AJ & Andrew’s MLW War Chamber Live Experience Synopsis

The Balaz Brothers were live in the land of Extreme and they are going to give their thoughts and opinions on the main points of MLW War Chamber!

Being located in New Jersey, when shows are in New York and Philadelphia, things are fairly easy to get to. We decided that the concept that AJ came up with for the MLW article leading to War Chamber would be really cool for a fresh experience review.

Let’s find out some of the highlights/low lights!

The Hunt Has Just Begun–

AJ: The Opera Cup has ended and even though my prior prediction of Calvin Tankman fell through, I am so happy of the true 2021 Opera Cup winner in “The American Wolf” Davey Richards. I am beyond happy, I know Andrew will talk longer on the subject because much like me being a Hammer Fan, he loves Richards to death (you should have seen his reaction when he saw Davey himself retweeted the post on the Chairshot Twitter). TJP was the man that faced him in the finals and in all honesty, that was the match of the night, Four and Half Stars if we were rating it and if you see it on Fusion in the upcoming weeks, WATCH IT.

Now that the hunt is on, this will be exciting to say the least about Davey winning the Opera Cup and with all of that success and momentum, seems like the Balaz Brothers are gonna have a fight if he faces Hammerstone for the MLW World Championship.

AJ’s picture of Davey’s Opera Cup victory

Andrew: So Davey has a special place in my wrestling heart. Though he hasn’t always been the easiest to work with (which he acknowledges in his victory promo), he’s one of the best to ever lace ‘em up. TJP used a bunch of questionable tactics on his way to the Finals, so I was a little apprehensive that this match would be great until there was a ridiculous finish. BUT – I was pleasantly surprised.

This was probably the best match I’ve ever seen live. Great chain wrestling, submissions, striking; just everything about this match was gorgeous. Even the near falls were actually suspenseful. With live bias this match is a Five Snowflake classic, and everyone should watch this match.

Count ‘Em Up-

AJ: The Suplex Master of MLW is getting his eyes set on making his brand bigger. The fact that Calvin Tankman wasn’t in the finals and it was TJP was effectively Alex Kane coming out and making Tankman regret not taking the offer that King Mo and Kane gave him before. That being said, he had his sights set on other things and that was the National Openweight Championship Fatal Five way match with a surprise wild card. Alex Shelley, the flight master with a lot of years of experience from TNA/Impact Wrestling’s X Division, Myron Reed and Zenshi who are two great athletes in the ring and Myron Reed being a former Middleweight Champion along with the surprise of ACH in the match made it feel like it was massive and… going off of the 2300 Arena joke… it was extreme and fast paced. Ultimately, Alex Kane won with about three different suplexes and we have a new Openweight Champion.

How will this go moving forward? Where ever they want to take it. The opportunities are endless here but obviously, we need to have Alex Kane and Calvin Tankman have to have a match with this moving forward after Tankman got the Opera Cup slip through because of Alex. Heavyweight Hustle is going to get his championship match going forward but it’s however they want to take this going forward.

Andrew: So crowning a new champion with a vacant title is cool and all, but when it comes to count em up, I was expecting this topic to be about botches between Aramis and Arez. From moves that were designed to push someone from the apron off, looking like a love tap, Aramis Tornillo-ing into literally nothing, and 2 or 3 botches during a spin out Blue Thunder Bomb that they just kept going back to; I almost had a stroke with how awful this match was. So counting botches, counting strokes and counting the minutes in the match – that’s what I’d count up.

Fail Contra–

AJ: Now there are two main reasons why I put this last one down as “Fail Contra”. The first one is, Contra effectively lost to Team Hammerstone which was… kind of a given but the fact that it was via a Torture Rack from Hammer to Fatu, I’m not going to lie that it did leave a bit of a weird taste in my mouth but that also leads to the second reason why I labelled this the way I did.

Mads Kruger and Fatu kind of got in each other’s face at certain points in the War Chamber and also got in each other’s way with some miscommunication inside the cage. Ultimately in the end, Hammerstone and pals celebrate in victory and leave then Kruger gets back in Jacob Fatu’s face about losing the match and all hell broke loose. Kruger kept shouting at him, some shoving got going and then the attack and Contra Unit is no longer running with Jacob Fatu. Fatu gets enraged, attacks Kruger and any Contra member that breaks them up then walks off after the beat down that happened. It effectively looks like Fatu has turned face and he is officially done with Contra Unit with Kruger going forward as the main muscle.

Andrew: No more lives left for Fatu in this Contra Code. Between the preshow interview (which AJ did a great job at), interactions before the show got going and how he lost to Hammerstone, I can’t boo Fatu. Fatu is such a great guy, I was hoping he’d get a face turn and all signs point to face. Mads Kruger has been vying for the Contra Control, Fatu tried to start off War Chamber to set a pace, but Kruger never really seemed to get on the same page.

After Hammerstone wins with another move that isn’t his finisher (on Fatu), the crowd was confused. Confused because the finish of the match really fell a bit flat, but the payoff with the Contra explosion was definitely a great way to send the fans home satisfied. So a Samael and Kruger lead Contra, might force Fatu and Hammerstone together, which would be a Mega Powers-esque combination.

Andrew’s picture of Hammerstone Team Wild Card 1 Matanza Duran!

Extra Beats-

Since we focused on some personal highlights, this is more of a lightning round. Sea Stars look to be early leaders in the Featherweight Division. Gnarls Garvin was the most unintelligible southern rambling imbecile I’ve ever had the misfortune of trying to hear speak English. He was hard to understand and when he tries to punctuate his promo points, he sounded like he was holding back tears not determined to prove what he could do.

Los Parks put on a solid show in the Street Fight. It wasn’t as chaotic as I was expecting, but it worked. KC Navarro impressed me, not only because I hate the dweeb who looks like a high schooler playing at a discount store Ultimate Warrior (that’s Warhorse if you can’t tell); but because his stuff looks good and he won with a Running Shiranui/Sliced Bread #2. Plus his interview was pretty great with him staying in character.

Really fun event from a fan and press perspective. If it weren’t for the initial flat feeling of the War Chamber match (before the Contra explosion) and the Lucha Botchfest, it was a really good show that could’ve been even a tier better.