MLW Fusion Review - June 15, 2023

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

AKIRA def. Lince Dorado and Lio Rush to Win the MLW World Middleweight Championship

Rush came out with the physical belt, but that's because he stole it from Dorado a while ago. I honestly forgot about their feud being a thing. It's cool to see Rush back in MLW, though. They could use the roster depth. All three of these guys worked well together and had a fun opener. Unfortunately, the least interesting person, AKIRA, won. That's means the title is now property of The Calling, a faction I just haven't been able to bring myself to care about yet.

Sam Adonis def. Willie Mack

Regardless of the company, I feel like Mack loses more than he wins. Then again, he's pretty much a Ring of Honor guy at this point, so I don't blame MLW for wanting to put their own guy over. Adonis is a great heel and can go in the ring to boot, leaving me to wonder he hasn't gotten chances in any of the major companies yet. This was a solid match. Mance Warner came out afterward, but Adonis and John Hennigan attacked him without anyone coming to help.

Delmi Exo def. Taya Valkyrie to Win the MLW World Women's Featherweight Championship

Valkyrie has been ducking and dodging Exo for a long time now, and while I understand it's part of her heel character, I'm surprised it took this long for the match to happen, just because Valkyrie has been signed by AEW for months now and you'd think she wouldn't be able to make appearances in MLW anymore (I know Mack has, but he's primarily an ROH talent). This was an enjoyable main event with Exo fighting from underneath as the underdog babyface before ultimately emerging victorious to become champion.

Overall Show

I realize Fusion hasn't been back for very long, but this was easily the best edition they've produced since the relaunch. The two titles obviously made it an eventful episode, but we were treated to three quality, meaningful matches as well. MLW needs do a better job of delivering this sort of stuff more consistently to make the weekly show more worthwhile. In addition to everything discussed above, there was additional hype for MLW's Never Say Never pay-per-view coming up on July 8th.

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