By Anish Vishwakoti, ProWrestling.net Staffer, (@AVX_9001)
WWE 205 Live on WWE Network
Streamed live on October 11, 2019 from Las Vegas, Nevada at T-Mobile Arena
The broadcast team was Tom Phillips and Aiden English… The show started with a recap of the awesome NXT Cruiserweight Title match between Lio Rush and Drew Gulak on NXT, which saw Rush capture the newly named NXT Cruiserweight Championship. The promo nicely highlighted that Rush is back to ensure that he won’t let his second chance go to waste…
Anish’s Thoughts: This is the first 205 on the new Smackdown set and it does look nice. Maybe it’s just T-Mobile arena, but the crowd looked good under the new lighting.
1. Danny Burch and Oney Lorcan vs. Drew Gulak and Tony Nese. Lorcan started the match by hyping up the crowd and going to lock up with Gulak. The former champion dragged him to his corner and tagged in Nese who was then dragged to the opposite corner where Lorcan and Burch used some quick tags to keep Nese guessing. Nese was able to use his quickness after taking a couple of moves to dodge and duck out of the way and tag in Gulak.
Gulak and Nese then took control of the match, isolating Lorcan and subjecting him to a moonsault from Nese. Burch was able to tag in at one point, but Gulak and Nese kept the control, keeping Burch trapped in one corner of the ring for a while. Gulak wrenched a chin lock to wear down Burch, before handing him off to Nese. Burch brawled with Nese a little, but Nese was able to use his freshness to stay on top of Burch.
Nese and Gulak continued to tag in and out until eventually Burch slipped out of Gulak’s grasped and tagged in Lorcan who rushed his opponents with a clotheslines and dives to the outside to take control of the match. Lorcan had Gulak and Nese at opposite corners and he peppered them with alternating clotheslines, before hitting Gulak with a DDT and Nese with a suplex.
Burch joined in on the assault and after hitting their opponents with some double team moves, they tried for a Doomsday Device. Nese didn’t let Gulak get hit by it however and he managed to slap Lorcan off the turnbuckle. Gulak managed to hit a slam but couldn’t get the cover. Nese then hit a 450 onto Burch but couldn’t get the cover.
All four men then got to their feet and brawled with each other, but this went the way of Lorcan and Burch as they set up their standing Hangman DDT and got the pinfall victory…
Danny Burch and Oney Lorcan defeated Drew Gulak and Tony Nese.
Anish’s Thoughts: Pretty fun match. It is strange to see Gulak and Nese take a couple of clean losses to Burch and Lorcan, but it definitely makes Lorcan and Burch look strong. I wouldn’t say the heels looked weak either, but I do feel like they need a new direction for these two, either together or separately.
After the match, we saw the reactions of Lio Rush and Drew Gulak after their title match on NXT, highlighting their contrasting attitudes. Before the next match started, Ariya Daivari came out and cut a typical hometown sucks promo towards Las Vegas…
2. Ariya Daivari vs. Chris Bey. Daivari started by laying into Bey with strikes before tossing him out of the ring. Daivair then tossed him back in, and propped him up on the top rope to hit a Goriconoclasm. Daivari then took the time to taunt, to his detriment as Bey was able to hit a few strikes. In the end however, Daivari got his bearings and hit the Devil Lock DDT to get the pinfall victory…
Ariya Daivari defeated Chris Bey.
Anish’s Thoughts: Very standard enhancement match for Daivari. It did it’s job and cleansed the palette a little. Daivari looked good so job well done, I guess.
A recap of Brian Kendrick turning on Akira Tozawa a couple of weeks ago…
3. Akira Tozawa vs. Brian Kendrick in a No DQ match. Tozawa entered first and as soon as the bell rang the two stared at each other, Tozawa looking a little hesitant. Kendrick started off and tackled Tozawa, breaking the ice. Tozawa got up and tossed Kendrick out of the ring. The two men then pulled kendo sticks from under the ring and faced off in the ring.
Tozawa didn’t even let Kendrick hit him with the stick and laid into his former partner with the wood. Just as Kendrick seemed on the back foot and outside the ring, Tozawa tried to follow up with a suicide dive but Kendrick tossed a chair straight at his head, giving us a very rare steel chair directly to the head of a wrestler on WWE television.
Kendrick rolled Tozawa back into the ring and lashed him with the cane before he rolled out of the ring, got some duct tape and taped him to the ropes. Kendrick then took his time to crack Tozawa’s back with the kendo stick. Firmly in the driver’s seat, Kendrick grabbed a couple of chairs and set them up near the corner. Kendrick then choked Tozawa with the kendo stick and tried to hit Tozawa with a Sliced Bread No.2 onto the chairs, but Tozawa tossed him off.
Tozawa then had a reprieve and went to the outside and tossed in more chairs into the ring in a pile. Tozawa tried to suplex Kendrick onto it, but Kendrick struggled enough to through Tozawa off and the both of them took the hit. Tozawa rolled to the outside and pulled out a table, but before he could do anything with it, Kendrick threw another chair at his head. Kendrick couldn’t take advantage however and Tozawa was able to stun Kendrick with a strike, put him on the table and hit a Senton bomb through the table from the apron.
Tozawa then rolled Kendrick into the ring and set some chairs on him to try for another Senton. Mike Kanellis interfered and pushed Tozawa off, assaulting him and then dragging Kendrick onto Tozawa to give Kendrick the pinfall victory…
The Brian Kendrick defeated Akira Tozawa.
Anish’s Thoughts: This was a very good use of a No DQ match, but the ending was a little strange and I think it sapped the energy out of the show right at the end. Mike Kanellis has been directionless for so long that I can’t help but feel that any storyline he is attached to becomes directionless as well. Aside from the ending, Tozawa and Kendrick built a great story that almost had a great payoff, but I guess that’s getting stretched. Overall, this was a fun show. Still WWE missed some big opportunities here tonight. Not having Rush wrestle was one, but just not taking advantage of a seemingly enthusiastic crowd and sending them home happy dampened the effectiveness of the show for me.
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