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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2020 Ongoing MOTY List: Drake vs. Jake

14. Drake Maverick vs. Jake Atlas NXT 4/22

ER: I love when a match sneaks up on me and gets me hooked. Here was a match between a non-tendered employee who hasn't approached being an active wrestler for 3 years, and a west coast indy guy who has never stood out to me. But this was a fabulous Drake Maverick performance, easily his best over his WWE tenure, ironically coming while he is not technically employed and seemingly independently working his own "fighting for my job" angle. And what made all of this work for me is that he clearly worked the match as a man who was fighting for his job, trying to be noticed, breaking out all the stops. It's shocking how often a match structure doesn't come close to matching up with an angle or a character's motivation, but here's Drake working his first televised match in half a year, breaking out every trick he knows and duping Atlas into staying one step behind. They establish early that Jake is going to control whenever he gets to use his size advantage, so Drake throws everything into overdrive and forces Atlas to attempt to catch up. Drake starts shooting for takedowns, throws a couple snapping leg kicks, manages to rana him to the floor, really using speed and leverage to stay ahead.

The whole match was worked basically 90/10 Maverick, and it fully worked because Maverick is so small that even while ahead it's always clear that it wouldn't take much to put him behind, and the few times he got caught was all Atlas really needed. So Atlas catches him with a backbreaker, Drake goes back to being one step ahead and lets Atlas run himself into the post, and that's when Maverick brings back more kicks and hard uppercuts. It really felt like Maverick was gaining speed and strength as the match went on, running circles around Atlas and constantly mixing up his attack. Here's a cool tequila sunrise attempt, here's a tope that connects, here's a great top rope elbow that lands hard on the collarbones, and I love how it all changed in an instant. The final stretch was really well done, and once Atlas countered the sliced bread I got the distinct impression that Maverick's luck had run out. But I loved Drake fighting back with palm strikes, and as he went for that last desperation rana you just knew that Atlas was going to hold on and refuse to go over. That cartwheel DDT was a nasty exclamation point of a finish, and if this had turned out to be Maverick's WWE in ring swan song, it would have been pretty great to go out on such a fantastic, focused babyface performance.

PAS: This was surprisingly good for a match between two guys I haven't really rated before. I liked all of the minor key selling in this match. It wasn't worked bodypart vs. bodypart, but both guys would sell little tweaks well. Atlas grimaces and holds his knee after a spinning backbreaker, Maverick checks his jawbone after a superkick, it really put over the violence of the match. Atlas is really athletic and made his evasion stuff at the beginning look good, when that stuff will often look awful. Maverick wrestled the match with real desperation, and even though the whole angle was gross, he clearly has a place in the WWE. It is too bad Atlas couldn't have busted that cartwheel DDT out in front of a crowd, it is a real holy shit spot and gives him something that stands out amongst a roster full of junior sized guys.


2020 MOTY MASTER LIST

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