MLW Holiday Rush Review - December 24, 2024

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

MLW World Women's Featherweight Champion Janai Kai def. Tiffani Avatar by Referee Stoppage (Non-Title)

Kai literally kick Avatar with one kick and it was over. That's how you establish someone as a badass. The outcome was never in doubt, but I loved that no time was wasted here. Kai cut a promo afterward challenging Delmi Exo to a Hair vs. Title match at Kings of Colosseum. Their feud feels like it's been going on forever, but I appreciate that Exo will have to put something at stake as well in order to get another opportunity at the title.

MLW World Tag Team Champion Minoru Suzuki def. AKIRA

Didn't Suzuki just win back the MLW World Tag Team Championship? He didn't come out with the belt here, but perhaps this was taped prior to that/earlier in the night. Nonetheless, he and AKIRA pretty much had the match you'd expect from them. They had nice chemistry and beat the hell out of each other. AKIRA seems to lose a lot more than he wins, so the outcome wasn't all that surprising.

Matt Riddle def. Brett Ryan Gosselin

Riddle will obviously be challenging Satoshi Kojima for the MLW World Heavyweight Championship at Kings of Colosseum next month, so there was no way he was losing here, especially to Gosselin. I wish this lasted a little longer, but what we got was solid. Despite being "fired" by Eric Bischoff at One-Shot, Alex Kane emerged toward the end to cost Gosselin the victory.

Titan def. Magnus

MLW's lucha libre matches can be very hit or miss depending on who's involved, but usually when it's the younger guys, the matches are very enjoyable and that was the case here. This had nothing on the line and viewers had zero incentive to care about who would win, but from an in-ring standpoint, it was a fun sprint. In fact, it was probably the best bout on the whole show.

"Filthy" Tom Lawlor def. Timothy Thatcher

You'd think this would've been better than it was given who was involved (and it's not like it was brief, either), but at least it was well wrestled. Lawlor hasn't done a whole lot lately, so giving him a win was necessary if he's going to be facing Donovan Dijak soon (who he brawled with afterward). By the way, isn't Thatcher a part of WWE's new ID program? Does that mean he's effectively done with MLW?

MLW World Heavyweight Champion Satoshi Kojima def. Ultimo Guerrero

There was no reason to think the title was changing hands with Kojima defending against Riddle at Kings of Colosseum, but then again, I wouldn't have taken Guerrero seriously as a threat even if that wasn't happening. I'm sure there are those who liked this match solely for the nostalgia factor, but I can't say this did much for me since both guys are over 50 and most of the match was boring as a result. Thankfully, they kept it on the shorter side.

Overall Show

This was significantly shorter than MLW's other events this year at only 90ish-minutes, and a good chunk of that time was devoted to highlights from One-Shot earlier this month. For a quick holiday show, this was perfectly fine and actually an improvement over the mess that was One-Shot. There was some quality wrestling throughout as well as hype for Kings of Colosseum in a few weeks, so it was a serviceable special.

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