MLW Radio (flagship) # 292
Release Date: August 15, 2017
Recap By: Desman
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Top Stories:
- Ric Flair in poor health
- G1 Finals, Kenny Omega at the top of his game
- Alberto El Patron stripped of the GFW Championship
- Mae Young Classic coming to WWE Network
- Continued rumors about Enzo Amore’s future in WWE
- Raw thoughts
- SummerSlam
RECAP
MLW is back from vacation and joined by Rich Bocchini. M really enjoyed the show last week with Rich and Eric Bischoff. Rich had never met Eric before. He thought it was interesting to get his perspective on things and how many things they saw the same way about what happened in WCW.
6:30 – Ric Flair’s manager made a public statement saying that his surgery was a success and not heart related. Mean Gene Okerlund mentioned on social media that it had to do with his colon. The guys’ thoughts and prayers are with Ric as he works through this health situation. MSL asks Rich what were his greatest childhood memories of Flair. Rich points to the interviews as his most memorable moments on TV, as you didn’t get to see him wrestle that much aside from the larger events. The guys tell a couple of their favorite Flair stories and hope that he recovers soon.
14:30 – New Japan can do no wrong, as per MSL, who thought that the G1 Finals match was great and worth staying up all night to watch. Omega has arguably become the best wrestler in the world right now. While Rich wasn’t able to watch much of the tournament, he says Omega is at the top of his game at 33/34 years old and might want to consider making the move to WWE sooner than later, unless he doesn’t want to go there and doesn’t want to leave NJPW. If he had gone to WWE, MSL says it would have been a big blow for NJPW.
18:30 – Alberto El Patron stripped by GFW of his Championship. When Rich heard the news he felt it was comparable with Trump waiting two days to condemn neo Nazis, coming off as insincere. I’m not going to touch this one with a ten foot pole, but I appreciate the comparison with respect to how GFW handled this.
21:45 – Mae Young Classic will be coming to the WWE Network soon. Rich thinks that putting the entire tournament on the Network at once is an interesting way to do it, allowing fans to binge watch the entire tournament at once if they so choose and also go back and re-watch it to pick up stuff that they missed.
28:50 – MSL thinks a move to 205 Live would be good for Enzo Amore, but Enzo posted something about his weight being 206 pounds, possibly increasing his chances of ending up there. Rich saw something afterwards about Enzo either having deleted the post or him backtracking from it. Enzo will tell you what he thinks for better or for worse according to Rich, and he always got along with him but if you know him, you understand how some people can find him very abrasive. MSL says, let’s say he is abrasive, but if that’s his gimmick it would be very difficult for him to be convincing if he turned it off like a light switch when he’s backstage.
32:50 – The guys talk about Raw. MSL thought that the partial Shield reunion that opened the show didn’t make Ambrose or Rollins look good in terms of spending two or three weeks arguing if they’re going to shake hands, coming across as looking a little “emo.”
Rich felt it was overly-scripted and not delivered very believably to him. Rich said it looked forced and awkward, and once again mentioned that creative would be better off if they gave the guys some bullet points and just let them do their thing.
MSL gives kudos to Bo Dallas for changing up his look a little bit and Rich concurs. He’s always liked Bo, he’s super talented, and he thinks his character stuff is great going back to NXT when he was Mr. NXT, which Rich says was hilarious. MSL suggests that Bo does an Andrew Dice Clay gimmick, but that would be tough to pull off in the PG Era.
MSL thinks the psychology of the shark cage is a little off in that match, where it would typically be a heel in the cage. The people would want Enzo to interfere, but Rich thinks there will be something where he gets out of the predicament and interferes, but agrees that usually this stipulation is used for a heel manager.
Gallows and Anderson helped Big Cass on Raw, which MSL likes and suggests they should continue to be a unit, with the Good Brothers as Big Cass’s henchmen. He had originally suggested this for Roman a while back, where Gallows and Anderson could be elevated by their association with Big Cass. The idea of a 7-footer having backup is a heat magnet in M’s opinion, and Rich could see it working for sure with them.
Finn and Bray moved up to Raw, setting up the guarantee of Demon Finn at the PPV Sunday. Bray got over pretty clean here, and MSL doesn’t know what the justification is for the rematch, whereas he would have preferred a DQ finish or something like that. Rich is definitely not excited to pay his $9.99 to see Finn wearing makeup. He still doesn’t know why The Demon exists, and to Rich, that is the biggest problem with this Balor character. They also gave away the Cruiserweight Championship match, which MSL says was a very WCW thing to do.
42:45 – The main event of SummerSlam was the biggest match the company could make. Braun and Brock should have definitely been kept apart leading up to it. MSL isn’t thrilled with the rest of the card. M does think that the main event helps to elevate the Universal Championship, especially considering that the WWE Championship match is Jinder Mahal vs. Nakamura, with a world of difference between the two titles. MSL thinks that the four-way is not the dream match, but Braun vs. Brock is the dream match hidden in it. Rich thinks that putting Roman and Joe in that match helps both of those guys, and with Strowman possibly being the guy that is going to be the biggest attraction for a while, putting him in the match makes it very interesting. As you move towards WrestleMania and if the plan is Braun vs. Brock, this match is actually smart.
Rating – 6 out of 10. Slow news week, so this episode felt like the guys slogged through some uninteresting developments in the world of wrestling. It’s a shame Court couldn’t make it back for the week leading up to the second biggest WWE event of the year. If he won’t make it for that, I guess we won’t be seeing much of him, at least until after MLW One Shot. I personally enjoy hearing Bischoff with Bocchini over MSL and Rich.
TIMESTAMPS
6:30 – Ric Flair’s medical situation
14:30 – G1 Climax finals
18:30 – GFW strips Alberto El Patron
21:45 – Mae Young Classic
28:50 – Enzo Amore demoted to 205 Live?
32:50 – Good and bad from Raw
42:45 – SummerSlam main event
About the Author:
Desman (@Desman6) has been an avid wrestling fan going back to the very first WrestleMania and has attended four WrestleManias during his tenure as a WWE Shop card-carrying member of the WWE Universe. A financial professional by day, he spends his nights and weekends with his wife, rescue dog, and 2 rescue cats, watching WWE programming and listening to a number of wrestling-related podcasts. His true passions are food, film, and fights and he is forever fascinated by the business of professional wrestling.
For more, check out last week’s recap of MLW Radio.
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