The Hardcore Spirit of ECW Is Still Going Strong in MLW

The Changing Landscape of Indie Wrestling

As one would expect, over time the landscape of professional wrestling would twist and turn until transforming into the buffet of options available to wrestling fans today. It seems like every promotion has its own streaming service or is partnered with someone like Powerbomb.tv, FITE or Highspots to offer live or on-demand viewing of events. Despite the lack of a single promotion to challenge WWE in size and exposure, there are plenty of promotions who have national or semi-national television deals instead of or in addition to streaming options.

With streaming services and capabilities so readily available, indie promotions are able to grow at steadier paces rather than trying to grab every huge name they can in order to gain instant exposure and get a whole new set of eyes on their product. Instead, the internet and its various nooks and crannies make it easy for fans of every style of wrestling to find their promotion(s) of choice.

For me, one of those promotions is Major League Wrestling. When I first started hearing the MLW name being thrown around again, I had to wonder if someone had been so brazen as to start a new promotion with the same name as the short-lived company which had given me my first glimpse of Satoshi Kojima in the early 2000s.

The original MLW run was another piece of the puzzle that helped to form who I am as a wrestling fan today. As a kid shipping off to college, I found myself identifying with CM Punk as he tore into Raven and recalled his childhood with a drunk father who was never around. Just as I had found a place to belong with ECW, I was finding my way through punk and emo, learning that there was a term (and scene) associated with my choice to abstain from drugs and alcohol. As I became an avid watcher of MLW, I found a wrestler with whom I could connect on that same level.

When I quickly put two and two together to realize that this new MLW was a revival of the MLW I had enjoyed so much over a decade prior, I knew I had to check it out. What I found was a promotion once again captivating me with a focus on the action in the ring while giving the wrestlers and managers a chance to shine using their own words rather than forcing convoluted storylines onto the audience.

This MLW, much like the MLW of the past, sucked me in almost immediately with episode 1 of MLW Fusion and I haven’t looked back since. There are so many ways in which MLW is giving me ECW flashbacks in the best ways possible all without trying to tell anyone that it’s an ECW revival promotion, or that it’s hardcore, or that it’s anything other than a professional wrestling promotion putting on some of the biggest indie wrestling shows month in and month out across the country.

So, what does MLW have that harkens back to the glory days of ECW? Let’s break it down.