WWE Big 3: Lorcan, Gallagher, Gulak 2019 Catch-Up

ER: A week completely absent of these three is a pretty stupid week of wrestling television. Luckily there are still 2019 matches of all three that I haven't seen, so this gives us a chance to take a look at what we've missed.


25. Drew Gulak vs. Brian Kendrick 205 Live 2/26/19

ER: This match definitely brought back memories of seeing Hog Wild '96, two smaller guys crafting a cool as hell match that goes longer than the crowd has patience for, crowd absolutely refuses to get drawn into the match, gets almost upset at nearfalls, and then cheers in relief when it's all over. It could only get so bad - because they don't have motorcycles - but it wasn't going to stop me from loving what these two did. I think it's the best use of the epic 205 Live match time that I've seen, the most interesting use of a 15-20 minute runtime. Kendrick has been at his best in WWE as a crafty underdog babyface, Gulak has been at his best as a stiff working heel technician, and both of those personas get to shine. Gulak is all persistent matwork, hard lariats, and surprise suplexes; Kendrick falls behind early and struggles to come back, and I always like Kendrick struggling to come back. Kendrick is one of the more underrated mat guys in wrestling, just because it's not always something he gets to do. Him and Gulak working a mat match would have ruled, loved the stuff where Kendrick was trying to shift Gulak's position by digging his knees down into Gulak's arms. They do cool work around Kendrick's sliced bread attempts, with Kendrick never able to hit it, but the attempts always leaning to cool sequences. Gulak sidesteps and shoves Kendrick chest first into the buckles, tries to swarm with the Gu-Lock, but Kendrick rolls through that and gets a convincing Captains Hook in the middle. Gulak kept getting meaner and meaner, running through Kendrick with lariats, plants him with a killer powerbomb, surprises him with a German suplex that was so sudden that I would have bought it as a finish (even though it came early), and even pulls off a tricked out trap leg suplex. Kendrick bumps big, goes down hard for all of Gulak's shots that warrant it, but still bumps like someone actually going with the weight of a move. The crowd were total chuds throughout, but they could have been worse. This wasn't the match they wanted, which is a shame, because Gulak and Kendrick did something we don't get to see that much (you know, probably because chuds don't want it).

PAS: I thought this was really awesome, just really hard hitting violent mat based wrestling. Kendrick has welts all over his body from body shots and grinding submission attempts. Loved the snap geman suplex by Gulak, really beautifully executed, super violent, and I liked how Kendrick basically sold the impact the entire match, never really getting his bearings again. The finish run around the submissions was awesome, with Gulak trying a bunch of ways to escape the Captain's Hook, only to resort to the fishook to get out, and then Gulak doing a double leg trip counter of a roll up only to put on maybe the nastiest Gu-Lock he has ever put on. Kendrick passing out instead of tapping was a great dying on his shield moment.

88. Oney Lorcan vs. Humberto Carrillo 205 Live 3/5/19

ER: These two have matched up several times on 205, but almost always in a multiman match. They had one other tag match in August that both of liked until a point. It was a famously long 205 Live match, biting off more than it could chew. This was their first singles match, and Lorcan's 205 debut, and it shaves off a few of those problematic minutes and gives us something real satisfying. This is also one of the most dominating and mean Lorcan matches we've got. He's settled into a great babyface underdog and none better hot tag, but here he's just attacking Carrillo and setting up big damn moments. There were a couple of hinky moments, moments where it looked like Carrillo got crossed up, but I think they handled them well within the flow of the match, and to me it just made it extra clear how Lorcan is in control. Carrillo takes a total drubbing here, getting blistered up with chops, softened up with elbows, leveled on a couple different occasions by Lorcan's flying uppercut (one sends him sprawling across the ring, one crashes him to the apron off a springboard attempt), and we even get Lorcan throwing a disgusting fisherman's suplex on the apron, crazy spot to see show up on the episode opening 205 Live match. I liked the fight around that suplex, with Lorcan trying to drag Carrillo into the ring with a half nelson suplex, using that bottom rope for leverage to try to hoist him. Carrillo died many deaths, but got plenty big moments of his own, like a big dive and a twisting moonsault to the floor, and even a big slap to the face. His biggest moment - handled expertly by Lorcan - came late in the match, when Lorcan grabbed Carrillo by that prominent jaw and slapped him down to the mat hard, only to fire off the ropes directly into a knee buckling superkick. Lorcan sold that kick with a level of importance that made it a great, perfectly timed spot, even if Carrillo got thrown off by timing shortly after. Their August match was looking like a real dandy until they went into deeper waters, but this match nailed the promise of that later bout.

PAS: Man was this nasty stuff. I assumed Lorcan was losing in this match because of the beating he was laying out. Lorcan is always brutal, but man alive he was catapulting Carrillo with uppercuts, tenderizing his chest with chops, at one point he just unloads a straight punch to Carillo's jaw. Carillo completely lost himself a couple of times, but Jesus can you blame him, hard to land perfectly timed flying moves when a badger is smashing you with a table leg for 15 minutes. I did love both of his dives and he hung in there. That superkick was a totally killer moment, he really looked like he kicked Lorcan's head nearly off his neck, it was too bad Carrillo completely botched the follow up. Still hard to do anything but adore a match with this violent a performance by Lorcan.

Jack Gallagher vs. Humberto Carrillo 205 Live 4/9/19

ER: This felt like one of the greatest Jack Gallagher performances we have. It's a tight 8 minutes and ends by DQ when Gulak shoves Carrillo off the top rope (they were working a kind of fake mentorship with Gulak trying to convince Carrillo not to fly, and this also lead to a Gallagher face turn), but Gallagher's work in this match is as strong as I've seen from him, and he's a guy we started actively seeking out weekly. I'm also happy I watched this directly after watching Lorcan/Carrillo from the month before, as if gave me a nice glimpse of how specifically Lorcan and Gallagher would craft a match around Carrillo's upside. Carrillo is odd, as he's an apprehensive daredevil. He does crazy things and takes crazy bumps, but it still feels like there's a smart portion of his brain telling him "hey man, maybe don't" right before he does something dangerous. Lorcan and Gallagher worked through that in different, but satisfying, ways. The best parts of this were Gallagher staying right on Carrillo, taking him to the mat and throwing close strikes. I loved how Gallagher would find a new way to kick out Carrillo's ankle to drop him to the mat, stomp the backs of his knees, or hold onto his leg to trip him up when Carrillo would be creating space and heading for the ropes. All of Gallagher's strikes looked great, nice stomps to the temple, hard forearms, great punches from different angles, nice mounted attack, basically everything Gallagher threw at him looked like something old British ladies in housecoats would be watching from the front row. Gallagher was smart about setting up Carrillo's run of end match offense, inserting his own missed offense (of things he hadn't yet done this match, building off his own offense that he doesn't use in every match) to make a comeback more likely. I don't love matches where one guy takes the first 5 minutes and the other gets the last 3, but Gallagher structured it in a way that it made sense. Carrillo gets to hit the twisting moonsault and missile dropkick before the DQ, and this leads to Gallagher's greatest strike of the match when he turns on Gulak with his epic thrust headbutt, sending Gulak flying to the floor. Naturally, this lead to no blowoff of ANY kind between Gallagher and Gulak, and they didn't cross paths in another match for 3 months.


ER: No Big 3 matches on TV this week, no bother to me. I dug through the 2019 archives and pulled out 3 gems, three matches I liked more than any other TV matches I watched this week. I just picked the oldest 2019 match from each that I hadn't seen, and it gave us two additions to our 2019 Ongoing MOTY List, and one of my favorite Gallagher performances.