WWE Big 3: Lorcan, Gallagher, Gulak 9/7 - 9/14

205 Live 9/10/19

Jack Gallagher/KUSHIDA vs. Brian Kendrick/Akira Tozawa

ER: We're back to appropriate match length on 205, and this was a bunch of fun. I thought everything in this was great...up until KUSHIDA's hot tag. The opening scramble with Kendrick/KUSHIDA was really cool, and filled with little things that make me love Kendrick: blocked headlock takeovers, refusing to go down on a drop toehold until forced, clasping his hands on a hiptoss armbar until KUSHIDA starts throwing fists at his hands, even doing a leapfrog much more like he was jumping a hurdle in competitive track so that he lands in a more advantageous position. Kendrick is a great logic  wrestler and I love seeing his tricks. Gallagher and Tozawa are always fun together, and I dug what Kendrick did with a blind tag as Tozawa baseball slides to the floor making Gallagher think he had been too much for him, only to turn around and take a nasty posting from Kendrick. Tozawa trotting by on the floor and rustling Gallagher's hair while he was still hung around the post was an excellent touch. I loved Tozawa's short punch, and seeing Kendrick and Tozawa corner and isolate Gallagher was great stuff, but it all built to a KUSHIDA hot tag that I didn't think was very good. I don't think KUSHIDA's stuff looks very good when he rushes through things, as he's a guy who always looks like he's thinking too hard about the next part of the sequence, so all of his strikes looked more like someone practicing a sequence than actually doing the sequence. We still get Gallagher spilling to the floor and Tozawa pasting him with his cannonball off the apron (Gallagher always seems like the guy who gets smooshed into the barricade with that, and it always looks great), but overall I think things wrapped up way to neatly once KUSHIDA came back in, match could have used another twist or two.

PAS: I thought this was really good, I am not a New Japan guy, so my KUSHIDA experience was his not very good Gulak matches from NXT. I think he may be better suited as a tag worker, where he can do some cool opening mat scrambles, let his tag partner do the majority of the actual in ring work, and then tag back in for a hot tag. Gallagher was pretty great in this taking a huge bump into the ringpost, and taking a pasting from Kendrick and Tozawa. Kendrick has been a bit of forgotten man in 205 lately, but man is he great, I loved him escalating the violence, and his smaller stuff is about as good as it gets in wrestling. I thought KUSHIDA's finishing armbar was pretty great looking and the coolness of that allowed me to forgive some of his awkward moments.

Drew Gulak/Ariya Daivari/Tony Nese vs. Humberto Carrillo/Gran Metalik/Lince Dorado

PAS: This was a long trios match with some cool moments, but some real stinkers too. Nese is really bad in this, at one point he puts on maybe the loosest crappiest chinlock I have even seen, he might not have even been touching Dorado's body. Lince Dorado being shoehorned into the PPV title match is really weird. He isn't even a top 10 2008 Chikara roster member (Hero, Claudio, Quack, Colin Delaney, Brodie Lee, Whatever Ant Tracey Williams Was, Tim Donst, Jigsaw, Mitch Ryder and Kingston for sure would have a better match with Gulak) and the third best guy in his stable. Watching both him and Metalik in this match, it is even weirder that they are pushing Dorado. Apparently WWE bought the Dorado gimmick from Chikara, which is amazing. How much could they have possibly paid? It can't be more then a 100 bucks. I just imagine Quackenbush buttonholing Helmsley after Quack's training center gig "You know Hunter technically we own the Lince Dorado IP, you really should buy it from us, if you are going to use it on TV." and Helmsley just handing him whatever he had in his pockets "I got 67 dollars and a GMC gift card with an unknown amount on it, take it or leave it."

Gulak was good as usual, the crowd was clearly not paying attention to the match and chanting for a baby in the crowd. Gulak starts rocking Dorada like a baby as a taunt to get the crowd back in the match. Total pro move.

ER: I was hoping Phil hadn't noticed Gulak's extremely pro as hell reaction to distracted fans, because I was more blown away by that than anything that actually happened in the match and wanted something to talk about. Can't be much more of a bummer for wrestlers than a fully distracted crowd, and Gulak improvising and rocking Metalik like a little baby to instantly get all eyes on him was one of the more brilliant things I've seen. I mean, Tony Nese lost their attention like 12 seconds later, but I'm not letting Gulak get dragged down just because Tony Nese sucks. I really like Phil's 2008 Lince vs. Chikara exercise, and you can easily add Hallowicked, Sara Del Ray, Cheech AND Cloudy, Pantera, Larry Sweeney, Drake Younger, really Lince is nowhere close to 2008 Chikara top 10. He's a guy battling to get on the 25 man roster.

The match itself was too long, though the length did give it more time for nice moments, and there were plenty of nice moments. I don't think the whole added up to much, but you stick a couple interesting guys in an 18 minute match and something decent will shoot out the other side. There was some fun stuff on the floor, Metalik always breaks out a couple of impressive flips, Carrillo had a couple big dives, Metalik had an outright awesome rana leaping over the ropes to the floor, and Daivari took a fast splat bump off that rana. But there was also a lot of really awkward shifting into position for offense, lotta messy stuff, and Phil didn't even mention Nese's awkward loose body vice. I will say, that I think these guys are all at least trying to have bangers out there, and that counts for something. That enthusiasm can help lift up matches and I hope the show goes on a good run.