MLW Fusion Review - July 18, 2026

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

MLW World Middleweight Champion Kushida def. Alan Angels, Templario and Taiji Ishimori in a 4-Way Match

This was a bit of a random four-way and it felt like an excuse to have Kushida defend the MLW World Middleweight Championship against a variety of challengers, but it was a fun opener, nonetheless. They didn't get a ton of time, but they made the most of what they had to work with. Kushida stole Templario's mask afterward, so their issues may not be over yet.

Lady Frost Confronted MLW Women's World Champion Shotzi Blackheart and Scarlett Bordeaux

I'm all for Blackheart having her own talk show segment and I appreciate all the horror decor and whatnot, but man, the canned crowd noise was distracting as hell. I can't imagine that many people were that loud for the entire exchange between Blackheart and Bordeaux. At least they played their roles well, along with Frost. It's nice that the MLW Women's World Championship picture has picked up since Blackheart took the title.

LaBron Kozone def. SoFly Manny Lo

Kozone is from North Carolina, so even though this episode emanated from South Carolina, this was still basically a homecoming for him and he received a good reaction. He's been built up exceptionally well so far and this was another successful showcase for him (with Lo looking impressive also). Post-match, he bonded with Satoshi Kojima, so I assume they'll be aligned going forward.

MLW World Tag Team Champions The Skyscrapers (Donovan Dijak, Bishop Dyer and Josh Bishop) def. Contra Mercs (The Good Brothers and Mads Krule Krugger)

This was advertised as being three-on-two until Dyer returned to make it three-on-three. So, I guess he's not yet done with MLW after all despite recently returning to WWE? I realize this was taped months ago, but I'm curious why he wouldn't have been written off by now. Either way, this was a solid six-man tag team match to further the feud between the two factions and introduce Big Damo as Krugger's next rival.

Overall Show

Between Dyer's return and Damo's debut, this wound up being quite the newsworthy episode. Everything prior to the main event was business as usual, which is to say it was enjoyable. There's plenty going on in MLW at the moment and there's actual progression from week to week, so Fusion feels like a coherent program. The women were represented, the main event had some star power, the opener had the best wrestling of the night and Kozone maintained his momentum, so there was a little bit of everything on this show.

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