MLW RELOAD Review - January 20, 2024

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Mister Saint Laurent Hosted Sessions by Saint Laurent with MLW World Heavyweight Champion Alex Kane

Sessions by Saint Laurent has to be the worst talk show in wrestling today. MSL simply stands on the stage, talks to his guest for a few minutes, and that's about it. He doesn't even have a set! I'm usually all for simplicity, but this was pretty lame. They exchanged words, but nothing special was said. If nothing else, I guess this was supposed to hype the tag team match with Kane and Matt Riddle taking on Tom Lawlor and Josh Bishop later in the night.

Zayda def. Notorious Mimi

With Zayda being The WTF's female representative, it makes sense why she'd rack up some wins, but I don't see her challenging Janai Kai for the MLW World Women's Featherweight Championship being an appealing match right now with both of them being heels. I'd actually like to see more from Mimi, who was one of the stars of the Monster Factory docuseries that came out last year (I only just finished it but it's worth checking out). This was a fine spotlight match for Zayda and didn't need to last longer than it did.

MLW World Tag Team Champion Good Brother #3 def. Steph De Lander

MLW doesn't do intergender matches often, so I can't complain too much, but this was complete sillines. Mance Warner (Good Brother #3, of course) and De Lander are legitimately a couple in wrestling life, so I'm sure they had fun with this, but it wasn't my cup of tea, personally. It probably would've benefited from being slightly shorter, but either way, it was what it was. Let's move on from this now that Brother has beaten De Lander.

Ichiban def. Jimmy Lloyd

Ichiban earned an MLW World Middleweight Championship opportunity a while ago and we found out on this show he'll finally get it at SuperFight next month. Thus, it would have been illogical for him to lose here. MLW hasn't done much to establish Lloyd lately beyond having him serving as a stepping stone, but they had a perfectly passable match that went the way that it should have to give Ichiban more momentum.

Nao Kakuta def. Moka Miyamoto

I'm not familiar with either of these women, so it didn't matter to me who won, but I thought both women had impressive outings and delivered a nice match. This is the sort of stuff we can expect to see more of in MLW as they continue to work with other promotions. Post-match, Love, Doug approached Miyamoto, who agreed to go on a date with him. I wonder if that means Doug's crush on B3CCA is over or if they're just killing time with him until she's ready to return.

Delmi Exo def. Tiara James

I'm glad Exo is setting her sights back on the women's title. She said as much in her post-match promo, where she received boos for some reason. The match with James was okay, but it only existed to set up what we got afterward. Kai confronted Exo, and Zayda showed up as well. Going the three-way route would be a strange call since Exo wouldn't have to be pinned and that defeats the purpose of her wanting a rematch.

Matt Riddle and MLW World Heavyweight Champion Alex Kane def. The WTF Superstars (Josh Bishop and "Filthy" Tom Lawlor)

Man, The WTF are such losers. Have they won a single meaningful match since the faction was formed? I don't know how anyone is supposed to take them seriously at this point. This was all about Riddle and Kane and showing that they can coexist. It also planted the seeds for a future championship clash between the two. This was good, but Bishop eating the pinfall loss yet again establishes he's not the threat they originally made him out to be.

Satoshi Kojima def. Sami Callihan

This wasn't billed as a No Disqualification match or a Street Fight, but it may as well have been. That's been the case with MLW for a while now, but maybe they've always ignored the rules and I just haven't noticed. Regardless, this was a well-worked main event, though it didn't really feel like a main event due to not getting a ton of time. Callihan losing his first match back in MLW wasn't ideal, but Kojima is getting the next shot at the MLW World Heavyweight Championship, so him winning was more important.

Overall Show

MLW recently announced they'll be airing two events monthly going forward, which makes it sound like Fusion is going on hiatus for the time being. I've largely enjoyed MLW's monthly specials since September, but two a month might be a bit much. That said, this was a perfectly solid show. It felt like a longer edition of Fusion and not a live special (it wasn't actually live as it was taped prior to Kings of Colosseum), but there were some well-wrestled matches and storylines were furthered heading into SuperFight in a few weeks.

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