MLW Fury Road Review - May 18, 2024

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Jake Crist def. Brett Ryan Gosselin

Gosselin has been in the midst of a pretty consistent push the past few months, so I figured this would be another win for him here. However, I liked Crist picking up the surprise win in fluky fashion because it gives Gosselin something to do for now. His post-match attack on Crist indicates there will be at least one more match between them if not more. This was a good opener with a nice pace.

AKIRA def. Bobby Fish

After doing a lot of losing in the last six months or so, it's about time AKIRA started winning and this allowed him to continue building momentum. It helped that it was a notable name that he beat. They had the well-wrestled match you'd expect with them. AKIRA offered Fish a handshake afterward and Fish flipped him off, so Fish will be a heel going forward (assuming that wasn't already established).

Alex Kane def. A-Game

This was an open challenge from Game. I believe A-Game is a member of his former Bomaye Fight Club who is now aligned with A.J. Francis. We haven't anything from him on his own in MLW, so it was logical for Kane to squash him in short order. This simply served as a setup for Kane to challenge Francis to "Ritual Combat" at the next show. It wasn't said what that will entail of exactly, but I imagine it'll just be a No Disqualification match with a fancy name.

Mads Krule Krugger def. Matthew Justice in a Falls Count Anywhere Match

Krugger is clearly in the process of being built up, so having him continue to rack up wins makes sense. As a standard singles match, this would've been nothing special, but the stipulation made it much more interesting. They took their brawl around the venue and that spot at the end where Krugger launched Justice off that platform at the end was wild. I'm glad that was the finish and that they didn't attempt to follow up on that.

MLW World Women's Featherweight Champion Janai Kai def. Zayda, Miyu Yamashita and Delmo Exo in a Four-Way Match

Yamashita is always a great get for MLW or any promotion whenever they can get her. We've seen Kai, Zayda and Exo all work together before (MLW's women's division is somewhat limited to just those three it seems), but Yamashita's involvement was the highlight. It was a fun four-way and they made the most of the time they had, but it should've been a little longer. Exo once again wasn't pinned, so her chase for the title continues.

Matt Riddle vs. Sami Callihan Ended in a Double Count-Out

You know exactly what you're getting from these two when they're in the ring together because they've both been around a while and are capable of great matches. It was a quality contest, but it didn't reach that next gear because of the double count-out. However, I'm totally fine with that as it's too early in the feud to be delivering a decisive finish. They even brawled before the bell, so they effectively established their bad blood for each other.

MLW World Heavyweight Champion and MLW World Tag Team Champion Satoshi Kojima def. 1 Called Manders

Kojima randomly won the tag titles at the last event, so the follow-up was him defending against someone who has done nothing to earn an opportunity at the MLW World Heavyweight Championship. In other words, there's been little consistency with his reign. This was a solid main event, but Manders never once felt like a threat to the title. The chaos that ensued afterward stood out to me more than the match did.

Overall Show

This was far from a home run of a show, but it was still a vast improvement over last week's Azteca Lucha event. Nothing against the lucha libre wrestling on that show, but a lot of it was fairly forgettable and/or not great. Not only was this show slightly shorter, it also featured more storyline-significant stuff and better matches. The main event didn't do much for me because of how random it was, but it was an entertaining event on the whole.

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