By John Moore, Prowrestling.net Staffer (@liljohnm)
WWE 205 Live on the WWE Network
Aired Live in Providence, Rhode Island at the Dunkin Donuts Center
The narrated intro teaser focused on the Akira Tozawa and Hideo Itami vs. Lucha House Party feud. The narrator noted that due to the feud getting personal, Drake Maverick had to book a tornado tag team match for this episode. The 205 Live theme aired…
Vic Joseph and “Showtime” Percy Watson checked in on commentary as Joseph mentioned his contractually obligated line of calling 205 Live “The most exciting hour in television”. Percy congratulated Nigel McGuinness for becoming the father to a baby girl. Joseph noted that Drake Maverick will be addressing Buddy Murphy’s attack on Cedric Alexander from last week. Mustafa Ali came out in his WrestleMania gear, which looks like a cross between WCW’s Glacier (which was a rip-off of the Sub-Zero character from Mortal Kombat) and DJ Zema Ion. Dasha Fuentes interviewed Ariya Daivari who talked about why Mustafa Ali deserves to be in the back of the line. Daivari made his entrance…
1. Mustafa Ali vs. Ariya Daivari. Daivari didn’t wait for a lock-up and instead pummeled Ali in the corner. Ali used some of his Lucha Libre moves to turn the tables back. Daivari caught Ali with a shot to the gut. Daivari caught Ali with a backstabber on the second rope and followed up with a backbreaker. Daivari taunted the fans in his native Farsi language. Daivari used several backbreakers in Ali. Ali started a rally with some knife edge chops and used a parkour dodge to duck into the corner. Daivari blocked Ali’s rolling X-Factor.
Ali hit Daivari with a popup dropkick. Daivari caught Ali into a powerful spinebuster onto the ringside floor. Daivari hit the Magic Carpet [-less] ride which led to a nearfall. Ali blocked the hammerlock lariat into a rollup attempt. Daivari clubbed the back of Ali’s back on the top rope. Ali flipped away from a back suplex attempt. Daivari fell which allowed Ali to hit the inverted 450 for the victory.
Mustafa Ali defeated Ariya Daivari via pinfall in 7:35.
Ali celebrated with some fans in the ring as Daivari sold gut pain in the ring. Vic Joseph cut to the Cedric Alexander championship celebration clip from last week where Buddy Murphy crashed it and hit the Murphy’s law on Alexander…
John’s Thoughts: While the finish was never in question, WWE did allow Daivari to look strong here for a long amount of time. The problem is Daivari has been damaged so much that it will take a lot more than some offensive sequences to pull him out of the hole. They are doing a good job with Drew Gulak and Jack Gallagher right now as far as rebuilding heels, so maybe building Daivari back up might be asking for too much right now. Ariya Daivari is in the interesting position of having a brother who’s also a wrestler. While Ariya is better in the ring, Shawn was not bad and is a much better talker. That’s a part of the game that Ariya needs to work on.
After the recap they showed a tweet from Cedric Alexander who wanted to challenge Buddy Murphy to a fight but couldn’t due to being on tour with WWE at South Africa. They cut to Drake Maverick who addressed the situation from last week. Drake said despite the reprehensible behavior of Buddy Murphy, Murphy’s performances in the ring haver earned him a title shot against Cedric Alexander. Maverick said he booked Murphy into a match against Alexander at the Greatest Royal Rumble event, but he had to end up changing that before the paperwork was signed. They cut to the weekly Buddy Murphy weigh-in from “earlier today”. Maverick regretted to inform Murphy that he now weighs 207.5 lbs. Murphy wanted one hour to cut the weight. Maverick said he had to apologize because it was time now and he didn’t make it. They cut to present time where Drake Maverick said he was going to find a new number one contender next week via a gauntlet match… [C]
John’s Thoughts: Yes. At first these weigh-ins were too goofy for me. They’re still goofy, but at least it’s so goofy that it’s humorous. Obviously, they’ve been building up to this situation and I’m interested to see where they are planning to go with this. What I like the most is that WWE is showing some semblance of long-term booking, something we don’t really see even on the main roster often. Not sure why Murphy is the only guy they weigh (possibly because he looks 220 more than 205), but I can get a kick out of the pointless Murphy weigh in segment of the week. Murphy even goes on to point out that they don’t do weigh-ins for anyone else.
2. Jack Gallagher and The Brian Kendrick vs. “Local Competitors” Vinny and Kevin. I seriously tried to look up the names on YouTube and WWE.com and on both sites, they labeled the opponents as Local Competitors. One was named Vinny and the other was Kevin, they just had complicated last names. Gallagher smothered jobber number one. Vinny had no chance. Kendrick tagged in and caught Vinny with a high boot. Kendrick worked on Vinny with elbows from a shoulder stretch. Kendrick kept yelling “Say my name”. Kendrick showed some good aggression with strikes. Kevin tagged in and was taken down by strong strikes and a dropkick by Kendrick. Kevin surprised Kendrick with a forearm to the face which fired up Kendrick due to it being near his injured orbital bone. Kendrick isolated Kevin in his corner for Gallagher to work on. Kendrick blind tagged himself in. Gallagher hit a headbutt on Kevin which sent him into Kendrick’s Captain’s hook. Kendrick kept yelling “Say my name” as Kevin tapped out.
Jack Gallagher and Brian Kendrick defeated Vinny and Kevin via pinfall in 3:55.
Kendrick and Gallagher shared a handshake after the match. Vic Joseph mentioned a few of their catchphrases that Gallagher and Kendrick tried to establish over five months ago…
Dasha Fuentes interviewed Mustafa Ali about Buddy Murphy not making weight. Ali was more mad at Murphy interrupting Cedric Alexander’s championship celebration. Ali said he hopes Murphy makes weight so Alexander can get his hands on him. Ali talked about how he’s looking forward to the Gauntlet next because he let the championship slip through his hands once and will not again…
They showed Gran Metalik and Lince Dorado trying to hype themselves up. Suddenly, Kalisto runs in like he was in fast forward and in a sugar rush. For some reason, he wanted Gran Metalik and Lince Dorado to slap him in the chest as hard as they can. Hideo Itami and Akira Tozawa were shown hyping up, just a lot more calmer than Kalisto… [C]
John’s Thoughts: Showcase enhancement match for Kendrick. I did like the small amount of aggression that Kendrick put behind his strikes and I hope it’s yet another change in the dynamic of this show as opposed to a flash in the pan for Kendrick. It would help if they started to have these two start cutting promos in vignettes again since I thought that was the strongest part of this duo. The formation of this duo was a bright spot on this show when it was crappy so a lot of new viewers have no ideas as to why this alliance is formed.
Drew Gulak cut a promo about how ground base fighting prevails over high flying. He talked about Mark Andrews going down to the best submission specialist in WWE. Gulak talked about how Tony Nese is fixated on Gulak’s rise to success. Gulak said Nese is just wallowing in mediocrity. Gulak said he’s moving past Nese and is looking to win at next week’s Gauntlet match. Gulak threatened all opponents that they will tap out to him…
Kalisto, Gran Metalik, and Lince Dorado, “The Lucha House Party”, made their entrance. For some strange reason, after doing their signature trios pose, they decided to do stereo kamehameha poses. Then, Dorado and Metalik pulled out wooden noise makers as Kalisto was still on his sugar rush. Hideo Itami and Akira Tozawa made a calmer entrance by comparison even though Akira Tozawa is still pretty energetic…
3. Lince Dorado and Gran Metalik vs. Akira Tozawa and Hideo Itami in a Tornado Tag Match. Before the bell rang, Metalik and Dorado started a brawl up the ramp. Dorado and Metalik hit stereo topes on their opponents right before the bell. Kalisto was shown watching his Lucha teammates dominate as he watched from the backstage television. Tozawa used his agility to set up his opponents at ringside. Hideo Itami came at Dorado with a diving knee. Tozawa took out both opponents with a springboard trust fall. Itami and Tozawa stomped a mudhole into Dorado while Tozawa led “ah” chants. Dorado went for a rollup but Itami and Tozawa were able to isolate both opponents away from each other which allowed them to knock out Metalik and Dorado.
Itami and Tozawa hit multiple big moves to Daniel Bryan. Dorado had a little bit of a rally but Itami twisted into a modified Rings of Saturn. Tozawa had Metalik stuck in an Octopus. Metalik had the creative break by falling on Itami to break both holds. Dorado slapped Itami in the face which caused Itami to try to rip off Dorado’s mask in a sign of disrespect. Itami and Tozawa continued to take apart Dorado while Metalik was knocked out. Metalik took enough time to recover and have a hot tag sequence on both opponents. After sending both men outside, both Luchadores hit their opponents with stereo Asai Moonsaults.
Dorado followed up by slamming Itami into the announce table. Itami whipped Dorado over the ring steps for an epic thud. Metalik superkicked Itami. Tozawa hit Metalik with a suicide dive to be the last person standing from that sequence. Tozawa let out one of his primal yells while the crowd cheered. Tozawa tried to hit his top rope dive through the announce table on the outside. Everyone recovered with Metalik hitting his opponents and Tozawa with a Tower of Power. Drake Maverick told everyone to take notice that people are standing up for this match. Tozawa dominated Dorado with standing punches. Dorado recovered and hit a frankendriver. Tozawa responded to the pin attempt with a spinning roundhouse.
Tozawa successfully hit is diving senton finisher on Dorado with Metalik breaking up the pin attempt. Metalik went for his handstand back elbow but was dropkicked by Tozawa. Itami hit Metalik with his new unnamed knee finisher (it looked better today). Dorado broke up this pin attempt. Itami and Tozawa went back to isolating Dorado with Itami yelling “Respect Me”. Dorado surprised both opponents with a double Lethal Inject which he’s been beating people with. People actually chanted “This is Awesome”. Itami and Dorado got to have a standing strike exchange where we got to see some of that old school stiff Kenta.
Itami hit Dorado with a hesitation dropkick. Metalik swooped out of nowhere with a rollup. Metalik went for a Metalik Driver on Itami but Itami tried to go for Metalik’s mask again. Tozawa tried to go for a boot on Metalik but accidentally (?) hit Itami with a running boot. Dorado knocked out Tozawa with a step-up enziuri. Dorado and Metalik hit a stereo Shooting Star and tightrope elbow drop for the double pinfall victory.
Lince Dorado and Gran Metalik defeated Hideo Itami and Akira Tozawa via pinfall in 15:35.
Kalisto ran out comically with the wooden noisemakers. In an even more comical moment, Dorado and Metalik swung around the noisemakers as Kalisto did not only his Lucha thing but his weird hip thrust move that he was doing in that lip-sync video that WWE’s been showing. Kalisto is still on whatever sugar rush he’s been on. The Lucha House Party did their Lucha Thing with the wooden noisemakers to close the show…
John’s Thoughts: The finish was a bit odd, but I think that may be storyline if they want to go there. More on that in a bit. Other than that, this was a really fun Tornado Tag. You don’t see Tornado Tag Team Matches all too often in WWE. One or two in WWE and NXT last year to my recollection. The novelty of the match made this must-see but both teams also delivered in not making this a cluster mess. Everyone got a chance to shine with this match also having many memorable sequences. The fear might have been that the grounded Japanese team might have been lost in the lucha libre shuffle, but they stood out with their isolation and high energy offense. Itami continues to stand out as a disrespectful senpai by ironically yelling for respect and then going on to disrespect Mexican culture with the dirty mask rips.
The odd ending sequence was, despite being dirty, Itami had Metalik under control with the mask rip attempt so the running boot was unnecessary. It makes the accidental finish seemed forced. It may be an accident or totally by design, but they had this creative and nuanced camera shot from earlier where when Itami went for Dorado’s mask earlier, they had the camera show Tozawa focused in the frame aware of Itami’s disrespectful nature. Maybe I’m reading too much into that, but if that seed planting was on purpose then bravo, the main shows should integrate such nuance and camera work. If they didn’t do that on purpose then after rewatching this match Paul Levesque and Adam Pierce better add this technique to their arsenal. As they’ve left the door open to doing, they might be putting in the potential Tozawa vs. Itami feud into motion with kohai Tozawa struggling to put up with Itami senpai’s dickishness.
Back to the overall, this was a good show. The main event alone made it must see with nothing much standing out in the initial two matches. The initial two matches utilized the NXT structure of trying to boost up the main players with enhancement matches. Daivari had a bulk of the offense but Mustafa Ali is the main event player on this show. What I would like to see more of is not skits, but vignettes where there are some cinematic techniques used to flush out some of the characters of this show. Like what Mustafa Ali was doing on his own. WWE tries with the selfie things, but that seems way too low budget for even the cheapest of independent promotions. I’ll be by later today with my Audio Review for the Dot Net Members.
NEW: Help support Prowrestling.net when you shop Amazon by starting your online Amazon shopping at Prowrestling.net/amazon. You are not charged extra, but we receive a small and very helpful commission on everything you purchase. Thanks for thinking of us every time you shop at Amazon.
Be the first to comment