MLW Underground video & results: Rhodes-Funk-Corino deathmatch

By Iain Oliver
Published: 26 Jul 2020, 14:02

The Big Takeaways:

The MLW Global Crown Tag Team Championship tournament continued as “Dr. Death” & PJ Friedman and The Extreme Horsemen advanced to the finals.
We had an MLW World title match between Satoshi Kojima and Mitsuya Nagai.
We also saw the birth of the Extreme Horsemen as Steve Corino met Dusty Rhodes and Terry Funk in a three-way Florida deathmatch.

Show Review:

We opened with a pre-tape from earlier in the day as Steve Corino pulled up to the building in his fancy car and talked about how the Extreme Horsemen are higher class while Terry Funk is white trash. He compared cars, houses, and their day-to-day lives. Everything with Corino was higher class and he said he had hit Funk’s achievements (ECW champion and NWA champion), but, of course, he won those titles quicker than Funk. He said the fans will be seeing violence, but not at his expense…but at Funk’s.

Joey Styles welcomed us to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, and ran down the recent events between both LA Parka and Sabu and Vampiro and Raven, and that we will be seeing the Extreme Horsemen in action later on.

In another pre-tape from earlier in the week, we went outside the dojo of “Dr Death” Steve Williams where PJ Friedman told the cameraman to come back next week to see how they are preparing for the tag tournament.

“Dr. Death” Steve Williams & PJ Friedman defeated Jimmy Yang & Mike Sanders to advance to the MLW Global Crown Tag Team Title tournament finals (07:32)

This was quite the standard tag team match until Williams made the pinfall save for his partner and then absolutely destroyed Sanders with a powerbomb. From there, the match spilled to the outside where Williams dropped Sanders through a table.

Sanders briefly fired up after a commercial break as we had a glitch in the continuity timeline as we were told that EZ Money and Julio Dinero had made it to the tourney finals without seeing any of their matches yet. Yang continued their team’s comeback as he hit a springboard top rope corkscrew for a close two count. Friedman crotched Yang on the top rope and tagged in Williams who used his strength to overcome Sanders with a doctor bomb and then Yang with a backdrop driver to pick up the win.

With this win, Williams and Friedman also had advanced to the finals of the tournament.

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– Styles hyped up the debut of CM Punk, calling for us to watch out for his Pepsi Plunge from the top rope.

– Next up was the Samoan Island Tribe who said that they might not be the most electrifying men in sports entertainment, but they are the power source. They are coming to kick butt, and if you smell something stinking, it’s them, because they are the sh*t.

– MLW World Champion Satoshi Kojima cut a subtitled promo in Japanese, letting us know that Mike Awesome, Mr. Gannosuke Nagai, Shinjiro Otani, Vampiro, and Taiyo Kea are all on notice because he is the most fighting world champion ever.

MLW World Champion Satoshi Kojima defeated Mitsuya Nagai to retain the title

This was filmed in All Japan Pro Wrestling and was a highlight package, complete with 90s style high tempo video game theme music playing throughout. The match reminded me of a modern-day strong style match with a lot of knees, head drops, pop-up no sells, high angled suplexes, and of course, Kojima’s famous lariat for the win.

The champion was bleeding from the ear after the match but was able to get to his feet and take in the applause from the AJPW crowd. This brought the “Koji count” to 2-0 as we learned that Kojimania was running wild in the USA, established in 2003.

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– Styles brought us back up to speed with the goings-on between Raven and Vampiro: Raven wants Vampiro, Vampiro has a title shot against Kojima and whatever the outcome, Vampiro will address Raven at the next set of tapings. Give them their due: MLW certainly knew how to hype up their next big show as “Friday night, May 9th at Taboo in Orlando, Florida” must have been mentioned at least ten times throughout the show.

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The Extreme Horsemen (Simon Diamond & CW Anderson) defeated Los Maximos to advance to the MLW Global Crown Tag Team Title tournament finals (6:19)

There were no entrances for this one as we jumped right into the start of the match with Diamond and Jose. They exchanged some nice test of strength monkey flips out of the corners and quick-fire arm drags as we were told the Samoans have been calling out Los Maximos recently, so they better be looking over their shoulders.

Back from the break, Anderson planted Jose on his head with a german suplex. He then hit a great delayed vertical suplex from the middle rope for a close two count. It was here that the earlier mentions of Dinero and Money being in the finals made sense as the finals were a triangle tag team match also featuring Williams and Friedman and the winners of this match.

Los Maximos fired up after the hot tag. Joel ran wild and hit Anderson with a german suplex, Diamond with an enzuigiri and a big moonsault off the top rope, before planting Anderson on his head for a close two count.

Diamond hit a series of suplexes and a Falcon Arrow for a two count of his own as the match began to break down into a four-way. After another cut in action, the Extreme Horsemen came close to winning after a slingshot and superkick combination. Moments later, Anderson caught Jose coming off the top and planted him with a spinebuster to pick up the win and advance to the finals.

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Before our main event, we heard from Dusty Rhodes in a backstage promo. He said he didn’t like any of the Funks: Dory, Papa, Terry, or mother Funk. He called Corino a pumpkin head and a walking contradiction of pro wrestling. For those paying attention, they would have spotted a few lines from this promo that made their way into the opening credits of the MLW opening montage.

Before Styles insulted Triple H by saying Kojima wasn’t a paper champion and didn’t get the belt handed to him by a general manager or because he was sleeping with his boss’ daughter, Styles was hyping up more matches for, you guessed it, Friday night, May 9th at Taboo in Orlando as we cut to outside the building where Los Maximos had been attacked by some mystery men.

We then heard from Mike Awesome who promised us he will be the next MLW Champion and also that he was going to powerbomb Masato Tanaka over the top rope and right through a table on Friday night, May…alright, you know when and where.

Steve Corino defeated Dusty Rhodes and Terry Funk in a three-way Florida deathmatch (13:07)

Funk and Corino were on the same page early on as they took turns going one-on-one with Rhodes but eventually used their numbers advantage and a trashcan to get the legend down on the mat. However, their alliance was short-lived as Funk turned his back on the youngster and clobbered him with the trashcan as well.

A brawl outside the ring included Rhodes exposing Funk’s backside (to the horror of both Styles on commentary and the live audience), a steel chair that did the rounds with everyone taking turns, and a few bionic elbows for good measure.

Inside the ring, Rhodes hit Funk with a shovel, but, moments later, took the handle to the groin as he was jabbing Corino. To make matters worse, Funk drove the shovel into Corino’s throat and on the outside, he slipped off the guardrail and caught his leg between the rungs.

As Rhodes was hitting Corino with some more bionic elbows, Anderson and Diamond interfered and took out Rhodes’ ankle with a steel chair. Rhodes was taken to the back leaving Funk on his own against Corino, Anderson, and Diamond.

Being the underdog lit a brief fire in Funk as he ran wild and waffled them all with another trashcan. The numbers game eventually caught up as Corino floored him with a DDT. The referee refused to count the pin due to the interference, so Corino gave him a DDT, too. Replacement referee Jon Finnegan eventually made the count and declared Corino the victor.

Underground closed with a promo from Raven talking about Vampiro. He thought he was jealous and maybe it is time for the protege to step up and beat the master. He warned Vampiro not to antagonize him and said they would end up in Raven’s Clockwork Orange House of Fun.

Next Show:

Jerry Lynn vs. Mike Awesome for a shot at the MLW World Championship

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CochRz-n1l4