MLW Underground Wrestling - February 14, 2023

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

MLW World Tag Team Champion Calvin Tankman def. Willie Mack

Tankman is still one-half of the MLW World Tag Team Champions with EJ Nduka despite the two not having interacted on MLW programming in months. If Nduka is indeed done with MLW, I'm curious how that situation will be handled and if Tankman will just have to find another partner. Nonetheless, this was a very enjoyable opener from him and Mack. They're two bigger guys who can go, so they had strong chemistry as you'd expect. This was the second straight match Mack has lost in MLW. I hope he can rack up some wins soon so he can avoid becoming the stepping stone he was in IMPACT.

MLW World Women's Featherweight Champion Taya Valkyrie def. Zoey Skye

I really like this new heel version of Valkyrie aligned with Cesar Duran. She's always been in her element in the heel role and she's the perfect person to be leading this division (though I'm not sure who exactly it consists of). This was a nice little match with Skye having a brief flurry of offense before falling short. The post-match face-off between her and the debuting Billie Starkz (who has been making a name for herself as of late) was also well done and left me looking forward to an eventual match between them.

Real1 def. Mance Warner in a Street Fight

This was a rematch of the brief bout they had last week. For a Street Fight, I was surprised how short this was, but I'm not complaining because there's no need for Real1 matches to last much longer than this did. There was nothing special about this whatsoever, especially given the stipulation was in Warner's wheelhouse, but I assume they held back because there will be at least one more match in their feud due to Real1 cheating to win this one (though it was perfectly legal with there being no disqualifications).

Overall Show

The second edition of Underground Wrestling was better structured than the first. There are still Fusion graphics all over the place, but that's because they didn't know it'd be for Underground when it was taped. Hopefully that will improve at the next set of tapings. It's basically a second hour of Fusion for now, which is fine, and this was a thumbs-up episode on the whole. The opener was entertaining, the women's match set up Valkyrie's next challenger, and the main event was what it needed to be.

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