MLW sees a bad moon rising and there is trouble on the way because The Samoan Werewolf Jacob Fatu recently celebrated a full one-year reign as World Heavyweight Champion.
This reign makes Fatu the second-longest title holder in league history, but the longest reigning World Champion since the league’s inception in 2002. His presence with that cherished gold has greatly aided CONTRA in sinking their teeth into the heart of the league and cementing Fatu as one of the most dominant forces professional wrestling has ever seen.
Officials and fans were well aware of Fatu’s talents and thirst for violence, but the battering ram that he has become as champion is unprecedented and quite frankly, frightening to watch. Divide and conquer has worked well for Fatu. He’s rampaged and conquered the best from Japan, Mexico, MLW and all points in-between. It all started when he defeated Tom Lawlor for the title in Chicago, a top competitor who seemingly was on an unstoppable reign of his own until he met Fatu’s brute force.
The champ was far from done as he laid waste to Lawlor a second time after the captain of Team Filthy invoked his rematch clause on Episode #73 of Fusion in front of a raucous New York City crowd. Meanwhile, that historic match, which aired live nationwide might’ve been when CONTRA injected the toxic poison into Tom Lawlor’s soul. He has never been the same. He became distant and withdrawn over the next few months. Ultimately he would betray his friends the Von Erich boys and blame them for his reversal of fortune… but was it CONTRA’s doing all along?
Sure enough, after that defeat is when CONTRA starting inserting fear and intimidation in many of the minds that opposed them. One talent who remained fearless however was The Destroyer LA Park. Salina de la Renta’s top client secured his “Golden Ticket” to the title way back in April of 2019 by winning the Battle Riot match and willfully chose to challenge Fatu in a no disqualification bout at MLW’s first ever PPV event, Saturday Night Super-Fight. The match-up of monsters epitomized every notion of such as the two beat one another to a bloody pulp, but it was Fatu who stood victorious and therein sent both Salina and Park out of the spotlight for the better part four months.
Wrestling on Thanksgiving is as customary of a tradition as the turkey carved on the holiday, but Fatu had competition to carve up as it was Ross Von Erich who received the opportunity to face the champion. Ross, like the other challengers before him, was as competitive as they come, but he too felt the athleticism and power of CONTRA’s unstoppable beast. This was also when the aforementioned Lawlor showed his true colors as he stabbed his Von Erich “brothers” in the back.
Fatu furthered on as he saw challengers come from not only in the United States under that sweltering Dallas sun, but he took it to the Land of The Rising Sun as he squared off against one of Japan’s top stars in CIMA. It was appropriate that this match took place in Philadelphia as Fatu and CONTRA took their actions to the extreme when after defeating CIMA, Fatu and CONTRA’s Sentai Death Squad zipped him up and carried him off. Any purveyor of violence wouldn’t be shocked to see an occurrence like that again as Fatu is remorseless in his disposal of competition.
And what has to be a frightening thought for league officials, it’s not far off to conjure up a setting where next year at this time CONTRA could be celebrating Jacob Fatu’s second straight year as World Champion.
