WWE BIG 3: Gulak, Gallagher, & Lorcan, 6/16 - 6/22

PAS: This project is going to a bit of feast and famine. After getting four matches last week, Gallagher and Gulak were AWOL from 205 this week, and no one showed up on NXT or NXT UK. Still the match we got was pretty great.

45. Oney Lorcan vs. Ariya Daivari 205 Live 6/18

ER: This match didn't thrill me on paper in the same way last week's bounty of matches did, but I really liked this. It's probably true that you could give Lorcan 10 minutes with anybody on the roster and it would be a compelling match, but I appreciated what Daivari brought to this, and it certainly wasn't a one man show. The specific, personal timing of this match was good for me as well, as I tweaked my left elbow earlier this week while exercising (that's what I get for attempting exercise), and every single time I slightly flexed my damn left arm I felt that sharp little needling pain in my elbow. Every time I put on or took off a shirt, there was that elbow. So seeing Lorcan get his left elbow worked over for the bulk of this really landed well with me. This started out looking like it was going to be Lorcan easily running through Daivari, which honestly would have been fine with me; Lorcan's uppercuts, chops, hard landing dropkicks, and lariats would be cool to watch for a few minutes, but  I'm glad we got another layer with the arm work. Daivari had a lot of cool ways to wrench an elbow, and Lorcan is really great at running hard into things, so I was into him getting that shoulder and arm rammed into the buckles. Daivari breaks out a big single arm DDT off the middle rope, and that's a cool move that has mostly disappeared from wrestling, so that made me happy. The arm work didn't overstay, and I loved little things like seeing how damn hard Lorcan could still land chops while his dead left arm flopped limp at his side. Lorcan's comeback was dope, he's one of the most explosive guys in WWE, an absolute monster when he smells blood in the water, so once he gets those crazy eyes you know you're getting a big lariat, violent blockbuster, and another crushing uppercut. Also, can we please retire the "guy hits move, runs to opposite ropes, gets hit with move on way back" bullshit? Lorcan hit a crippling uppercut which saw Daivari so a really cool sell, recoiling into the ropes and falling back into Lorcan, only getting held up because he happened to fall into him...only to ruin it by hitting a derpy superkick 1 second later. Hate that shit. It's always going to be weird seeing a half nelson suplex done on WWE TV, and I love the messiness of Lorcan's tope con hilo, it always makes up for the lack of grace with a heavy landing. I'm not really sure why we couldn't get a clean ending, unless this is building to a No DQ match or something (which I would be A-OK with), but they ended the segment super strong with Daivari delivering an awesome hammerlock lariat on the ramp, hooking Lorcan's worked over arm before hitting it, and there aren't many in wrestling who can get absolutely upended by a clothesline better than Lorcan.

PAS: Lorcan is consistently great, there is a reason we started a feature dedicated to writing up everytime he wrestles, but this was a pretty great Davari performance. I loved Davari's sleazy silk patterned shirt, he looks like an asshole who manages his dad's hookah bar, which is a way better heel gimmick then the 1000th version of a Sheik. The top rope divorce court which set up the arm work was awesome, as was a lot of small work on the shoulder, good stomps, good punches. I loved how Lorcan sold the shoulder, he would sell it on stuff that didn't necessarily attack it, the bad shoulder made it harder for him to break the Million Dollar Dream, one time he blocked a punch with the bad arm and just crumpled to the turnbuckle in pain.  Lorcan's comeback was appropriately frenzied, and I had no beef with the DQ finish. The post match beatdown was super nasty, and it is clear that they are running this feud back again, which I have no problem with.


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