Drew Gulak Was Raised on a Promise

Drew Gulak vs. Mansoor WWE Main Event 11/25/21 - GREAT 

ER: This was the  6th (!) and final match Gulak and Mansoor had in 2021, and perhaps the final match they will ever have. I liked all six of their matches, but we didn't quite get one that was a head above the rest. All of them were good, none of them were quite enough to make a list (unless you were compiling a list of Gulak/Mansoor matches, to which I would say that all six of their matches belong on that list). This was a cool match, just like most of their matches, with Gulak starting things off with wrist and ankle control, and I've always been impressed by how well Mansoor stays in sequences with Gulak. It never looks like Gulak leading someone through matwork. Mansoor is always doing something like grabbing at Gulak's ankle, and he's really squirmy, constantly moving forward, so just holding onto his wrist always feels difficult. This broke open nicely with a real sick inverted atomic drop from Mansoor. He stopped Gulak running the ropes by grabbing him like he was going for an exploder, and instead just brought the hammer up into Gulak's balls. Gulak always has nice counters to throw out against Mansoor, and the best was when he threw him off mid-tornado DDT and then hit a fantastic running lariat while Mansoor was still getting his footing. 

I liked Gulak working over the ankle and back, love his little leg whip takedown. It's not a dragon screw he just has a hold on Mansoor's ankle and flings it while dropping his body weight down. There was an interesting fight over a vertical suplex, which isn't something that you really see in WWE. Both kept blocking each other's weight and kept backing the other up, until Mansoor wisely dropped back with his weight, rolling backward and came up to his feet powering Gulak into the suplex. Mansoor really looked like he was fighting to get him over, and the crowd responded much more to that fought-for suplex than they would have to either just hitting a snap suplex (source: they actually responded to that deadlift suplex and had been mostly quiet before that). My big complaint with the Gulak/Mansoor series is that they never really adequately build to a finish, and the finishes can be a bit sudden. It happened five times, so there was no reason to believe it would change for the sixth, and it didn't. Still, this was a real good way to cap off a series that a lot of people did not watch, two fun dance partners who would go on to be even more grossly underused in 2022. Unrestricted 5 minute matches on Main Event every month will always be better than random 2 minute Smackdown matches every few months.

#1 Contender Black Friday Battle Royal WWE Smackdown 11/26/21 - FUN

ER: There aren't many 2022 Drew Gulak matches, so one of his last TV matches is going to wind up being him getting eliminated 90 seconds into a battle royal. Somewhat cruelly, they teased two Gulak interactions that we've never got to see in actual matches: Gulak vs. Sheamus and Gulak vs. Sami Zayn. Gulak mixed it up with both and tried to eliminate Zayn before getting booted spectacularly to the floor by him, sprawling out onto his stomach when he hit. He wasn't the first eliminated (sorry Jinder) so he'll always have that at least. The rest of the battle royal, as battle royals go, was fine. It had Shanky without Veer, and Mace without T-Bar. Sami Zayn won, and he was far and away the best battle royal worker in the match, working constant character moments that added to the whole match, never making the match stand still the same way Happy Corbin and Madcap Moss made it stand still for their character work. Zayn knew how to cheapshot and get almost eliminated, and knew how to always be working while not always being the focus. Angel and Humberto should have stayed in the match longer, as they're better at integrating singles match spots into a battle royal setting, but both took great elimination bumps (Garza going fast to the floor, Carrillo getting body slammed into him). A lot of this felt like it was focusing on the wrong guys. Asskickers like Sheamus and Holland and Cesaro felt underutilized, and Sheamus wasn't working this like it was for a title shot. Fast guys like Mansoor were out of there before the ring was cleared out enough to do anything, but it got saved by Zayn running and stumbling through, Ricochet working a hot finishing stretch, and a false finish Jeff Hardy win before Zayn shoved him painfully to the floor. Needed more Gulak, but Zayn's 2021 was so great. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DREW GULAK