Brian Kendrick is So Hot and Low

Brian Kendrick vs. Cedric Alexander vs. Gran Metalik vs. Rich Swann WWE Raw 9/19/16 - FUN


The Cruiserweight Era (hahahahahahahaha) began on Raw with a fun, if cluttered and somewhat disjointed multiman mess. WWE gave them upwards of 13 minutes - yes it was during the dead zone of Raw time, right before the main, but 13 minutes nonetheless. It had the problem of many multimans, with Kendrick and Metalik disappearing for a long period of time seemingly selling, until convenient for both to return. But it also had Michael Cole casually mentioning Tracy Smothers, as a guy who should just be familiar to a current WWE audience. So that was pretty great. "Oh you know, Kendrick was trained by Shawn Michaels, William Regal...Tracy Smothres..." Yeah, those guys! Each guy did some things I liked in this, and Kendrick was the clear standout for me with all the little ways he controlled the pacing. His lean scrappy opportunist bit works better in singles matches where he can focus his wiles on one specific man's strengths and weaknesses, instead of worrying about getting into position to take a couple different pieces of offense from a couple different people, but Kendrick will always benefit a match like this because he makes offense look great. Watch him run so hard into a Cedric uppercut that it almost looked like it did more harm to Cedric's arm than Kendrick's face. Cedric even shook out the arm in disbelief afterwards. Kendrick also took a wild hip first bump to the floor, keeping him out until it was time for him to get in on the Metalik gorgeous flip dive catch. Also loved him trapping Swann in the steps to set up a kick. Didn't much care for the Swann/Cedric strike exchange in the middle, but still am a big fan of the Swann hook kick, and Cedric doing his big faceplant with his butt in the air, and Metalik bouncing like 5 feet in the air after taking the lumbar check. This was a fun showcase for our cruisers, and I was kinda surprised Kendrick got the win with the (urggghhhhh) "Captain's Hook", but the match felt oddly rushed (even though it got tons of time) and it was weird not having TJP actually there, since the match was for a title shot against him.




COMPLETE AND ACCURATE BRIAN KENDRICK