Ain't No Chains to Hold Gulak In, to Hold Gulak To

Drew Gulak vs. Jaxson Ryker WWE Main Event 9/16/21 - GREAT

ER: The last time Gulak showed up in a match before this was also against Ryker, seven weeks earlier on this very program. This match was an improvement over their late July match, which saw Ryker work as a heel while being positioned as the babyface. Not a whole lot changed here, except Ryker seemed to understand that he was the babyface (however bizarre that choice might be) here, and Gulak plays a punishing heel well. The opening match lock-up was great, taken to all sides of the ring, and a nice way of establishing that this was not going to be a heavyweight steamrolling a cruiser. 

Ryker does much of the same offense he did several weeks prior, with a couple important changes that all work to get him face reactions from the crowd: Instead of hard bodyslams, he picks Gulak up for one and then shows him off to the crowd from different angles before slamming him, letting the reaction build before throwing him down and hitting a falling headbutt. Ryker even adds in a surprise rana off the top (not sure I've seen him use that before) to cement his babyface status to the Boston crowd, who has no problem rooting for guys who look like sentient Thin Blue Punisher window decals. 

The best parts of this were Gulak fighting his way back, as he throws some slashing knife edge chops (a stunned Ryker chops him back just as hard), and this great moment where Ryker runs into Gulak's boot and then Gulak wastes him with one of his all time finest lariats. Gulak knows how to make bigger moments (like that huge lariat) read so well, but I also loved little details he added throughout, like when he took a stiff shoulderblock and immediately grabbed for Ryker's leg, tying him up to halt momentum. This was a lightly tweaked version of their previous match, but it was tweaked in all the right ways.   

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DREW GULAK

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Gulak Was There With the Best Sometimes

 Drew Gulak vs. Baron Corbin WWE Smackdown 7/31/20 - FUN

ER: I really liked how these two matched up in their April match, and it feels like they have enough chemistry to work a satisfying feud. This match felt different than that match, and I like when guys bring different vibes to rematches. This one was shorter, but worked briskly. It had a lousy finish that made Gulak look like a goof, But getting to the bad finish was a fun trip. Gulak was really aggressive and worked a dominant strike game against Corbin, and those parts were great. Gulak punched and elbowed him around the ring, kicking at him, really backing up a larger opponent in convincing fashion. He looked really tough getting Corbin off balance with strike combos in the corner, throwing elbows and a hard shoulder to the ribs. And Gulak's late match crossface was a strong spot that feels like it would be starting to get a reaction from live crowds at this point. Corbin gave Gulak most of the match, but the finish betrayed that generosity. Riddle came out, distracted Corbin, Gulak small packaged him but only for a 2 count, then immediately ate End of Days. So bad. Gulak had looked dominant and on the same level the entire match, and then in the last seconds he looked unnecessarily desperate and immediately lost. Made no sense within the framework of the match. Still worth seeing for the rest of the match, which was enough to make me want to see the pairing again.

Drew Gulak vs. Jaxson Ryker WWE Main Event 7/29/21 - FUN

ER: Now, don't get me wrong, I understand that there probably aren't many other people who have been wanting to see a Drew Gulak/Jaxson Ryker match, but it's one of the few WWE singles match pairings I've been most excited to see. Nobody else is out here getting hyped for Jaxson Ryker matches, but he's long been a favorite of mine who barely showed up on WWE TV. In his first 3+ years in WWE he only had a dozen TV matches, before finally getting some more regular work in 2021. He works snug and aggressively, which is a style that goes well with Gulak. But what makes this match weird is that Ryker works babyface while Gulak works heel. Ryker has been a far more visible onscreen heel presence than Gulak, and he is obviously the larger man, so it's weird to see Gulak take on the role of heel (without doing anything visually heelish). Plus, Ryker projects as a psychopath who failed the police written exam a third time and has thus been relegated to working as a parking lot security guard, where he fills time posting on r/mybitchexwife for 10 hours a day. 

I don't know what agent decided to slot Ryker into the babyface role here, but it's a choice. Most importantly, Ryker's offense and the way he delivers that offense does not read like babyface offense, so here he worked more like Ted DiBiase Jr., which is a thing that literally no person has ever aspired to do. It's all bodyslams, a swinging side slam, and a falling headbutt. Gulak adds the interesting flash, with some great punches to Ryker's body, and a cool cravat that he works from multiple angles while leaning weight down on Ryker. Gulak works Ryker into a nice crossface, but you can see the moment where they decide to go home as Ryker just fights up, hits a couple of double chops, a nice slingshot suplex, and then the spinning slam. The crowd did get behind Ryker's comeback so they did respond positively to face Ryker (I don't think there was any kind of actual turn, as the week before he was the heel in a match that sent Elias packing), but it was not the match I wanted to see from them. They had another a couple months later, so we'll see what they change. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DREW GULAK

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Unicorn Gimmick Matches - Symphony of Destruction

Elias vs. Jaxson Ryker WWE Raw 7/19/21

ER: A 1999 style hardcore match that doesn't quite live up to WCW junkyard reckless stupidity, but due to the specific weapon stipulation managed to capture at least a degree of that unpredictability that comes with using non-conventional weapons. This match was the final Elias match in WWE, and to his credit he went out with his best performance of 2021. If WWE actually knew what they were doing week to week they could have easily billed this as a Loser Leaves Town match (instead they just aired vignettes a month later for his return that never happened), but it's still a perfectly fun violent weapons match to go out on. The entire ringside area is filled with musical instruments. It's incredibly stupid but it works because they went so over the top with the instrument selection, and they didn't cheat by fleshing out the match with non-instrument weapons. 

Instruments are great weapons because they are either very heavy or very lumpy, so they are either awkward as hell to land on or heavy as hell to be hit with, and we get plenty of both. Elias takes a nasty bump into a drum kit and there is probably no instrument more painful than a set of drums to bump into (there is one specific way that bumping onto a flute would be much worse, but it's a one in a million shot), and Elias's selling in this match is good enough that I assume his body was completely messed up by this band room brawl. Ryker hits some heavy shots with a huge keyboard, which Elias later pays back by hitting Ryker a few times with a fucking cello. Do you know how heavy cellos are? Not nearly as much as you think, actually. And, since you've never seen circles farther apart than the Venn diagram of WWE Raw viewers and Julian Lloyd Webber fans, Elias takes advantage of that. John Cena used to be really great at putting over the weight of foreign objects, and I have no doubt that there are thousands of kids who believed that the ring steps weighed 200 pounds just from watching how Cena would always labor to lift them over his head. Elias uses that same energy when lifting that cello over his head to smash Ryker, making a 7 lb. instrument look like 70. 

There are some big spots around a grand piano, and the WWE prop department deserves credit for finding a big ass piano just for this blowoff match. I suppose it's possible that Diana Krall had played the arena and the American Airlines Center staff had been looking for a way to get rid of this thing, but regardless, we got to see two guys take bumps on a big piano and that rocks. Also important, is that they fill the time in between weapons shots with hard strikes, with Elias throwing hard elbows after getting busted open, and Ryker throwing shots to Elias's temple to set up the big finish. The finish is the only cheat of the match, as Ryker does an awesome superplex from the top rope to the floor through a pair of tables. A superplex through a grand piano would have been one of the most memorable spots of the year, but I'm not going to hold that against them. Ryker was really good at making sure Elias was punched out on the apron to set up his superplex, making a big spot feel less cooperative than it should have looked, and the superplex itself was definitely something that should end a match. Elias's selling after the pinfall was so good that it would be easy to believe he was hurt, giving his final match the actual gravity that WWE didn't provide. 

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WWE Big 3: Lorcan, Gallagher, Gulak 12/22-12/28 + Bonus Lorcan

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

Jack Gallagher vs. Isaiah Scott

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


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

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

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

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

ER: None of the three made any of the shows this week (feels like I've had to type a variation on that sentence every other week for the past couple months) which just gives me a chance to check out matches of theirs I missed earlier in the year. And there's still some gold to be found, so let's dive back into 6-8 months ago, which feels like 3 years ago.

Oney Lorcan vs. Jaxson Ryker WWE NXT 3/13/19 (Aired 4/3/19)

ER: Lorcan moving more to 205 Live kind of made me forget how much I love Lorcan against big brutes, and this match has been on my dream "Lorcan vs. Brute" match list. And it rules. It only goes about 5 minutes, but Lorcan is great at working these 80/20 matches, and Ryker focuses a really nasty attack to Lorcan's back and ribs. Every single thing Ryker brings to Lorcan is a hard attack at his torso, with a couple of pants shitting low running knees, a gutbuster tossed with absolute fury, even Ryker just dropping huge clubbing shots right into Lorcan's ribs and sternum. Lorcan fights at the bell with great chops but gets smothered easily, and this is a match after my heart as Ryker grabs a great bearhug. Lorcan is the outright best in the WWE at fighting out of a bearhug, really taking you through all the levels of pain before he starts grabbing at Ryker's beard, trying to break free by covering Ryker's nose and mouth, and finally building to grabbing that beard and punching Ryker several times in the face. Then we get that explosive Lorcan comeback we love, him launching his full weight into all his attacks, chopping that brute down, getting nearly horizontal with his flying uppercuts and adjusting the attack lower and lower and Ryker gets more and more slumped in the corner. Of course it all ends with a big chokebomb, and I would have liked just one Lorcan kickout before being put away, but this is a match type I wish we saw way more often.

Drew Gulak vs. Humberto Carrillo 205 Live 4/23/19

ER: A fun match, but another in a string of good 15 minute 205 Live match that would have been much better as a 10 minute match. These things are a little long in the tooth for the crowd to stay invested, and it's endlessly amusing to me that WWE is making crowds sit through two 15 minute cruiserweight matches before getting to the people they presumably want to see. Did any of us ever think we'd say stuff like "I like that WWE is giving TV time to the cruiserweights, but why does it have to be *this* much time?" Carrillo uses flippiness to frustrate Gulak early, and I dug the spot where Carrillo climbed all the way to the top of the ringpost and waved to Gulak on the floor, with Gulak yelling at him to get down from there. Gulak shows him who's boss by grounding things, working a cool figure 4 variation and really tangling up Carrillo's knees with his legs, really locking in leg holds so he can move Carrillo at will by leverage: either roll over with me or your knee will be popped out. Gulak works a nice armbar, and then a genuinely great ankle lock (catching the leg out of the air after Carrillo tried a spin kick). We spent so many years watching Angle just stand there like a doof holding someone's foot, and here's Gulak working different points of manipulation, really gripping the toes while twisting at the ankle, trying gamely to hold on while getting kicked in the face, and a killer moment where Carrillo rolls through to a convincing nearfall, leading to Gulak powering up with his core into a nastier ankle lock, never letting go. Carrillo hits a nice tope en reversa and a great missile dropkick right to the collarbones, finishing with a sunset flip bomb and the Aztec press. I really liked most of the stuff they did here, it just would have benefitted from lopping a couple sections off.

Jack Gallagher/Humberto Carrillo vs. The Singh Brothers 205 Live 5/21/19

ER: You come here for the Singh Brothers content, I'm gonna give you that Singh Brothers content. Tired of arguing with your friends about which Singh Brother is better? Tired of parties devolving into rooms split between Samir supporters and Sunil sustainers? Well, it's Samir. The answer is Samir. Samir cuts way low on a lariat, hits a great cheapshot on Gallagher for the floor that sets up a convincing false finish, takes a big chest first bump in the corner, just a cut above Sunil. And this match is worked at a nice clip, with the Singhs cutting Carrillo off from Gallagher, and the Singhs are good at fast bumps and roll up pins that looks like they might actually finish a match, and when Gallagher does get in, hits his great delayed vertical suplex and grabs a half crab, Sunil comes in with a lariat right to the back of his head. The match wrapped up oddly quick, like they suddenly realized they had to get the hell out of the ring in 20 seconds - and by now I am accustomed to these 205 matches going their full damn course. The better finish actually would have been the Singhs winning off outside interference and a roll up, the finish here (Carrillo hitting an ugly Aztec press) didn't really feel like it went with any of the story they were telling.

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