading into it.
– We heard from Alex Hammerstone who said Holliday is finally getting the match he wanted. He talked up the nerves Holliday would be feeling and called himself the consequence for Holliday’s actions.
– After turning his back on his training partner Davey Richards last week, we heard from the newest member of the Bomaye Fight Club: Middleweight Champion Myron Reed. He said that Richards is no longer a big dog and is past his best. National Openweight Champion Alex Kane was also present and it seems like their feud will also continue before Richards gets his shot at Reed.
MLW World Champion Alex Hammerstone defeated Richard Holliday (w/ Alicia Atout) to retain the title
Earlier in the night, we saw a hooded figure enter Holliday’s locker room in what the commentators thought may be a crooked referee given Holliday’s history. This would play out during the match, but it still would not be enough to dethrone the champion.
The self-proclaimed sole proprietor of The Dynasty came out with the same jacket that was bloodied at SuperFight when he busted Hammerstone open after his title defense against Davey Richards. Holliday’s new maniac villain character suits him perfectly and the jacket topped it off.
The action went to the outside early where Holliday used Atout to distract Hammerstone and hit him with a side Russian leg sweep.
After the commercial break, Hammerstone was throwing Holliday around, but the challenger caught the champion with a spinebuster to take back control. A neckbreaker, some Garvin stomps and a pedigree followed.
Holliday’s stomps aggravated Hammerstone’s ankle, an injury the champion suffered recently. The champion continued the next portion of the match hobbling on one foot, but he was still able to hit a German suplex.
Atout got on the apron and distracted the referee while Holliday used one of her shoes — in a flashback to a few weeks ago where Holliday pinned Hammerstone in a multi-man match — but he only got a two count here.
More referee shenanigans followed as the ref got knocked out of the ring and Hammerstone had a visual pinfall on Holliday. Cesar Duran then came out with a replacement masked referee as the deck started to get stacked against the champion.
Holliday then used a steel chair as the referee turned a blind eye to the blatant cheating. Holliday hit his 2008 twisting suplex finisher, but as the Azteca henchman referee started counting, MLW referee Frank Gastineau pulled the crooked referee out and knocked him to the floor.
Back in the ring, Hammerstone caught Holliday’s chair and started hulking up. Holliday’s punches were of no use. Hammerstone hit some clotheslines, knocked the henchman ref down, and slammed Holliday to the mat. Hammerstone then picked up Holliday and hit the Nightmare Pendulum to get the pin, overcoming the odds and retaining his title.
As Kings of Colosseum went off the air, we saw a vignette for the reincarnation of Mads Krugger. We did not see his face, but it looks like Krugger has lost his mask and has found someone willing to help him.
MLW has announced their next World Heavyweight Championship match.
During this week’s episode of MLW Fusion, it was revealed that Tom Lawlor will defend his World Championship against Jacob Fatu at the promotion’s television tapings in Cicero, Illinois on Saturday, July 6. The tapings are taking place at Cicero Stadium and are being called “Kings of Colosseum.”
Lawlor has been feuding with Contra Unit (Fatu, Josef Samael & Simon Gotch) since the group formed and attacked him in March. On MLW’s Fury Road live special last weekend, there was an angle where Contra Unit attacked Lawlor and abducted him before Lawlor escaped.
Lawlor also teamed with the Von Erichs (Ross & Marshall) in a tornado six-man tag match against Contra Unit at last week’s tapings.
Lawlor has been MLW World Champion since winning the title from Low Ki in February.
Kings of Colosseum will feature a double main event, with Dr. Wagner Jr. & El Hijo de Dr. Wagner Jr. vs. LA Park & El Hijo de LA Park also set.
Dr. Wagner Jr. and LA Park will be facing off in a tag match when Wagner makes his MLW debut next month.
Wagner & El Hijo de Dr. Wagner Jr. vs. Park & El Hijo de LA Park has been announced for MLW’s television tapings in Cicero, Illinois on Saturday, July 6. The tapings are being called “Kings of Colosseum” and are taking place at Cicero Stadium.
MLW announced earlier this week that Dr. Wagner Jr. and Hijo de Dr. Wagner Jr. would be debuting at Kings of Colosseum. LA Park and Hijo de LA Park are regulars for the promotion.
Dr. Wagner Jr. & El Hijo de Dr. Wagner Jr. vs. LA Park & El Hijo de LA Park is the first match announced for Kings of Colosseum. MLW noted that it will be part of a double main event.
After Kings of Colosseum, MLW will hold tapings at the Melrose Ballroom in Queens, New York on July 25. MLW has also announced a set of tapings called “War Chamber” for North Richland Hills, Texas on September 7.
