WWE Big 2, For Now? Lorcan, Gallagher 5/17-5/23/20

Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch vs. Ever-Rise (Chase Parker/Matt Martel) NXT 5/20

ER: This was a total mugging for Lorcan and Burch, and a fun one. You knew it was going short just because of how quick Burch was running through everything. But they didn't let the increase in speed affect execution, and if anything it made it feel like Burch was running harder into everything he threw. This was a quick and economical beating, with hard edge of fist punches and a great leaping kick right to Parker's teeth in the corner. Lorcan is the hot tag and doesn't drop the beat, using his expected big energy burst to throw nasty uppercuts and finish things with his missile launch horizontal flying uppercut. The only role for Ever-Rise here was to kick their asses beat, and they took a fine ass beating.


Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch vs. Ever-Rise 205 Live 5/22

ER: This is the best of the three (!) different matches these teams have had, with Ever-Rise having their best control segment and it feeling the right level of competitive. Ever-Rise are still a weird team to be in WWE as there is a team nearly exactly like them, with maybe a +/- 5% difference in talent, in every single indy fed in the country that draws 150+. They are a professional team who work matches no different than a tag team you see on almost every indy show you attend, and that is fine because you usually leave your local indy satisfied with that teams' match. I get the sense that just like those same tag teams all across North America, they can work heel or face depending on the night. But this is good, and I like how they focused their control segment around neck work. Parker does nice little things, his stomps are really good, and I dug how both he and Martel threw elbow strikes to the neck, and both bits of offense they did were neckbreaker variations. The Samoan drop/flying neckbreaker combo was a good nearfall, and Lorcan came real close to missing the save, really diving in from the floor with fingertips extended. We already got one match this week where Lorcan and Burch ran these two over, and it was cool to see the two of them work no less aggressively on offense, just allowing more room for Ever-Rise. Burch threw a nice german suplex and cool lariat, and Lorcan's chops and uppercuts sounded loud as hell in the PC. This felt like a WCW Saturday Night tag, and you know that's a good thing.