WWE Big 3: Lorcan, Gallagher, Gulak 3/29-4/4/20

Jack Gallagher vs. Tyler Breeze 205 Live 4/3

ER: Gallagher has been going through some changes the past month, first showing up suddenly covered in tattoos (which I don't hate as everyone else I guess?) and now wearing a cape to the ring that he possibly stole from a Dickensian woman of affluence. This match is a pairing I've been hoping to see for awhile, but this was a bit more vanilla than I was hoping for. They're pushing Gallagher's new "vicious side" but ever since he debuted his "vicious side" he's been far less vicious than at any time during his WWE run. Sure, tell me he's vicious all you like, but he's oddly dropped his great headbutt and his decapitating dropkick and seemingly toned down his strikes. In this match his working style came off much more like Tyler Breeze than classic Jack Gallagher, and even as a Tyler Breeze fan that's just not something I want. So I suppose "vicious side" is just taking away the things that made him genuinely unique? They have a professional match, and its fine, though it never really approaches anything special.

I liked the headlocks used by both, and I'd rather have snug headlocks with guys leaning their weight down and into their opponent than back and forth elbow/superkick strike battles (which we eventually get to). Even Jack's mounted strikes felt like the worst strikes I've seen him throw in WWE, so I'm not really sure what this new side of his is supposed to accomplish. He had a couple of dickish little mocking kicks, but those felt more like 1998 heel Jericho kicks, not anything coming from a "vicious side". Late in the match Gallagher jams Breeze's shoulder into the buckles and briefly works it over, and it felt like this was when the match was going to turn into more of a vicious limb torture show, but Breeze gets to the ropes fairly easy to break an armbar and they never went back to it. There were things that looked good, like Breeze's jumping knee strike that sends Gallagher to the floor, and the roaring elbow that Gallagher wraps up with certainly looked like a finish. This was the kind of match that was worked in a totally silent arena, that would have been worked in total silence no matter how large the crowd. This just felt like two guys doing things for 10 minutes, without much behind those things.