WWE Big 3: Lorcan, Gallagher, Gulak 10/13-10/19

NXT 10/16/19

Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch vs. Fabian Aichner/Marcel Barthel

ER: This was cool, even if we got Imperium's heat on Burch cut out by commercial break. But we got a ton of stuff crammed into the short runtime, and they made it feel like a much bigger match due to the layout. These teams have good chemistry, and all know how to set each other up. Burch had some cool early moments, especially dug him knocking Barthel out of the air with a headbutt. And I really liked Aichner; he would do little things I love like hold on to headlocks, hit a nice brainbuster, but his big stuff like his double jump moonsault looked great. Of course Lorcan's hot tag was going to be a highlight, and he doesn't disappoint: big flying uppercuts, nice pescado, and a fun sequence where he knocks Barthel off the apron into Aichner, then hits a tope con giro into both. The double teams in this were smoking, like Barthel hanging Burch in the ropes before he and Aichner hit a perfectly timed dropkick on him, or the tandem powerbomb from Lorcan/Burch, right up to the excellent finish run from Imperium. They really strung the finish together nice, with a nice spinebuster into a PK, and that Hart Attack uppercut off the top is a real killer. This tag felt much closer to a hot AIW tag, and considering AIW consistently has the best tag matches in wrestling, that's obviously a great thing.

PAS: This was a great sprint, with everyone looking great. Lorcan is one of the great hot tags in wrestling and he just unloads with some great wild offense. Loved the giro into both guys. I am pretty over highspots by biggish guys, but Aichner's double jump moonsault is a true holy shit spot, and made a great near fall. Didn't have the bloat that some of the tags we have reviewed have, they just went out and burned through a killer TV tag.


205 Live 10/18/19

Jack Gallagher vs. Brian Kendrick

ER: This felt like the first several minutes of a really good match, but had a pretty uninteresting finish (unless it leads to more of a feud, I suppose) that from two guys who are good at coming up with interesting finishes. Gallagher is one of the more underutilized guys on the roster. This is the first time he's shown up in a month, he doesn't work house shows, rarely works indies, and could feasibly make it through 2019 with only 20 matches worked. That's weird. He doesn't appear to be injured, just unused. I love how great both of them are at building matches around merely getting thrown into walls and corners. A huge chunk of this match is them getting run into walls, and they're great at it. They know how to make slamming into a flat wall look really painful, and both find interesting ways to make hitting a turnbuckle look like actual offense. The best was at the finish, when Kendrick threw Gallagher by the front of the trunks chin first into the top buckle, and Gallagher just smashes into it. The match had a ton of cool things: Heavy deadlift back suplex on the floor by Gallagher, Kendrick throws an actual damaging superkick out of the corner, Gallagher pays him back with a nasty corner dropkick, and I loved Kendrick rolling through to make the Captain's Hook last even longer. But kendo sticks in 2019 are pretty lame, and Gallagher taking forever to go grab a kendo stick and truly contemplate the seriousness of the line he was about to cross by using a stick was some dumb stuff. Gallagher throws harder strikes with his head and all four limbs, who needs to go get a stick?

Oney Lorcan vs. Ariya Daivari vs. Tony Nese

ER: This was like "The Problems with 205 Live: The Match" in a lot of ways, but had a ton of endearing qualities that it kind of won me over. This had all the bizarre bad 205 Live tropes: It was absurdly long for (I still cannot get over WWE having weekly 18 minute cruiserweight matches), the worked it as a slow burn with the crowd actively turning on the match because of how long and slow it was, before Lorcan and some crazy bumps actually rallied the crowd into a satisfied submission. This was flawed, but I actually liked the different tone and pace they worked. It seemed ridiculous at first (and was actually ridiculous in several ways; we did NOT need a 90 second Tony Nese chinlock in the middle of this while Daivari disappeared on the floor), but they won me over with their dedication to the specific match they were doing. It was slow, it defied the crowd reaction, and it peaked strongly after the deliberately slow first half. I liked Daivari a lot. After this match I think he's officially a guy I'm going to remember I like. Tozawa was that guy last year, a guy I kept forgetting I enjoyed. Then finally it stuck. Daivari doesn't get talked about much, but he's been kept relatively strong on 205 for a guy who loses a lot on 205 Live. When he is given the time to look tough, he always looks great. He had a squash a week or two ago with Chris Bey bumping huge for him, but he looked real mean in it. He plays a real good Yoshinari Ogawa heel in multi mans. He went almost exclusively for sneaky schoolboy roll ups for the first 8 minutes of this, and it was pretty great. His bumps have snuck up and become one of my favorite bumping styles in WWE: He goes does hard with his legs shooting out first, like he's actually sprinting straight into a clothesline he didn't see. He ping pongs around for Lorcan uppercuts and also gets good lift on slams and suplexes. He's a strong addition to a match like this.

Now the match does have a lot of Nese just Nese-ing it up. I hate his kick combo that looks like an elaborate Bash Brothers celebratory handshake. But his athleticism can lead to fun spots, and he showed a really smart understanding of peaking a sequence, with a real deft closing sequence. I loved him climbing to the top to hit Lorcan with a 450, seeing Daivari getting up on the floor so opting to hop down and take him out with the Fosbury Flop, then going back to hit the 450 only to find he gave Lorcan too much recovery time, realizing it when he smacks his face into the mat on a missed 450. It's smart scene construction that you don't always get in these matches, and Nese - while throwing out shitty looking offense sometimes - also feels like he now has equal amounts of offense that look good, is getting better at building a match, and will still take a violent bump. He gets knocked off the top rope to the floor and flips head and neck first onto the apron.

Lorcan keeps getting a restless crowd back on his side, really fighting to hold their interest, and I think succeeding. He flew into horizontal full force uppercuts in a way that demanded attention, and his two reckless flip dives to the floor back to back got rewarded for giving that attention. I liked all his work around the half nelson suplex, when he caught both Daivari and Nese in them and when he would get them reversed; Nese landing on his feet off the half nelson and hitting a perfectly timed double stomp to Lorcan's chest was a strong moment. The whole finishing stretch was the best thing on this 205 Live episode, and even if I wasn't along for all of the too long match, I appreciated a ton of it.


Smackdown 10/18/19

Drew Gulak vs. Braun Strowman

ER: A fun squash featuring someone I'd obviously rather see not squashed. These two could easily match up and have a great 8 minute match, both are smart enough to work that, but we knew that's not what this was going to be. Gulak at least gets to work the mic and begin showing his PowerPoint, but after that it's a mauling. Gulak added little things where he could, my favorite being him eating a headbutt and falling to the floor, but desperately grasping for the bottom rope as he fell off the apron. Braun hits a big avalanche, crazy good shoulderblock on the floor, big powerslam, all cool things. But shit have him do all those things against Tony Nese, not Gulak.