MLW Fusion Results, Highlights, and Grades: War Games
The time has come – after several months in the making, War Games is upon us as Shane Strickland leads his team against Sami Callihan’s monster squad in the two-ring cage. Can Strickland obtain some measure of revenge for Callihan’s brutal attacks, or will “The Worldwide Desperado” continue to wreak havoc across Major League Wrestling?
The main, and only, in-ring attraction of this week’s episode is the War Games match itself. MLW’s War Games show took place in Fort Lauderdale on September 6 with a night packed full of highly anticipated matches which should make their way to MLW Fusion in due time. I’m looking forward to the MLW World Heavyweight Title match between Low Ki and Fenix as well as the Mexican Death Match between Pentagon Jr and LA Park. I don’t know if the results of the show can be considered “spoilers” or not, but I’ve tried to avoid as much information as possible to better enhance the first viewing once they hit the air.
Callihan’s Ravagers
After a nice promo package hyping the match, we roll into a full-team interview with Callihan and crew. This thing was barely a minute long and got the match, the story, and the reasons behind the three main spokes of this team for being there. Abyss is there because he loves fun and games; Jimmy Havoc, bemused by Abyss’ comments, is here for a fight, blood and beer; Callihan makes it clear that his sole intention is to put Shane Strickland out of professional wrestling forever. Callihan promises to have “Swerve” stretchered out of the arena and to never be seen in MLW again.
Grade: Good. This reminded me of an old-school Survivor Series team promo. The Death Machines didn’t speak at all, but it’s clear that they serve Callihan’s will and looked menacing in the background – even though a freshly shaved Leon Scott is almost unidentifiable.
A Confusing Dream
To follow Callihan, Strickland’s team lay out their motivation next. Strickland starts off by comparing Callihan’s team to the Legion of Doom and lets interviewer Casey Lennox know that he feels good about the heroes who are standing by his side. John Hennigan is light on objectives for the match but says the members of the other team are all d-bags who can’t trust each other while he knows the men on his side will have his back. Barrington Hughes follows with a short and sweet message that dues must be paid and Kotto Brazil is next with an even shorter message which is a bit disappointing. Kotto has shown that he can evoke some good emotion on the mic in the past, so it would have been nice to have heard more from him here.
At least he’s not Tommy Dreamer, though. I don’t know what happened with Dreamer’s notes for this promo, but I think they may have gotten shuffled together with some other random scraps without anybody noticing. Dreamer starts by referencing Dusty Rhodes and mentions “The Dream” invented this match which has changed men’s lives over the years. He then takes a bizarre step to mention Dr. Martin Luther King who also had a dream before launching into a diatribe about how everybody on this team is different – from age to height to body type – and that there’s no room for body-shaming here. Dreamer closes out by informing us that this team is united in their love of professional wrestling and that he will go to war with anyone who shares those beliefs.
Grade: Fever Dream. I don’t know what I just saw and listened to. This thing went off the rails once Dreamer grabbed the mic, and watching Strickland try to parse what “The Innovator of Violence” was talking about was probably the best part of this portion of the promo. Truly unusual.