There's a Tone That Rises Gently with Drew Gulak

Drew Gulak vs. Akira Tozawa WWE Main Event 4/7/17 - GREAT

ER: I'm not sure if Tozawa or Alexander is Gulak's most frequent opponent in WWE, but I like how he and Tozawa work together. This was early in their time on the roster, in the middle of Gulak's No Fly Zone gimmick. A cruiserweight heel who intentionally grounds things feels like it would have played much better in early 2000s east coast indies, but it's still fun to watch Gulak work tight headlocks during standing exchanges and yank on Tozawa's jaw on the ground. This was a good balance of Gulak's snug work and fun personality, not as over the top with the gimmick as it would get. I liked when he saw a Tozawa dive coming, ran halfway down the ramp, and egged him on from 30 feet away. "I'll catch you, come on!" I also like that Gulak did a running elbow smash, and it was treated like something that could lay a man out. It's so weird to me how unavoidable standing elbow exchanges are in modern wrestler, and yet hardly anyone uses a simple running Misawa-style elbow smash. Gulak plays into Tozawa's offense well, including his comedy spots, and that lead to the crowd reacting louder than they typically reacted for cruiser matches during this era. I really appreciate how much Gulak adds to fast cruiser exchanges, because his missed strikes always look like a missed strike, never like a planned part of the sequence. His missed clothesline to set up Tozawa's nice finishing bridging German looked like something that would have decapitated Tozawa, thrown fast and low and believably spinning him into the German. When you can make a sequence look like something that an opponent just capitalized on, and this quickly, you've done really well. 

Drew Gulak vs. Mustafa Ali 205 Live 6/27/17 - GREAT

ER: I loved the first 2/3 of this because it had a real vicious Gulak performance. Gulak came off like WCW Finlay, confidently punishing Ali. After getting caught early by armdrags and winding up in a couple Ali headscissors he just punches Ali in the face. I mean, the kind of punch that could have plausibly finished the match 30 seconds in. If they wanted to give a wrestler a KO punch gimmick, and this was the first punch to show that KO punch, people would buy it. Gulak kicks Ali in the stomach to block a crossbody, hits some heavy stomps to the chest, then really starts laying it in. He bodyslams Ali legs first into the ropes and then hits a planted leg clothesline that Ali bumps by literally looking like he caught his chin on a clothesline. A tight cravat and snug side headlock, followed with a suplex into the buckles, and I swear during a couple of those stretches it genuinely looked like Gulak was "doing" Finlay. I don't think Ali's comeback is strong enough considering how punishing Gulak looked, and he had this habit of looking around grinning too much in between every move he hit, including a floaty cutter that Gulak had to stand around for. Match ends with a comedy payoff of Gulak's "No Fly Zone" gimmick, as he winds up seated on the top rope and then gets it in his brain that maybe flying would be okay, this once. He does a long build of missing a splash, legs shaking on the ropes the entire time, and predictably loses. I really didn't want his front half vicious performance to wind up in comedy, but his work before Ali's eventual comeback was among the best I've seen from him and that says a lot. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DREW GULAK

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2021 Ongoing MOTY List: Briggs vs. Hale

51. Josh Briggs vs. Asher Hale 205 Live 7/6 (Aired 7/9/21)

ER: Okay no seriously what the hell is happening on 205 Live? Who is agenting this program? Am I the only person watching this show? The half year turned over and suddenly all the 205 guys were gone and the show had the best heavyweight wrestling seen in 2021 WWE. The first week the format changed with no prior announcement, we got an out of nowhere gem from Joe Gacy and Desmond Troy. It was unlike any other WWE match I've seen this year (and they have at least 8 hours of TV every single week) and Troy didn't have another match in the company. It's insane wrestling happening behind the back of an insane billionaire, and it's immediately made 205 Live my most anticipated wrestling show. Eventually somebody is going to find out what was happening here and shut it down (and for all I know it happened the week after this match was taped) but for now it's my favorite show. 

Josh Briggs was a late run Evolve guy who has always worked as a modern indy Test, but this match was the first time I've seen him look like a better version of Test. This was Briggs as JBL, and this match felt like the JBL/Chavo Guerrero Jr. match we never really got (their one singles match was on the Eddie Tribute so we didn't get JBL/Chavo, we got Chavo doing Eddie spots). Briggs still hasn't quite settled on a good look, but he pulls off "hockey dad bartender" really well and hockey dad bartender is a good personality for a guy who can kick faces and throw lariats. Hale has kicks that are believable enough to slow a big guy, and he did a great job hanging on and trying to survive the Briggs assault. Briggs was really overwhelming and it was the most interesting he's been. He had a lot of attention to detail that I've never seen him do this well before, like his crossbody pin with his full palm pressing across Hale's jaw. Briggs is really annoying in between his big slams and kicks, and that was missing before. His matches often felt like some big spots without enough connective tissue, and now he has that connective tissue. He is annoying when things go to the mat, grinding his arm across Hale's eyes, really doing the kind of things that Hale does to guys his own size. Hale's tornado DDT felt like a big moment, and he came off looking strong just because Briggs looked like a real beast. The clothesline from Hell finish looked awesome, the kind of lariat that would stand up in any era versus any man. 

PAS: Eric is going back and watching 6 months old 205 Live and getting into all of these wrestlers who have already been canned. Briggs is still around for now, but Hale is long gone at this point. I really liked the parts of this with Briggs using his simple violent offense. He really knows how to throw a big boot and a hard forearm smash to the back, and I don't need much more than that. I also liked Hale catching him getting into the ring. It is a nice use of his speed and Hale threw some really sharp shots before getting obliterated with that clothesline. The best was how Briggs' lariat drove Hale into the mat. Hale didn't take this huge flip bump on it, he just got his head and throat smashed into the mat.

2021 MOTY MASTER LIST

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2021 Ongoing MOTY List: Gacy vs. Troy

29. Joe Gacy vs. Desmond Troy WWE 205 Live 6/29 (Aired 7/2/19)

ER: What the holy hell is happening on WWE's D programming? Here we have a 205 Live match between a stud amateur wrestler and a CZW asskicker, neither within 50 pounds of 205. Who's in charge of anything these days? Did somebody know that this match happened? How did Joe Gacy vs. Desmond Troy happen? This match is the kind of match that makes trawling WWE's unnoticed programming a worthwhile effort. This was an out of nowhere style clash and showcase for a guy making his debut and a guy making his re-debut, and it ruled. It started with some nice armdrag work and athleticism, with Troy showing off eye catching leapfrogs and floating kip ups while Gacy slammed into him as hard as possible with a shoulderblock. Gacy kept hitting harder the longer this went, getting impressive impact on standing clotheslines and even more steam with a few feet of headway. Gacy's clotheslines really move Troy and Troy is no pushover, and it builds to Gacy throwing a forearm shiver that would make Ron Simmons flinch. The more Troy got rocked with Gacy's gravity, the more he upped the wrestling. Troy had some absolutely insane gutwrench suplexes, lifting Gacy from deep bends and throwing him far, then throwing him into his own knees. When Troy hits an overhead belly to belly, it looks like Scott Steiner hurling an eyes-closed job guy to his doom. I dug these two slamming into each other and the way both were believably being thrown or slugged, it created a feeling that anything could happen. A match where someone gets realistically stopped by a punch to the chest is a match that should be celebrated. Here it is. 

PAS: Really fun match which didn't feel like a WWE match at all. Gacy hits super hard, and I loved how Troy wouldn't take a back bump for every shot, sometimes he would just get stunned or staggered. WWE style is heavy on constant bumping so it is cool to see someone get their bell rung. Troy had crazy athleticism, his double leg was super fast, his leapfrog was super high and I loved the gutwrenches. Gacy was much more of a brawler, and this almost had the feel of a Buzz Sawyer vs. Red Bull Army New Japan match. The back handspring into the lariat felt unnecessary, but that Lariat was nasty enough to end any match. Really got me excited to check out more Troy, so of course this was his last match, and he was cut a month later. What an idiotic company.

2021 MOTY MASTER LIST

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But a Dream Like Gulak Gets Wasted, Without You

Drew Gulak/Jack Gallagher/Brian Kendrick vs. Gran Metalik/Kalisto/Lince Dorado 205 Live 6/12/18 - GREAT

ER: WWE was just giving these guys 15 minutes with no kind of feud, to just go out there and fill that time. It's incredible. We get the most Segunda Caida rudo trios team possible, and they are a great group of rudo bases for our Lucha House trio. Sending six cruiserweights out to work an unannounced 15 minute match in front of a WWE crowd feels like a bit of a prank, but they build nicely with their time and the biggest reactions come from the finishing stretch. The match is cool, with them working this as a lucha trios that veered into the rudos cutting off Kalisto from the rest of his Party, before Kalisto finally gets a fun hot tag to Metalik. It's fun seeing all of the rudos act as bases for flying, and it's a natural fit as Gulak and Dorado go way back. Dorado gets a long run of offense peaking in an assisted rope walk flip dive, but my favorite parts of the match was watching all the rudos finally halt Kalisto and make quick tags, knocking Dorado and Metalik off the apron with hard elbows, just working their "non flyer" beatdown. Kendrick comes in with a big kick, Gulak works a kneeling torture rack and shifts that into a half crab/arm lock, all cool stuff. But Kalisto hits a great jawbreaker on Gulak, Kendrick takes a tornado DDT right on his face, all building to Metalik's big missile dropkick heavy tag in. Kalisto gets a nice rana roll up on Gulak, and Gulak pays him back for almost beating him by blasting him with a lariat, the kind that gets a crowd into a match regardless of the particpants' size. Kendrick almost murders Kalisto getting him into the Captain's Hook, not sure who twisted too early, but it only makes his headlock takeover look even more dangerous. This match did not need 15 minutes, but if you're going to give some guys 15 minutes of time to fill during an already long TV taping, I can't think of three better guys than Gulak/Kendrick/Gallagher. 

Drew Gulak vs. Mansoor WWE Main Event 6/3/21 - GREAT

ER: Before I watched this, I had already seen four Gulak/Mansoor matches this year, and it's kind of crazy to look at the people who were cut or allowed to leave and then still see Gulak working as essentially the man who is working as Mansoor's personal in-ring trainer just doing his thing. The proof is in the pudding as the results have been great. Mansoor has improved as much or more than anyone on the roster in 2021. It's a testament to Gulak's powers that they can keep having matches against each other that feel completely different from their other matches, all worked around some unsaid obstacle. This was mostly grounded and over the year you can really see how good Mansoor is getting at selling holds and moving honestly into and out of holds. Working with Gulak has already elevated him above the level of performative mat guys who roll through a quick sequence that ends in a tandem kip-up. This is more about Gulak constantly catching Mansoor in a headlock and Mansoor trying to find his way out of it to a win. When Mansoor is in control you can see Gulak doing little things to direct traffic, things that Mansoor responds naturally to. 

I loved how Gulak worked like an old sensei, reversing everything Mansoor threw (grabbing a headlock off a single leg, gaining arm and wrist control after a Mansoor slap) while also keeping Mansoor's work snug (loved how when Mansoor had arm control Gulak went to cover up his face which was a sly reminder for Mansoor to plant his knee on Gulak's face). Gulak has a couple of cool takedowns off an armdrag reversal and later one where he just takes Mansoor down, traps his legs, and ties him up in a dragon sleeper. I'm going to love a match where guys refuse to break headlocks off the ropes or get tied up in messy holds that don't look as "clean" as other WWE holds. The spot of the match is Gulak blocking an armdrag and turning it into a kind of Gory special as Mansoor fights it, only for Gulak to just drop straight down into a side headlock. The pinfall trading at the end is just about as interesting as you can make that spot now, worked very seamlessly but with Gulak actually looking like someone who is trying to pin Mansoor, not just positioning himself for the next reversal. I'm not sure how long Gulak is going to be able to get away with weird subversive matwork matches on these undercards, but I am going to be in love with it as long as it happens. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DREW GULAK

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Gulak is Hidin' in the Back, Loosening His Grip

Drew Gulak vs. Hideo Itami NXT 9/14/16 - GREAT

ER: This was a real hard hitting under 5 minute gem, Gulak's post CWC debut, and his only NXT appearance in the first couple years of his WWF career. It's really interesting in hindsight that they thought Gulak could go right past NXT onto the main roster, which basically gave us a ton of Gulak/Mustafa Ali and Gulak/Cedric Alexander matches and left a ton of potential cool NXT matches on the table. Itami had come back from an injury and was running through CWC guys, and this was a compact way to introduce the toughness of Gulak and the willingness of Itami to hurt someone. Gulak slaps Itami hard, and then Itami pays that back with two hellish kitchen sink knees to the gut, and hard kicks to the chest and back. Gulak's slap was hard as hell, but it probably wasn't worth it for the two knees and kicks he had to take, and especially not worth the big boot he charges into face first. If someone is willing to be stiffed, Itami is going to be able to provide that. Gulak isn't as flashy with the stiff strikes, but does a ton of cool tough guy things, like body slamming Itami into the ropes and working over his body and limbs, dropping him with a  nice back suplex. They have a snug strike exchange, and Itami kicks Gulak in the throat before giving him a G2S that lands hard under Gulak's chin. There wasn't a single part of this match that wasn't hard hitting, total gem of a compact match, like something Regal would work with one of the karate guys on Pro. 

Drew Gulak vs. Mustafa Ali 205 Live 3/14/17 - FUN

ER: Mustafa Ali is Gulak's most frequent opponent throughout his WWE run, and this was their first match (of at least a dozen). It's short but filled with cool stuff, and Gulak is great at basing for someone like Ali. Ali at this point had a lot of offense that required opponents to be in a very specific spot, and Gulak is great at being in a specific spot. I really liked how Gulak played into Ali's assisted springboard rana (with a fun bump all the way across the ring out to the floor) and then caught a nice plancha right at the waist. Too many guys catch a plancha up by the shoulders and it leads to a lot of missed catches, and the way Gulak caught it in the midsection made it look like he was taking a cannonball to the belly. Gulak grounds Ali in cool Finlayesque ways, with a bodyslam thrown with the same kind of intensity Finlay threw his, working over Ali with stomps (springing off the bottom rope), and working a great Gory Special into a backslide. I wish there had been a more interesting way for Ali to work into his comeback, and I thought his rolling cutter was really dumb. It is completely silly to require your opponent to stand there waiting that long for tumbling. But the inverted 450 is a great finisher, and they clearly have the chemistry to have bigger and better matches. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DREW GULAK

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Yeah, It's Where We Are, Gulak

Drew Gulak vs. Danny Garcia 205 Live 7/17/18 - FUN

ER: Garcia has been the talk of the town lately, had a big week of matches that peaked with him working his way into the main event of AEW Dynamite. He's only 22, and yet he somehow had a televised WWE match when he was just 19. There aren't many teenagers who can say they've wrestled a match for WWE, though I can think of at least a few offhand (the Hardys, Paige, Ken Doane, maybe Waltman?). This puts Garcia into some rare company. The Hardys started as regular TV jobbers and 3 years later they were superstars. Well, it's 3 years later and Garcia's star has never been brighter, and I'm positive he's never done a quicker or more vicious job than the one he did here. You see, the match is 30 seconds long, and an absolute massacre. This beating felt like it was one bad inch away from being a new Marty Jannetty/Chuck Austin incident. It's a match made up of three moves. First, Gulak flew into Garcia with one of the hardest clotheslines I've ever seen Gulak hit. Second, Gulak threw Garcia with a backdrop driver that felt like something Masa Saito would have thrown to "toughen up/accidentally murder" Dojo trainees. Third, Gulak dragged Garcia by the back of the head and sunk in a deadly looking Gulock. Garcia got a 30 second tryout with WWE, got nuked like few jobbers have ever been nuked, and it only made him want this more. Hard not to like that. 

PAS: I kind of expected this to be what Garcia vs. Moxley was going to be, and while Garcia got a ton more offense in that match, Moxley did hit versions of all three of these moves in his Garcia match. Gulak wins all three: his clothesline was up there with the nastiest clotheslines in WWE history, that backdrop driver was spine compressing, and the choke was sick, with Garcia's knees bent all weird. Garcia has so much offense these days, I never really think of him as a crazy bumper, but he was Pablo Marquez level here. 

Drew Gulak vs. Angel Garza WWE Raw 5/17/21 - FUN

ER: Well this probably puts the nail in the coffin of Gulak's time on Raw for now, as they have established that Garza is clearly his better. This is the third Raw match they've had, and each one went about 2 minutes, and ended with a decisive Garza victory. Drew Gulak is great at working guys like Garza, so I get why they'd want him opposite, making Garza's offense look as good as it can. Gulak begins things by jumping Garza and gets an early advantage, strongly enough that I just sort of assumed that surely Gulak wasn't going to lose 3 straight Raw matches to the same guy! Well, before long it became the Garza show, and it's a fun show to watch right now. Gulak leans into his kicks and has a fun bump off a reverse slingshot suplex, opting to land on his feet and whip back instead of take it on his stomach. It left him in perfect position for a seated dropkick from Garza, and it's one of those things that Gulak does sometimes that don't look like anyone else. I've said it twice before, but it's silly giving these two only 2 minutes, as they could do something really cool with just 4, but here we are. 

Drew Gulak vs. Mansoor WWE Raw 6/7/21 - FUN

ER: I'm starting to think that Gulak might not be the guy to put a stop to Mansoor's incredible winning ways. Gulak does, however, continue his trend of unique and cruelly short Raw matches. I don't know what kind of accomplishment it is to be known as the guy having the coolest 2 minute Raw matches, as I'd rather see him be the guy having the coolest 8-10 minute matches on whatever smaller show, but we take what we get. Gulak loses 90% of his matches and I'm the guy who still manages to get hooked into possible Gulak wins, and I don't think it's because I'm 90% doofus, but because of Gulak actually making each little moment of his 150 seconds matter. There is an art to the Short Match, of making your precious few moments matter, and Gulak starts by working a cool half crab, bending at Mansoor's leg while driving his bootheel into Mansoor's back. There's a cool battle over a roll up, and I loved Gulak grabbing a big handful of tights. That handful of tights was what convinced me Gulak was taking it. Sure, it helped that the tights grab happened around the 2 minute mark, and I knew from experience that Gulak is allowed no more than 3 minutes in a Raw ring or else suddenly we wind up with dozens of Gulaks everywhere, and half of them turn out to be child molesters. Alas, Mansoor reverses a reversal of a roll up reversal and I will see Gulak on Main Event next week, where he may win. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DREW GULAK

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Three Months, Three Oney Lorcan Matches

Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch vs. Joaquin Wilde/Raul Mendoza 205 Live 9/11/20

ER: This has been part of an ongoing 205 Live feud that includes Ever-Rise, and it's something I always enjoy seeing. I think they should start mixing up the feuds with singles matches, but for a promotion that's been traditionally more about tags than singles they've been rerunning tags a lot more. Wilde is someone who I like a lot more in tags than singles, and think he's really come into new strengths within the short span of Legado del Fantasma. I dug his headlock/headscissors takedown exchanges with Lorcan to start, with Lorcan working the kind of engaging holds that he works best and Wilde tossing in some nice color with a hand stomp and a dropkick. Lorcan gets his arm worked over by LdF, takes a cravat from Mendoza, and I like how sometimes these combos of teams work actual long heat segments, and then this time they'll keep them quicker. Lorcan getting worked over isn't the match, he gets to Burch fairly quickly and then Burch runs wild on Mendoza for awhile. There's enough mileage to these pairings to run them back the next week only work the match around Burch taking heat.

But Burch and Lorcan working over Mendoza is fun for this one, with them hitting a double suplex, Oney grinding in a facelock, Burch throwing big uppercuts, and Mendoza eventually coming back to hit a nice enziguiri and springboard crossbody. They're a fun group to keep going back and forth on each other, and it's a neat way to change out 2 on 1 pairings. LdF hit a double spinebuster and sandwich Burch with a basement dropkick, and there's good energy kept in the match at all times. It all builds to the most energy, and everyone knows that means an Oney Lorcan hot tag. Oney hits one of his big clotheslines that take him and Mendoza to the floor, comes back in with chops, big uppercuts, and a hard blockbuster to Wilde. Ever-Rise come out to interfere, and AGAIN I hope and hope and hope this leads to something more interested than a 3 way tag match. Those always blow, and it would be far more interesting to bring another team into the mix and work that way. Or, force Ever-Rise to work face with Lorcan/Burch and find a 4th member for Legado del Fantasma. I want that. Add Brian Kendrick into this feud as a total wildcard gun for hire. They're keeping it fresh, but 205 Live has been bad at feud blowoffs. So far so good.

Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch vs. Tyler Breeze/Fandango NXT 10/21/20

ER: Well I've been saying for several years that I have just been waiting for them to actually give some kind of big win to Oney Lorcan, and now they've finally done it. Was it perfect? No. Did they only win because of interference from the returning Cole Carrier Pat McAfee? Almost certainly yes. The match was a little disjointed and the in ring story was all over the place, but within story perhaps that makes sense as neither of these teams expected to be facing each other. Lorcan worked some cool headlock takeovers and I dig the slow burn start, but we get one of those annoying commercial breaks where you get the sense something interesting may have happened while we weren't watching. We went to break with Breeze starting to work over Burch's knee and wrap it around the ringpost, and when we come back Lorcan and Burch are working over Fandango. That has to be one of my biggest pet peeves in wrestling TV: leaving with one man in control and coming back to the exact opposite. Fandango matches up nicely with Lorcan and Burch, throws some heavy clotheslines, hits a nice guillotine legdrop (less style and grace than others, but a nice heavy landing) and we build to a moment where Oney gets stopped during a dive attempt, crashing to the apron and floor. Lorcan and Burch tried working Breeze over with a crossface/half crab combo and we get a couple pinfall saves (though even one of those seems overly planned, the fashionable kind of pin break where you tackle your opponent into the pin and everybody dogpiles). McAfee (under a Doom mask) shoves Fandango off the top and Burch lowblows Breeze behind the ref's back, then they hit the elevated DDT to win the tag belts. Obviously we'll find out more and see where their apparent heel turn is going, but I don't think they needed the lowblow in addition to interference. Let's at least make it look like they could have maybe beaten Breezango of all teams. A Burch headbutt or a leveling Oney uppercut would have been an excellent way to set up the DDT win, and would have had them KOing the champ with one of their own signature strikes, not a shot to the balls. Was this role originally going to have been filled by Ridge Holland? I don't know, but I'm happy for the new champs. I wish they could have won the belts in a bigger match on their own terms, but I've also thought they've been the clear best men's tag team in WWE for some time now and deserved these belts. 

Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch vs. Drake Maverick/Killian Dain NXT 12/23/20

ER: I liked the dynamics of this street fight, the fun size difference of Dain and Drake playing out in fun ways. It had that WWF street fight problem of the action slowing down for some spot set up, meaning the match was built into a series of crash landings instead of those spots being worked a little more organically into the match. Also, they weirdly decided to settle the match down into traditional tag rules, which at least kept things from completely devolving into a series of prop set ups. Things were at their strongest when Lorcan and Burch were isolating Maverick, as Dain would come in as wrecking ball, and someone like Lorcan is great at getting wrecked. There was a sick spot where Lorcan took a backdrop kidneys first over a couple set up chairs. The Dain/Maverick drop toehold senton combo is nice, and Lorcan's wild blockbuster on the floor felt extra crazy considering that bump he had just taken across the chairs. Dain gets to crash through and off of tables and bodies, sticking up for his little buddy, hitting avalanches and a big powerbomb, getting knocked off the apron that bounces him off a table instead of through, which leads to a great final Maverick blowout. Maverick comes in with low blows, takes off his belt and whips the hell out of the champs, including a belt shot literally across Lorcan's face. WWF are idiots because they don't have enough awesome belt whipping in their No DQ matches, instead opting for played out cane shots. Maverick's belt shots were really great, and I love how Lorcan responded to that belt to the face by paying back the low blow, before the champs absolutely stuff Drake with the elevated DDT. Cool stuff. 

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Check Out What Brian Kendrick Did on 205 Live in October

39. Brian Kendrick vs. Ashante "Thee" Adonis 205 Live 10/9

ER: This has been a 205 Live story the past couple months, with Kendrick reaching out to Adonis when he was still Tehuti Miles, before the hipster bike messenger shorts. They've had a couple other matches which Kendrick won, with the angle going that Kendrick was trying to motivate Miles/Adonis throughout the matches. It's a bit quick and short attention span for a really good master/student blowoff, but this third match is basically the student putting down his (in this case not wanted) master. It doesn't really work to that level of drama, and the only weak parts of this are when too much drama interjected itself. Adonis doing even somewhat convincing resolve sounded instead like "You're not my real dad!" high school acting, and I've seen enough Shawn Michaels agenting with long pauses before match ending superkicks to not need guys doing that voluntarily. But the match outshone the unearned drama, and Kendrick is perhaps the best person in the company (and in wrestling) to put on these gatekeeper veteran matches. 

Adonis had some nice uppercuts early and was able to overpower Kendrick a bit, but Kendrick is crafty and one of my favorite things about his matches is the ways he makes clever use of opportunities and makes match situations seem organic. He gains control after Adonis gets his foot snagged on the ring skirt, which feels like the exact kind of way Kendrick and his opponents work this kind of bad luck into a match. Kendrick makes cruiser offense hit harder than others, flinging his body with more last second impact. His Captain's Hook looked awesome, still my favorite submission in wrestling, and it always plays like such a convincing match ender. Adonis smartly rolls it into a pin to force a break (and, it looked for a moment, risk Kendrick being able to sink the choke deeper into his arm crook), and he chains offense together effectively and smartly. His high crossbody landed hard, and it was cool how he immediately picked Kendrick up to his a nice short arm DDT instead of going for a pinball and doing a shocked face upon kickout. I didn't love how Kendrick got polished off with a pair of superkicks, felt a little too I'm Sorry, I Love You and I think it could have been stronger. That said, this is a Kendrick match I'm always going to enjoy. 

PAS: This 205 Live stuff is buried so deep underground at this point that I had no idea who Ashante Adonis even was. This was from the 200th Episode of 205 Live, for context M*A*S*H had 255 episodes, this dumb show has nearly as many episodes as fucking M*A*S*H. WWE is like late 90s WCW at this point, it is hard to watch much of their main product, but they have so much of it that you have matches like this which just completely escape notice. This is Dandy vs. Dean Malenko on WCW Pro like stuff, and I am glad Eric is looking for and finding it. Kendrick is such a pro here, really the spiritual son of Fit Finlay. I loved how he pounced on the rookie getting his foot caught in the skirt and hit that vicious Russian leg sweep into the barricade. He uses his environment so well, nothing is contrived, he just sees the angles. The Captain's hook section was the highlight, Kendrick just constantly adjusts to get purchase, and it makes sense he lost soon after that. You see that in MMA sometimes when a fighter does everything he can to lock a choke and just gasses out. Adonis wasn't a huge standout, but his big stuff looked big, and he did get crazy height on the cross body. Didn't love the ACTING in the finish, but it was mostly kept to the last minute or so. 

35. Brian Kendrick vs. Isaiah Scott 205 Live 10/16 

ER: This is the first time these two have crossed paths (there was a bad Elimination match earlier this year, but Kendrick was out of that one without hardly any time spent in the ring), and it's a shame for Scott because Kendrick is the perfect opponent for him. I'm not a big Scott fan, as I get sick of the fruity embellishments he puts on so much of his offense. Some things just don't look better with a little rolling hopping tumble before them, and Kendrick brings that Finlay mindset into the match and puts an immediate stop to any of the flowery bullshit, and makes Scott's offense look more plausible than anyone else on the brand has been able to do. It's no shock that Scott's best WWE match so far was opposite Drew Gulak, but I think Kendrick makes for an even better opponent. Kendrick brings so much interesting detail to this, doing things that are completely absent from other Scott matches. 

Scott targets Kendrick's left arm a couple times early (including hopping through the ropes to tangle him up in an armbar), and Kendrick is great at calling attention to his weakened arm without making it into a hammy school play performance. His arm keeps him from doing a couple things, affects his timing by making him hesitant on certain offense, and the ways he acknowledges it are interesting without needing any bad wrestler acting. I like the way he shakes it out, and the best instance of that is when Scott hits his top rope uppercut to a seated Kendrick, and Kendrick's immediate focus is not on the uppercut to the back but the shockwaves it sends down his arm. Donovan Morgan once told me about how his arms went briefly numb after getting kicked in the back by Takayama, and Kendrick's selling reflects actual real body damage in an impressive way. Kendrick evades Scott in interesting ways, always managing to slip in yakuza kicks right under the chin, locking in engaging headscissors, and blocking Scott's offense in cool ways. I loved how Kendrick handled that rolling armbar attempt, as he immediately clasped his hands together and not just maneuvering his body to a rope break, but thinking beyond that and getting his body to the floor, then yanking Scott violently out of the ring. The storm cradle driver finish worked really well, as Kendrick made it look like he was actually trying to reverse Scott into a victory roll type pin, before Scott just dropped down on it to finish him. Kendrick has been putting in excellent work since returning, and that statement applies to his 2020 return and his return to WWE in general. 

PAS: I agree that this really minimized the more irritating parts of Scott's game. I loved the yanking of Scott to the floor, just another example of how Kendrick is viewing the entire chess board. I enjoyed all of the early mat attacks by Scott, he had a very Minoru Tanaka vibe to him, and while I don't like Minoru Tanaka against other Minoru Tanakaish dudes, Kendrick is as close to we get in US wrestling to Fujiwara or Ishikawa. I loved how Scott went for the hammerlock bodyslam but didn't fully grasp the arm. Most wrestlers would keep the arm there even if it wasn't cleanly hooked, but Kendrick rips it out, still takes the bodyslam and sells the impact of the bodyslam jamming his bad arm, so smart and so rare.

Brian Kendrick vs. Mansoor WWE 205 Live 10/23

ER: Since returning in August, Brian Kendrick has been on this great streak working as a self-imposed gatekeeper of 205 Live. He had a fun three match series with Ashante Adonis that had a great finale, then had Isaiah Scott's arguable best match of his WWE run, and now gives us this gem as a scumbag playing heel off a modern Ricky Morton. Mansoor has existed at the fringes of WWE for the past few years, putting in a genuinely memorable performance against Cesaro at Crown Jewel, then kinda kicking around NXT and 205 Live until the next Saudi show rolls around. This was probably the most standout performance of his since that Crown Jewel match. Kendrick is such a timeless bumping and relentless heel, so good that he really elevates anyone across from him. I'm not saying Mansoor hasn't had good showings before, but I don't think I've ever seen him in such a strong babyface role, and it felt like Kendrick was constantly putting him in position to succeed. 

All of the early headlock control was cool, and Mansoor had some neat armdrags around that, and Mansoor working what honestly came off like modernized Ricky Morton got me really into this. Prime Morton vs. 2020 Kendrick would be an awesome match, and Mansoor's armdrags, dropkicks, big floatover suplex, all of it felt like Ricky offense sometimes spun with a modern twist (like rolling through a couple verticals and then powering up into a falcon arrow in an awesome spot). Kendrick is so cool in this role because - while he doesn't win often - he comes off like someone not committed to finishing any one specific way. He's not a heel only trying to win with his finisher, he's someone always switching up his strategy as if he's trying more to keep opponents thinking in the ring, keep them on their toes. Brian Kendrick: Intentionally Sacrificial Gatekeeper. He's not out here looking only for Sliced Bread, he's someone who will take you down and work an arm while tying up your legs, or hitting a big butterfly suplex, or diving in with a Captains Hook choke attempt. They worked struggle into the match in cool ways, so that it never came off like a series of juniors nearfalls. Mansoor really fighting to lift Kendrick into a falcon arrow, or really fighting to block his rana into a sitout powerbomb, things like that make the moves mean something and makes them look like they aren't just part of a sequence. Kendrick is unstoppable right now, essentially filling the same role that Kassius Ohno was filling, in his own trusted way. 

PAS: I liked this a bit less then Eric did. Kendrick is unassailable at this point, he is lost in the woods a bit, but he is putting on bangers weekly on a WWE show while getting much less acclaim than say Cabana Man Dan. He found a bunch of interesting ways to work around Mansoor, who is clearly pretty green, I am not sure those cool armdrags weren't Kendrick armdragging himself.  I also loved his counters, slipping the knee in to catch Mansoor coming, slipping quickly into the Captain's Hook. Still I thought Mansoor worked this a bit too much like a guy with all the answers, cutting off Kendrick at every turn. If he tried for something he would get countered into some almost Nova like chained offense. In some ways this felt like a money mark bringing in a veteran hand to put himself over. Kendrick is a hell of veteran hand to put in that role, but I am not coming out of this wanting to buy a Mansoor 8x10.

2020 MOTY MASTER LIST

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2018 Ongoing MOTY List: 205 Live Street Fight

52. Drew Gulak/Jack Gallagher vs. Akira Tozawa/Brian Kendrick 205 Live 12/18 (Aired 12/19/18)

PAS: No idea why it took us early two years to watch this match, these are the four best 205 Live guys, and they get a long time to work a street fight.  Gulak and Gallagher look awesome coming in with their fists taped wearing suits. It takes a bit to get going, the first couple of minutes have a lot of WWE street fight spots with brooms and garbage cans, but as soon as Gulak breaks out the bungee cords it gets really great. Gulak fishooks Kendrick with the bungee cord hook which is super nasty looking, and we get a really great finish run with a bunch of cool near falls and big spots. Tozawa ends up hitting his awesome tope right into a garbage can, Gallagher locks in some cool submissions and he ends up leaving himself open to getting smashed. I really dug the battle on the top rope between Gallagher and Kendrick, a lot of times punches on the top rope look bad, but they were really cracking each other including Gallagher punching Kendrick right in the back of the head.

ER: 205 Live loved having good (or bad, I guess) 18 minute matches that could have been fire 10 minute matches. They also never quite mastered blowoff matches or big stipulation matches. Even though this would have been tighter with a shorter runtime, this is one of the best stips matches in the brand's history. It's easier to have a good long match when you send the best 4 in the division (at the time) out there and let them fill the time. Part of the long match era felt like one of those weird WWE self-serving deals where they let guys they don't care about go out and hang themselves, and crowds weren't typically too jazzed to sit through PPV main event length cruiser matches with minimal story build. The better ones found ways to get the crowd into it, and this crowd wakes up about midway and stays with it. I appreciated them starting with hard fists and cranked necks, but we're 20 years removed from ECW and I don't need Singapore cane shots to trash cans. Gulak uses the old Mick Foley trick of clonking Tozawa a few times with a live mic, and the crowds get involved just from the perfectly silly mic shots (makes you wonder why any guys go through the trouble of bumping hard on the apron and floor and taking stiff punches to the head).

We do get a mix of violence added to the sillier spots, like Kendrick suplexing Gallagher into an announcer's chair that Gulak was already seated in, or Gallagher in that same chair getting rolled into a hard Tozawa dropkick. I loved Tozawa working in his big spots on partner saves, crushing Gallagher with his senton to break up an Indian deathlock, or spinning around Gallagher with an octopus hold to get him away from Kendrick. He also gets a great reaction hitting his surprise right hand on Drew and later hitting an insane tope into a trashcan (swung by Drew). Kendrick is really great staggering around ringside taking punches, and Gulak fishhooking Kendrick with a bungee cord hook was one of the greatest things I've seen during a WWE (or anywhere, really) street fight. Gulak really looked like he was tearing at Kendrick's face (strong selling from Kendrick too) and I loved how Tozawa broke it up by jamming his hand into Gulak's mouth to let him know how a fishhook feels. This kind of bummed me out when it was over, as 2 years later we have Gulak mostly doing commentary, Kendrick disappearing for months at a time, Tozawa being a ninja who rarely wrestles, and Gallagher the only sex pest who they didn't attempt to make excuses for. Shit has changed in two years, shit has changed in two months.


2018 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Lorcan & Burch vs. Ever-Rise: The COVID Clash Continues!

Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch vs. Ever-Rise (Chase Parker/Matt Martel) 205 Live 8/28/20

ER: This is a pairing that we've gotten several looks at over the past year, and it's a match I always look forward to. They've had tags, there's a good Lorcan/Parker singles, there's a good trios, it's a fun pairing. This falls apart for no reason down the final minute or so, plagued with weird timing, and that kind of dampens what had been a typically engaging tag. Things were going well until the flat finish, and we were getting a couple extra beats that we haven't gotten in their prior tags. It was going longer, and the format was expanding. We get a babyface start, then a nice simple heel control segment from Ever-Rise. I'm a fan of Ever-Rise, love the throwback nature of their style and the improbability that they would be a pair hired as a tag team in 2020 WWE. They feel like a C show WCW 90s tag team, if instead of Disorderly Conduct there had a heel Fantastics. They gloat just a little too much on armdrags, Martel makes wild eyed grimacing faces that would kill at an Orlando tourist taping, Martel drops a nice elbow, nice journeyman heel control. Their few double teams are good, with the best being Parker vaulting off Martel's back with a big elbowdrop, but their samoan drop blockbuster is a good nearfall.

Lorcan's hot tag was obviously good. He threw chops that sounded twice as loud as any other strike in the match, knocked into Martel with a horizontal uppercut, then hits a top rope cannonball to take out Parker. In prior matches I could have seen Parker not kicking out of the cannonball. Late in the match Martel holds Lorcan's feet on a apron to ring suplex, allowing Parker to shift his weight for a pin - tell me that finish doesn't sound straight out of WCW TV - but the ref notices Martel holding the legs. Those are the welcome beats we get added to their formula, but the finish falls apart a bit. Burch is gone from the match an exceptional amount of time, and it starts to feel weird, and things suddenly feel super inorganic and all the timing felt a bit derailed. They're doing some kind of weird conspiracy theory angle where Ever-Rise blame the refs for their losing, and it takes everyone unnecessarily out of their comfort zones at the finish. Disorderly Conduct didn't need reasons to lose, they just got beat. Except that one time they beat the Armstrongs. Don't blame the refs Ever-Rise. Just look for your Armstrongs.


Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch vs. Ever-Rise 205 Live 9/4/20

ER: This is more of an Ever-Rise controlled match with the Burch/Lorcan roles reversed. Ever-Rise are more aggressive and work over Lorcan, leading to the fired up Burch hot tag. My eyes were blinded to most of this match, as Ever-Rise hit a dual fistdrop early on and my brain understands that nothing that comes after will matter, because this match automatically is great. A double fistdrop in 2020 is enough to make something work, and I think that rule applies to any era. I like Parker's elbowdrop vaulting off Martel's back, like his snap suplex, and like how he knocks Burch off the apron (leaving Burch barely enough time to break up a pin). Something goes a little sideways on Burch's hot tag, where he kind of whiffs on a middle rope dropkick after booting Martel in the face, but his German suplex is a nice save. The match ends when Legado de Fantasma comes out and wrecks everyone, so I'm not sure where that leaves us. I'm sure they'll just make is a 3 way tag match with Santos Escobar interfering from the floor, but it would be interesting if they made Lorcan/Burch/Ever-Rise a team and got a 4th for LdF. I'd like to see Ever-Rise in a forced babyface role, see how they respond to it.

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Oney Lorcan is Still Here

Oney Lorcan vs. Santos Escobar 205 Live 7/2 (Aired 7/10/20)

ER: I had skimmed through Night 2 of NXT's Great American Bash before watching this, and was able to briskly get through the show because all of the big matches (Cole/Lee, Gargano/Scott) were just the worst kind of 50/50 move trading and anticipated missed offense so I didn't have to actually spend time watching them. It was brutal and I'm happy I decided not to gut it out. And right HERE is a cool match outside of the now cookie cutter brand match structure, happening the same week as that show, where Escobar takes a huge portion of the match without Lorcan looking down and out defeated. Lorcan had his arm wrapped because of his match with Thatcher, which Escobar goes right after, and even though Lorcan is still able to pepper in hard strikes he is clearly hesitant to throw those strikes due to his bad arm. It's an easy story and one they both work effectively. Lorcan tries to end things quick out of desperation but it quickly put on the defense because of his arm. The match benefits huge from not just dancing from spot to spot, but with both guys fighting back in between spots. The first half of this especially has hard little shots thrown in as spots are about to happen, making the whole match feel more like a fight. Escobar worked some mean stuff on Lorcan's arm, including a snap suplex trapping his arm, and a crossface sub while working a cravat. He runs Lorcan's arm into the ring post and hits a cruel splash on Oney's arm on the apron. Lorcan realizes he's going down so he might as well do his best to fight out of it, so goes for broke with big chops and a heavy uppercut and a nice whipping blockbuster. It ain't enough, and I like how Escobar caught him with a cool armbreaker when Lorcan was slowed due to using his arm, and loved how Lorcan died on that sword.


Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch/Mansoor vs. Chase Parker/Matt Martel/Tehuti Miles 205 Live 7/21 (Aired 7/24/20)

ER: This is the kind of quick paced 8 minute trios match they should have on TV every week, the kind of match where all six guys are given something cool to do. Ever-Rise have become favorites of mine, a total WCW Worldwide C team getting regular WWE TV time, but they're really smart about being in the right place, cheering each other loudly from the apron, getting shown up on armdrags, and stooging for babyface comebacks. They have a couple nice double teams, like Chase Parker's elbow after a Matt Martel drop toehold, or their Samoan drop/neckbreaker combo they do to Burch before Lorcan flattens them both with a dual blockbuster. This is the kind of team that never would have made a WWE roster even 10 years ago, and I'm really happy there's a place for them now. Tehuti is a great heel foil for all of the babyfaces, and I'm always a sucker for heels who don't really have offense. He knows right where to be to violently take Mansoor's slingshot DDT, has a perfect catch on Mansoor's excellent tornillo, gets folded over by a Burch German suplex, and then takes over with learned behavior after holding the ropes on a second Mansoor slingshot attempt. I love a heel who takes over a match by letting a babyface crash and burn on something that he scouted, then tries to win with a backslide. Lorcan's energy is always going to be something that stands out in an energetic match like this, and his double blockbuster came at the perfect moment. But this was a six person performance in the most fun way.


Oney Lorcan vs. Ridge Holland vs. Damian Priest NXT 7/29 (Aired 8/5/20)

ER: This is a weird match for Lorcan to be in, arguably the weirdest on paper match in his entire WWE run. Lorcan used to be used (and was great) in matches as the underdog against a larger bully. It was a good formula for him, but he hasn't been in that formula for a couple years now, instead being paired with workers more his size. He also feels out of place in the match from a storyline standpoint. He is a guy who loses singles matches to anyone larger than him. He wins tag matches half the time, and loses singles matches to larger opponents all of the time. It is established that he is never an easy win, so perhaps that is enough to justify having him in this match - I like seeing him as much as I can, so I don't totally care - and that feels like they're continuing to slowly work him up the card. If you view his WWE career as a whole it does look like a nice slow burn.

And the match is as cool and fun as those Lorcan/monster matches, although it would have played better as a Holland/Lorcan singles match. The weak parts of the match were all because of Priest. He is 2020 Edge. Edge mainlined late 90s flowery indy offense, and Priest wrestles like Edge reappropriating UWFI striking into a stupider overacting Edge style of UWFI. It's shitty as hell when he gets too into that mode, but it's undeniable that he is goofy strike combo terrible in-ring acting Edge. Luckily, that only affected the weak parts of the match, and most of the match was very strong. Three ways have been passé for far more years than they were relevant and novel, but there is still potential for excitement in layout, big cutoffs, and close nearfall saves. Lorcan is the one that gets disposed of, but he gets as many licks as anyone here. He crashes into both with a great tope con hilo, times he blockbuster excellently, throws hard uppercuts, builds to throwing some of his all time best flying uppercuts. He was sending his whole body crashing into Holland, and Holland was a really great brick wall to crash into. His strikes and shoulderblocks looked good, he had no problem leaning into things, and he annihilates Lorcan on a clothesline to kill a Lorcan run. Priest also has a mix of Edge offense in addition to his "If Edge Had Seen a Takada Comp Tape in 1997" strikes, but he actually does a lot of that better than Edge did his offense. I really liked his big sitout chokeslam here. If your offense has to be a dumb twist of an established move, at least actually looking like you can lift someone impressively helps things immensely. He does that. And even with Priest's chest punch kick combos awkwardly shoehorned in, this match smoked.

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The Final WWE Big 3! Lorcan, Gallagher, Gulak 6/8-6//20

ER: Well the feature went away, came back with Gulak, and now not long after leaves for good now that 1/3 of our 3 is a sex pest. I'm not sure how to continue the feature as my back-up plan for one of the three getting cut was to move Kassius Ohno into the third spot and well, that went out the window too. Maybe I will continue as a Big 2+1, with the one being the worker I think most belongs in the third spot any given week. Thoughts?


Jack Gallagher/Tehuti Miles/Tony Nese vs. Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch/Isaiah Scott 205 Live 6/12

ER: Fun trios match that builds off the previous few weeks of matches from each of these guys. 205 has always been good at building feuds and giving some matches a reason to happen, even if the blowoff matches have been roundly disappointing over the show's run. But this was kept brisk and had a nice heel control section, and we got another great run of Gallagher/Lorcan. For whatever reason, that pairing is a real rarity on 205. We have their great singles match and occasional crossed paths in big multimans, but that's it. Gallagher was real mean when he tagged in and started wailing on him, blindsiding Lorcan with a headbutt to the stomach and then beats him in to the mat while his boy Nese cheats from the apron, and late in the match Gallagher has an awesome buzzer beater pinfall save. I really dug Nese snapping Lorcan's neck over the top rope and then pushing Lorcan away from the ropes with his boot when Gallagher was ready to go for a pin. I always like how Lorcan fights through heat segments, and the uppercut he blasts Miles with when Miles tags in is one of the best moments of the match, quickly rivaled by Miles wrecking Lorcan with a lariat that sounded like someone taking a baseball bat to a Thanksgiving turkey. I liked Miles dropping elbows on Lorcan while rubbing it in on Nese that *this* is how you control a match, leading to a big missed elbowdrop that everyone but Miles saw coming. Modern WWE style has so many moves thrown to purposely miss, too many guys focusing on the reversal instead of the move itself, and when somebody actually does a "heel misses a move due to cockiness" it actually plays as something fresh. Burch had a spirited start to the match and gets some more fun stuff when things start to break down, hits a nice enziguiri, leans into a Nese spinkick, and hits a nice surprise headbutt on Miles. Due to how this broke down I'm excited to see a Gallagher/Miles match, and I'm really liking what a lot of these guys are bringing to 205.


Oney Lorcan vs. Chase Parker 205 Live 6/19

ER: This was a bunch of fun. Ever-Rise will always feel like a weird team to be on the WWE roster, but I like how they fall into that Disorderly Conduct style credible team that never wins, like if the Hardy Boys had been heels working as DO in 1997 WWF. The match worms its way immediately into my heart by starting with a long Lorcan headlock that Parker can't break, and we get three different attempts for Parker to run Lorcan off while Lorcan keeps hanging on. For all of the great traditional wrestling moves and spots that WWE has phased out, I love that there are a devoted few who know how to hold onto a good headlock and refuse to break. Parker does his small Canadian Disorderly Conduct offense, like choking Lorcan on the ropes or driving a knee into the gut, hitting a standing elbow across the back of Lorcan's neck, the kind of offense done by hairy men in ill-fitting singlets on syndicated 90s WCW TV. It's basic heel control until he charges Lorcan and Lorcan scoops him into an inverted atomic drop, then lifts him into a traditional atomic drop, and we are blessed because he catches Parker in a THIRD atomic drop variation as Parker axe handle attempts his nuts directly down into Lorcan's waiting knee, then wastes him with the flying uppercut and blockbuster. This had a real WCW 5 minute syndie match feel, which is obviously the best feel.


Jack Gallagher vs. Jake Atlas 205 Live 6/19

ER: Cool style clash that saw Gallagher stalking and striking Atlas around the ring while managing to stumble and bumble into taking the more athletic indy lucha offense of Atlas. Atlas has a couple of neat squirrelly armdrags with my favorite being when Gallagher caught Atlas's boots in the corner and swung them through the ropes only to have Atlas drop his weight like a pendulum and toss Gallagher at a neat angle. But big portions of this were Gallagher calmly strutting around the ring to provide constant pepper into Atlas's ribs. Gallagher starts attacking the body with big right hooks, thrust headbutts, open palm strikes, just tenderizing Atlas's whole rack of ribs for a roast. We get a lot of great moments of Gallagher responding to some flowery Atlas flourishes with a pause and a kick to the face or punch to the jaw or palm to the face or knee to the gut. Seriously, just watching Gallagher stalk and strike is the best. I don't love all of Atlas's comeback offense, even though I like a lot of how Gallagher set it up (like missing a superman punch to set up an Atlas clothesline). Atlas does hit a nice back suplex, but a lot of his comeback offense - and his rainbow DDT finish - would have worked much better in a This Is Awesome kind of match, which this wasn't. There was a lot of attention paid to Gallagher beating Atlas's body and then locking in an abdominal stretch, and there were plenty of cool ways that Atlas could have worked in his offense around the damage, but it felt like his brain was in a different match than the one he was in. Match overall gets a thumbs up from me, but blending his spots into the format better would have lifted this to List.

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WWE Big 3 Returns! Lorcan, Gallagher, GULAK 5/24-6/7/20

Battle Royal WWE Smackdown 5/29

ER: Drew Gulak has not had great luck in battle royals during his WWE tenure, but he's always a good presence in a battle royal. Here he is mostly on the defensive, but I like how he hooks his leg over the bottom rope while trying to eliminate guys from the apron, mostly locked in a battle with Cesaro. I will always love battle royal spots where one man is on the apron and someone in ring is pushing boot to throat, and Gulak is great at hanging on while Cesaro pushes that boot under his chin.  It feels like a good idea for me to make a couple keyboard shortcuts for Gulak, one of them being "would have liked to see this go longer but", as I was foolishly thinking his return after not taking a weak offer was going to turn into one of those weird Vince "this guy stood up to me and now I respect him" kind of situations, and I would have like more of him with Corbin. Corbin and Gulak had a good match on Smackdown last month, and Bryan had a great match with Corbin, along with a great trios. So they were keeping that Cesaro/Nakamura/Corbin feud going with Gulak and it would have been cool to see that go in Gulak's favor. But I also like Gulak taking a huge hiptoss to elimination, so oh well. As for non-Gulak people, Dolph Ziggler continued to show that his greatest strength is as a guy who comes very close to being eliminated from battle royals before eventually dying on his elimination bump. This was a decent enough battle royal.


Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch vs. vs. Roderick Strong/Bobby Fish vs. Tyler Breeze/Fandango NXT 6/3

ER: I wish this got twice the time it did, because I loved what these guys were bringing. The structure was tough to follow as it was a 3 way tag, meaning three guys were in the ring at all times, except for half of the match you had both members of UE in there and after awhile everyone was involved. Typing that out makes it sound like this was a mess and that guys would constantly be getting in each other's way, but somehow this was worked with precision. Everyone (except maybe Fish?) was working snug, and with nearly everyone involved at all times I thought they did a killer job of always giving everyone something to do. Burch is like an old man luchador as he seems to get better the higher up his trunks go, and here he at later career Villano III levels of trunk height (he really needs to pace himself as he's the same age as me, meaning those trunks will be over his tits by age 48, way too soon). Three way exchanges can be clunky and tired, but Burch was in their keeping things moving and mixing up strikes, throwing in a hard headbutt to make sure the exchange never approached rote, hard dropkick, throwing a surprise back elbow at Fish on the apron (which was paid off nicely when Fish laid him out on the floor later), and running interference for Lorcan's hot tag. Strong was a great pinball for Breeze and Burch, and I like that he took over when he just said fuck it and had Fish come in the ring full time. Fandango's hot tag was cool, totally forgot he had a cool snap powerslam and after he broke off the second one I kinda just wanted him to keep going. Lorcan's hot tag obviously ruled, with him flying into everyone with chops and elbows. Love how he flew into one corner with an uppercut, and cleared his path with an elbow on his way back to throw an uppercut in the opposite corner. Fandango tossing him over the top into most of the guys was done really well, but everything here was done well. With just a couple more minutes this could have been list, and it really wasn't far away as is.


Drew Gulak vs. AJ Styles WWE Smackdown 6/5

ER: Hot little Nitro match with both working quick to make up for the time. Styles always tightens things up when working against guys like Gulak. Not that Styles is out here showing daylight every other week, but he's also not throwing corner punches or aiming lariats at throats like he did against Gulak here. I like how Gulak recognized Styles' aggression early and started turning that into submission attempts, running Styles' into the mat with his cool crossface variation. Both guys got bounced off their head and shoulders in uncool ways: Styles shoving Gulak down into a backbreaker that bounced his head to the mat was probably my favorite moment of the match, and Gulak pays him back late with his cool drop down Michinoku driver variation. A fired up Gulak is quite a thing, and he really crushed AJ down the stretch with a dropkick that looked like it would have staggered anyone on the roster, big clothesline and an even bigger corner clothesline, and he knew exactly how snug to hold that pinfall. I had the weird hunch Gulak was winning here, and I'm happy he got the win with no kind of shenanigans, just outsmarting Styles and beating him to the punch.


Oney Lorcan vs. Tehuti Miles 205 Live 6/5

ER: I've been enjoying Tehuti on 205, he's the newest 205 guy who doesn't actually work like a cruiserweight. I like his brand of minimalism, and really enjoyed his Tyler Breeze match from a couple weeks ago. This match is built around the simple premise that Danny Burch kicked Miles around the ring last week, but Miles won with a schoolboy while grabbing the trunks. Someone who does a schoolboy with a handful of trunks on the show hyped entirely around the spectacular things that smaller wrestlers can do in the ring is someone I'm going to enjoy. This whole thing is worked simply, like a fun house show match where the goal is to pay off the simple story they broadly presented to the crowd. There's a reason that simplicity works. Lorcan uses almost entirely chops - and one wicked knee to the gut - to start and finish, hitting our story note early when Miles bails to the floor after taking some chops, gets stopped by Burch, then turns around into another Lorcan chop. The camera work was surprisingly good (because it was actually different) during Miles' control, and I especially liked the camera zooming in on Lorcan's face when Miles was scraping it with his boot in the corner. Miles drops some nice elbowdrops and works a cool Fujiwara armbar, then of course tries to win a handful of tights. This got a lot of time and I'm sure there was a better match they could have had, as neither guy was bringing out his biggest guns. But I liked the simple storytelling, Burch yelling about the pulled tights leading to Lorcan rolling Miles up with a prawn hold, and I like when guys work a more bare match like this. It's cool seeing wrestlers boiled down to their basics, and I'd love to see them build off of it.


Jack Gallagher vs. Isaiah Scott 205 Live 6/5

ER: This felt really scattered but always threatening to get really good, and the most successful moments were typical for Scott matches: whenever he drops the unnecessary embellishments things look better. This had a lot of Scott embellishments, and it played more like a Scott showcase than an actual match. And that's kind of what it feels like EVERY time we get a Gallagher/Scott match. Gallagher is great at working style clashes, but against Scott you never get enough "clash", you get guys waiting around for Scott to finish his windmill backspins so he can finally hit his headscissors. There were at least four different moments where Gallagher had to pause and leave a limb out for Scott to finish his embellished sequence, or stop short because he arrived at the right time for a sequence but Scott wasn't done with his handstand. Gallagher would try to drop interesting threads into the match, and Scott would make sure they'd go nowhere. I got excited for the moments that felt like the change was happening, like Gallagher wasting Scott's time avoiding him on the apron, only to grab his leg and yank it through the turnbuckles. But those moments where quickly forgotten in favor of Scott working so so armbars. When he toned down the BS it got good, and Gallagher's adjustments to go briefly into control were cool. I loved Gallagher leaping into a guillotine to drop Scott to a knee, or Gallagher working a side headlock on the top freaking rope, and reversing a big backdrop suplex into a hard landing crossbody. But you take a cool moment like that, and it instantly looks more silly with Scott kicking all four of his limbs like an upturned turtle. There was plenty to like here, but the main thing that hurt this match was that it never felt like a match, it just felt like Scott doing Scott things.

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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.

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WWE Big 3: Lorcan, Gallagher, Gulak 5/10-5/16/20

Jack Gallagher vs. Isaiah Scott NXT 5/13

ER: I'm not sure why all the matches in this NXT cruiserweight tournament are only getting 4 minutes, but perhaps I got too used to 20 minute long 205 matches. They...do know that there's a middle ground between those match lengths, right? The shorter length on this one at least makes sense, with Nese jumping Scott before the bell and running him ribs first into the ring steps. Scott did a nice job of selling a nagging rib over the short runtime, and I dug how we got a plausible finish right off the bell when Gallagher just plastering Scott with his running corner dropkick. Not only was it one of Gallagher's finest, but with the way Scott fell he was able to just get his boot on the ropes, instead of a silly dramatic 2.9 kickout. And the rest of this was all about Gallagher punching Scott's body with strikes, aiming several kicks to those ribs, included some doozies while Scott was seated on the apron. We built to a great moment where Gallagher missed a second big dropkick in the corner, then eating a great Killshot kick to the side of the head. I thought for sure that Scott was winning after that, after Gallagher flopped nose first to the mat. But I was mighty pleased when Gallagher hopped up and grabbed a guillotine, and then got to win with a roaring elbow. Scott sold it like he got hit with a Gallagher roaring elbow.


5. Drew Gulak vs. Daniel Bryan WWE Smackdown 5/15

ER: Just keep giving these two time, and I'm confident they'll keep pumping out a fresh new match every single time. Gulak and Bryan are real artists, have a wealth of talent and influences to build fresh matches from, and after already having the best match of 2020 they now also have the best Smackdown match of 2020 (and there have been some cool contenders). This is the kind of technical wrestling I'm not certain even a crowd of drunk bikers could shit on, and it's still unfathomable to me that Gulak and Bryan are doing some of their greatest all time matwork on WWE programming, making it clearly the best WWE matwork we've seen. The opening couple moments of rolling was some time capsule stuff, not one second of the rolling feeling performative, counters that actually felt like legitimate counters, contact that felt real. Guys being allowed to stretch out matwork is possibly the only blessing of the empty arena era. I almost thought they were going the flash tapout route early, when Bryan locked in one of his most snug Yes Locks I can remember, looking like he wanted to bend Gulak's nose to his ear. But Gulak made the ropes, and then I thought they were going flash tapout when Gulak locked in one of his most snug Gu-locks with him actually yanking Bryan's beard to lock it in tighter!

Gulak is really cool on control, drops a nice belly to back suplex, nice cradle, and a Michinoku driver with him dropping to his knees. It looked like something I remember Regal doing to Benoit. Bryan starts plotting his comeback throughout Gulak's control, setting up attacks on Gulak's knee that pay off the longer things go. Bryan has a cruel dragon screw, but Gulak stepping out of a dragon screw attempt was even cooler, but then Bryan snapping tendons with a counterclockwise dragon screw was impossibly cool. I love the subtle way Gulak sold a kneebreaker, and Bryan going back to that kneebreaker and using it in a trap leg German was a killer payoff. Love these two working go behind sequences early, paying that off late when Bryan runs Gulak into the ropes with a waistlock and skips him across the ring like a stone with a quick German. The finish stretch is as class as you'd expect from these two left to their own, with Gulak breaking out a big powerbomb and some clean and believable cradle reversals, but of course Bryan goes shies away from the reversed Yes Lock and just attacks that knee with a heel hook. More brilliant work from these two, seriously among the best of their respectively impressive careers.

PAS: What a swan song for Gulak, I mean this is as great a final performance as I can remember, and the fact he was able to orchestrate his last WWE match so he could go 14 minutes of hard mat work with his idol is amazing. What a triumph for the Catch Point movement. Loved all the cools spots worked around the tight headlock with Bryan nailing him with shinbreakers, it built really well towards everything. The trap leg german, the dragon screws and the killer finish. I just finished Jon Snowden's incredible Shamrock biography, so I especially appreciated the match ending with the Pancrase dueling leglocks. Bryan and Gulak clearly used the pandemic as an opportunity to work matches which might kill a WWE crowd, and it was such a pleasure to see. I can't imagine Gulak getting a chance to do this in AEW, so bizarrely his best chance to continue this kind of output is actually to re-sign with the WWE. What a world.


10. Jack Gallagher vs. Tony Nese 205 Live 5/15

ER: What a colossal performance from Gallagher, up there with his excellent performance in last month's match against Oney Lorcan. This is maybe even more impressive, if we consider the abilities of his dance partner in each match. I wouldn't say this was an entire one man show, as Nese has actually improved his game a lot over the past year, and there were cool things he added here. There were also things he did that could have taken away from a match with a lesser opponent, and those things are where Gallagher showed some real merit. The whole thing was built around some really great body shots, with Gallagher landing hard closed fists with both hands, and Nese showing off a really killer short left that kept landing in the same spot, like Nese was trying to cause a gallbladder malfunction. Jack gets a couple different reversals into ground and pound, and I love how Gallagher's ground and pound isn't just forearms striking forearms, instead mixing up shots and leading his opponent.

When Nese takes over, that's where Gallagher shines in a very different way, as he's maybe the only person I've seen who makes Nese's DDR kick/legsweep combo look interesting, actually occupying himself by selling the strikes in between rather than just standing there like a doof waiting for the next dance step. Nese even drops him on a backbreaker and Gallagher manages to salvage that, instead focusing on selling damage from prior strikes. Now as I said, it wasn't all bad with Nese, as I really dug his rolling dropdown to take out Gallagher's legs near the ropes, I liked his Macho Man leaping neck snap to the floor/moonsault combo (with Gallagher's selling making Nese's quick timing on the spot work well), he has a thrust directly into Gallagher's throat that is maybe the nastiest strike I've ever seen Nese throw, and at one point Nese grabs Gallagher in a grounded headlock that squished Gallagher's face so tight that it looked like Gallagher was having a bad peanut allergy reaction. Gallagher was great at switching from throwing hard kicks and more body shots, and I love him mixing up his headbutt strike by throwing it at Nese's weakened body instead of how he usually throws it. I've said before how great it is that Gallagher doesn't use his signature offense the same way every match, always mixing up order and not using everything he has in every match, and making it all mean different things by the way he incorporates it into a match. Also, it rules that Jack got to win two TV matches this week with a roaring elbow.

PAS: Probably the best Tony Nese match I can remember, and it wasn't 100% Gallagher (maybe 85%). I can tolerate some backflips if you are going punch someone right in the throat, and Nese was swinging some ham hocks into Gallagher's ribs. I am digging new ground and pound Jack, it is really cool that he is showing off other sides of his game now, and stiff violence is what works in silent arenas. Cutting off Nese's knee strike with that running headbutt was a spot of the year candidate and Gallagher has mastered making that headbutt look devastating. They really should just slot Gallagher right into Gulak's spot as Bryan's running buddy.


2020 MOTY MASTER LIST

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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.

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WWE Big 3: Lorcan, Gallagher, Gulak 3/22-3/28/20

Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch vs. Shane Thorne/Brendan Vink NXT 3/25/20

ER: Lorcan and Burch are usually the guys used to showcase other talent, so it's always fun when we get a short match showcasing them. And true to their nature, they don't treat this like just a squash match, throwing a couple bones to Thorne and Vink. Shane Thorne is a guy I have seen live twice at NXT house shows (once in the main event!) and every time he shows up on TV I go "huh must be some new guy they're debuting". I never remember him, and the second his matches end I go back to forgetting him. So, Burch starts the match against...some guy, and he has a nice short uppercut and a cool wristlock takedown, stomping on...someone's wrist right after tossing him down. Lorcan is a guy I love seeing opposite big guys and Vink is a guy with a big muscular build. When Lorcan tags in and charges Vink in the corner we get a big high delay uranage from Vink, and the move set up actually makes sense as Lorcan was flying into the corner with his flying back elbow. It's an established way Lorcan leaps into offense, so we don't have any of those "Well, I don't normally do this, but now seems as good a time as any to charge and leap at Samoa Joe" logic leaps. I begin laughing thinking that Lorcan is still going to get flattened in his showcase match, but not long after he is flying horizontally into both the Australians with back elbows and nails Vink with a hard as hell lariat, Burch hits a missile dropkick, and we rush to a quick double submission finish like it was a CMLL primera caida. These 3 minute showcases are not common for Lorcan/Burch, they should have stiffed up these goons even more.

Drew Gulak vs. Shinsuke Nakamura WWE Smackdown 3/27/20

ER: This was really good, until it ended suddenly about 4 minutes in. The way they were working it felt like we were getting a nice 10 minute match, but quick Bryan interference and a schoolboy later, and we were out. Shame, as this was going along great. I didn't think Nakamura was putting too much  effort into the tag opposite Drew last week, but here they were really jelling. Nakamura started with some nice grounded knees (and later went back for an even better one while working a choke) and I was into the ways he was staying on Gulak. Gulak hit the John Woo dropkick and Nakamura sprawled to the floor, and hooked Gulak's leg, and upending Gulak on the apron. As they got back in Gulak snared him in a couple dragon screws as Nak was stepping through the ropes, and it just felt like they were setting up some cool stuff for a longer match. Nakamura seemed ready for a good match, loved his leaping knee off the top and the way he forced his forearm into Gulak's throat on a guillotine. However, a schoolboy finish after interference to end a cool match is almost as satisfying as finding a pube in a meal you were enjoying.

Oney Lorcan vs. Tony Nese 205 Live 3/27/20

ER: This was the best of the three matches we were given this week, which makes sense as this one actually got some time. Nese has been slowly getting more focused in-ring and has dropped a lot of those disconnected athletic combo spots, and I have to imagine being in the ring with guys like Lorcan, Kendrick, or even Mike Kanellis has benefitted him. For much of his run he's been paired with more athletic flier types and that just begets a looped series of mirror reversal backflip spots. Against a guy like Lorcan, instead of seeing mirror reversals, we get battles over tight headscissors and body vices. That is far more interesting to me, as it cuts off Nese's excesses. Lorcan is really good at doing compelling things with a headscissors and Nese has strong thighs and knows how to make a body vice look really painful. Whenever Nese tries to snap of some kicks, Lorcan is right there with big chops and hard uppercuts, and when Nese gets lulled into playing Lorcan's ground game he winds up getting punished with some ground and pound. Nese is a big bumper so he'll always take Lorcan's blockbuster right on his neck, and I thought it was really smart the way they built to Nese's bigger flourishes. Nese flipped out of Lorcan's half nelson suplex and hit him in the throat to set up his springboard moonsault, tosses Lorcan rudely into the turnbuckles with a German suplex, and nails him with a running knee. I don't quite trust him with guys who are like 2016-2019 Tony Nese, but this is a guy growing as a wrestler, and Lorcan is a great guide. I dug all of this.

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WWE Big 3: Lorcan, Gallagher, Gulak 3/15-3/21/20

Drew Gulak/Daniel Bryan vs. Cesaro/Shinsuke Nakamura WWE Smackdown 3/20/20

ER: There's a chance this match was as long as every Smackdown match, combined, Gulak has been in since "leaving" 205 Live last year. This was good, but it felt like Nakamura was throwing the timing off a bit. I know why they didn't have Sami Zayn in the match, as they were building to a Bryan/Zayn singles match and part of me appreciates the distance that comes with having Zayn hold the belt, but Zayn in Nakamura's place would have fit so much stronger. Nak isn't someone who is going to go out and work hard every show (or, well, most shows), and you put him out there with no audience to play off? Yeah, he's not likely to show up. He barely showed up on Bryan's tope, leaning as far out of that thing as possible without moving entirely out of Bryan's way. He's better when it's just simply keeping Bryan away from Gulak, and that happens when Cesaro catches Bryan on a top rope crossbody and slams him with a backbreaker, drops him with a couple suplexes, and I like it more when Gulak and Nakamura get back in with each other. Cesaro and Nak working over Gulak was good, especially dug Cesaro's big flapjack into an uppercut. Nak actually takes a German from Gulak and we get a fun spot of Nakamura going for a triangle out of the Gu-Lock (but submission trading in WWE is almost guaranteed to come off underwhelming after I watched the entire WXW Ambition show yesterday), and I liked Gulak's discus lariat on him. The finish felt abrupt, with Bryan tagging in and getting a sunset flip on Cesaro, but I can't complain too much. Gulak is in an actual cool program and he couldn't be associated with anyone better than Bryan.

Oney Lorcan vs. Isaiah Scott 205 Live 3/20/20

ER: This was good, but really any Lorcan match given 10 minutes is going to be good. I was hoping this was going to be mostly Lorcan forcing Scott into working a Lorcan match, but Lorcan is too generous so I knew we would build to a long run of Scott match. So, it was going to be up to how well mapped out Scott's offense was and how nicely Lorcan ran into it. But I do get a little of what I want, as Lorcan grounds Scott in cool ways for the first long stretch. Lorcan can do a lot of interesting things around driving his knee into pressure points, fires off some nice chops and back elbows (I liked how Scott recoiled from the chops, turning his body away from them so that Lorcan had to open that chest back up to smack him more), and Lorcan starts focusing on the knee, starting with a mean dragon screw while Scott was coming back through the ropes. Now, there's obviously a problem when you opt to do focused limb work in an Isaiah Scott match, because there is next to zero chance that he will acknowledge that limb work in any way once he goes into Scott offense. And once Scott did start going on offense - and this is a problem I have with Scott matches in general - there's always a sense of inevitability. He's not great at making it look like his opponent is still in the match, he merely endures some offense until it's time to go into full Swerve mode. Lorcan upends himself on a Scott lariat, flies to the floor on a superkick, takes a Flatliner nicely, you know all the things that Lorcan is clearly great at doing. I wish things didn't feel so inevitable halfway through, but  just like that Gulak match up above, I can't complain about 10 minute Oney Lorcan matches.

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WWE Big 3: Lorcan, Gallagher, Gulak 3/8-3/14/20

Brian Kendrick/Jack Gallagher/Mike Kanellis/Ariya Daivari/Tony Nese vs. Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch/Tyler Breeze/Isaiah Scott/Kushida 205 Live 3/13/20

ER: There is some weird 205 curse where none of the guys know how to lay out even the most normal gimmick match. This is a match with 10 guys ranging from Capable to Actually Great, and I have no doubt it would have been much better had they just worked a standard 5 on 5 match. Instead it is an elimination match, and 205 Live just cannot do gimmick matches. Some of the worst matches I've seen on the show have been normally cool things like No DQ matches, where the guys force themselves into a format while seemingly intentionally playing against their strengths. And this match would have at least been amusing had I gotten a graphic that said "205 Live vs. NXT: Playing Against Their Strengths". Also, you book a weird invasion elimination match, and you make the team representing 205 Live the heels? I don't get it. There's nobody in the building anyway, you aren't playing to any fans, why wouldn't the home team at least be the good guys? I would have been interested in people like Kushida and Lorcan coming in and working like invading assholes, but that would be something that would mix it up a bit, and this needed to be a dry elimination match.

I don't know what it is with most elimination matches, but we always get plenty of guys eliminated due to things they would normally never get pinned by. So obviously you know this match had a ton of roll up and small package finishes after someone took 0-1 moves. It is the way of the elimination match. Most of these guys disappear without making any kind of impression: Kendrick goes down to a late small package after being almost entirely uninvolved in the match, same thing for Tyler Breeze; Kanellis had a great showing last week, goes down to a quick roll up this week; Nese had one of his most interesting showings in awhile teaming with Kanellis last week, here he gets put down quick. There were some nice individual moments, but nothing that added up to anything close to a good match. Burch turning and hitting a headbutt on the interfering Sunil Singh looked cool, and we at least got a tiny bit of Jack Gallagher showcase. Gallagher hasn't been on TV for 3 months, returns sporting scrimshaw tattoos (I'm not really one to judge tattoos; I don't plan on getting any more beyond my Violent J left shoulder tattoo and my Shaggy 2 Dope right shoulder tattoo, but I will say that scrimshaw clipper ship ink on a pale body looks much better than a Blue Lives Matter looking ass neck tattoo), but even then his return is more of a cruel tease do to the match layout. He goes at it with Lorcan (which is actually a criminally unseen pairing, with no singles matches and only sparse interactions in a couple doofus matches like these) but it gets shut down quick with a cool Gallagher rolling elbow. Gallagher also took a great backdrop bump to the floor, but really wasn't in there long. This all felt designed to be a Kushida/Scott showcase, but I'm not really buying what those two are showcasing. This match was another example of breaking something that was already fixed nicely. Nobody came out of this match looking good.

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WWE Big 3: Lorcan, Gallagher, Gulak 3/1-3/7/20

Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch vs. Kyle O'Reilly/Bobby Fish NXT 3/4

ER: I thought the first minute of this was pretty dumb, one of those four man strike exchanges where someone hits a chop and the others all stand around reeling until someone else hits a forearm and the other three stand around reeling. They mixed up that kind of thing more interestingly than it typically looks, but when the ceiling of a spot is "pretty dumb" you're just throwing good money after bad. But once O'Reilly and Fish spilled to the floor and Lorcan hit a double blockbuster off the ring steps, I was into this the rest of the way. We built to an early and good Burch hot tag, and some of Burch's best work is on quick hot tags (Lorcan rubbing off on him?), and I like the twist of a hot tag leading to Burch getting separated from Lorcan. Burch hits hard on straight rights and uppercuts, and I dug Fish and O'Reilly holding him back with bullshit. O'Reilly would get on him and just slap and palm strike him, drop short knees, nothing that was going to finish him but just slowly grind him down at the farthest spot from his corner. Fish was really good from the apron, great little moment with him hooking Burch by the trunks and yanking him back to their corner. Of course we built to Lorcan's big hot tag, him flying horizontally with uppercuts, hitting the blockbuster, throwing heavy chops, hitting a big tope con giro on both guys at once. I like how we got to see Lorcan taking on both guys throughout the match with moves he usually only hits on one guy, and then moments later it's over. I was really satisfied with the sudden finish, as we had seen Lorcan going up against both men at once and having nothing but success, and it made sense that luck would run out. Back in the ring post-tope Lorcan was running buckle to buckle with elbows, and just like that he was taken out by a legsweep/elbow combo. I could have stood a couple more minutes of this, but like how the finish played out.


Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch vs. Tony Nese/Mike Kanellis 205 Live 3/6

ER: We've been getting a lot of Burch/Lorcan tags on TV lately, often getting two per week so far in 2020, and I like how they rarely feel the same. Lorcan and Burch always mix up who is hot tag and who gets heat (and really the way to mix up their matches at this point would be to have them as the team in control), and this was another fun pairing. Lorcan and Burch work a lot of atomic drops, and work in cool spots like sending a Nese tope right into Kanellis on the floor (basically sidestepping Nese in ring and sending him matadoring into Kanellis). Nese may be at his best as part of a heel tag team, and now that 205 Live is 30 minutes we likely won't get any more 18 minute Nese epics. Nese and Kanellis together on paper didn't do much for me, but the execution was much more interesting, and Kanellis is a good odd couple pairing. The two of them don't have similar movesets in the least, but they complement each other well. Kanellis looked really good here, with a great straight right, some buckled knee selling on multiple atomic drops (there were both inverted and regular atomic drops here, which made me realize how seldom those are used anymore), and it's clear that he's a real good hand who has been underutilized. I'm here for the 2020 Kanellisance. Nese straight up dunks Lorcan's throat over the top rope, and I dug Lorcan's staggered sell across the length of ring ropes after Nese missed the follow up moonsault. Kanellis and Nese take Burch's DDT really well, and I love their finisher: Nese holding Burch up for a powerslam, Kanellis leaping off the middle buckle with a knee right to Burch's head, into the Nese powerslam. I wouldn't mind seeing a series with these teams, which is not something I expected to find myself typing about a Tony Nese match.

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