MLW Underground results: Daniels vs. Yang, Dutt vs. Colon

This week’s MLW Underground brought us back to 2003 with the semifinals of the J-Cup USA Junior heavyweight title tournament that set up a can’t miss final.

Sonjay Dutt defeated Eddie Colon in a J-Cup USA semifinal match

A young Primo Colon and the excellently exciting Dutt started this episode with the first semifinal J-Cup match. Colon defeated Jerry Lynn in the first round while we saw Dutt put away Tony Mamaluke two weeks ago.

It didn’t take long for Dutt to take to the sky as he hit a slingshot corkscrew plancha to the floor followed by a slingshot dropkick. Colon looked good here without ever posing a credible threat. Dutt has been so impressive on these shows recently that it would have been crazy to halt his hot streak here.

Colon hit an impressive sunset flip from the top rope, but when he went for his own slingshot dropkick, Dutt caught him with a power bomb and put the future WWE matador and vacation salesman away.

— Kevin Kelly debuted as the latest member of the broadcasting team, announcing the lineup for the next set of tapings that included NOSAWA and Vampiro vs. CM Punk and a mystery partner.

— Samoa Joe cut a great and intense 90-second promo talking about coming to MLW to wrestle and not having to resort to any hardcore gimmicks, taking a shot at Mike Awesome. This was exactly what he needed to get back on track after his loss to Awesome last week.

Los Maximos (Joel and Jose) defeated Juventud Guerrera and Super Dragon

Guerrera and the SAT worked well together, pulling out a lot of headscissors, arm drags, feints and reversals. They made good use of the two rings that were used for the WarGames match (this tag match actually opened the WarGames set of tapings).

Los Maximos stacked Guerrera on top of Dragon and locked in a boston crab /camel clutch combo submission before Guerrera came back and hit a pair of Juvi Drivers. However, he got dumped out the ring for his trouble.

Joel got the lucky winning pinfall and the win over Dragon after a series of impressive back-and-forth pin attempts.

— Backstage, Punk verbally retaliated to Vampiro, reminding everyone that he is straight edge and their upcoming tag match is his time to show the world why he is better both he and NOSAWA.

Christopher Daniels (w/ Mikey Whipwreck) defeated Jimmy Yang in a J-Cup USA semifinal match

Daniels did well slowing the action down so Whipwreck could interfere. Daniels focused his attention on Yang’s ribs to try and ground the WWE-bound high flier. This was quite smart as similar to last week’s match with Guerrera, Yang did not take too many aerial risks in this match in preparation for his big money move.

Instead, it was Daniels who took to the sky but Yang’s timing was on point as he connected with a spinning heel kick as Daniels came off the top.

Yang popped up from a picture-perfect corner assisted tilt-a-whirl DDT, hitting Daniels with a heel kick and a standing moonsault.

Yang then went to the top and hit his Yang Time corkscrew. Daniels kicked out and Yang went to hit it for a second time. Whipwreck then crotched him on the top rope and he fell into the ring, straight into the Last Rights (Cross Rhodes) which put him away.

This sets up Daniels vs. Dutt for the MLW Junior Heavyweight title and the J-Cup USA crown next week.

Final Thoughts:

I’m looking forward to the  final next week. Dutt has been so spectacular in this MLW run and Daniels has been a step above everyone he has been in the ring. This should really be something special.

I would like to see more of Punk in the MLW ring from this time. By my calculations, he has been in action once during this Underground run, so hopefully, we get to see the well-hyped up tag match and the big reveal of his mystery opponent.