NXT TakeOver: Stand and Deliver Night One 4/7/21

NXT has been my favorite mainstream wrestling program of 2021, so I figured why not check out their two night TakeOver special, despite being a few weeks behind on programming and not actually knowing anything that is on the card. Will I be rewarded for going into this blind? We'll see!

Pete Dunne vs. Kushida

ER: This was a real nice fast pace for a show opener, and also, I hated most of it! I really, really hated most of the offense that made up this entire match, a match filled with arm break and finger break spots without a single moment of somebody selling an arm or finger injury. Dunne tossed out so many finger break spots that were used to transition Kushida immediately back to offense, just an incredibly stupid usage of an already stupidly used spot. They traded arm break spots, and every time they did, all that happened was the other one would then do their own arm break spot right after. The match threatened a few times to go to interesting places, but since no move in the match was ever sold seriously, those interesting places became only "what ifs". Kushida was really good at setting up Dunne's offense, took a big suplex on the apron too, but it's like they had some odd agreement that once one got to do a move, then the other could get up and immediately take back over with his own move. There was one compelling nearfall, where I thought a Kushida small package might have ended it early, but maybe that was me in hindsight just wishing that had ended things early. This was a lot of fast movement that lead absolutely nowhere, and everything was run through so quickly that I guarantee none of it will be remembered in a day. 

Gauntlet Match

ER: I don't really like gauntlet matches where guys enter on a time limit rather than after an elimination. It never plays to anyone's strengths, too many guys have to disappear when things get too clogged, and they're never as satisfying as just a trios match would have been. Hell, give me a couple of singles matches between any of these guys, guarantee it will be better than a timed gauntlet match. Nobody in this got much time to map out anything interesting, as a Ruff/Scott singles match could have been a really cool 8 minutes, as soon enough it was two guys bumping for Bronson Reed and ignoring everything that had happened in their own match, and that's how these things go. Pretty soon you have guys no selling spots because they need to be in position for the next chain spot, so Isaiah Scott gets flipped inside out with a Reed clothesline, but is back hitting a meh superkick on Grimes 4 seconds later because that's how the move chaining works. A gauntlet match like this is really great at making six guys all come out looking worse, either by getting pinned way earlier than they should have been (Grimes, Lumis), or having to rush through your routine because everyone else is fighting for attention. Even a silly 6 man multiman would have worked better than a new guy awkwardly integrating himself into the match every few minutes, but the format we got is not conducive to a good match for anyone involved. Did LA Knight need to be in this? Did Lumis? Just a poorly laid out idea all around. 

7. Tommaso Ciampa vs. WALTER

ER: THIS was more like it, just a big throwing bomb fest that was more than just bombs. This never felt like two guys out there trying to get This Is Awesome chants, it felt like an actual big main event title match, with one guy the clear underdog who was going to take as much punishment for as long as he possibly could. WALTER and Ciampa both turned in great performances, with WALTER turning in a ton of appropriate selling and Ciampa actually working like a guy with a size disadvantage, always feeling like a guy hanging on who MAYBE had an outside chance of winning the belt. I loved how the worked in some vulnerabilities for WALTER, and having him hurt his hand by overhand chopping the announce table in half is a great way to set up a hand injury. WALTER was super punishing with his offense, all of his kicks really found their way right underneath Ciampa's chin, and he was able to be punishing while not forgetting about what happened to his hand (something that nobody else on TakeOver has been able to do). 

WALTER's best bit of selling was when he was taking a dozen lariats from Ciampa, as it's incredibly difficult to sell on your feet while waiting for someone to hit you repeatedly, yet I thought he made it look fantastic. Ciampa's lariats weren't strong enough to put the big man down, but I liked how they knocked him into the ropes, loved how he stumbled before getting turned around, loved how the next one hit him in the back of the head and made him fall into the ropes for a bit, thought he turned what could have been an extended silly moment into an excellent stubborn refusal to go down and save himself from more punishment. Ciampa is a real hard chopper, and WALTER's chest was getting nicely purple by the end of this, and the harder Ciampa hit, the harder it made WALTER come at him with full force lariats and straight kicks. WALTER's powerbombs looked great too, and I loved how he was using his weight and size to just try to hold Ciampa to the mat. I loved the spot where WALTER hopped onto Ciampa and almost tricked Ciampa into bridging up on his neck, that extra bit of temerity that seemed immediately like a bad idea, and lead directly to WALTER crushing him back on their feet. Ciampa's selling down the stretch was great too, barely escaping out of a rolling powerbomb, dead man walking getting back to his feet when he clearly shouldn't have been standing, only to be put down for good with one last chop. Several guys on NXT have really taken a lot of the stupid melodrama out of their selling and it has only made these title match epics sing. With no bullshit morality acting or shocked kickout faces, the matches seem far more streamlined and intense. 

PAS: I thought this was a good stiff match, which flirted with great, but didn't get there. I thought the spot with WALTER smashing the table with a chop was a clever idea, executed well and really gave the match some structure. WALTER did a great job of selling constantly trying to adjust his attack with that probably broken hand. I also thought the multiple lariat spot was clever, although I really wish they looked better. It would have been a bigger deal if WALTER had kept standing with a dozen hard lariats, rather then just standing through a dozen B- ones. I thought the finish run had the problems that these matches often have, where they ended a couple of beats too late. The actual finishing spot looked way less nasty than the couple that proceeded it, and it came off flat. I would have liked the match a lot more if it ended on the powerbomb. Still for this style of match it had some real highs, and I enjoyed lots of it. 

MSK vs. Raul Mendoza/Joaquin Wilde vs. Grizzled Young Veterans

ER: I thought the Dusty Classic (Men's and Women's) was really good, tons of memorable matches and really made me want a legit focused tag division. This tag three way was everything the earlier match with six people wasn't, a super fun tag with a few surprising spots and a quick pace, felt more like a tag you'd see on early 2000s Jersey All Pro, and I can't think of a bigger wrestling compliment I could give over the past 20 years. Just like on those old JAPW tapes, I'd spend entire matches constantly switching who my favorite was, made me just root for all of them and seek out more. You'd flip for a big Ghost Shadow bump, then flip for the Hit Squad crushing Azrieal, then lose it for Rainchild. It was a roster I loved through and through, and everyone worked well together. I have a feeling this would have played well at the Bayonne Charity Hall. Wes Lee had this section where he was throwing out spin kick combos and leg sweeps as everyone in the match attacked like a ninja, then he pasted Gibson with a hard hitting tope, and followed that up with a huge tope con giro on Legado del Fantasma. Mendoza and Wilde are great at getting into position for things like that, and I like how they played kind of a lower key highspot role so MSK could shine with their cool double teams. Wilde stuck to hard corner clotheslines, Mendoza stuck to high dropkicks, a missile dropkick to break up a submission, and both took crazy spots on the floor to help get over the other teams. Wilde took a flat out insane looking Doomsday Device, with Drake running off the ramp to send Wilde to the floor, and Mendoza took basically a safer Burning Hammer on the floor with a slingshot double stomp from Lee to kick it off. The MSK "best buds stuff fighting for their dream" stuff can get a little hammy (though it would probably be fine if only they weren't constantly talking about it on commentary, but this is the kind of tag match you put on to show off that your tag division is really cool right now. 

Raquel Gonzalez vs. Io Shirai

ER: This was the complete opposite of what I thought it was going to be, worked totally different from what I was expecting, and I loved it. I thought this would be Gonzalez dominating, with Shirai coming back in not belieavable ways and pinning Raquel with a bad moonsault. Instead, it was somehow Shirai taking 90% of the match, which on paper sounds preposterous to me. But Raquel Gonzalez is getting really good, and it kind of snuck up on me. She is a really strong base, and not just in the kind of way that someone so much larger and taller than their opponents should be. She was so good at taking Shirai's offense and so great at setting all of it up, all of it building nicely to each stage of the match, that it felt like Shirai was organically keeping not just one step ahead of Gonzalez, but believably dominating her. They were really smart about how much offense Gonzalez took, having her block several ranas, avoid Shirai's rope feint kicks, and it was the only way this was going to work. Shirai just doing nothing but offense for 90% of the match would have come off brainless, but with Gonzalez fending off much of it, it just made Shirai come off as relentless. Dakota Kai's interference and immediate dismissal came at a good time, and I like how all it did was stop a Shirai moonsault, not turn the tide for Gonzalez. It was super impressive how they kept Shirai in control and Gonzalez staggering, but I really got into it. Gonzalez kicking out of the moonsault felt like a big deal, and the crossbody off the entrance ramp looked like a deranged Shirai throwing her body harder and harder into the monster that won't stay down. I thought it was great how suddenly Gonzalez took over, nailing Shirai with a great low cut clothesline that resulted in Shirai hitting one of her best moonsaults (this clothesline could not have flipped her over harder on her stomach). I'm really happy for Raquel's title win. There really wasn't anything left for Shirai to do as champ, and Gonzalez is someone intriguing to have on top against a bunch of interesting babyface contenders. I had this match in my head as something very different than what we got, and I'm glad, because I loved what we got here. 

ER: Those first two matches really stunk, and I was starting to regret the idea of doing this show the night of. But WALTER/Ciampa (it landed on our 2021 Ongoing MOTY List) was great and the show never slowed down from there, thought the last three matches of the night stand up next to any three match run from any TakeOver. 

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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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NXT TakeOver 31 Live (Until 49ers) Blog 10/4/20

I'll level with you, this card does not excite me. Phil asked me yesterday if there was anyone I even liked currently wrestling in NXT, and I actually had to think about who that would be. The brand is really stale to me right now, and the few people I have been still tuning in for are not even on this show. The brand was great when there was frequent promotion turnover, but ever since it began being promoted as its own thing it has stagnated and seemingly run out of ideas. Maybe guys on the roster realize things have been blah, maybe they take this opportunity to put on a show that will get people talking. I don't care one iota about the AEW/NXT online feud, but maybe a few of the guys on this show DO care about it and want the internet to buzz about it for a few days. Or, maybe it will be the uninteresting show that it looks like on paper, and I will only have myself to blame.

Also I saw HHH called this new performance center something like "The ultimate heavy metal soundstage" and I am curious see what that means. From Damian Priest's entrance it looks like they have a large tron and a screen wrapping the lengths of at least a couple sides of the room. I'm more excited that there are at least some people (in masks) around the hockey rink baseball backstop like guardrail shields. We still have the home viewer screens in the majority of the crowd, but down front is actual people, and it's good having actual people there. On commentary is Sebastian Gorka.


Damian Priest vs. Johnny Gargano

ER: I don't think Priest is a bad wrestler, in that I think he has the tools to be a compelling wrestler, but he would have to be completely broken down and retrained to not be 2020 Edge. Like Edge, Priest is someone who loves to work even sized with small guys, and it comes off like a large dog who doesn't understand that he's a large dog and gets bossed around by tiny aggressive dogs. Priest is 6'5 and 250, similar size to Edge, and yet he works matches like he's a bad version of Billy Kidman working Ultimo Dragon. And I do not like this match. It came off like a modern update of a Lance Storm/Jerry Lynn match from ECW. 20 years ago that was a match and match type that felt fresh and was done well by then. But it's not a style I want to see in 2020. There are other things from that era that I'd rather seen updated than that specific counter based evenly worked style with some extra shitty If-Nova-Was-Taller embellishments from Priest. Priest's tope con hilo looked good, and a couple of the reversals do work, Gargano takes a hard powerbomb on the apron, and a couple of the nearfalls were effectively placed, and Gargano's low blow kick leading right to the finish looked great, but overall I just didn't like this.

Velveteen Dream vs. Kushida

ER: Dream is dressed like Doc Brown to counter Kushida's McFly, which sounds like something I'd shit on but it's also a fact that I went to a high school dance as George McFly. It was a Hollywood theme dance and you were supposed to come as a celebrity or movie character, and I had found a neat vintage suit jacket at the Salvation Army, and a character with big nerdy black glasses was easy for me to aim for. Now, I suppose I was also 16 years old, and not a grown man playing cosplay dress up as one of my last appearances before pressure mounts to have me punished for being a nonce, so I think I can still shit on Dream.

But I thought their match was really good, albeit perhaps a bit too long. The chemistry between them was stronger than I expected, and the strength was that there was an impressive (and unexpected) amount of struggle to everything that happened, so no parts of it felt like a competitive partners dance. Kushida kept going after that arm for the hoverboard lock, and I liked his tenacity. Dream kept using energy to fight back in cool ways, like refusing to go down on drop toehold and making Kushida work for moves like that. It looks so much cooler when Dream struggles and fights before getting dragged down, makes all of Kushida's passes look fought for and earned. I loved how Kushida rolled through to an armlock after finally getting the drop toehold. There was a lot like that, and Kushida built to some vicious stuff like kicking the ring steps while Dream's arm was pinned between stairs and ring, or catching Dream in various triangles that always felt important. This had the feel of a match that was writing Dream off for a bit, which is a thing that I think will only continue to be demanded. The finish felt like a big FU but a cool finish, with Kushida taking working the arm and Dream powering to his feet for a dream valley driver, only Kushida doesn't let go of the arm and gets the immediate tap. Kushida attacked him too long after the match though, and Dream was doing this weird theatrical screaming and crying. It felt like Kushida turning heel and them making Dream a sympathetic babyface, but I hope that's not what they're doing. I hope it was them just writing Dream off TV. We'll see I guess.

Isaiah "Swerve" Scott vs. Santos Escobar

ER: This had a lot of moments I liked even though I think a lot of Scott's embellishments are really annoying. The match really came alive when Scott hit a one man dive train, and that Fosbury Flop was a cool highlight of that. I like Escobar's stable and would like to see them do things other than feud with Scott, but this match felt like the best case scenario for the pairing. Scott's big stuff looked good (one of Escobar's strengths is taking offense, and that shines here) and Escobar got to plaster Scott with his great tope. This one also could have used an editor, as I think it would have been more effective under 15 minutes, but I also think they did a good job at filling those 15 minutes. Ashante Adonis came back for (I believe) the first time in NXT since his name change from Tehuti Miles, and I could see him having fun matches on this roster. He's a guy who is low on offense, but works a similar style to other offense deprived wrestlers who I enjoy (i.e. cruiserweight Stevie Richards is more interesting to me than Isaiah Scott). I'm glad Escobar retained and would love to see his group presented as an actual threat, even pushed to the level of Undisputed Era.

Candice LeRae vs. Io Shirai

ER: I think this one had the right energy and built in a nice exciting way, but the Wife Guy Johnny stuff coming out for the finish and bumping around like he was on a trampoline while making shocked Gargano face was something the match really didn't need. The ref bump to set up the Gargano new referee silliness was inventive and fun, with Shirai eating knees on a moonsault and letting her momentum carry over and basically Pele kick the ref. The ref bounces to the floor and LeRae's curb stomp looked really gross, mashing Shirai's face into the mat. I think the Johnny stuff really took away from all the drama they had built in the match, as it came off cartoony in a way that the match hadn't been. I liked Candice here more than I did the last time these two had a big singles match (last year at TakeOver Toronto). She kept taking me out of that match with weird selling and getting into position too early for Shirai, and she worked this better as an aggressive heel. I don't think Shirai was as strong in this one as that one, but she made the big moments count and took offense nicely. Still, I thought some of the 50/50 stuff in the middle lost track of things, and then when they won me back Gargano took me back out of things, plus the finish looked a little ugly. Toni Storm and Ember Moon returned in two different post match segments, but it's really weird to bring back two people to the same division in segments immediately following each other. It kind of lessens the impact of both, although I can't deny that Toni Storm is a welcome return. Anything that gets a little less Tegan Nox blandness off the weekly show.

Kyle O'Reilly vs. Finn Balor

ER: Watching this one got delayed by me watching a mildly crushing 49ers loss, with an uninspiring Nick Mullens performance paving the way for an exciting but ultimately futile comeback from CJ Beathard. George Kittle is a more fun to watch wrestler than anybody on TakeOver tonight. I want to see Timothy Thatcher work a shoot style match with Kittle, based around Thatcher being unable to take down Kittle but being persistent about it. Brandon Aiyuk hit a ridiculous leapfrog hurdle for a touchdown, the coolest and best utilized leapfrog spot I've seen tonight. But the Niners lost and this match will now lift my spirits.

And this one won me over early, overcoming it's NXT Main Event Epic Drama layout with compelling selling and nice targeted attacks. Kyle O'Reilly put on one of his strongest singles match performances that I've seen, coming off like Bryan Danielson working like a 2001 NJPW kickpads junior. We get the cool story of O'Reilly exacerbating a Balor shoulder injury early, leaving him susceptible to a near match ending attack on a different limb. Both guys hit the strikes and offense harder the longer the match goes, justifying the overly long near half hour match length. It felt like things really ramped up throughout and never skipped ahead at any points. O'Reilly has a cool set of rolling double underhook suplexes and some knees, but gets a rib kicked in by a great solebutt and then run sternum first into the turnbuckles. From here on out O'Reilly is gamely selling a rib injury and while it was dramatic I also thought it was effective. O'Reilly had a couple of big comebacks (I especially loved him dumping Balor with a real high bridged Regalplex on Balor's neck) but Balor did cool things like work an actual persuasive abdominal stretch and stomp the hell out of O'Reilly's guts.

Both guys bleed from the mouth, and there's some some strong camera shots of O'Reilly stuck in a nice sharpshooter while blood cuts down his cheek. They also do some nice close up magic, as the closest the camera ever got to an O'Reilly knee strike it happened to be the hardest knee strike he hit all night. Finn stomps him in the ribs more, and O'Reilly fights back with a cool standing guillotine that looked nice and snug. O'Reilly played well as a lower rung FUTEN guy who hangs for 13 minutes against Katsumi Usuda. O'Reilly catches Balor with a couple of dragon screws over the ropes, and then hits a totally killer kneedrop off the top rope directly onto the back of Balor's thigh. O'Reilly's kneebar he locks on is some righteous Volk Han shit. He really twists and bend the ankle and when Balor tries to kick him away he grabs that leg and twists it violently over Balor's other leg. The kneebar was so good it made me suddenly start rooting for O'Reilly to win the title here, wanting Finn to tap. That kneebar got me Immediately invested in seeing a specific result, made me spontaneously root for a guy I've never been super high on, and that kind of moment is special. Balor doesn't tap, and he does finally make the ropes no matter how much I wanted him to tap. And, somewhat disappointingly, while his double stomps to finally slam the window shut on O'Reilly's ribs looked really great, I wish more respect was paid to the tendon damage that kneebar should have caused. Even so, I think the double stomps were a fitting end to the match and worked well in context. This was an unexpectedly strong main event within a style I don't adore, building to actual drama and justifying the overly long runtime with some stiff work.

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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 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 3/15-3/21/20

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 12/22-12/28 + Bonus Lorcan

NXT 12/20 (Aired 12/25/19)

Jack Gallagher vs. Isaiah Scott

ER: I really appreciate what Gallagher did here, as this was a super selfless 15 minutes where he basically offers to give Scott 13 of those minutes, while finding interesting ways to get into Scott's overly complicated offense. Scott's offense often feels like he's doing a straight faced imitation of 2007 Chris Hero doing overly complicated athletic Jersey All Pro spots to confuse Japanese audiences. Scott saw a NOAH match of Hero's and liked the idea of doing a back handspring into a tuck and roll into an elbowdrop. And here's Gallagher, finding interesting ways to set up an Eliminators showcase. Most Scott matches are no different than those Eliminators showcases, where they wouldn't know how to get their opponents naturally into position for their complicated double teams so they would just move them as if their opponents were mannequins and then do the move. Scott requires opponents to take a lot of walks and turn a lot of unnatural directions just to get into position for the move, and Gallagher might have been the best I've seen at doing so. Gallagher was finding interesting twists to set up Scott's convoluted horse shit, like taking a huge backdrop bump to the floor that was to set up Scott's punt from the apron, and instead of rushing right back into place to get kicked in the face, Gallagher instead looked disoriented, heading the opposite way of Scott to see nobody was there, only to turn around and take the kick to the head. He threw two different turns into the spot that most wouldn't take the time to do, and that's what sets Gallagher apart from others. Gallagher spent the match doing little things like that, setting up offense across the ring because that's where he had to be to take Scott's stupid flipping cutter, trying to work a standing armbar so that Scott could show off a strong backbreaker, really the whole match felt like Gallagher was trying to get his buddy noticed, and that kind of selfless behavior should just make sure Gallagher himself gets noticed. He had some great individual stuff, loved the nearfall he got off the rebound headbutt, and couldn't help but admire the way he flew hard into every single landing. For his part, Scott paid occasional lip service to a sore shoulder he got from being tossed into the turnbuckle, but it sure didn't seem to slow him down any.


NXT 4/10 (Aired 5/1/19)

Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch/Humberto Carrillo vs. Jaxson Ryker/Wesley Blake/Steve Cutler

ER: This ruled!! Forgotten Sons are a team I really dig who don't seem to get much praise. I'm not sure why that is. Lorcan starts this whole thing off by throwing his body into the Sons like only Lorcan can do, throws big chops, and smashes Blake with an uppercut that sends him to the floor  (with a great bump). Jaxson Ryker has a stupid name, but the guy has always been better than he's ever given credit for. He comes off like a wild eyed psycho leader of a gang, and that's exactly how he should be coming off. He bumps big (his fast bump through the ropes looked like it would have caused a muscle tear) but hits back twice as hard, and I love how Cutler and Blake do his dirty work while he comes in to finish the job. Cutler may take a big floating armdrag from Carrillo, but he doesn't even see it coming when Ryker catches him with a spinebuster. I like Ryker's hammer fist ground and pound and loves how he balances the roles of opportunist and sadist. Blake and Cutler are real fun flunkies, love their tandem hiptoss that flattened Carrillo over the middle rope, love how they stooge around and bump for Burch's big hot tag, love how they get clobbered when Lorcan flies into them with a tope con giro, they're just fun. The Sons run some misdirection and Carrillo accidentally hits Lorcan with a dive (sending Lorcan sprawling up the entrance), and we get a great final walking tall moment where Burch is left alone in the ring with all three Sons. Burch fights them valiantly before falling to the numbers game, and we are left with a 7 minute match that told several stories, never slowed up, and showed a cohesive and untapped team in the Forgotten Sons. This match aired almost 8 months ago, and Ryker has had only 4 TV matches since. Stupid. How long until The Big 3 is just me writing about Forgotten Sons matches?

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WWE Big 3: Lorcan, Gallagher, Gulak 8/18 - 8/24

205 Live 8/20

Drew Gulak/Ariya Daivari/Angel Garza/Mike Kanellis/Tony Nese vs. Oney Lorcan/Jack Gallagher/Akira Tozawa/Humberto Carrillo/Isaiah Scott

PAS: 205 Live is such a weird show, some random Tuesday they just run a 50 minute 10 man elimination match where they place a ton of focus on a guy who hadn’t even been on the show before. I don’t get it, but I dig it. I am not sure if anyone is watching this show, but this felt like a star making performance for Angel Garza. I was a big Hector Garza fan and Angel really felt like he was channeling his Uncle, just a rudo masterclass, big bumps, great basing for high flyers and some great smarmy cheap shots. I also continue to really enjoy Davari as he is committed to being a wholly unlikeable prick. Gallagher had more of a cameo in this match, I dug the opening spot with him passing out umbrellas for his teammates to do dives, but otherwise he goes out early. We get lots of Lorcan and Gulak including some cool interactions with each other, Lorcan throws maybe the nastiest back elbow I can remember to Gulak, and Gulak snapping and working over Lorcan with the chair was really well done. I also dug both guys apron work, hyping up the rest of their team. This did have a Nese vs. Swerve Scott section which was about as bad as it appears on paper, but mainly this was a super cool idea, and I am glad it exists.

ER: I am fully embracing the weirdness of 205 Live, it's really a show I've come to get excited for again. I've been on quite a rollercoaster with the whole 205 Live run. I loved the first tournament, was excited when it became a weekly show (and we even intended to write up the show every week, but it was uninteresting enough that the idea only lasted 3 episodes), then I didn't watch it at all for like a year (probably some nice gems scattered throughout that first year or so), then began watching scattered looking for the occasional Gulak match, and now here I am back to being excited to see it weekly again. They keep giving guys a different platform and really let them stretch out. I think they let them stretch out too much some of the time, but there's no doubt it's an awesome learning tool and has created some of the coolest matches of the year. Now we get a show long match that's longer than most guys have ever worked on WWE TV.

And I didn't even really love the match. It had some great segments, it had some awful segments, but damn did I love having it on while I ate a late lunch on a Saturday. This played out like a cool wrestling mixtape, something that would interest casual fans, something that would play well at a bar in that way that some bars throw on a weird movie with the sound turned off while the band is playing, or something that would be nice to have on while friends are over and most of the people are more interested in talking than watching wrestling (but like looking up and commenting when a cool spot catches their eye). It's like when NOAH was running those Captain's Fall Elimination matches, and it yielded some classics, and at minimum always yielded a match that was fun to have on in the background. So while I didn't love this, it's something that would be awesome to know is a possibility.

Hell, WWE should just run a 1 hour weekly show called Wrestling Mixtape, and just let whatever combination of guys want to work an hour long match, work that match. Seriously, make 8 spots available for each week's match, and let whatever 8 guys wanted to work the match, work the match. It would be a cool way to get TV time, but with the caveat that you might have to be one of the guys in the match for 45+ minutes. Maybe there are guys on the roster who would want the exposure, but wouldn't want to risk being exposed in a long match. Presumably more than 8 guys would want to sign up, so you'd have a bunch of guys to rotate through and keep the match-ups fresh. WWE's Wrestling Mixtape is an idea I am selling myself on even more the longer I type about it.

And this was a cool wrestling mixtape! It would have been much better if you switched around the order of eliminations (if there's a 50 minute match, I don't want Gallagher or Tozawa going out first when Tony Nese and Isaiah Scott are in there). The Swerve/Nese stuff was as awful as I was expected to be, hot garbage Marvel final battle wrestling. Scott has a lot of ideas, and that's cool, except for a bunch of ideas of his that involve a guy doing something out of the ordinary and then holding position for too long waiting for Scott to splat onto them after breakdancing. His stuff can look pretty, and be innovative, but man do I hate how he sets a lot of it up. But how do you hate a match that's so neat and weird that in only his third TV match with the company, here's Angel Garza working a freaking 50 minute match. They really gave a showcase to the Garza brood - maybe too much of one, as I think Carrillo is still best in briefer sequences - but damn it is great to have practically a clone of Hector Garza on TV. Hector Garza was maybe my favorite TV wrestling in the world around 2006/2007, and that's saying something since Fit Finlay had just made a totally unexpected "I assume booked specifically for Eric Ritz" return to working featured TV matches. Some of his act comes off a bit more rehearsed and doesn't quite have that same insanely charming sparkle that Hector was working with (watching him fall all over women at ringside while bumping is true pro wrestling joy), but the star potential is there. We don't get nearly enough Gallagher (though do get a nice headbutt and the amusing group umbrella spot), but we get typically great stuff from Gulak and Lorcan, and the weirdness of WWE running a 50 minute cruiserweight match kept the smiles easy.

WWE Wrestling Mixtape. Book it.

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WWE Big 3: Lorcan, Gallagher, Gulak 7/21-7/27

205 Live 7/23

Oney Lorcan vs. Tony Isner

ER: This was a very tiny but absolutely delicious snack. I don't think this even went a minute, but it played like a hot finishing round of a fight. I have no idea who Isner is (apparently he wrestles on indies as Tony Ice but there's not much footage out there) but I like the way he attacked Lorcan with punches in the corner before getting absolutely wrecked. He threw a straight jab and some really nice body shots, and that was it for him. But he's a total star bumping for Lorcan's offense and made a nice impression on me in basically 45 seconds. Lorcan doesn't hold back on his elbows, throwing some of his nastiest that I've seen. His running flying uppercut looked like it hit so hard that someone could make a GIF of Isner flying out of the arena and into space. I love the beautiful almost slo motion arc Lorcan gets on his half nelson suplex. Obviously you aren't going to get neck drops in suplexes here, so his take on the suplex is one of those big WWE finishers that will actually get him a bigger reaction while giving his opponent a safer bump. Cena's AA is just a big back bump, and indy guys were out there dropping guys neck first onto their knee instead. This looked like an awesome face slam, just sending a guy moonsaulting onto his face, without looking like Isner was jumping into it.

PAS: I am digging these 205 Live squashes, Gallagher had a fun one a couple of weeks ago, and it was cool to see Lorcan run through this guy. Lorcan is one of the best in the world at explosive offense and this was just a full match explosion.

35. Drew Gulak vs. Isaiah Scott

ER: This was really damn cool. I still find myself pleasantly surprised at the styles of matches that are now being given 15 minutes of TV time on the WWE Network. It's really fun and I'm sure the novelty will wear off, but I like seeing flippers against a tough like Gulak. Isaiah Scott of course is the former Shane Strickland (who I had actually forgot was signed by WWE, I'm 5 years behind on my NXT), who is a guy I used to absolutely hate when he was on the indies. He's been slowly improving over the years, and Killshot had some moments in Lucha Underground, but I think he's a guy who will benefit from the WWE Performance Center. Gulak is a fun opponent for him, and this felt like a nice 2002 throwback indy match, where some guys were starting to get really inspired by shootstyle matwork, and other guys were trying to be flying innovators, and there was a real focus on limbwork matches.

This was a real fun 2002 limbwork flyer/matwork match. They have a bunch of fun scrambly mat stuff, Scott shows off some spry movement doing a cool handspring to the floor, and he pulls out a tripped out cartwheel moonsault splash when Gulak slid back into the ring. Before long Gulak starts working over Scott's arm, slapping at it, yanking at it, and I was a big fan of Scott's theatrical selling. I like when guys sell their fists after a punch, and I like when guys get their arm worked over and hold it in dramatic fashion like they were disappointed in it. Gulak forces him down to the mat a bunch by the arm, and Strickland does cool things around that on the comeback, always holding the arm and handspringing off his good arm, keeping it limp at his side like Ace Ventura after getting shot with a blow dart. Gulak was real hard here, hitting a great clothesline off the middle rope (the hardest clothesline to hit effectively, and I'm pretty sure the only guys who have ever consistently done a good one are Gulak, Lorcan, and Ikeda), and Gulak breaks out a bunch of new stuff which gives the match a new feel. He throws Scott into the ringpost with a crucifix bomb and we get a fun callback spot around that moment later in the match. Gulak had a couple nasty capture suplexes, gripping Scott around his neck and knee like a sick inverse Perfect Plex. This was a cool style battle, bonkers to me that its being featured on WWE television, but another cool addition.

PAS: This was really fun, and easily my favorite Strickland match ever. Swerve was originally a CZW guy and I liked how the commentary mentioned that he was trained by Gulak. I thought the early flashy offense by Scott worked in the context of a guy trying to show up his trainer. That quick cartwheel moonsault was awesome looking. I loved the transition with Swerve hitting this great looking right hand, which they replay and really put over, but he ends up jamming his wrist. This gives Gulak the opening to attack the wrist and hand, and use it as a get out of jail free card when Scott would get momentum. Really great finish run, with Scott having a bunch of chances to pull the upset, but the wrist failing him. Gulak knows how to put a hurt on a guy, and Scott sold the hurt great.


2019 MOTY MASTER LIST

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