ST. PETERSBURG, FL — My nephew and I packed up the car and headed to St. Petersburgh for a night of wrestling. Major League Wrestling (MLW) presented its event Blood and Thunder from The Coliseum, a beautiful venue in downtown St. Petersburgh.
By the time the day ended, there was a child screaming and on top of boards of plywood sat a staple gun, glass, thumbtacks, and a man with ring rope in his teeth. It is the kind of spectacle the average person would find, well, odd or horrifying. For wrestling fans, especially those in attendance, it was just another Friday show.
The man with the rope in his teeth was wrestler Sami Callihan. The staple gun and other materials were the weapons Callihan, and his opponent Matt Riddle used during their no-ropes death match, which was the main event of the night. The child was a Matt Riddle fan who had a front row seat to the carnage.
The young fan got quite an education as Callihan started the match swearing like Jim Cornette watching an Orange Cassidy match. He also grabbed Riddle’s testicles and gave him a paper cut on his face. There was also a toolbox and the requisite thumbtacks. MLW named the show Blood and Thunder, but it could have easily been Blood and Plunder.
Calihan and Riddle did not have the only No-DQ match. Matthew Justice and Mads Krugger had not one, but three No-DQ matches in the same night. How do you ask? Well, they first fought in a First Blood match. Then it was a Street Fight. Finally, a Medical Evacuation match. I did not make up that last one either, that is what they called it. Each match happened back-to-back-to-back, so I am not sure why they bothered.
We had seats in the balcony, far back from the carnage but also a splendid view. It took awhile to get there since there were no signs designating a press area. By the time the show ended it did not matter anyways, because fans had packed the area. The hard camera was there as well, which must have been a distraction for the camera operator, especially from the gentleman with his replica belt who was screaming within five feet of the camera.
The venue was set up for approximately 500 fans, give or take, and they were either sold out or close. It was a hardcore crowd, which was apparent from the moment we got in line to enter the venue.
“I saw Nick Gage and George South,” a gentleman behind us said. “First spot of the show Gage hit South in the head with a garbage can full of lightbulbs.”
There was a lot of discussion of wrestling events from recent years in the Tampa/St. Petersburgh area. The group behind us had been to the NWA’s recent shows in Tampa as well as GCW shows in the area. We even saw someone we met at an NXT show in Sanford, which is a three-hour drive away. These are your diehard wrestling fans.
Besides the No-DQ matches, the highlights were the throwbacks to another time in wrestling. Not only was Minoru Suzuki on the card, but Satoshi Kojima and Shigeo Okumura. Someone called them grandpas, which I thought was mean until I realized it is probably true.
Matthew Justice brought Bill Alfonso, who is 70 years old, out of mothballs for his three consecutive No-DQ matches. Alfonso had that irritating whistle as well. He was as animated as ever. Justice even did a VanTerminator on Krugger while Alfonso held a chair in front of Mads. I was flashing back to 1997 with that one.
Alberto Del Rio’s manager, Ricardo Rodriguez, is also back as Jesus Rodriguez. Besides coming out with Bad Dude Tito during the TV tapings, Rodriguez showed up in a backstage segment with the very pregnant Salina De La Renta. Contra beat down Jesus for reasons we could not really hear. Maybe he owed them for transportation.
Speaking of Salina and her pregnancy, they built a whole segment of finding out who the father is. If they had gotten Maury Povich to come out with the results, I would have popped. Instead, Bad Dude Tito came out as a teaser and some guy named Saint Laurent, who looks, from a distance, like Fat Joe.
These were both red herrings as the father was standing in the ring the whole time. A luchador had been standing behind Cesar Duran, another throwback this time to Lucha Underground, who is also De La Renta’s father (in storyline). If this sounds confusing, it was and the five plus minute recap did not help things.
The luchador unmasked and the crowd, which had built some excitement, went silent. No one knew who he was. Salina then made out with the guy like a baby bird getting food from his mother’s beak. This did not help things, as the crowd did not react. I do not know what the point of any of that was.
Actor Paul Walter Hauser showed up on the video screen to challenge Tom Lawlor to an MMA match. He compared Lawlor to Danny Hodge and Kurt Angle. It was mentioned that Lawlor had shown up as Arachnaman, which is a deep cut from early 1990s WCW.
The actual wrestling was not great. There was even an unfortunate dark match that lasted two minutes and the winner badly missed three moves in a row before getting the pin. Yikes.
They had publicized Renee Michelle’s debut in the leadup to the show and it went badly. No spoilers, but it was like watching a molasses match from the turn of the century. Also, she tried to do a moonsault from the second rope and nearly fell flat onto her face. Brutal.
Here are the results of Blood and Thunder, which streamed for free on YouTube:
- Atlantis Jr. beat Okumura
- Tom Lawlor beat Jake Crist. Lawler had cutoff jeans with blue tassels on the sides. He then stripped those off and had on a very small pair of tights. Think Ludwig Kaiser small.
- Minoru Suzuki beat Akira. They tried to grapple early on. Suzuki can pull this off, but Akira looked kind of lost. Some annoying fan kept yelling “Wrestling!” Whenever they were grappling.
- Mads Krule Krugger beat Matthew Justice in three consecutive No-DQ matches, including the medical evacuation match. Justice was evacuated.
- Janai Kai beat Gigi Rey
- KENTA beat Bobby Fish. Normally, I would have looked forward to this match. Unfortunately, it was five hours into the night and when these two decided to stall to start the match it irritated.
- Matt Riddle beat Sami Callihan. My nephew mentioned how nice it must be for the ring crew to take the ring ropes off before the main event. The wrestlers also started taking off the ring apron, so they were looking out for those guys tonight.
TOP PHOTO: Matt Riddle in control of Sami Callihan at the end of MLW Blood & Thunder at the Coliseum in St. Petersburg, Florida, on Friday, July 12, 2024. Photo by Thomas Starr
