Major League Wrestling: Symphony of Horrors Recap
Our first MLW show started with Jesus Rodriguez addressing an appropriately rowdy Long Beach, CA crowd in Espanol, bringing out MLW’s management, President Cesar Duran and VP Selena De La Renta. Is it just us, or does Cesar Duran bear an uncanny resemblance to Lucha Underground owner Dario Cueto? Maybe they’re cousins or something!
Duran and De La Renta hyped up the crowd with a preview of the card, and then went backstage where they were confronted by Matt Riddle, who demanded a title shot and then threatened to share his onlyfans content with Selena, who reacted with appropriate disgust.
Old friend Rich Palladino (well, we’ve seen him at many Chaotic Wrestling events, but if we’re being honest, the relationship is entirely parasocial) announced the first match, a triple threat match for the openweight championship featuring reigning champ Blue Panther, fellow legendary luchador Atlantis, and youngster Rugido. Rugido is the first luchador we’ve ever seen with fur on his mask, but we’re not kink shaming! Share that fursona with the world, guy!
May we be honest for a moment? The legendary luchadores Atlantis and Blue Panther are both, shall we say, advanced in years. And so they definitely do not move like the men they once were or, frankly, like the man Rugido currently is, which is to say, a young man. On the other hand, they can still do flips off the top rope! Can your grandpa do that? We are of relatively advanced years ourselves, and so when we say “grandpa,” we don’t mean “ha ha, you’re forty” the way the young folks might. Atlantis is sixty-three and Blue Panther is sixty-five. May we all be able to get some young whippersnapper to tap out with an arm bar when we’re at retirement age the way Blue Panther did to Rugido to retain the title!
The show was interrupted by a grainy promo featuring Mads Krule Kruger sporting a Bane mask and whisper-growling apparently threatening things about Donovan Dijak, but we could only understand like every third word, so he could have been inviting him to brunch for all we know.
Next up, Rich Palladino introduced a lightning match with a 10-minute time limit, featuring the ballsy badass Shotzi Blackheart, wearing a horned helmet and throwing candy to the crowd, who seemed to be on her side even before the bribe! (We grew up watching the Cincinnati Reds baseball team and therefore associate the name Schottzie with a Saint Bernard. It was quite jarring to see this sobriquet applied to an actual human!) Blackheart faced off against pink-clad Brittnie Brooks, who is apparently such a newcomer that she doesn’t even rate intro music yet. Blackheart managed to defeat Brooks with two minutes forty-five seconds left in the lightning match, no doubt making Joan Jett proud!
But then Shotzi was attached backstage by a mysterious figure in a hooded cape!
The Good Brothers cut a homemade promo in which they asserted that they’d be taking down the current tag team champions because they have the power of (event sponsor, totally coincidentally) Don Gato Tequila running through their veins. Because tequila is a legendary enhancer of athletic performance!
Cut to Brock Anderson backstage, lamenting how his cousin CW was put into the electric chair and apparently executed at in a previous Chamber of Horrors match. He called out Mads Krule Kruger as a “big swolt-up goof” and announced he’ll seek revenge in November in a bunkhouse match.
Back in the Ring, Rich Palladino announced a Scramble Five match featuring luchador Magnus, who came out wearing a mask over his mask; Okumura who came out in an outfit that looked like what would happen if Bob Mackie designed samurai armor(Look up Bob Mackie, kids, and prepare to be wowed!);Diego Hill, attired in his t-shirt and leggings bearing his name; luchador Stigma, attired in fabulous blue and gold spangled cape; and Ikuro Kwan, introduced as The Lucha Hunter (Apparently he collects luchador masks from those he’s defeated) and wearing what looked like a very comfy silk jacket.
The match featured high kicks, high flying, and enough leg sweeps to warm the heart of 1984 Martin Kove. Though Diego Hill had the least colorful outfit, he had the most impressive match, showing jaw-dropping acrobatic athleticism and ultimately pinning Kwan for the win! Blue Panther then emerged to raise Diego’s hand, which is supposed to be the ref’s job, but it was a nice moment anyway!
Cut to Shotzi backstage looking for Priscilla Kelly who she clearly blames for her mysterious assault.
Hammerstone came out to do commentary for the tag team championship featuring Mads Krule Kruger, sporting his Bane mask and a pretty nasty cut on his bald pate; and Matt Riddle, the Rude Dude, in Neon Pink and Green jacket. Careful, dude—those are Alpha Kappa Alpha colors! They don’t like it when non-members wear that combo! The Skyscrapers, Donovan Dijak and Bishop Dyer, may or may not have been doing AKA’s bidding as they attacked Riddle from behind, and a huge brawl broke out outside the ring. Featuring, of course, implements of destruction that were found—where else—under the ring! (Why was there a hockey stick under there, and is there any other winter sports paraphernalia? A lone ski, mayhap?)
Riddle wrestled barefoot, which felt strangely unseemly. He attacked Hammerstone at the broadcast table, Hammerstone counterattacked, and the match was ruled over by disqualification. But the Skyscrapers decided to put Kruger through a table anyway, but, appropriately for a Halloween-themed show, he popped right up like Michael Meyers and started fighting back!
The brawl wasn’t over, but the insatiable maw of capitalism had to be stuffed, so we cut to commercial, and then to Schotzi Blackheart backstage, who interrupted Cesar Duran and Selena De La Renta sipping tequila (you’ll never guess what brand!) (Also, this is what the bosses do during a show? Nice work if you can get it!). Schotzi chugged some tequila, announced she would see Priscilla in Charleston, and stormed off, taking the bottle with her.
Next up, a Middleweight Championship match featuring Virus, resplendent in a blue cape, and masked luchador Templario, who has a kind of Assassin’s Creed look going on. On the way to the ring, Templario pulled a sword from a stone, so move over, Charles—Templario is apparently King of Britain now! Templario showed some impressive breakdancing moves, but It was ten minutes into the match before Virus leapt from the top rope. MLW’s broadcast team inexplicably missed the opportunity to say, “Virus is airborne!” but you will not catch us missing a layup like that. Virus proved a formidable opponent, but call Templario your immune system because he cleared the Virus with a powerbomb for the pin and the win.
Cut to a confusing promo that looked like an ad for some sort of occult cologne. It announced that Killer Kross is coming to MLW. Good to know! Ikuro Kwan then demanded a rematch with Don Gato and punched some corrugated metal with Don Gato’s previously-missing brass knuckles.
Back to the ring for an Opera Cup match featuring Volador Jr. accompanied to the ring by Magnus and Rugido, both of whom were wearing masks over their masks. Is this a thing now? His opponent, Satoshi Kojima, accompanied by Okimura, presumably there as a deterrent against interference from Magnus and Rujido. A deterrent that proved spectacularly ineffective, as the two rudos pulled Kojima from the ring and put a serious beat down on him while Okimura pleaded with the ref and did nothing else. Imagine witnessing obvious injustice and rulebreaking by your opponent and just ineffectually expressing concern instead of fighting! Where else but the wrestling ring can you see such behavior!
With his seconds’ villainy unchecked (they wound up pulling the ref from the ring, thus denying Kojima the win when he pinned Volador but no one was there to count), Volador Jr. cruised to a win.
Cut to backstage, where apparently the brawl between the Skyscrapers and Kruger had continued this entire time! Or maybe they took a break like Wile E. Coyote and the Sheepdog in those cartoons before getting back to violence!
Security were attempting to break up the melee when Brock Anderson emerged to join in, but Cesar Duran was there to break it up, announcing that Anderson would face Kruger in a bunkhouse match in Charleston. Which of course Anderson himself announced earlier in the evening, but we guess he needed Duran to make it official.
Some backstage footage revealed Paul London and Paul Walter Hauser having a tiff backstage.
Don Gato sat at ringside on a throne, sipping a mystery brand of tequila, and Julio Cesar Rivera announced another Opera Cup semi final—Austin Aries vs. Mistico.
Aries entered, seized the mic and insulted the crowd incoherently. Something about how he was telling the crowd uncomfortable truths? It was hard to hear him over the boos and chants of “shut the fuck up.”
The match itself featured several momentum shifts as well as Don Gato glugging what we really hope was water because if he was really refilling the shot glass with tequila that often, the dude was risking life and liver. Mistico wound up narrowly pulling out the win in a very exciting match, and Don Gato left his throne and came into the ring to present him with…well, we’re pretty sure you can guess what. (Hint: it comes in a bottle.)
Our first Major League Wrestling show was at an end, and we were very impressed that the promotion seems every bit as dedicated to delivering top-notch wrestling entertainment as it is to product placement!
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