AEW Five Fingers of Death 2/2 - 2/8

AEW Collision 2/7/26

Parking Lot Brawl: Eddie Kingston/Ortiz/Zachary Wentz/Dezmond Xavier vs James Drake/Zack Gibson/Big Bill/Bryan Keith

Here's the thing about pro wrestling. It's like life. It doesn't end. It doesn't have off-season. You can shut your eyes but it doesn't go away. It's still there. It's always there. It's always pulling and prodding you. It's always tugging you. It's always pulling you back into the ring.

Eddie Kingston had finally done it all. 

Before that though, he had been on the verge of selling his boots, of giving it up, (of being free), during the pandemic, but he cut a promo with nothing to lose and it opened the last door left for him.

Behind that door? At first, nothing. An opportunity. Not even fans in seats. But he made the most of it, made his mark, and when the world started back up again, it welcomed him with a loving roar.

So he fought and climbed and scraped, and it was all rewarded. He met his idols. He even battled against some of them. He won New Japan gold. He defeated his hated rival to win the ROH title. He put that on the line against all of his enemies and one of his few friends and he triumphed in the first Continental Classic. Top of the world. He earned the American Dragon's respect.

A wonderful end to an embattled story. 

But pro wrestling never ends. Life goes on and it's so damn hard. He lost one title after the next. He lost his ability to walk. He lost a year and a half of his career. 

And yet, here he is, back once again. 

Wrestling saved his life. It gave him purpose. It gave him direction. It gave him a way out from a far darker fate. And the price he paid for all that? Only everything that he ever was and ever will be. That's pro wrestling for you.

It's just like life. You can have amazing moments, weddings, the birth of your child, promotions, but the Earth doesn't care. It's going to keep spinning. The sun isn't going to care. It's going to rise the next day. 

Over time, we get old. Some things get easier.

Getting up? That's not one of them. 

Eddie Kingston is 44 years old. Something they don't tell you at 14 or 24 or even 34 is how hard 44 can be. At some point, it becomes harder to sleep through the night without having to pee. At some point, it becomes harder to just sit up. To roll out of bed. To bend down to tie those shoes. And that's without a lifetime of getting battered around the ring.

Eddie knows it. Eddie shows it. He needs to fight, hell, want to fight, but he wants finality too. When it's time for something to be over, for a grief to be settled, he wants it to be over. He's even managed it since his return. He somehow managed to move on from LFI without facing RUSH. 

He couldn't move on from the GYV though. They wouldn't let him. 

They've been off in their little corner of the world waging a private war. Eddie came out of his match with Samoa Joe wanting to stretch, wanting to show what he still had left in the tank, so he ran right through Nathan Cruz, a young associate of Drake and Gibson. That drew their ire so he fought his way past one and the next. No shame to either. They've been tagging. He's Eddie Kingston. They gave him a fight. He was ready to move on.

They didn't let him. 

Instead, they ambushed him after the Gibson match, and it was up to Ortiz to return to make the save. Ortiz and Eddie beat them with the help of an errant (more like purposeful) madball. Eddie was ready to be done. They weren't. Wrestling's wrestling though. You fight long enough and you're going to draw others into your circle. A magnetic pull, the sweet allure of violence.

So we have the Rascalz helping their Uncle Eddie and Bill and Keith bounty hunting their way beside GYV.

A parking lot, but not the claustrophobic garage attached to Daily's Place. They're up on the rooftop, the Vegas skyline behind them. 

Room to move. Room to breathe. Room to wage war.

And war they did wage. This had all the bells and whistles of cinematic pro wrestling. The Rascalz got to show off, leaping off cars, pulling Keith into a limo to smoke him out. They bled, a baptism by fire in their second match. Welcome to AEW. Hope you survive the experience.

And of course Bill was Bill. This was a perfect showcase for him. When he pressed a Rascal over the limo, it looked like we were back in 1995 and he had tossed him right off the building. Then, giant that he is, he leaned back the car, took his jacket off and brought a foot up so Eddie could run right into it. 

So yeah, while it may not have had the emotional stakes of some of the previous parking lot brawls, it had the right mix of chaos and creativity, of broken glass and nasty bumps. At one point Isla Dawn came out and it sort of made you wonder why she didn't come out earlier or later and why Reed came out only to counter her. They'd just been hiding behind cars the whole time? You say it's fun and not to question these things, but if someone had questioned and came up with an answer, everything could have been tighter and still just as fun. 

In the end, during the DDT that won the match, but well before it, certainly after it, the camera found Eddie. He's a photogenic bastard in his own way. Why? Because he's the must human wrestler there is. Maybe the most human wrestler that ever was. The pain, the agony, the effort, it all just radiates off of him, the consequence that gives pro wrestling meaning and weight.

When Eddie wants to wrap up a backstage interview, wants to get out of the ring and get back to he hotel, wants to avoid all the bullshit that everyone has to go through in order to put pro wrestling on tv, it's not because he doesn't care. He spends his whole life caring. He cares too much. When that bell rings, no one cares like Eddie does. 

It's that he's spent. He's tired. He hurts. He aches. Inside and out. The eyes reach the soul and the soul is a weary thing.

But still he fights on, because life keeps coming at all of us and it comes at him more than anyone. Scowl on his face, muttering all the way, letting out a groan that we can feel in our gut, Eddie Kingston will fight on, and hey, if he can fight on, then so can we. That realization, more than anything else, is what makes him so precious and special in a world that gets harder for all of us each and every day. Just maybe don't tell him that, because that's the last thing he wants to hear. Life's hard enough without having to inspire people.

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2021 Ongoing MOTY List: Creeds vs. Vets

 

62. The Creed Brothers vs. Grizzled Young Vets NXT 2.0 12/21

ER: The Creed Brothers were the far and away greatest thing to happen in NXT 2.0, a team of fully formed 2000 Brock Lesnars who looked completely unstoppable and wrestled like two guys who had zero hobbies other than circuit training and putting raw meat in their protein shakes. They were folkstyle Road Warriors and they're somehow currently in the exact same place they were when they debuted. I don't know if there is a Creeds match I've disliked, but this was their earliest and best "complete" match. This was only their 10th match and was the best fusion of their total dominance with them making believable (but brief) openings for their opponents. Of the Vets, James Drake had a supremely good showing. Not only did he spend the most time getting thrown around but gutwrench variations and acting as the New Housing Development Arrow for the Creeds' sign spinning, but he was also the Vet making his strikes all look like something that would actually momentarily stun either brick-headed brother. Drake's spinning heel kick actually looked like it would knock a big guy loopy, and his late match suicide dive into the back of Julius's head was awesome. The Creeds were surprisingly good at alternating bulldozing with strong selling, as it felt like they understood how to sell for who they are rather than sell like a mortal man might. It ended in a DQ and a useless angle with Ikemen Jiro and Kushida took too much away from it, but we're overdue celebrating the Creeds on Segunda Caida. 

2021 MOTY MASTER LIST

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NXT UK Worth Watching: Noam Dar! Grizzled Young Vets! Josh Morrell! The Hunt!

Noam Dar vs. Josh Morrell NXT UK 1/18 (Aired 2/19/20) (Ep. #80)

ER: Noam Dar wrestles like a guy who's not actually signed by NXT UK, but shows up every couple of months just to show that he's better than every single regular in NXT UK. I'm 80 episodes into NXT UK, and the Noam Dar start-stop push through the entire thing has been one of the weirder and more entertaining things of my viewing. Dar shows up for an episode every 6 weeks or so, is always kept strong, always looks great, and then disappears for a couple months and never gets close to any title. My favorite part of the first 80 episodes of this show has been Kassius Ohno, which I don't think is a very contentious opinion. But at this point I think Dar is just as consistent a performer as Ohno. The problem is that for its entire duration, NXT UK has been the easiest place in the WWE brand to hide in plain sight. Noam Dar's last several years have been a tree falling in the woods, a different woods than the one with  Wolfgang's tree. 

This match is a Dar showcase against a very fun wrestler who has an even more ridiculously fragmented appearance rate than himself. Josh Morrell is this hyper athletic guy who shows up once or twice a year to get massacred, and always has new ways of falling on his face or backflipping his way into a bad situation.  He's great as a showcase opponent, and is good at getting himself some shine. I have no idea why he isn't an actual regular as he's always entertaining. Dar bullies Morrell around and Morrell hits back, literally. I loved Dar's slap after going for a knucklelock, and how Morrell went right at him and knew what kind of match it was going to be. Dar hit some of his most painful kicks, and Morrell is a guy who always leans into kicks while making them look painful. Dar had a couple of cool legsweeps too, kicking Morrell out at the shins, and Morrell is good at whipping his face into the mat and holding his loose feeling jaw after. Dar took out Morrell's legs as a way to get to his arm, an attack he kept up until finally getting the win. The balance felt really nice for an extended squash, another argument for Dar as the best Time Management guy on the brand. 

Grizzled Young Vets vs. The Hunt NXT UK 1/18 (Aired 2/27/20) (#81)

ER: A nice simple match to showcase the Vets, but that doesn't mean the Hunt doesn't get to shine as well. GYV get to work some nice double teams, strong cut offs, and both set up The Hunt's comebacks really nicely. GYV have nice complementary skillsets, and this match saw them both lean into their differences: Drake is the stronger seller, better at taking offense, quick, and tenacious; Gibson is vocal in a way many wrestlers aren't, good at stooging, and good at setting up and executing double teams. I liked the early moments of each Vet saving each other from the apron, leading to them cutting off Boar from Primate. Drake throws a real stiff back elbow, they work a cool tandem kneelift, great tandem backbreaker on the floor, and they just keep hammering down on Boar with splashes, clotheslines, and elbows, refusing to let him tag out. Primate's eventual hot tag is very fun, nails Gibson with a spear and tosses Drake with a backdrop, but it also leads to my least favorite kind of GYV double teams, the "Gibson holds a guy while Drake does a couple thigh slap kicks", but the ending stretch did have some surprises. Primate usually doesn't stand out more than Boar, but I loved him attempting to take out Gibson with a big axe handle off the top to the floor, and how he uses the same axe handle to Drake but does not see the blind tag. This all felt like a Grizzled Young Vets/The Hunt touring house show match, but on a brand that doesn't actually do house shows, these tags stand out. 

COMPLETE GUIDE TO NXT UK

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NXT UK TakeOver: Blackpool II 1/12/20

Trent Seven vs. Eddie Dennis

ER: Eddie Dennis has a wild set of reptile gear, full boots and toxic slime green snakeskin like he's some kind of early 90s straight to video punk. It's glorious. I like him and Seven as a match up, and there's some explosive stuff. The match starts with a wicked one armed powerbomb by Seven, planting Dennis after catching him charging in. Dennis takes Seven's offense really well, bouncing right off his head on a DDT, getting dumped to the floor with a snap German. But Seven's punishment gets even better with a fast tope and and a snapdragon suplex on the floor. Their pace is really impressive for the level of big moves they're piling up. It's like a weird crazy WCW Power Plant match if they only studied NOAH tapes, with some forearms and big flipping slightly complicated slams, threats of Burning Hammers and Emerald Flowsions, and Seven hitting a right forearm in the corner as hard as Misawa's best. There are a bunch of big complicated slams, and the absolute craziness peaks when Dennis launches Seven with a Razor's Edge to the floor like he was Mike Awesome. Totally crazy spot to lead to a finish, not like any other finish I've seen on NXT UK. This was a cool ass 8 minute gem, really scrappy and portent, filled with big slams and cool bumps. Hot as hell start to a TakeOver. 

Toni Storm vs. Piper Niven vs. Kay Lee Ray

ER: I really hated how they turned this match into a 3 way. I love Toni, but she felt like a real third wheel in the build to this match, and in the match itself. Niven won the title shot, and then the week before TakeOver Storm just demands Niven let her have the match, and then they put her in the match just because she said she should be in the match! It's awful wrestling storytelling, but she's also a kind of necessary distraction in the match, and allowed them to do some big things that would have felt silly to kick out of. I hate 3 ways as a rule, but they actually kept things at a great pace to start. Niven works really well in a 3 way, as one of her issues is insisting on working fast paced singles without always keeping pace. Here she's able to pace things out and is a great wrecking ball. Niven flattens Ray with a tope and misses a fast cannonball into the barricade, but is back to flattening when she breaks up a pin with a senton. The match gets pretty bad the more melodramatic they got, with dumb stuff like Ray finding a chair under the ring and choking Storm while showing tons of light on the choke, or a big dumb face off between Storm and Niven where the camera framed them. The "making movies" thing can be real painful, but when they went back to being dangerous things got good again. Nigel on commentary calls Kay Lee Ray the "Glaswegian Sabu" at one point, which sounds near blasphemous, but when she hits a somersault plancha to the floor and bounces her legs off the barricade and head off the floor, then breaks up a pin by spiking herself with a somersault senton, this could be an Actual Thing. She looked like she under-rotated on a crazy senton, and then took a powerbomb right after. That's nuts. Storm gets to visually beat Niven before Ray superkicks her off, and I guess now that sets up Storm/Niven which feels reductive, since Storm just shoehorned herself in to begin with. There was some really good stuff here though, a lot of it. This was actually my favorite match of either Niven or Ray in NXT UK, and Storm facilitated some of that. 

Tyler Bate vs. Jordan Devlin

ER: This was a big match with a big payoff and big in-match build, a singles match that actually felt mostly worthy of the long TakeOver match lengths. I think Devlin put his time in well, liked how a lot of the offense built, I mainly just didn't like the ways Bate would just pop up to start his own sequences. Now, Devlin works around most of that really well, finding fun ways to set up Bate's comebacks. Devlin kept using the ropes in fun ways, like cutting off a Bate dive and nailing a nice rope flip moonsault, choking him in the ropes, also getting caught in a torture rack-type fireman's carry when he went to slingshot in with a cutter. Devlin, unsurprisingly, was a real asshole here. He mocked Bate and added some extra sauce to holds and strikes, the best being Devlin dragging Bate down into a Romero surfboard, then bending back on Bate's chin until they were staring eye to eye, sicko stuff.  

Devlin is good at working enough actual offense that reversals of that offense actually make sense, and Bate is good at stepping up with someone like that. I do think it veered into move trading, with Bate constantly need to shrug off whatever had just happened to him to hop up and do something impressive, but luckily Devlin is good at facilitating those hop-ups and Bate can break out something impressive. Bate does an airplane spin that starts slow and ugly and looks like it will be a dud, but keeps going and going and by the end I loved how Bate started with a bit of struggle and then kept building speed. By the time he dropped Devlin I was dizzy on my couch, which sounds stupid, but I'm not sure I've seen someone do an airplane spin this fast. Devlin had smart counters to expected Bate offense, dropping him with a cutter to the apron that almost leads to a count out win (with Devlin amusingly kicking him around 8 to keep Bate out longer), and nailing him with a Spanish Fly to counter a Bate charge. Devlin incorporated a lot of learned behavior into reversals, but Bate mostly just took big moves and then decided to do his own moves. This was the match with the somewhat infamous "punch out" spot, which I actually think is "not actually as shitty as it was made out to be". It's kind of hilarious to me that of all spots, Bate and Devlin doing stand and trade got GIF'd and laughed at, because most feds run shows with worse standing exchanges up and down the card. Do Tyler Bate's arms look short and silly when he swings them? Short? Always. Silly? Sometimes. Give me a punch exchange like this every single time over turn taking elbows and forearms. I liked how some of their punches whiffed completely, because it's frankly silly when every strike in an exchange hits perfectly. Bate needed a big finish to firmly put away Devlin, and Devlin is always great at getting spiked on DDTs and flattened by powerbombs, and the crowd was along for every second of Devlin taking it. Perhaps this went too long

Mark Coffey/Wolfgang vs. Fabian Aichner/Marcel Barthel vs. James Drake/Zack Gibson vs. Flash Morgan Webster/Mark Andrews

ER: So, this match was insane. This was easily one of the greatest highspot ladder matches in history, not just WWE history. This was 25 minutes - normally a match length that I would argue is completely unnecessary for *most* matches - but due to the furious pace that this things was worked, I was shocked at how "long" the match was when it was over. This does not feel like a 25 minute match, because from minute one every single person is flying around the ring at breakneck speed taking bumps that surely shaved months/years off their careers/lives, and I don't think that pace even took a slight break until the 18 minute mark. Not only did they work wall to wall crazy spots and dangerous moments, but they did a great job of making every team seem like they could walk away with the belts. I thought they did so well without the ladders, chaining offense together faster and faster, utilizing all 8 guys to give proper rest and generally avoiding guys ignoring damage to get to the next spot in time, that I was kind of dreading this becoming a climbing contest when it settled down. So, they opted to never settle the match down, using the ladders at first in familiar ways, but then doing twists on familiar ladder match spots before exploding with some things I've never seen before. 

It is completely pointless to detail all of the spots that happened in this match, because it would take me twice as long to type everything than it would take you to find and watch the match. One of the cooler aspects was that every team in the match, worked like a team. They all had tandem offense that was not always their typical tandem offense, remixing some spots and adding in ladders to others, and all the teams actually felt like they had individual strategies. They kept the spot set-up time to a minimum, and when they did one gigantic crash spot that had everyone fall like dominoes, prolonging the punishment instead of everybody just landing like shit from one giant tower powerbomb. It's tough to pick a standout, but I really liked Wolfgang a ton. He's the guy doing crazy spots while also shaking his arm out after punches. Yeah, he'll throw big ass Mark Coffey over the top rope onto everyone and then vault out himself to powerslam Drake on the entrance ramp. But, while men lay dying on the battlefield around him, he's still remembering to sell that his fist hurts, and I love it. So Wolfgang was probably my favorite, but this was a team effort. Every guy got at least one big moment (at LEAST). Mark Andrews hit a perfect shooting star press off the ladder onto Coffey, he and Webster hit a wild tandem somersault senton off a very high ladder, and Grizzled Young Vets seemed to be on the end of all the worst punishments, especially poor James Drake. Drake got smashed with ladders and under ladders and under bodies so many times, poor guy spent most of the match kicking his legs and holding his insides. Imperium looked like real beasts, squeezing their double teams into a ladder landscape even better than the others, Barthel tossing smaller guys off the ladders into waiting arms of Aichner so they could be dropped on their heads. 

It's a match with nothing but great spots, but my favorite had to be Imperium punishing Webster. With Webster laid on a ladder, which had been propped up on the ropes, Barthel holds Webster down so Aichner can hit a springboard moonsault, with Barthel rolling OVER Webster at the last minute TOWARDS Aichner's moonsault, so he wouldn't be standing where Aichner's boots were going to whip. I mentioned the car crash spot, and it really was great. They brought 5 or 6 ladders into the ring, everyone was climbing on them and climbing over each other like World War Z, one guy getting knocked to the mat here, Barthel getting knocked all the way to the floor there, Webster amusingly setting up his ladder so it smashes Gibson in between his own ladder, total madness. Wolfgang goes bet mode down the stretch and spears Aichner so hard into a ladder that the ladder breaks into 4 pieces. I don't think I've ever seen a ladder snap right in half during one of these matches, even when someone falls onto one from a great height. I thought I was pretty burnt out on stunt ladder matches, but this one had me from go and was absolutely relentless. 

WALTER vs. Joe Coffey

ER: I thought this was a pretty great 17 minute main event that made the decision to be a 27 minute main event, and treated that extra 10 minutes as if the previous 17 were just a dream. It was admittedly a bit odd how the match seemed to position Joe Coffey as the babyface and WALTER as kind of a generic heel , but I liked the actual ring work a lot. WALTER worked this mostly as a big chopping monster, and Coffey was the smaller "babyface" who kept trying and throwing WALTER with suplexes. WALTER is great at a big man getting knocked off his feet, and I loved how all of Coffey's suplexes looked like he was having trouble lifting WALTER, because he *should* be having a lot of trouble suplexing WALTER. WALTER wasn't hopping into any suplex and it ruled. If Coffey was going to hit a Saito suplex, it was going to be low to the ground with a heavy landing for both, making the suplexes look more like something you'd see in a Hashimoto/Red Bull Army match. There were a couple odd miscues every time WALTER threw a big boot (one that was supposed to hit did not at all; one that was supposed to miss, hit, and was treated as a miss anyway), but mostly it was WALTER throwing heavy chops while Coffey kept deadlifting WALTER on suplexes. WALTER threw hard elbows, cranked Coffey's neck, and worked a nice STF, Coffey hit a boss shoulderblock off the apron (flying at WALTER like a torpedo), fought for a big German suplex, and hit a surprising moonsault. 

When WALTER accidentally hit the ref with a John Woo dropkick (and the ref sold it like a drama queen rolling down a very soft incline), things mostly fell apart. Coffey gets an immediate visual pin off a powerbomb, Alexander Wolfe and Ilja Dragunov run down and get involved, Dragunov knocks Wolfe into Coffey and they basically do a full match restart for the remaining 10. Nothing felt like it mattered down the home stretch, and WALTER - who had just been "pinned" by a powerbomb moments before - now has several winds and the two trade moves until one of those moves wins the match. Every big move (WALTER powerbomb, Coffey avalanche belly to belly) was used as a way for the guy taking the move to transition back to offense, and there were more miscues like Coffey mostly missing a big clothesline and them just repeating the spot right after. After WALTER chokes out Coffey he had to give the biggest acting performance of his life, acting vaguely threatened by Adam Cole. Cole looked tinier than both referees and the camera angles made it looked like a small child ran into the ring after WALTER's win. 

This was a top to bottom great show, with the only bad 10 minutes being the last 10 minutes of the main event. Every other match was a total over-delivery, making this easily one of the best TakeOver events. WALTER/Coffey was probably the weakest overall match, and that was a match I really loved until it went crazy with the booking. Highly recommend this show. 

Best Matches: 

1. Tag Team Ladder Match

2. Jordan Devlin vs. Tyler Bate

3. Eddie Dennis vs. Trent Seven

COMPLETE GUIDE TO NXT UK

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NXT UK Worth Watching: Wolfe! Dragunov! Grizzled Young Vets! Flash Morgan Webster!

Zack Gibson/James Drake vs. Flash Morgan Webster/Mark Andrews NXT UK 10/5 (Aired 11/7/19) (Ep. #67)

ER: This felt like a properly condensed version of their more bloated Big TakeOver match and had a really nice extended face in peril section that made the bigger spots feel bigger than the (even bigger) spots at TakeOver. It's always fun when southern tag formula slips into WWE tag matches, and it's even more fun when it shows up on a WWE branded show in Essex. This settled nicely into a nearly 8 minute segment of GYV cutting Webster off from Andrews with quick tags and a couple of great teases. Drake and Gibson are strong opponents for Webster and Andrews. Drake is really good at taking bumps that require him to run recklessly at an opponent, and Gibson knows how to ratchet up the meanness to make a match like this feel like more than "taking moves". There was some nice clever moments to lengthen the match, with my favorite a stretch where Drake gave Webster a hard shove backwards into the corner, but Webster throws a back elbow to Gibson on the apron while hitting the buckles. Gibson disappears after taking the unexpected elbow, but appears shortly after to yank Andrews off the apron *just* when Webster is about to tag in. I didn't love the back stretch (once Andrews finally got tagged in) as much as the Webster FIP stretch, but Drake did a great job holding it together by being one of the best in NXT UK at taking Andrews' complicated offense. Drake didn't need to save anything, but he definitely made Andrews' biggest stuff (big rana to the floor, crazy dragon rana in the ring) look great, where a messy catch would have made the match really fall apart. We break down into several cool spots, like Gibson getting spiked on a tornado DDT, Webster hitting a big senton, and Andrews trying to slide under a superkick but getting scalped and left looking like a limbo bar casualty on that mat. It all ends with Gallus, Imperium, and Dragunov running in to mess everything up and set up a big WarGames, but this tag got a lot of time to build and they used that time well, great match between two title contenders. 

Alexander Wolfe vs. Ilja Dragunov NXT UK 11/15 (Aired 11/21/19) (Ep. #69)

ER: This was an incredible Wolfe performance, able to sustain a 15 minute match while contending with Dragunov's hambone improv vet theater kid routine that kept threatening to derail this whole thing. Wolfe is the closest guy on the WWE roster to Fit Finlay - even closer than Gulak - for his ability to stay active and stay after his opponent. There's so much empty space in matches now. There is a lot of movement and action, but a lot of it is joyless step memorizing. Finlay, Bret Hart, Andre, Arn, those were guys who knew how to fill time while looking in the moment. It feels a bit much to say Wolfe's name in the same breath as any of those legends, but it's a style that really stands out so much more now. Guys were a lot more active with selling and movement in the 80s and 90s, in a way that didn't relate to their offense. It's now a rarity to see guys fill time with "non-offense" like stomping someone's hand or raking their boot eyelets across exposed skin. Back rakes were considered joke old man Hogan offense 25 years ago but brother, I would kill to see a modern wrestler who incorporated an occasional back rake into his matches, but without the implied wink. 

Wolfe is a guy with offense that looks good, moves that make impact, and a guy who knows how to keep things moving in fun ways. Dragunov is a guy who flops around in lieu of selling, makes dumb fish lip faces to show he's had enough, and wears spooky colored contacts like a goth 15 year old with an optometrist dad named Gary. Seeing Dragunov "work the mat" was hilarious, because he just looked like a pale fish flopping around on the bottom of the boat, more death spasm than folkstyle wrestling. Wolfe had to somehow hold this whole 15 minute match down while dealing with comical shit like that, and he somehow did it. Wolfe just kept cutting off Ilja's bullshit with stiff wake-ups, like kicking the middle rope into Ilja's balls or trying to snap Ilja's legs at the knees with the greatest drop down any of us have ever seen. Wolfe does a dropdown the same way the greatest wrestlers of all time did a dropdown, understanding the need to make it look like you are either a) panic dodging an opponent, or b) attempting to trip your opponent. Wolfe throws his dropdown like a crossbody, leaving himself open to get hit with Ilja's crossbody. Wolfe was always good at keeping things moving with small painful strikes, while generously taking Ilja's big suplexes. My favorite moment of the match was Wolfe catching Ilja with a drop toehold but it not fully taking, so Wolfe has to fight him and really try to drag him down with it. When he can't, he changes the strategy and kicks Ilja in the stomach from his back, adds another to the face, then gets to his feet and casually knees Ilja in the face on his way by. The big moves down the stretch felt bigger with Wolfe's constant press, building to a surprise Wolfe win, setting up a big 8 man tag with a ton of my favorite NXT UK guys. 

COMPLETE GUIDE TO NXT UK

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NXT UK Worth Watching: Wolfgang! Mark Coffey! Grizzled Young Vets!

Wolfgang/Mark Coffey vs. Flash Morgan Webster/Mark Andrews NXT UK 10/4 (Aired 10/17/19) (Ep. #64)

ER: This was a fun main event tag title change, that felt like it should have been better but served as a fantastic Wolfgang showcase. Wolfgang has been perhaps the biggest discovery of this NXT UK project. I already knew Ohno had a lot of great matches in NXGT UK, it's made me a much bigger fan of Noam Dar and Jordan Devlin, but mainly it's shown how many genuinely cool talents there are kind of just hiding in plain sight in NXT UK. This match is an excellent reference point to show someone why Wolfgang is a top 5 guy in NXT UK, and a frontrunner for "the best wrestler under WWE contract that nobody knows about". I think both these teams are capable of a better match, but Wolfgang and the way he based for Webster, really made this stand out. Wolfgang has great offense, but is a wonderful base for juniors. He catches ranas with  aplomb, and adds extra touches to them like nobody else. Webster gets to break out all of his low arcing hurricanranas with such a strong base, peaking with Webster swinging around the ringpost to catch a rana that sends Wolfgang skidding an extra five feet across the floor. 

Gallus are a great tag team, both excellent at getting into position for flyer offense. Plenty of tough guy teams can be tough guys, but only the best are able to give plausible openings to smaller teams. Coffey is good at occupying time while waiting for a springboard or flip, doing things like selling his mouth or jaw to stagger into place. Wolfgang takes so many bumps in between kicking so many asses, with his most incredible being an assisted poison rana that could not have spiked him more vertically. Guys that can suspend physics while they bump are eminently watchable, but how many of them also have devastating powerslams and cross bodies and clotheslines and throw their full weight into Irish whips. Webster and Andrews do some fun Rock n Roll Express double teams and fly in circles when get run over, but always looked like they could retain their still new belts. The enziguiri powerslam finish Gallus used to win the belts felt like a cool powerhouse 90s team finish. Excited to see them roll the rematch back.

 

James Drake/Zack Gibson vs. Ashton Smith/Oliver Carter NXT UK 10/4 (Aired 10/24/19) (Ep. #65)

ER: This felt like a great hot tag match that you'd randomly come across on a WCW Saturday Night. It's one of James Drake's best NXT UK performances, a crazed Dynamite Kid acolyte determined to bump big for everything while throwing his big offense just as stiff as he gets. Smith and Carter are a great babyface team and make great dance partners for this kind of quick hard hitting match with Grizzled Young Vets. GYF's act works best at its tightest, when they can show off their actual good timing, and this is a damn tight match with some exquisitely timed moments. Carter works like a crisper 1988 Owen Hart with great moonsaults, big bumps (here there's a great one flying off the apron from a sharp Drake dropkick) and firm hitting offense. Carter takes advantage of his relative size and works a more satisfying version of the "fast tall guy who spins maybe too much" that has run rampant these past few years. Drake really busts his ass through the entire match, filling a huge share of the ring time with activity, and all of his punctuated kicks land with a crack. Smith has a big hot tag where he steamrolls Drake, hits a huge spinning blue thunder bomb and big dive, all with great energy and connection. The finish was a bit sudden and could have been built into something much bigger, but these kind of hot tags are always a pleaser, and literally every team on this roster is capable of this fun style. 

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NXT UK Worth Watching: Ohno! Scala! Grizzled Young Vets!

Kassius Ohno vs. Sid Scala NXT UK 8/31 (Aired 9/4/19)

ER: This was part of a cool storyline, where Ohno was calling himself the greatest British style wrestler and was supposed to have a showdown with Jack Gallagher for that self-proclaimed title. Gallagher wasn't cleared to compete, Ohno demanded someone step up and take Gallagher's place, and out came Sid Scala in his dress clothes. Scala was on a handful of the very first NXT UK episodes and has been used exclusively as Johnny Saint's right hand man backstage ever since. This is his first NXT UK match in one year, and as Ohno is an excellent match for literally any wrestler, I like him going up against a "non-wrestler". Scala is perhaps the smallest male wrestler on the UK roster, and Ohno was amusing laughing off Scala's early attempts to get one over. Scala goes for a cravat and Ohno merely lifts him up and tosses him off. Uh oh. Scala has a bunch of great feints, a couple cool tricks around the ropes that keep Ohno off balance, and his ducking and dodging peaks with a really well done sunset flip nearfall. Ohno is really good at being a dickhead who will bail to the floor when things momentarily don't go his way, and then always knows how to make his way back into a match with something unprofessional. Here he hooked Scala's leg from the floor, hopped up to the apron, and stomped the ankle over the bottom rope. 

Scala did a great job of limping around on that ankle, throwing nice back elbows and appropriately sold shots to Ohno's jaw, while Ohno battered him with chops and strikes and stepped a few times on that ankle. Scala manages to tangle Ohno around the ringpost and ropes and then flings himself over the ringpost when a rad pescado, great body-as-weapon work. But Ohno finishes things quick back in the ring with one of my favorite reversals, using his size to block a Scala tornado DDT and crash him down with a wicked kneebreaker, then a hip dislocating outside dragon screw. The disgusting KO elbow to the back of the head is academic. Ohno is the master at working with any wrestler of any size and any ability, and here's another feather for him as "Sid Scala's best match". Scala more than held his own and knew exactly what role he was playing. Ohno matches just do not miss. 

James Drake/Zack Gibson vs. Mark Andrews/Flash Morgan Webster NXT UK 9/1 (Aired 9/11/19) (Ep. #59)

ER: This was a nice, quick paced tag, and I think the best actual Grizzled Young Vets performances AS A TEAM on NXT UK. For a pair of guys I like, who I think are a good team, I don't think they've really been a part of any truly memorable tag matches this entire NXT UK run. My favorite matches of theirs have all been singles matches (Gibson vs. Dar, Drake vs. Ligero, Drake vs. Bate) and while they've had many enjoyable tags on the brand, this was the one where they felt most like a killer team. The match is a little off the rails and they lose complete sight of who is the legal man and really abuse the blind tag, and it had a couple egregious kickout that would have worked better as a save, but I liked the chemistry a lot and that's what kept the floor high. Gibson and Drake are really good at basing for Webster and Andrews, good at setting up their double teams, and the babyface champs are good at taking punishment. GYV hit this nasty spike shoulderbreaker on Andrews that lead to a couple good moments of Gibson tearing at Andrews' arm until Webster came in with fun saves (like a great swanton while Gibson had his Shankly Gates arm submission locked in). 

Webster had a cool tope suicida and got nuked on a doomsday device, the whole match felt like we were constantly seeing new pairings. The timing on the finish was really strong too, with Drake accidentally hitting Gibson with a superkick under the chin (in a way that wasn't really telegraphed) and Andrews nailing the shooting star press. This was like an NXT UK grab bag of a match, giving you a condensed 12 minutes of some of the better things the promotion has to offer. It had some good flying, some stiff work from the heels, strong double teams, while also not being next level great. I'm still waiting for the absolute banger GYV match and assume it will come, but I will take tags like this all day. This all feels like a very boring, generic review of this match, and I think that's honestly because this is the good match I expected from these two teams. It didn't disappoint, and it also didn't exceed expectations. But it hit the mark in satisfying ways, while presumably honoring the WTC first responders. 

COMPLETE GUIDE TO NXT UK

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NXT UK TakeOver: Cardiff 8/31/19

Noam Dar vs. Travis Banks

ER: Great stuff, an excellent start to a big TakeOver. Noam Dar may be the best on the roster at doing dance step wrestling, and he does it in a way that doesn't actually make that style a problem. His timing is strong, his placement is excellent, and the way he positions himself and occupies himself while waiting for offense is second to few. The main problem, for me, with dance sequence wrestling is that nothing feels organic, everything feels like a blank eyed run back of rehearsed spots, and Noam Dar manages to do very complicated sequences while adding personal touches that keep them feeling organic. I've never gotten the sense that he is locked into a pre-planned set of steps, as he seems to respond incredibly quick to a change in plans. If a kick doesn't land the way it's supposed to, the plan does not appear to continue as initially planned, and there are very few guys this good at thinking on their feet. Dar doesn't take any shortcuts in his transitions, chopping down with his elbow to lock an arm, snatching Banks out of the air by his leg and holding it tight the whole way through a sequence, and a cool way of attacking several parts of the body while appearing to be focused. 

Banks is good at selling Dar's inflicted damage while still getting his offense in, and he's good at taking Dar's most punishing stuff. I loved Dar's two vicious snapmares, one into the ring ropes and another into the barricade, really making it look like he's forcing Banks into a painful bump. There's also cool work around the ring steps and other ring rope tricks, but all the reversals were super crisp and fit nicely into the match. Dar comes off like a Jack Gallagher peer at this point, great at crafting strong story in a 6 minute match or an 18 minute match. He's good at pulling off smug but undeniably well executed heel offense that makes things feel more heated, and gives a good babyface something real to play off. This built to some really hot, fast stuff. Banks plasters Dar with a great tope, nails him with a couple double stomps, Dar leans into hard sliding dropkicks and hits his own brutal running knees, all building to some well orchestrated kickouts. This ramped up really well and was worked snugly enough to keep throwing off sparks. Great chemistry, great gauntlet to throw down at the start of a big show. 

Ilja Dragunov vs. Cesaro

ER: This is Cesaro's first appearance in NXT UK, and I love WWE treating their Network brands like territories to send main brand stars into. It's something they should do more, give some of the best guys the opportunity to work a Star Passing Through a Territory match. Cesaro brings great main brand presence, dwarfing Dragunov and acting like the guy deservedly crossed over to the main roster. Dragunov is bigger and more muscular than most of the guys in NXT UK, but Cesaro makes him look like a Little Buff Boys finalist. Cesaro beats Dragunov pillar to post, forcing Dragunov to make some pretty awful faces, faces I loved seeing take uppercuts. Dragunov may make dumb faces, but he endures some real punishment for the right to make those dumb faces, so more power to him. Cesaro is really dominating, building from hard chops and shoulderblocks into throwing his whole body into uppercuts and headlocks, dragging Dragunov arm under throat into sick crossfaces. Cesaro throws Dragunov over the top rope to the floor, into the barricade, drawing fair comparisons to The Berzerker. Cesaro delivers a Berzerker level beatdown. He gets a huge (fast counted) giant swing and a violent belly to back suplex. I thought Ilja's comebacks were fine, though I don't think I ever fully bought into him potentially beating Cesaro. Cesaro felt too much like a larger more perfect killing machine version of Dragunov, and Cesaro as a killing machine is a beautiful sight. He hits a press slam into a kneelift and then a torpedo uppercut for a big nearfall, and finishes things with a huge pop up uppercut, immediately yanking Ilja into the Gotch piledriver. This felt like a good version of Ric Flair vs. Terry Taylor, with Cesaro coming across as a far more punishing traveling-champ Flair. 

PAS: Dragunov is kind of a goof, but an endearing one. I mean Kikuchi made silly faces too, and Dragunov takes Kikuchi level beatings. That press slam into a knee strike by Cesaro really should be his finisher, what a brutal bit of business that was. I did think when Draganov had Cesaro reeling on the floor he had a chance, and I loved Cesaro decisively shutting the door on him with that pop up uppercut and Gotch combo finish. I would love to see Cesaro in this role more often. He had a great Regal match years ago when he did this same sort of drop down. He is dead in the water on the main roster anyway, he might as well as go after the NXT UK title again. A rematch with Dragunov as the champ would be great stuff.  

Mark Andrews/Flash Morgan Webster vs.  Mark Coffey/Wolfgang vs. Grizzled Young Veterans

ER: This tag bit off more than it could probably chew, but there is plenty of joyous wrestling action to exist in matches where guys bite off too much. It's a 20 minute tag that would have exploded at 15, but gave us a big babyface tag title win for hometown Cardiff boys Webster and Andrews. Everyone here had a lot (maybe too much sometimes) to contribute, with Wolfgang standing out as one of the best guys on the brand at taking complicated flier offense. Gibson did the same, and Webster got to shine with his fun combo of dives, ranas, and top rope flips. Wolfgang is the biggest guy in the match, and he goes up for two different crazy bumps where he's on someone's shoulders. He takes a poison rana with a perfect vertical spike, and then takes a nutso Doomsday Device tope from James Drake late in the match, folding hard on the entrance floor. Gibson is good at getting into position for some big Andrews offense, both GYF taking his Stundog Millionaire as well as anyone. Fan reaction kept growing along with the match, even if I thought things could have been edited down (take out the long Gallus disappearance that only gets paid off with a Drake tope, trim the standoffs and bad showdown fighting) they clearly knew the audience and kept them hooked. Strong rudos make for strong babyfaces, and this was a fine team effort. Gibson and Drake started off hot 50 episodes ago, but they've been a stale act with the titles. Webster and Andrews will be a fun change of pace in title matches, champions that feel beatable but are capable of surprising. Gallus are the clear talent of any tag match, and the 3 way format made them too much of an afterthought. I don't think it harms them as an act, as they still remain the favorites to get the belts and have a long run. Wolfgang feels like someone who has over a year of different title defense ideas in him. 

Dave Mastiff vs. Joe Coffey

ER: I thought this started incredibly, with the first 4 minutes stacking up well against all my favorite NXT UK stuff. I wish this was just a violent street fight instead of a last man standing as when they were fighting, rather that doing stunts, this was excellent. So we have those first 4 minutes, starting with a great fight in the entrance way with both going after the injuries suffered in their excellent match that set this match up. There's a sick early moment (very early) where Coffey gets whipped into the turnbuckles hard and the whole top rope snaps off. Coffey really flew into that buckle and the PONG sound when he hit was great, and I really don't think that rope was supposed to break. They kind of try to go on with the match in ring but once Coffey eats shit off the middle rope they go with a more weapons and plunder approach, which is fine. It lead to cool things like Mastiff jamming a turnbuckle support bar in Coffey's mouth and throwing him mouth first on the mat, and I wish they would have played more around with that instead of going to the floor so quickly. The under ring weapons portion was my least favorite of the match as it felt so much more manufactured than the body/injury targeting fight this started as. But Coffey still took some crazy bumps, like a sky high backdrop on the floor and a release German suplex, plus getting walloped a couple times by a cricket bat. 

They both take some gnarly spills, both get put through tables, but some of the stuff is so silly in its violence that it doesn't really vibe with their super serious attitudes. Take, for example, when they both get chairs and run headlong down a long aisle at each other, collide, and then both spill backward down the aisle. It was like Homer and Bart running at each other wearing pots on their heads. Coffey takes the Finlay roll on the announce table, both fall off the second landing through another set of tables, you know the drill with WWE brand Last Man Standing matches. The finish is clever, with both men getting to their feet after their tandem spill, leaning on those rolling load-in containers, and as Coffey is standing he kicks the rolling container out of Mastiff's hands and causes him to fall, or, not stand. There was a lot of great in this match, but while they did a ton of damage to each other, things felt much more mapped out once they went to the floor. Coffey for his part turned in a great overall performance, and the first 4 minutes play as a killer follow up to their excellent TV match. 

Toni Storm vs. Kay Lee Ray

ER: Disappointing. Not the kind of match you want to change a title on, and the title change came off completely flat. I loved how they started things, with Ray refusing to lock up and repeatedly hopping to the floor, until Storm hit a great tope suicida past the ringpost, Storm slams Ray into the barricade, throws forearms and kicks, and generally dominates most of this match from there. In fact, the whole thing felt so flat because it felt like Storm was either too dominant, OR too dominant so that she would save face with a title loss? I can't explain it, but whatever it was, it didn't work for me or the fans in attendance. This was the Toni show, with a couple of big German suplexes (one tossing Ray from the middle turnbuckle), Code Red, big headbutt, and a Storm Zero that only gets 2 (with a suitably doofy Toni face accompanying it). Storm even nails another tope suicida, but they get to the finish so quick that it almost felt like something was wrong. Ray hits a knee, big senton to the floor (Toni with a nice catch so Ray doesn't die), and then Ray hits a couple Gory bombs in the ring for the title win. Now, I loved the Gory bomb set up, with Ray dropping Toni over the top rope with the first and a traditional one for the pin, but I don't think anybody watching thought this was the finish. It wasn't a short match (10 minutes or so), but this didn't feel like a finish they had actually been building to (even with Ray hitting a Gory bomb earlier). This landed flat, and if they were going to put a belt on a heel then Jinny would have been a much more interesting choice. This match never felt like the match they were building it to be, never felt like any kind of unique history played into it. 

WALTER vs. Tyler Bate

ER: This was a 2019 match that even people who pretend online to not watch NXT UK went out of their way to watch. This was the first NXT UK match that Meltzer went real cuckoo about, choosing once again to break the rules of his own established star ratings, and being perfect-plus still means something to some people. But you know? I just did not need 42 minutes of perfect-plus. I don't think that length was necessary and I would've loved to have seen a 21 minute edit. But it's also an impressive physical feat to work over 40 minutes of hard striking and harder bumps, and this match somehow managed to get more physical the longer it went. I did not buy Bate standing up to all the damage and making all the comebacks he did, but I also must acknowledge that there was some absolutely brutal punishment he took that was not pulled, and I can't take that away from him. Tyler Bate took a genuine beating, and still kept the awareness to pull off some very complicated runs. 

I do think there was far too much down time, and that it's hard to sustain disbelief when WALTER is laying it on full strength. WALTER threw enough full arm chops to purple up Bate's chest 20 minutes in, and that chest was one thing Bate never forgot to sell. WALTER crashed hard on shoulderblocks and lariats and went to the chin with his elbows, and his rudest offense made it seem like he should have no problem disposing of Bate in under 20. Bate had a few impressive throws on WALTER, but I never once bought any of his strikes. When there's this much of a size difference you REALLY need to tighten things up to narrow that gap. Instead Bate had a lot of big blows that were supposed to be moment payoffs, and I think they all landed flat. I am just not going to buy into a single Bate short left hook putting WALTER down for longer than anything he did to Bate. And to buy into this match, you have to buy into several moments just like that. Implausible as I found the last 20 minutes of Tyler Bate comebacks, they did work a ton of very good nearfalls that really build nicely. Bate was at his best when he was using his body as a weapon, hit or miss. His tope suicidas were unhinged full body crashes into WALTER, his top rope corkscrew senton was great, he flew into a chop to the shoulder blades and got powerbombed horizontally into a ringpost. So while I hated a lot of Bate's payoff strikes, his peaks were majestic. The crowd was truly along for the ride and wanted to see Bate win the title, and that goes a long way towards the match's favor.  So while I wish I could have seen what their 20 minute main event looked like, they do manage to fill 42 minutes with some strong peaks. That's an overall success. 

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2019 MOTY MASTER LIST

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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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NXT UK TakeOver: Blackpool 1/12/19

Tyler Bate/Trent Seven vs. James Drake/Zack Gibson

ER: Talk about underwhelming. I've actually seen this tag talked about as "the best WWE brand tag of the decade" and that is just madness. This was an overly long tag match that occasionally threatened to get good, but was always derailed. First things first, this did not need to be a 24 minute match. The work within in the match did not justify the length, as it basically broke down into a long heat segment on Seven, building to a Bate hot tag that required Drake and Gibson to either hold still or dump themselves on their heads (Drake especially leaned into and flew for every strike, lariat, and suplex Bate threw). Bate's offense was nothing but GYV repeatedly getting into position to take something ridiculous, from Gibson having to constantly be flustered by any strike Bate threw, on up to both Gibson and Drake having to hold perfectly still for several seconds just so Bate could do one of his Big Strong Boy spots and lift both in a short airplane spin. Gibson and Drake did excellent work finding plausible ways to fall for the same Bate tricks and make the offense look as good as it did. Seven turned in fine work as the FIP and I would have liked to see more of that, building to an actual comeback from him. Instead it felt like Bate kept hogging all the big babyface moments for himself. Seven did hit a nice low elbow suicida early, but much of this was built around Bate as the big star. Drake and Gibson had some great moments down the stretch. I thought both had real on point elbow strikes, and they hit a twisting suplex/Drake 450 that looked like something that should definitely finish a match. The wildest spot of the match was GYV hitting a Doomsday Device tope that Bate is pretty damn crazy to even consider taking. For a match that felt built around Bate in some selfish ways, I can't deny he took the silver bullet with that one. With some editing and a more of Bate's nonsense cutoff this could have been really good, as it was I will just remember it as a tag match that was too long. 

Jordan Devlin vs. Finn Balor

ER: This was going to be Devlin/Banks and then they changed it to a surprise Balor appearance. He got a great reaction from the loud crowd, but the match wasn't as satisfying as it could have been. They were bringing up the teacher/student aspect a lot throughout the match, but that aspect was kind of the monkey wrench of the match. Devlin has been dominant and mean during the entire run of NXY UK so far, and this match just made him look like a weaker version of Finn Balor. This should have been Devlin surprising the returning star, not the returning star showing that he's still on top even though he hasn't been there. I just don't see the point in running a "new guy dominating everyone here is always a step behind guy who has been up on the main brand". This was where Devlin needed a definitive win. Balor did look good, and that at least made him mauling Devlin make sense. I can get more behind a cocky heel student underestimating his teacher. Devlin is generous about running into Devlin's best stuff, but he throws harder. His kicks really land well here, the sliding apron dropkick looks decapitating and his shotgun dropkick makes Devlin's fast corner bump belieavable. Devlin's offense paled next to Balor's, and he had been looking like a real killer on the weekly shows, but he still made offense look great. He really got dumped with a great Balor brainbuster right after impaling himself into Balor's knees while attempting a moonsault. So it was not a match without great moments, and Balor looked like a star, but it all felt backwards. 

Eddie Dennis vs. Dave Mastiff

ER: This took a little bit to get going, but eventually came through on delivering what I wanted from it: The heaviest guy on the brand going at it with the tallest guy on the brand. The No DQ stip was the thing that slowed things down at first, as not far in we were taking long breaks to go grab chairs and ring steps and set up tables, and when you look at a 10 minute match and realize that 15% of it was plunder retrieval you gotta wonder about your resource allocation. But I appreciated Mastiff's dedication to John Cena's specific kayfabe ritual of preserving the sanctity of the ring steps' weight. Mastiff hoisted these steps into the ring like the weight 200 lb., a thing I always genuinely got excited to see Cena do. Cena would stumble around struggling to lift the ring steps in the way Marcel Marceau would struggle to keep his kite line straight, and while Mastiff doesn't have that same commitment I still always like wrestlers giving some integrity to their weapons. Mastiff ends up eating a nasty side slam on those ring steps, and the Singapore cane shots where metered out and delivered to strong effect, never devolving into exchanges and always given time to sink in. We got a couple cool visuals off of Dennis catching Mastiff up top and planting him with a Razor's Edge, didn't actually think Dennis would be able to pull off the lift and he did these great shaky legs as he was walking to the center of the ring to deliver it. Awesome spot. 

Things got really good when Dennis flipped out and tore back the ringside mats, knocked Mastiff off the apron with a hard back elbow after blocking Mastiff's suplex off the apron. But Mastiff winds up planting him on the ballroom floor with the Finlay roll and then squashes him with a senton. Dennis gets one last nice shot at a win after Mastiff misses a split legged moonsault, and even muscles Mastiff up for the neck stop driver. Mastiff handled the kickout so well that I actually thought Dennis was winning. But, Mastiff slips out of another Dennis Razor's Edge attempt, and bounces Dennis off his neck with a sick German suplex, then a cannonball through the table that Dennis had set up. I thought the violence worked well in this match, and they didn't shoot way past the time they needed to have a nice big man war. The big spots that got nearfalls were built to well, and the lack of overkill made the spots they did do mean a lot more. 

Toni Storm vs. Rhea Ripley

ER: I liked the first 2/3 of this a lot more than the final stretch, as the finishing stretch really felt like they threw out everything that was working for the match in favor of doing the same strike exchange/finisher trading that you see in a lot of modern title matches. The first parts of the match where filled with little things and attention to detail, stiff work over melodrama. Once the melodrama and ugly crying and Home Alone faces kick in you know what kind of match it turned into. The opening cat and mouse was fun, loved the timing the went into Ripley running out to the floor only to be nailed by a Storm tope, and I love how Ripley switched up her game to work this obnoxiously dominating style, always yanking Storm around the ring by her hair and mashing her face with palms and boots. Any time Ripley was in control it would be filled with these dirty exchanges, not just locking a move on but pulling hair before hitting a move. When Storm would kick out of something, Ripley wouldn't just lie there before picking her up for another move, she'd be instantly kicking at Storm, and not enough wrestlers fill those spaces with actual action. I thought Storm was great at fighting back, and I liked how the worked in the headbutt cut off spot as an almost equalizer, giving Storm recovery time while making Ripley vulnerable. Storm's Germans kept landing, and I liked where this was heading. Until I wasn't. I didn't love the hockey fighting (and the fact that it looked better than a lot of other hockey fighting spots just shows you how awful these spots almost always look), and the big melodramatic shocked face 30-45 second waiting period in between hitting finishers a few times just felt like a different match, or a big fat forward to the end of this match. 

Joe Coffey vs. Pete Dunne

ER: I correctly pointed out the needlessness of the tag title match going nearly 25 minutes, so obviously when you get a main event that goes 35, there will be complaints. This is one of those long matches where the longer it goes, the more flaws you notice from both wrestlers, things that could have easily been avoided if they just stuck to their strengths and didn't try to take such a big slice. If you turn this into a 17 minute title match - which is more than enough time to hit literally every single beat you would want to hit - then this could have been something worth talking about. It's biggest crime? It didn't feel like it built at all for 30 minutes. The opening mat work looked good, I was into Coffey trying to bend Dunne's wrist and Dunne making Coffey stop that by bending on his fingers, the kind of opening couple minutes that could lead to good things. But once they got that out of their systems this turned into a match where minute 5 looked eerily similar to minute 35, and that's almost always a problem with this overly long "wars". Guys are dead on their feet throwing...and they remain dead for a half hour. There was a spot where Coffey locked in a nice crab and started stomping on Dunne's head, and of course Dunne was then "knocked out", which lead to Dunne selling the crab the exact same way he sells any submission: lie there motionlessly until it's time for him to just get out of it. It also revealed how much Dunne requires his opponent (especially larger opponents) to do all of the lifting while he's planning his next move. Multiple times I saw Coffey have to roll himself into the ring, move his arm into a submission, place himself just right in the ring so Dunne could get to his next spot. The rolling into the ring annoyed me the most, as Dunne couldn't even go through the motions of attempting to lift Coffey, just put his hands on him and let Coffey roll himself back in. It's the equivalent of a wrestler who just puts his hand on his foe's shoulder and lets the guy stand back up on his own before getting hit with another move. It's lazy and unfocused.

And just as the opening tag felt like everyone in the match was working just to give Tyler Bate showcase spots, this whole match was selfishly and overbearingly the Pete Dunne Show. Every move that Coffey did, no matter how devastating, was used as a way to get Dunne back into the match. I'm not even certain Coffey was able to string two pieces of offense together, because there were so many times where he hit a powerslam, or a suplex, or a clothesline, and it would lead to Dunne getting to his feet first or Dunne kicking out and going right back on offense. When you factor in that Dunne was the one going for cheap shots by attacking Coffey's fingers, the whole match felt like Coffey was the underdog babyface who couldn't keep down a heel Terminator. The whole match was about Dunne's explosive offense, so everything Coffey did was just to set up Dunne being explosive again, and every big spot in the match was used as a match restart. That's the main thing that lead to this feeling like it had zero build, is every big spot for 30 minutes just lead to either both squaring off in bad looking exchanges as if there hadn't just been a big crash. I think Mastiff/Dennis earlier on this show was a good example of making the biggest stuff in a match mean something, give them consequences. This could have built into a match with consequences at any point, but they kept choosing to make their own offense mean little. 

These complaints would have been there without them doing other annoying fluff like "my elbow strike knocks you into the ropes which allows you to bounce back and lariat me which allows me to spin around with a punch!" Dunne has a few bad strike combos that make opponents look like total clowns when they fall for them, made me appreciate more of Tyler Bate's misdirection attempts before hitting his combos. Dunne's combos all require Coffey to duck stupidly just so Dunne could hit bad left/right combos. By the end we lose the thread so much that we get a couple of weird "both men fall off the top rope but we don't know what move they were supposed to be hitting so we'll just act like it didn't happen but also act like it was extremely damaging even though both wrestlers just went back to doing things." Through 20 minutes of this match I still thought there was a salvageable match. They clearly wanted to do something special in the first UK TakeOver main event, but their idea of "something special" was always "let's get to another run of big Pete Dunne offense!" This needed an editor, badly, but post HHH wrestlers have this weird aversion to hiding their weaknesses. 

ER: I was hoping for a better show considering it was the first TakeOver, and the people wrestling clearly wanted to put on a great show. Sadly, it appears that I dislike the instincts a lot of the guys when constructing a "big" match. It felt like the time could have been much better utilized on the show. They could have easily trimmed 12 minutes off the main event and had Jinny vs. Isla Dawn, showcasing two other women to set up a future title contender. Having only 5 matches, one of them FAR too long, just means less people showcased on the biggest show the brand ran so far, and one of those matches was used to show that the already established Finn Balor could still easily best someone who had been looking like a title threat. This show should have been used as a springboard and it came off like a muddled, confusing show when looking at what it actually accomplished.

COMPLETE GUIDE TO NXT UK

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NXT UK Worth Watching: James Drake! Wild Boar! Tyler Bate! Mark Andrews!

James Drake vs. Tyler Bate NXT UK 8/25 (Aired 11/14/18) (Ep. #7)

ER: I liked the looks of this on paper and it gave me what I was hoping for. Bate is a guy with nice moves and hammy execution, and Drake is a guy who leans into hard strikes and gets into position for moves real well. Bate does moves with familiar set ups match to match, but he's good at switching things up so he's not doing every move from the exact same start point every single time. I liked the World of Sport wristlock exchanges to start, and I liked how Drake took him to the floor and brought him back in with knees. Drake is good at working Bate over, and he looks like a wrestling Billy Mitchell, and the stuff around Drake's headlock was my favorite part of the match. Drake has a great headlock and looks like he's really messing with Bate's breathing, hooking Bate's chin in his elbow crook and then holding his forearm across Bate's esophagus. My favorite part was Bate trying to break the sleeper by backing Drake hard into the turnbuckles, but he did it right when a forearm was across his throat and his face said he hurt himself more. Drake hits a corner dropkick that looks like he is going for a KO, looks like a finish and works as a strong nearfall. Bate's eventual comeback clotheslines and uppercuts look good, and his deadlift suplexes are impressive (dig that slow lift backdrop driver). I would have actually liked another twist or nearfall at the end, but I also appreciate the tidy finish. It's nice to see a guy pinned after a clothesline and tiger driver.


Wild Boar vs. Mark Andrews NXT UK 8/25 (Aired 11/21/18) (Ep. #9)

ER: This is a nice complementary pairing. Andrews benefitted from a stout base, and Boar has a ton of fun ways to flatten and throw Andrews. Boar is Tinier Taz on offense, and catches ranas nicely and bumps generously while on defense. Andrews with throw a genuinely hard right elbow smash, and he's a fun guy to see get smooshed by a nasty Boar apron senton and another one while on all fours. Boar grunts and jumps into him with headbutts, squatting on the mat and doing his own fun take on JYD headbutts. Andrews tries big stuff like a quebrada off the apron and a shooting star to finish, but the shooting star falls short (his always seems to...), but his strength is his bumping. His flying is risky but not always executed, while his bumps are big. He gets creamed on a clothesline and gets flipped far on a half nelson suplex or flattened by a fast cannonball in the corner. The finish is a little abrupt and could have used a couple twists, but Boar excels in these 5 minute action sprints and a game opponent will benefit.


COMPLETE NXT UK GUIDE

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NXT UK Worth Watching: Noam Dar! Zack Gibson! Ligero! James Drake!

Noam Dar vs. Zack Gibson NXT UK 7/28 (Aired 10/31/18) (Ep. #3)

ER: I really liked this, while also wishing it wasn't 21 minutes. I don't think any guys actually need 20+ minutes to tell their story, but that said this match didn't actually feel 21 minutes and that's in its favor. We had a story of Dar going after Gibson's left leg while Gibson just focused on attacking Dar anyway he could. Dar's leg work was really good, at first working a tight grapevine and Indian deathlock, and I think Dar's submission work is among the strongest in NXT UK. He doesn't skip steps and knows how to shift his body slightly to add different leverage, and I loved how he was adding twisting to keep Gibson's selling honest. Dar immediately kicking Gibson right in the shin as he escaped the hold was sweet icing. The leg was never a major sticking point during the match, but it was always Dar's key back inside, and I liked that. He had a couple of really high profile attacks to that leg, including a wild running dropkick off the entrance ramp, and a double stomp off the top while Gibson's leg was hung over the ropes. I don't know if I would trust somebody to do either of those things, where the margin of error for *actually* destroying my knee was that slim. But the spots come off really well and are great ways to slow down Gibson for long stretches.

My favorite moment was Gibson going for a dropkick off the middle rope, but Dar lightly sidestepping and hooking that left leg on the way down, then locking in a tight kneebar. Usually in a moment like that both guys will make it a bit too obvious that they are planning for a reversal to happen, but this felt very unexpected. It looked like Gibson was honestly throwing the dropkick, and Dar had to put in the honest work of grabbing the leg, it wasn't being hung out for him. Gibson has stronger strikes than Dar, while Dar attacks more in quantity, so Gibson was the one rocking him with elbows and hitting a big powerbomb on the entrance ramp. And Dar's selling can be a bit melodramatic, but he focuses on more interesting kind of selling drama than most modern workers. Most overdramatic wrestling selling is done exclusively with the face, and since most wrestlers are terrible actors, you just end up with stupid wide eyed open mouth facials to sell everything. Dar focuses his selling on selling his body, and while it can come off as a bit much, I appreciate someone stiffening their body in pain, selling muscle pain and a man getting the wind taken from him. I thought Gibson's knee selling was good, as it wasn't the overall focus of the match but he paid enough lip service to it to create openings. The finish was tidy and didn't send us through a long series of nearfalls with shocked faces, which was a contributing factor in this long match not feeling as long.


Ligero vs. James Drake NXT UK 7/29 (Aired 11/7/18) (Ep. #5)

ER: Ligero is really great at these 5-6 minute showcase sprints, really knows how to keep the selling respectable while keeping the action near constant. He really leans into beatings and that always makes a flier type more interesting to me, because snapping off a tight Code Red is cooler after that guy got his face kicked in. Drake is good at throwing sharp elbows to the jaw, and his corner dropkick really looked decapitating. Ligero sold a sore jaw throughout, and it wouldn't shock me if he was just a man reacting to getting kicked in the face. Drake works quick and hits hard when he gets there, and I kept being surprised at how Ligero would lean into it all. The nearfalls were good and I genuinely had no idea who was going to win, a competitive match without ever feel like they were taking turns. I love Ligero's tornado DDT finish, and the roster is filled with guys who can make sure the DDT looks like a finish.


COMPLETE GUIDE TO NXT UK

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WWE Big 3: Lorcan, Gallagher, Gulak 2019 Catch-Up

ER: No 205 Live this week, no sign of our guys this week, and it feels like we've seen much less of our guys ever since Smackdown started on Fox. A sign of bad things to come. BUT there is still 2019 stuff from these guys that we haven't seen, and this gives us another chance to dig back and find potential gems.

Oney Lorcan vs. Cedric Alexander WWE 205 Live 3/12/19

ER: Great stuff from these guys, a cool slow burn tournament match that built nicely to the biggest parts but didn't race through them once they got there. The first half of this is cool, the whole thing could have been worked with no ropes, a lot of the action based around holds or strikes. Even the running attacks didn't really need the ropes, as it was just both guys using the large ring to build whatever momentum they needed. Lorcan lands chops and uppercuts, Alexander throws back chops of his own and a couple kicks, Lorcan hits a hard lariat and works a waistlock and abdominal stretch, and the whole thing is very contained but very engaging. By the time they're using the ropes it feels like the match has taken off into the next plane, and I especially liked the swinging flatliner Alexander hit. I thought both guys were really good at busying themselves while waiting for attacks, like the way Alexander stumbled to his knees while Lorcan somersaulted off the top, then ran back to nail the blockbuster. The nearfalls felt earned, a lot of things that could seemingly end things, that blockbuster and the fought for half nelson suplex, but also Alexander's cool STO on the ring apron with a quick snap Michinoku Driver back in the ring. Lorcan kept working slaps and uppercuts, and I really dug how Alexander would buckle for them, though that also made the actual finish come off a little sudden. Still, I thought they built this whole thing real nicely, one of the 15+ minute 205 matches that I think really worked with the runtime. So many of those long matches just feel too long, but this felt like they were actually working the proper back and forth for the time.

Men's Battle Royal WWE Worlds Collide 4/4 (Aired 5/1/19)

ER: This was a good battle royal that really didn't have much of Gulak, eliminated within the first third. He was a guy worth watching while he was in it, with he and Riddle going at it one of the big highlights of the this. They even cosplay Ken Shamrock/Don Frye on the ring apron, something I've not seen in a battle royal. But then Gulak was eliminated by someone. Maybe Steve Cutler? Possibly Steve Cutler. But there was other fun battle royal stuff. Brian Kendrick never even took off his leather jacket (and yet lasted much longer than I expected for a man my size who didn't bother to get fully into gear), Riddle was the obvious megastar here but was eliminated by unexpected final 4 guy Saurav Gurjar, and Dijakovic looked like a teetering oaf but got punched into extinction. But there was also some trash! After having Gurjar take out Riddle, they had Tyler Bate eliminate him by...picking him up, walking him slowly over to the ropes, and then just tossing him over. Gurjar put up no sort of struggle during any part of this. A man 100 pounds smaller than him just picked him up, walked him across the ring, and tossed him. It was one of the lamer things I have seen in a battle royal. And while I liked parts of the Strong/Bate survivor battle, it went too long, and had FAR too many moments of one guy getting tossed over the ropes, dangling, only to have the other guy just walk away. Bate is just swinging, Strong just slowly walks across the ring. It's like a Kane cage match  I was at live, where he opened the cage door, stepped down to the bottom step, grabbed a chair without stepping one more step for the win, and went back into the cage to use the chair. This was on a show that was just two battle royals, the other with all women. The women's battle royal was better, with nice showings from Bianca Belair and Jessamyn Duke and a far better knowledge of how to build to neat battle royal moments. But this wasn't bad.

Jack Gallagher vs. Humberto Carrillo vs. James Drake vs. Mark Andrews WWE 205 Live 5/14/19

ER: This didn't have enough pairing off, and spent too much time trying to work a 3 way instead of working their natural 2 on 2 hand they had been dealt. And this whole thing was spent mostly showcasing Drake and Andrews at the expense of Gallagher and Carrillo, and that's not what I wanted to see. Gallagher was even the guy kept on the floor, who couldn't get in the ring because of a tough game of King of the Mountain. Seriously, Gallagher was the little kid who kept getting brushed aside, and he should have been running this thing. There was even a moment where he was fighting up top and then just had to sit on the top buckle leaning out of the way, so other people could fight around him. Our boy was made to look like a clown for much of this, and I didn't dig it. Carrillo was really good at making Drake's and Andrews' offense pop, Andrews ate a wicked facebuster into the apron, and all of the flying looked good. By the time Gallagher was actually allowed into the action, he broke out the umbrella senton and hit an awesome falling meteor from the top (like Mr. Fuji's great finisher only insanely off the top rope), Carrillo's twisting moonsault off the top looked great...but then Gallagher dispatched of everyone in cool ways and got to look like the ultimate chump by getting rolled up. They made some odd choices in this one, paired off funny, and really seemed to showcase people in the reverse order that they should be showcased. The action was enjoyable and quick, and that does count for a lot, but I wanted something different from this.

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WWE Big 3: Lorcan, Gallagher, Gulak 2019 Catch-Up

WWE is cruelly depriving us of fresh Big 3 TV matches this week, so I figured I would dive back deeper into 2019 and pick up some matches of the guys that I missed, see if there's anything worth going back for.


Drew Gulak vs. Jordan Devlin WWE Worlds Collide 1/26/19 (Aired 2/2)

ER: I thought this was really good, especially when viewed as a great Gulak performance. I thought Devlin was along for the ride and held up his end in a lot of ways, but also thought the weakest parts of the match were because of him, and still find it weird that a lot of these UK guys seem to work really flat finishes into their matches. But you view this as a Gulak show with an 80% capable guy across from him, and there were some great fireworks. I loved every way Gulak would grab a limb, and every way he would kind of stop a sequence midway through and take it a different direction. I would have been happy with him working cravats, locking in a leg in place while twisting Devlin's arm behind him, sinking the body vice of the Gulock while stretching his bicep back across Devlin's eyes, all of his work looked nasty. But I liked the bits of personality he added, too, like the section in the middle where both guys try to get their feet on the ropes during pins, and Gulak escalates things into a slugfest. Now, I dug that, because Gulak hits much harder than Devlin. Things come to blows, and Gulak gives him an elbow that knocks him back in the corner while walking through Devlin's punch/elbow hybrid thing. As the match went on it felt like Devlin started working up to Gulak, I thought his elbows looked harder during the back half of the match, he started toeing Gulak in the cheek with little kicks, and then he hit two strong as hell standing lariats. Those lariats looked so mean that if I had taken them I would have been clutching my chest on the floor like Redd Foxx. Gulak brings in fun misdirection when Devlin starts firing back harder, and I loved the look of Gulak bringing a unexpected dropdown, then getting up to run a alternate direction before catching Devlin in the surprise sunset flip. That was a great nearfall and I think could have ended the match. I also think Gulak's nasty trailer hitch could have ended things, as he kept Devlin's ankles tied up and bent, while wrenching every other limb away from the ropes. The finish itself came off flat (a lot of these UK guys seem to peak their matches 3/4 of the way through), so it just feels like Gulak going down to a fireman's carry, but I also think Gulak sold well enough for Devlin, put over the physical toll well enough, that the finish didn't feel out of place.

Jack Gallagher vs. Lince Dorado 205 Live 2/12/19

ER: This kind of felt like a weird WCW match up, throwing together Robbie Brookside vs. JL, only WWE gives that match 10 minutes in front of a silent crowd. They threatened to make some noise while Gallagher held an abdominal stretch, then almost came alive when Dorado was hitting moonsaults off each turnbuckle, but most of this time this read like an exhibition both guys worked in an empty training room. And that's not such a bad thing, but the match itself didn't seem to have much glue. There were cool things, and I dig this kind of style clash, but Gallagher wasn't working as quirky as he can, and Dorado wasn't as interesting as he is in multimans. Taken in highlight form it would make an excellent package. Dorado hit a big springboard crossbody to the floor with his knees cracking across Gallagher's face (the replay showing the angle from behind Gallagher looked even more nasty) and I dug how Gallagher took all of Dorado's flying in a really heavy way. Gallagher would take a crossbody and fall back with a thud, or flip into a heavy flipping back bump off a headscissors; I thought it made Dorado's light offense look more damaging than if Gallagher had just rolled through everything with more lucha style bumps. I dug the build to Dorado hitting his three moonsaults, catching knees on the one off the top, and then flipped out for Gallagher's muscled up powerbomb turned into a tight single leg. But when the match didn't end on Gallagher's rebound headbutt, I called shenanigans. Dorado treated every move from Gallagher the exact same, sold it the same, so you had him shrugging off a sick powerbomb and kickout out of that wicked headbutt, but treating them the same as early match work. Good moments, fun highlights, never really felt like a match.

Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch vs. Grizzled Young Veterans (James Drake/Zack Gibson) NXT UK 1/27/19 (Aired 2/27)

ER: Simple match with a simple formula of GYV cutting off the ring, with the enduring problem being that GYV aren't very interesting here. Now I understand that to build to a big fiery comeback you need to wear down the faces, really make it seem like long odds, and then the faces explode into action. But Drake and Gibson really didn't do a ton with their long heat segment, and the hot tag kept weirdly chopping off its own limbs. The time was right, the formula was sound, but I didn't think it added up to much. Gibson and Drake work this match like the least interesting Gallows/Anderson, with occasional bright flashes coming from Lorcan and Burch. Burch has a couple of nice thrust headbutts, Lorcan tags in with his huge double blockbuster and then hits a wild Doomsday Device uppercut that sends Drake flying dangerously off Burch's shoulders. But the only big moments that GYV would build to all ended up in lame chestbreakers. This whole thing was way too dry. Simple can often lead to great, but some guys just aren't good at doing anything interesting while working simply.

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