WWE Big 3: Lorcan, Gallagher, Gulak 7/13-7/20

EVOLVE 131 7/13

Drew Gulak vs. Matt Riddle

ER: Gulak gets Catch Point druids!!! As a match I think this underperformed and never felt like anything new. This felt like kind of a greatest hits collection from both guys without some of the drama that their best matches have. It felt like a slightly sanitized version of a match they would have had a couple years ago. The good news is that I happen to love the greatest hits from these two. We get a pair of cool belly to belly superplexes (Riddle getting the worst of it), both guys throw hard shots to the body (which were weirdly maybe my favorite thing about this), big Riddle senton, both throw hard uppercuts, Gulak always cutting in for single legs, it's them doing things that I like to watch them do. But this kind of felt like the recent run of 205 Live main events, where good workers are given 20 minutes to do their thing and it doesn't totally live up to the time. There were obviously hot stretches of this, and the Riddle corkscrew senton into Gulak's rear naked choke felt like a cool spot to end things. They didn't end it there, with Riddle simply picking Gulak up and hitting Bro Derek that didn't look finisher worthy. It really just looked like Gulak taking a heavier than normal slam, didn't read as a piledriver at all. This match was going to have a high floor - both guys are great - but it felt like we only bumped our head against their ceiling a couple times.

PAS: I liked this more then Eric (he has been grumpy lately). Greatest hits from these guys are pretty great, and it sort of makes sense to run a match like that when EVOLVE debuts on the network. I really enjoyed how Gulak used space in this match, always looking to keep close, grabbing for limbs, throwing body shots, negating Riddle's size advantage by grinding on him. Riddle is more explosive and I liked how Gulak tried to limit that explosiveness. I agree about the finish, that Gulak rear naked choke would have been perfect, and the Riddle finish was the weakest thing about the match, but lots of this was really great. Riddle seems to have tightened up his strikes and moved away from New Japan overkill since coming to the WWE, and both things are welcome additions. Loved all the Catch Point stuff in this match, and now that this is WWE canon Gulak really should bring Catch Point back on 205 Live: Oney Lorcan, Cameron Grimes and Chad Gable would make a pretty rad Catch Point.

Extreme Rules 7/14

Drew Gulak vs. Tony Nese

ER: Early on we get a "Let's Go Gulak" chant which is an awesome surprise. If Gulak actually starts to get over the same way Bryan got over earlier in the decade, how great will that be?? This is kind of what anybody could have expected going in: Gulak looked great, Nese did not, but Nese tried some things that worked in a stupid risk taking way. Nese has that "hey Evan Karagias is getting better" vibe to him, but he doesn't actually have babyface charisma. He does things that some fans should find cool, but Gulak is the one getting the reactions here. YES, obviously this is being held right in Gulak's stomping grounds, but that isn't a guarantee to get a great reaction and he got them throughout. Nese did a wild moonsault the the floor, hitting Gulak who was tied up in the ropes over the apron; it didn't really work, but I like him going for stupid stuff. He also overshoots a 450 and slams those knees right into Gulak's ribs, throws him messily into the corner with a german suplex, basically the nastiest parts of Nese's attack were kind of accidents. Gulak threw great kicks, and I think his reactions are going to keep getting louder, and they'll eventually babyface him. Early in the match Gulak hit an awesome diving clothesline off the apron (hard to make diving clotheslines look good) and his folding powerbomb looked great and would make a fine finisher, but I love the old school style of his spinning back suplex. Gulak is here baby!

PAS: I thought Nese was pretty terrible, for a guy I have had to watch a bunch due to this project he is one of my least favorite guys to watch in the world (I have excised most wrestlers I can't stand). He was in full dance fight mode in this especially early, and I agree with Eric that most of the good looking stuff he did seemed like a botch. Gulak looked great and I dug Philly getting behind him. Really simple wrestling, especially while matched up with a flipster like Nese, big lariat will always be cooler then a cartwheel. Happy that he won, hopefully he puts Nese in his rear view mirror and matches up with some of the cooler smaller guys in different parts of the fed. I am not a Shane Strickland guy, but it is cool that Gulak is mixing it up outside of the 205 live roster.

205 Live 7/16

48. Jack Gallagher vs. Chad Gable

ER: We got a great 10 minute sprint between these two a month ago with nary a mention of it since. Without a warning they bring us back into that feud and continue in the unexpected recent tradition of letting the 205 Live main event fly past the 15 minute mark. This felt like the 2019 indy version of their fantastic first match. I thought their shorter match was tighter and laid out in a more interesting way, and thought this one turned more into a shocked-by-nearfalls finisher trade-off that their first match didn't really attempt. I think both guys have the material to go this length, but I think dynamite short bursts keep their style stronger. The first match was two unknowns exploding off each other, while this match integrated learned behavior and the longer runtime perhaps made more sense because now both men were wrestling more cautious around each other. They were known quantities at this point, and neither wanted to rush into a mistake. The crowd couldn't care about those plans as we got several attempts at BORING chants through the first third of this, which is an odd thing to come up with right after watching a Mike Kanellis match.

I didn't think this was as focused as their first match, as both guys spent a long time looking for openings, Gallagher working a short arm scissors (which may have been done so Gable could show off his 0.7 Backlund strength), Gable working the arm, working the leg with a dragon screw, and while I like how these guys flow it was also hard to shake that we were just getting some limb work to pad time before we got to the match proper. And sure enough, by the time Gallagher planted a dropkick firmly on the chest and then hit his delayed vertical suplex, people were more on board with the match. I think some of the learned behavior benefitted the match, and other stuff felt a little out of place or inorganic. My favorite moment of that was Gable catching Gallagher over his shoulder in the corner off a dodged dropkick and then swinging him back down into a DDT. One of the announcers even said "I've never seen Gable do that before!" and that's really important, as it wasn't Gallagher just doing a dropkick he never does so that he's in position for Gable's over shoulder DDT. This was Gable scouting Gallagher's corner dropkick and turning it against him. I like Gable rolling Gallagher into the ring after the German on the floor (last time Gallagher got counted out after taking it), but Gable also had to pretend he didn't really get hit with Gallagher's tope to do the spot. That's part of the inorganic feeling I was talking about. Even Gallagher's great headbutt spot is done in a 2019 indy way, with Gable hitting a koppo kick that sends Gallagher bouncing upside down in the ropes and back into the headbutt. I don't think these guys need to drift into "I hit you which causes you to swing around and hit me which causes me to swing back around into an..." wrestling, they've shown they have more interesting ways to get to those moments. The closing stretch had some great moments (Gable reversing a belly to back superplex into a hard landing on Jack, and Jack landing high and hard on the Chaos Theory suplex), but it felt like two really talented guys inputting their skills into a match style I don't love. I'm going to like Gallagher doing it more than others, but more pieces of this than I expected didn't really work for me.

PAS: I liked this more then Eric did. Gable really unloaded a ton of great offense early, awesome armdrags, killer koppo kick, some big throws. Really overwhelmed Gallagher, the short arm scissors reversal was more of that domination, I am an enormous fan of the short arm scissors reversal and these were two cool guys to pull off that move. I did like how Gallagher was able to use his craft to get some advantages, his reversal out of the ankle lock was really slick grappling, and I thought the hammer fists after were great looking. I also thought his big end of the match offensive explosion was nasty, with Gable's moonsault landing on an upkick, and an incredible dropkick in the corner. I did think it got a little indy in the end, but these are a pair of guys with awesome looking stuff for a this is awesome section.


2019 MOTY MASTER LIST