Last Saturday, Major League Wrestling ran the seventh MLW Anthology. This episode focuses on the Extreme Horsemen faction of Simon Diamond, C.W Anderson, Justin Credible, and leader Steve Corino. Barry Windham and J.J Dillon were members for a brief period.
The faction wasn’t in MLW long. Major League Wrestling’s first run was under a year and half between 2002 and 2004. The Extreme Horsemen came together in 2002. That said, they were MLW’s major heel group. This episode of MLW Anthology gives us a twofer, highlights, and ends with this week’s MLW Pulp Fusion.
Florida Deathmatch: Steve Corino vs. Dusty Rhodes vs. Terry Funk (MLW King of Kings, 12/20/02)
“The King of Old School” mixed it up with “The American Dream” and “The Hardcore Legend” in a pretty lethargic brawl in Rhodes Country. Corino can wrestle on the mat and he’s good at it but his brawling in the 2000s was something else.
He meshed well with the two legends—which he should’ve as he’s wrestled Dusty before and Terry worked well with most opponents.
Dusty was taken out of the match as the Horsemen attacked. Terry tried to go it alone and the match kind of fell apart at the middle. Well, street fights with more than two wrestlers tend to fall apart around the middle or the end.
This one also went a little longer than necessary if the goal was to have a great, memorable bout. The goal here was to get Corino and the Extreme Horsemen over, so never mind match quality. There really weren’t any match highlights, just some angle highlights. The intro to the Extreme Horsemen was nice as was the Horsemen jumping Funk.
War Games: Funkin’ Army (Terry Funk, The Sandman, Steve Williams, Sabu, & Bill Alfonso) vs. The Extreme Horsemen (Steve Corino, Barry Windham, C.W Anderson, Simon Dimon, PJ Walker) (MLW War Games, 9/19/03)
I love a War Games match. Really, any cage match will pique my interest. The showdown between the Funkin’ Army—a fly-by-night alliance led by Funk—and the Extreme Horsemen was pretty much if ECW had the budget to run War Games.
Dusty had been taken out at the end of 2002, so he couldn’t be in the match. I don’t know what good it would’ve done in making the match better. Barry Windham is there and he’s the only one in the cage who has been in an actual War Games bout.
War Games tend to be unpredictable so the pacing and action could’ve gone either way. The action was wild and sloppy and the pace—ehh, it was fine. Not awful but not great.
It served to advance the story with Funk being a thorn in the Horsemen’s side. Looking at the feud, Funk had the upper hand for most of it match-wise while Corino and the Extreme Horsemen picked up wins via attacks. Losses weren’t hurting them—or rather we don’t know if losses would’ve hurt them since MLW was here in gone in ten shows and the Horsemen were a faction in the company for eight of them.
Episode Impressions
This was an OK episode. The last six have been really good and Major League Wrestling got better with putting these shows together so that the pacing isn’t thrown off by a lot of promo and interviews between the wrestling.
What hurt this episode was the focus. I caught MLW 1.0 in 2003 and what impressed me was the international talent and the junior heavyweight action. Corino’s matches outside of the Funk feud were also a highlight. Pulling from the first run is a good idea but some of the stuff doesn’t hold up like what was featured in the Low Ki and L.A Park episodes.
https://youtu.be/PhJuA1dJNxA
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