205 Live 12/14/16

1. Jack Gallagher vs. Drew Gulak

ER: Not the flat out classic I was hoping for, but still two guys I really like having a likable match. I thought Gulak looked pretty vicious here. People might not want to see cruisers doing headlocks, but I love his side headlocks and cravates. Love the spot where one guy has a headlock and the man in the headlock tries to push him off, but he holds on. Seeing Gulak hold on and wrench it in looked great, and then seeing Jack handstand out of a headlock takeover was gravy. Also love how he tightens the cravate by going for a snapmare and stopping short. The fans really do not care about Gallagher's knot tying at the moment, which I think is for the best long term. They respond much better to his great uppercuts and sick headbutt and dropkick. Them responding to his violence and not his comedy is a good sign going forward as he'll veer towards ultra stiff Dean Malenko instead of just becoming Scotty II Hotty. But Gulak was a real asskicker here and I did like how the (too long) butt kicking spot lead to him immediately transitioning back to ass beating with a big running kick, then pie facing Gallagher off the bottom rope in a cool spot. Would have liked to see a longer strike exchange (weird comment right there) but I liked the brevity of Gulak's ear cup slap leading directly to the KO headbutt (with king douche Mauro naturally mentioning New Japan). Hopefully these two match up again.

PAS: Yeah this was a really fun Worldwide style match up between these two guys. I guess I don't mind the knot as a set up for the heel to get pissed off at Gallagher, which seems to be how they are using it, but I would love to see that retired. Loved mad Gulak, that pie face into the bottom rope was super nasty looking. I really wish the Davari feud was between these two guys, as I could see them having multiple matches against each other and find new interesting things to do.

2. Lince Dorado vs. Mustafa Ali

ER: I quite liked this up until the shrug finish. Lince's matches will always be as good as the spots he hits, and he hit everything clean. More importantly Ali had a real impressive showing, really lacing into Dorado with stiff clubbing forearms and being a great base for his flying. He certainly looked more impressive than in his CWC match against Dorado, and I like some indy stuff I've seen from him and also dug how he carried himself here. It's nice to see they're at least attempting a "you only boo me because you don't like my name" angle, instead of having him be a sheik. Finish was something, but I dug him jumping Dorado back in the ring, and then he went and bumped huge to the floor to put over a spin kick. Not bad.

PAS: Eric has a lot more faith in the WWE racial  then I do, the last time the ran a "you just boo me because I am Muslim gimmick" three weeks later we had Jihadi's beheading the Undertaker. Of course that was before Linda joined the Trump administration, a place full of nuanced opinions on the Muslim world. Ali looked great here, I also enjoyed this more then their CWC match, everything got hit cleanly, and I really dug the nastiness of both bumps which set up the double count out.

3. TJ Perkins vs. Rich Swann

ER: The parity in this division is tearing me apart!!! Everybody beats everybody and then rematches and the other guys beat the other guys and everybody is equal to everybody. There are 15+ guys in the division but it feels like we're seeing the exact same matches already. That said, I liked this match and thought it was one of TJP's best performances in WWE so far. He's definitely a "timing & execution" guy, so sometimes things just click better than normal. Opening stretch was simple but nice and fluid and I liked the way they worked in the knee tweak and the way TJ started going after it.  Perkins was nice and aggressive and it lead to some fun Swann nearfalls, especially the cool victory roll into a tiger driver. TJ's knee bar has come replete with some cool reversals, and I love when he rolls under a guy as they're doing some sort of flip so he's lying there in wait to lock it on. Fun, satisfying match with logical progression. It went the direction you thought it would, and was better for it.

PAS: Yeah I am tired of seeing the same match ups over and over again, but I did enjoy this. I thought Swann did a nice of job of selling his knee on the jumping 480 splash, and the knee bar finish was really nasty looking. I am not a huge fan of mirror sequences, but TJP and Swann are really good a mirrors. I really hope they move into something different after this weekend though.

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All Time MOTY List Head to Head: Onita/Goto v. Kurisu/Nagasaki V. Liger v. Sano

Jushin Liger v. Naoki Sano NJPW 1/31/90

PAS: This was the final match of their awesome late 80s early 90s triology, and it is a hell of a finish. Liger starts out the disrespect by slapping Sano in the face, but Sano takes the early lead by piledriving Liger on the floor, ripping his mask and posting him. The rest of the match is this great visual of Liger with his mask ripped off, adding a bunch more red to the iconic red and white outfit. I loved all of Liger's comebacks in this match, he would squirm out of a Sano bomb attempt and hit a crazy dive or a desperation throw, but then get overwhelmed. This was Liger trying to ride a tidal wave, rather then a back and forth battle. Sano was great in this, such a vicious prick, there is a moment where he is just pounding on Ligers bloody head that you can see the joy in his face. I also loved his intelligence, there is a moment where he charges Liger in the corner, Liger moves, so Sano backflips out, Sano knows the kappo kick is coming so he just dives on his stomach to avoid it. Finish may have felt a little abrupt, with the level of punishment, but I dig the tombstone as a death move (Sano did a great post match sell of it) and Liger breaking out his first Liger SSP to close it out was pretty cool. I have a feeling that when I revisit NJ juniors for this project, the less juniory matches will stand out, and this was a great one.

ER: Man what a fight! Phil is right that when we revisit juniors stuff the best stuff will be the stuff centered around hate, not the stuff centered around "hot spots". But this had all the hate AND all the hot spots. It's great seeing Sano as almost a pushover, and then having that immediately blow up in his face. This is like CM Punk slapping Teddy Hart without realizing Hart was a trained boxer. Liger slaps him before the bell and hits palm strikes which leads directly to Sano beating his ass for 15 minutes. I love that this isn't some back and forth, big moves, pause for response, nearfall match. This is one man executing his perfect gameplan, while a legend hangs on and breaks out every desperate trick he knows. Sano was so cold and calculating, you can picture an announcer talking about how he's been reviewing film of Liger. He seemingly knew Liger's moves before Liger knew them, and looked awesome in executing his plan. Liger would get these annoying little escapes: gets dumped by a tiger suplex, but his foot almost accidentally falls onto the ropes; gets tossed with another dangerous suplex and almost accidentally lands in a crossbody for a nearfall. But this whole match is just violent and awesome. I can't believe the guardrails didn't go flying into the fans with the way these two were getting launched into them. And there were so many killer visuals of a bleeding Liger stumbling around with his mask barely hanging on, just trying to get a breath before Sano would maul him again. Only minor complaint was they peaked Liger's damage way too early, making him look pretty unconscious after that crazy piledriver at around the 6 minute mark of a match that went 20. But they sucked me right in and the whole thing just felt epic. Great match.

FMW Tag Review

Verdict: 

PAS: Both matches are awesome hate filled brawls and great ones. The FMW tag has more reckless violence, but Liger v. Sano tells more of a story. Very close, I am giving it to Liger v. Sano by a hair, but could easily be talked into a different verdict on a different day.

ER: As much as I loved this, I'm still leaning FMW tag. As Phil mentioned they were both violent, and violence is a pretty easy sell. But I loved the recklessness of the FMW tag, loved how unstructured it felt, loved moments like Onita running through the crowd trying to get away from Nagasaki like he was Jason Vorhees, all the insane chairshots, all the hardway juice, Kurisu showing up in a dad shirt button down; that FMW tag has a special charm to it, and I'm not actually sure what it's going to take to dethrone it. This match came damn close though.

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