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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

ER: This is exciting, because it is a post that signifies the successful completion of a project. Last year we set out to review every match from Lorcan, Gallagher, and Gulak, and we did. We started halfway through 2019, and I've been going back and filling in the blanks with matches I missed, and this is the last of them. It's been one of my favorite regular projects, just because I love watching these three work. I have obviously been continuing it in 2020, but so far we haven't even seen Gallagher on TV in 2020


Oney Lorcan vs. Brian Kendrick vs. Akira Tozawa vs. Ariya Daivari vs. Mike Kanellis 205 Live 5/21/19

ER: This was disjointed, bad, too long, poorly laid out, poorly agented, made none of the 5 looks any better than the other 4, and was home to everything I dislike about multiman wrestling. WWE is usually a fed that can throw together an interesting main event multiman, and this was a far shout from that. Two minutes into a 16 minutes match, all 5 participants were lying on the mat as if they had all been through a real war. I knew then that this was going to be awful. There were stretches of this match where (I believe) every single participant completely disappeared for 5 minutes at a time. After the first two minutes with everyone chaotically fighting for space in the ring, we went through 80% of the match worked as a series of singles matches, three men either lying out of the way tired or off camera selling, and the layout just flat out stunk. There was no rhythm to this, just a bad series of match vignettes with nobody really standing out. Kendrick probably came off the best of anyone, and the early part of the match with Kendrick locking in and fighting for the Captains Hook, then fighting his balance while fighting out of a Kanellis sub, before getting pushed off into a Lorcan uppercut, was probably the most interesting sequence here. Lorcan hits a flip dive, he and Daivari repeat a couple things from their singles match a month prior (which I might not have noticed had I not watched them the same day), Daivari takes a big thankless splat bump to the floor and gets his ear busted open, Kanellis hits a nice spinebuster and takes a freaking German suplex on the ring apron (in this match! Why??), but this whole thing felt like it added up to nothing and kept purposely resetting itself. The finish was a total mockery, as we had spent 15 minutes with many of these guys lying dead on the mat, and you can tell the second they all get the go home signal, as they all spring to their feet and start do-si-doing into each other's finishers. I hated it.

Drew Gulak vs. Akira Tozawa 205 Live 6/4/19

ER: Gulak had been on a one month NXT sojourn feuding with Kushida, and he made the best possible return to 205 Live by saving the crowd and myself from a show opening Noam Dar match. Gulak jumps Dar in the aisle and spends the next couple minutes beating Dar around ringside, never to be seen again on 205 Live. The match itself doesn't quite catch fire, but these two are familiar opponents and are going to do plenty of things great. The pace was a little slow, which I don't mind, but I don't think the early slow pace was really needed. I still liked how we got a story about Tozawa going for his big babyface spots, and Gulak having every one of them scouted. I really loved Tozawa inching to lock on his octopus hold, with Gulak just tearing free and throwing Tozawa off him. Gulak tosses Tozawa around a few times, with a super memorable snap strength gutwrench and a bone rattling superplex that leads right to the finish. They worked some fun bits around Gulak running away from a tope, then running away from a pescado, before getting nailed with the cannonball. Tozawa's later tope is a great highspot, and Gulak plays it really well so it looks like it blindsides him, Tozawa crashing so hard into him that Gulak flies backwards over the announce table. Tozawa sent Gulak back so fast that it looked like Gulak was sucked out of an airplane. The fans got quiet at points but did stay into Tozawa, really getting behind his last big offense run and staying and responding to his fireman's carry squat lift routine. I think they have a better match in them. They've had several singles matches that all happened on 205 Live, during that couple year stretch when I wasn't watching it, so that great match might be out there as I type this.

Oney Lorcan vs. Ariya Daivari 205 Live 6/4/19

ER: These two matched up in late April, and it's notable how much cooler they look in this match than they looked just six weeks before. Daivari was wearing a black tank top then, and here he's just in black pants with a newly shaved head and stitches and a scar on his ear; Lorcan has grown in his beard and has the great black and gold gear. I like both of these guys (I mean we have a whole feature about Lorcan) but I don't think they have a good long match against each other. They don't have natural chemistry, so even when I like what both are doing it doesn't always work within the match. Lorcan's big comebacks are the best part of the match, with his great uppercuts always playing big to crowds, he also throws Daivari with a cool northern lights and then looks to rip his head off with one of his all time best blockbusters. There is something satisfying about Daivari's simple attack, as I'd much rather see someone using swinging neckbreakers and hard lariats than what makes up the offense of most main carders, but they get just too much time to tell their story. Now, what sets them apart from others - and I think this is very important - is that they had a 100% completely different match than they had six weeks prior. True, I didn't love this match or that match, but I appreciated that the main set pieces of that prior match didn't show up in any way in the return bout. That's cool, and it's an extra step they didn't really need to take. This match had cool parts to it, of course it was going to, but it felt like it should have been more. If they had stuck with the opening minute viciousness of Lorcan, where he ripped at Daivari's fresh stitches, this could have been special. They went a different way, and I like that they're still trying for that thing that will really work.

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

205 Live 8/20

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

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

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

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

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

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

WWE Wrestling Mixtape. Book it.

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WWE BIG 3: Gulak, Gallagher, & Lorcan, 6/30 - 7/6

Jack Gallagher/Oney Lorcan/Tony Nese vs. Drew Gulak/Ariya Daivari/Mike Kanellis 205 Live 7/2

PAS: We get all of our guys in one surprisingly long match. Given this much time (I think it was close to 20 minutes), we get a bunch of different sections with each guy, with pretty variable quality. Gallagher was probably the highlight for me, he broke out the Nasty Russ cannonball, a crazy dive to the floor with the umbrella, and a great looking double headbutt with Gulak. Nese was obviously a focus of the match leading into his title shot, and looked pretty bad. His hot tag was embarrassing video game wrestling. I really liked the post match brawl, felt chaotic and exciting, a little more of that and a couple of cuts during the match would have improved it a lot. Still got to love these guys gettin so much time.

ER: This was disappointing. This got just about 20 minutes, and they worked the first part of this like they almost had too much time to work with. The second half picked things up considerably, but the first half felt a lot like killing time for the second half. The pairings made sense as they all built off recent happenings: Gallagher beat Kanellis last week, Daivari laid a beating on Lorcan to get DQ'd a couple weeks ago, and Gulak won the title from Nese. But none of those feuds really felt like they were acknowledged in many ways during the match, other than determining who's on what side of the ring. I will say I didn't mind Nese as much as Phil. I'm no Nese guy, but he missed a 450 with conviction, was involved in the first awesome highspot when he goes up for a moonsault and gets shoved over the top to the floor, hits a cool high speed Fosbury Flop dive onto everyone, and even his poor hot tag was an actual benefit to the match: Crowd was very silent up to that point, and while Nese running in with played out 2008 indy combos didn't look great, it livened the mood and snapped  the crowd to attention. The dive train was a genuinely great one, with Lorcan's great unhinged tope con giro, Nese's aforementioned Fosbury Flop, and Gallagher going coo coo with his fantastic umbrella butt drop and then back into the ring for a big falling meteor. Gulak and Lorcan hit hard throughout (Gulak crunches Nese with a lariat and Lorcan knocks Kanellis to the floor in notable moments), and the whole thing finished overall good, but really felt like it should have been better. What's cruel, is we get an excellent 2 minute post match ass kicking that is more awesome than anything in the long match proper. If they worked an 8 minute match with the same energy level and intensity as the "We're out of time!" brawl after the match, this thing would have been list for damn sure.

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WWE BIG 3: Gulak, Gallagher, & Lorcan, 6/23 - 6/29

Drew Gulak vs. Akira Tozawa vs. Tony Nese Stomping Grounds 6/23

ER: This definitely starts out as Gulak and Tozawa working a Tony Nese match, which I understand that's how this was likely to go. Nese is the champ, you work the champ's stupid match. I'd much rather see them just running a Tozawa/Gulak match, or Nese vs. Gulak, or Nese vs. Tozawa, but we get the worst option and it's fine. Gulak and Tozawa are GOOD at working a Tony Nese match, so it works. Nese even wears 205 Live colored gear which...feels like I hate Tony Nese. But after they got the early dance party out of their system, this settled into a really exciting 3 way. Pretty much from the moment Tozawa hit his great high impact cannonball off the apron into Gulak, I was on board. It was very "I hit this guy into that guy and that guy winds up suplexing me into the first guy" but I thought they were mostly good at avoiding dumb waiting around set-ups. This got into some pure fire territory when Gulak sunk in a nasty dragon sleeper on Nese, with his ankles locked tight in a rough body vice. Nese kept breaking out in various ways forcing Gulak to adjust the hold as his own limbs would break free, totally great way to advance drama throughout one submission. And then, with the absolutely best exclamation point, Tozawa flew from out of nowhere with a heavy as hell senton off the top, right into Nese, with Gulak underneath. Great involvement of all three guys. Tozawa was really fun here, and really he always is. He's a guy I hope lingers under the radar on the roster for a decade, like Funaki. He's already almost 3 years in! His solo stuff with Gulak is fun, loved his exchange with Nese that ended with him popping Nese in the jaw with a right, he took a cool backwards bump falling off the apron, just a great guy to put in matches like this. I wish they let Gulak tee off on Nese a little more, but I'm too genuinely excited for Drew Gulak: Cruiserweight Champion to much care. Gulak has been nothing but great during his WWE run, and I'm so happy that it will presumably start paying off with more feature matches. This match got better the longer it went, I thought, as we started feeling like a 6 minute rush job and we instead got a fun 12 minute fireworks show.

PAS: This was really fun stuff, and considering we have this feature now I hope Gulak has a long reign. Nese is what he is, not my favorite guy for sure, but at least he hits hard, those running knees are really brutal looking. Loved all of the chucking of guys into other guys; if you are going to have a three way, you might as well throw people into each other. The out of nowhere Tozawa senton was one of my favorite spots of the year, great camera angle, love when people fly in out of nowhere like that. I did think the finish was a bit abrupt, but Gulak winning is such a crowd pleasing moment for the one man crowd in my living room. Hope we get to see Gulak defend against the other two of the Big 3.

Jack Gallagher vs. Mike Kanellis 205 Live 6/25

ER: This is not going to stand out at the end of the year as one of the better Gallagher matches, but it was a fun TV match against an opponent who I hadn't thought about him matching up with. I mean,  really, I hadn't thought about Kanellis at all, let alone as a Gallagher opponent, and I'm not sure I even  remember the last time I saw a Mike Kanellis match (and it's probably been upwards of two years). But at this point I'm convinced Gallagher can have a fun match with anyone, and I still think Kanellis's music is hilarious and I enjoy his and Maria's act. He's not going to work the mat with Gallagher, but they work some decent mat comedy with Gallagher eventually running a race on Kanellis's chin while Kanellis is trying to stretch his arms. Gallagher is great at setting things up for him, and he might be one of the few guys able to convincingly leap off the top rope and eat boots, really flying into Kanellis's feet far more convincingly than you usually see that spot. We got some cool stuff on the floor, with Gallagher turning to throw Kanellis into the barricade but stopping when Maria gets in the way, allowing Kanellis to smack the back of Gallagher's head into the ringpost and then hit a nasty almost-brainbuster on the floor. I was also pleasantly surprised by a great Kanellis right hand during a punch exchange. He wouldn't strike me as someone with a nice punch in his repertoire, but it's a good one. The finish was a little too cute, with Kanellis arguing for way too long about the ref stopping a count due to some held tights, but I'm never going to complain about Gallagher finishing a match with his headbutt.

PAS: This was pretty nifty, I had completely forgotten Mike Kanellis existed and if you had told me yesterday he was in the WWE I would have called you a liar. He is pretty basic, but his basic stuff looks OK, he had a nice straight punch, and the suplex on the floor was nasty. I enjoyed the Gallagher World of Sport comedy stuff at the beginning, and he sold all of Kanellis's offense well. I do think the finish was a bit OTT and I am not invested in the Kanellis vs. Drake Maverick feud at all, but Gallagher has got to have one of the highest floors of anyone in wrestling.

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WWE Battleground 2017 Live Blog

1. Aiden English vs. Tye Dillinger

ER: I really really like English, so I'm just happy he has a job and is showing up on a PPV in any way at all. I assume he's been showing up on some secondary Network only shows, I really should go through and just quickly write up any 2017 English matches. He's a great hand to have around as he knows how to stooge with early frustration, and the moment where he turns the tables always looks great. He gets cheap shots, because he makes his cheap shots look nasty. Most guys wouldn't use a stiff knee as a cheap shot. He also knows how to talk smack during a resthold. Dillinger's comeback is a little silly, he has one of those sets of moves that he has to hit in a specific order, but he throws a fine spinebuster and English knows how to whip into the mat on a spinebuster. And English somehow WINS!? That is wonderful. He does have a few stupid finishers that look like 2001 Edge offense, but that's okay because we usually go months without seeing his finisher.

2. Kofi Kingston/Xavier Woods vs. The Usos

ER: I don't recall seeing a version of New Day where Big E was on the floor and not in the match. Big E is like 85% of the reason to watch New Day matches. Not gonna lie though, I like New Day's American flag tights. They seem like an acid version of something that babyface Virgil would wear. There's a Network Error (first in a year plus) right when the Usos hit a double team backbreaker/axe handle on Woods, with Woods getting dumped on his head afterwards. I can only imagine they did a preemptive "Technical Issues - Please Stand By". Woods hits a nice missile dropkick and Jey bumps it great all the way across the ring. Kofi gets the hot tag and I have no clue what any of his moves are actually supposed to be. His delay clothesline looks even worse than normal, he does a leaping stomp that I only knew was a leaping stomp because an announcer called it that, he hits a punt from the apron with the biggest thigh slap you've seen. Kofi bums me out sometimes. We get some pretty great blocks on the floor from Usos, back in the ring and Woods is nuts enough to get slammed neck first into the buckles and take the alley oop Samoan drop. And then THAT superkick. Woods commits fully to a huge elbow drop and gets NAILED with a superkick on the way down. I cannot believe that was a 2 count. And then we get some more quite surprising 2 counts. This match is crazy as it was worked as a super traditional tag through the Kofi hot tag, and in traditional WWE tag structure which dictates the Usos would have won just a couple minutes after that Kofi hot tag. But then instead of the finish - the spot where the finish would have been in 95% of WWE tags - both teams just started breaking out their nastiest moves. Pretty awesome stretch run, and Xavier's elbow across the whole ring was highlight reel worthy. Both teams had some great misses to set up big moves by the opponents, and the switch getting flipped in the match was welcome.

3. Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Baron Corbin

ER: This is a little slow to start, but willing to see where things go. The standing hammerlock spot didn't totally work, but I liked Nak flopping around for a big boot after. I like bearhug spots but for a match already being worked this slow, this probably wasn't the spot to do it. I do love that the crowd was chanting that Corbin sucks, so then he locked on the bearhug. Nak whiffs on a kick that gets sold, but some of his strikes in the corner look nice. Things snap awake when Corbin runs in with a huge lariat, Nak bumps it in appropriate ragdoll style. I always like Nak's grounded knee strikes, Nak hits a nasty axe kick to the back of Corbin's neck...and then Corbin goes low for the DQ. Well most of this was disappointing.

4. Becky Lynch vs. Tamina vs. Natalya vs. Lana vs. Charlotte

ER: Ahhhhh a match with 5 people in it, this should be terrible. Within 30 seconds of the match two of them have already disappeared despite taking next to no offense. Lana is great in one of those "not quite trained" kind of ways, so she's stomping uncomfortably on Charlotte's hamstrings and then drops an elbow that sees her hip land on Charlotte's face. And wow it took Lynch so long to get back into the match. These odd-person multimans are almost always so bad. Now everybody else completely disappears so Lynch and Charlotte can do things. Seriously where do they go? Do they lie on the floor and hug the apron so they don't show up on camera? Nattie and Charlotte always match up well, and I like the way Charlotte flies into her 360 clothesline. Lana has a proper flip out after only getting a 2 count, and Lana acting as a female John Tatum is the best. I also like how Tamina keeps saving Lana's butt (well, arm) from Lynch, but then Tamina gets eliminated first because Lana stays the hell out of it. BUT, then Lana gets eliminated right after, meaning the two of them have a long awkward walk to the back. I do hate the stupid traditional elimination match rules of all the eliminations bunching up within one minute of each other. It always happens, and it's always dumb. Natalya wins, because okay? "Incredible match" says the WWE announcer who may be Tom Phillips.  "Incredible movie, with an incredible woman," Tom Phillips says while walking out of Transformers: The Last Knight, accompanied by a woman who was set up with Tom through a mutual friend, moments before she tells him that she doesn't think a second date would be a good idea.

5. Kevin Owens vs. AJ Styles

ER: Owens and Styles proceed to have a very Owens and Styles match, though the part in the first few minutes I actually like the most is Owens laying in a headlock. His smack talk during the headlock is great ("I can do this all day!") and a chubby guy lying down with a headlock always makes it look like the opponent is being smothered. So I don't know if I'm easily impressed, or what. AJ's post-headlock strikes looked good and the DDT on him looks good. Back to the headlock and I'm kinda sold. Styles does a great springboard 450 right into knees. Tom Phillips (?) almost completes bad announcer bingo when he states that Owens has bad intentions. JBL tries to save him by making an awesome historical leap, saying that AJ Styles attempted a torture rack and that Lex Luger was a long time US Champ. I absolutely love his attempt, as if these two were working a match as a historical road trip through the US title heritage. "Owens' misses a splash, much like former US Champ One Man Gang, following in the lineage of famous Canadian US Champ Roddy Piper!" Styles getting tossed into the ref looked great, and the ref does a great "struggle to pull myself up the ropes". Nobody could possibly be excited about that finish. Styles sells his loss like someone who is forced to wait slightly longer than normal for the valet to get his car.

6. Flag Match: Rusev vs. John Cena

ER: Big fan of the country-specific flag stands in the entrance way. I love how these two match up, so regardless of the stip I'm interested in what they can do. And I already like Rusev clonking Cena with fists to head, and Rusev taking a bulldog off the top. Crowd is already really quiet for a Cena match. Rusev looks to be in really great shape, maybe #bestshapeofhislife!? To build off a reference from last match, this match feels like a Hogan vs. One Man Gang house show match so far, but probably not as good. We just hit the Hulk up lariat comeback, only it's shoulderblocks and the blue thunder bomb. I want some flag-related violence, guys!! Both guys are working really slow. Either the show was going short and they got told to stretch it out, or....Okay I have no "or". They're still doing the big spots (Cena getting caught in a powerbomb while trying the legdrop off the top was pretty dangerously messy), just a lot more time in between those spots. It's oddly jarring after Cena spent last year working PWG homage matches. This is really being stretched. I like Rusev attempting to AA Cena off his American Flag platform. That's the most insulting way to pull off the "use opponent's finisher" trope. Rusev beats Cena with the flag holder, and somehow knowing the flag holders aren't bolted down CHANGES EVERYTHING. Seriously, this match would have been 100% 6 1/2 star glorious bullshit if the whole match had been based around Rusev just destroying Cena's flag stand/holder, eliminating the only way that Cena could win the match. Start the match with one chairshot to give Rusev a headstart on destroying the stand, then base the whole thing on Rusev just trying to dispatch Cena so he can wreck a flag holder. If you want to work comedy into it, you can even have Rusev try hiding the flag holder a couple times. Have him through it into the WWE UNIVERSE behind his back, oooooooo or have him lock it in a box!!!

7. Mike Kanellis vs. Sami Zayn

ER: Oh my god if Rusev had locked that flag holder in a giant, comical crate, I would have lost my shit. Match starts, Rusev immediately jumps out of the ring and begins rummaging around under the ring. Camera cuts to Cena doing his typically great incredulous face, hands on hips, motioning to some random guy in the crowd who he didn't actually make eye contact with but 35 people in that section will later claim that Cena was "looking right at them!" "What is Rusev looking for!?" and then Rusev pulls out a Masterlock, pauses, looks up at a quizzical Cena across the ring...and sprints down the aisle to the flag holder. He grabs that flag holder, keeps running to the back, a camera is already there waiting, anticipating Rusev running around back there because this shit is fake and was scripted out way in advance, and Rusev pulls out this GIANT crate, covered in chains, and maybe even a comically stenciled "This End Up" painted on the side, and you KNOW that shit is painted on upside down. Rusev tosses that holder in the crate, locks up up tight, and then shoves that crate back in the middle of 20 other crates that look EXACTLY like that crate, pulling a full blown Raiders of the Lost Ark on Cena. NOT ONE PERSON EVER MENTIONS "Um, why didn't Cena just grab his own flag and steal Rusev's flag holder while Rusev was taking 15 minutes to hide a crate within a bunch of other crates?" Nobody ever says that. Because people aren't total shitheads who just exist to ruin somebody else's good time. Everybody just lets people enjoy the things however they like. I like Mike Kannelis's tights. They're like beta cuck Rick Rude tights. The "M+M Forever" is totally in the H&M font. But they're great fucking tights. Helluva kick to finish looks like something that should finish this match.

8. Punjabi Prison Match: Jinder Mahal vs. Randy Orton

ER: Okay, so no matter how we feel about this match, everybody knows that the name Punjabi Prison is an all time great jingoistic fear mongering pro wrestling match title. I remember - because of pro wrestling - asking my dad what was so bad about a Mexican Prison. Somebody must have made a reference to it as an "ultimate threat" and my dad actually answered it!! My dad totally worked me and immediately said that they fed you rotten food, and when you refuse to eat it, they bring back the exact same food the next day, and now it's a day older! Punjabi Prison would have probably blown my mind if I had heard that term at age 7. And the set looks spectacular, like a gorgeous Apocalypse Now prop. I should have listened to the stipulations of this fucking match instead of typing all of that. Escape rules? We'll go with escape rules. I wonder how many households have someone, watching this PPV tonight, who made some sort of joke like "I wish they would throw Barry Hussein and Killary into a Punjabi Prison. They'd probably like that." I'm setting the line at 170 households have "that guy" tonight. You take the over or under? Jinder throws a nice back elbow. A guy can go pretty far in my book if they throw a nice back elbow.

"Hey John, you've been in all kinds of structural matches..." is such a great start to a sentence. You know he liked it, because he stopped it once and started it again. I can't blame him, it's a great line. You picture Lance Russell saying that line, and it all clicks, so give credit to whoever said that (it wasn't JBL, it was one of the other 7 white guys they have sitting out there with him). This stipulation match is silly but I'm kinda loving it. Orton struggling to slowly get to one of the doors, as the timer is counting down, and once the timer hits 0 the ref drops the rope holding the door open, and it slides shut? That's awesome. I did pick up that there were 4 doors, and they close as the match goes on, making for less escape options. God I would love to see Low-Ki climb out of this nasty looking thing. You know he could do it. that guy would scramble out of the first one and then leap to the outer one, and it would look amazing. Randy disappoints me by not letting one of the doors drop guillotine style on his arm or neck. That would be a great KO blow visual, a door dropping on a guy's head like Luke dropping a spiked gate on the Rancor in Return of the Jedi. Jinder continues showing off those back elbows, nailing Orton in the gut while they both climb the outer prison wall. We get a lot of climbing related spots, and with the Singhs around they find a couple interesting things to do. Man that Singh bump is brutal, especially when you see the angle with his legs facing the camera. You really get a sense for how fast the human head whips back when you see that angle of the table bump.  And GREAT KHALI comes back!!! AND THEY MAKE HIM CLIMB PART OF THE CAGE!! Orton does a lot of great falling off the cage teases, and Khali grabs him by the throat and Orton dangles in a great theatrical way. Jinder wins, Tom Phillips COMPLETES HIS BAD ANNOUNCER BINGO CARD by dropping several "Not like this! Not like this!" on us. You did it buddy. JBL gets amusingly crossed up and calls Khali "a true giant". "THAT, son, is a true giant. Not like those two children wearing a giant trenchcoat that you previously thought was a giant." I don't actually know if this match is 1 star or 6 stars.

ER: This was a PPV with almost no good matches, yet I had kind of a blast watching this show. Maybe the heat has made me delusional, but the bad was always amusing. I thought the tag match was really good, liked the Aiden English pre-show match, and disliked the rest. But somehow had fun watching all of it. Best Bad PPV?

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