MLW Fusion Review - September 17, 2026

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

MLW National Openweight Champion Austin Aries def. "Hot Sauce" Tracy Williams in an Opera Cup Opening-Round Match (Non-Title)

Aries cut a promo beforehand declaring himself the best professional wrestler in the business today. Yeah, that's bound to get the internet talking. To be fair, he's a heel, so what would you expect him to say/believe? Nonetheless, this was the well-wrestled match you'd expect from these two. Williams last competed for MLW over three years ago, so I was glad to see him resurface here.

Oddyssey def. Okumura in an Opera Cup Opening-Round Match

Oddyssey is, of course, the former Odyssey Jones from WWE. He spent a few years in NXT before being called up to the main roster but was quietly released shortly after debuting. Hopefully he's cleared his name or whatever because I thought he had potential when I saw him in WWE. He had a solid showing here and I appreciated that we got to hear from him afterward. It was smart to keep this short and sweet and even smarter to have Oddyssey go over.

H.A.T.E. Attacked MLW Women's World Champion Shotzi Blackheart

There have been vignettes promoting the arrival of H.A.T.E. in MLW for several weeks. They're a faction from Stardom and here we saw Rina and Kamitani attacking Blackheart. It was a simple segment yet effective in establishing the two of them as the newest threats to the MLW Women's World Championship, though it's worth noting that Lady Frost has yet to get her opportunity at the title.

MLW Southern Crown Trevor Lee def. Mistico in an Opera Cup Opening-Round Match by Count-Out (Non-Title)

This was an absolute blast. Granted, most matches Mistico has in MLW are bangers, but this one was especially entertaining because of how well they worked together. I could have done without Aries interfering, but I understand that was necessary to further the feud between him and Mistico. As a result of Aries ensuring Mistico got counted out, their rematch will not be happening in the next round of the Opera Cup. Will Mistico return the favor?

Overall Show

It was announced this week that in addition to all of the other platforms it's currently on, MLW will be airing new episodes first on Tubi on Thursday nights, which is awesome news. This was a very Opera Cup-focused edition of Fusion and I thought it was quite good as a result, so if you've never tuned into Fusion before, hopefully you liked what you saw. Fusion is very easy and enjoyable to follow at the moment and this episode exemplified that.

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