Gulak is Hidin' in the Back, Loosening His Grip

Drew Gulak vs. Hideo Itami NXT 9/14/16 - GREAT

ER: This was a real hard hitting under 5 minute gem, Gulak's post CWC debut, and his only NXT appearance in the first couple years of his WWF career. It's really interesting in hindsight that they thought Gulak could go right past NXT onto the main roster, which basically gave us a ton of Gulak/Mustafa Ali and Gulak/Cedric Alexander matches and left a ton of potential cool NXT matches on the table. Itami had come back from an injury and was running through CWC guys, and this was a compact way to introduce the toughness of Gulak and the willingness of Itami to hurt someone. Gulak slaps Itami hard, and then Itami pays that back with two hellish kitchen sink knees to the gut, and hard kicks to the chest and back. Gulak's slap was hard as hell, but it probably wasn't worth it for the two knees and kicks he had to take, and especially not worth the big boot he charges into face first. If someone is willing to be stiffed, Itami is going to be able to provide that. Gulak isn't as flashy with the stiff strikes, but does a ton of cool tough guy things, like body slamming Itami into the ropes and working over his body and limbs, dropping him with a  nice back suplex. They have a snug strike exchange, and Itami kicks Gulak in the throat before giving him a G2S that lands hard under Gulak's chin. There wasn't a single part of this match that wasn't hard hitting, total gem of a compact match, like something Regal would work with one of the karate guys on Pro. 

Drew Gulak vs. Mustafa Ali 205 Live 3/14/17 - FUN

ER: Mustafa Ali is Gulak's most frequent opponent throughout his WWE run, and this was their first match (of at least a dozen). It's short but filled with cool stuff, and Gulak is great at basing for someone like Ali. Ali at this point had a lot of offense that required opponents to be in a very specific spot, and Gulak is great at being in a specific spot. I really liked how Gulak played into Ali's assisted springboard rana (with a fun bump all the way across the ring out to the floor) and then caught a nice plancha right at the waist. Too many guys catch a plancha up by the shoulders and it leads to a lot of missed catches, and the way Gulak caught it in the midsection made it look like he was taking a cannonball to the belly. Gulak grounds Ali in cool Finlayesque ways, with a bodyslam thrown with the same kind of intensity Finlay threw his, working over Ali with stomps (springing off the bottom rope), and working a great Gory Special into a backslide. I wish there had been a more interesting way for Ali to work into his comeback, and I thought his rolling cutter was really dumb. It is completely silly to require your opponent to stand there waiting that long for tumbling. But the inverted 450 is a great finisher, and they clearly have the chemistry to have bigger and better matches. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DREW GULAK