WWE 205 Live Review 02/07/17 by Mark McAllen
The eleventh episode of 205 Live is here! This week’s episode comes from the KeyArena in Seattle, Washington.
Before we get into this week’s show, a recently wrote a column where I looked at 205 Live and tried to solve some of the problems the show and the division has encountered so far. If you’d like to give that a read, you can click right here.
The opening video package hypes tonight’s main event, which is a Fatal 5-Way Elimination Match to determine who challenges Neville at Fastlane for the Cruiserweight Championship. The five participants are TJ Perkins, Cedric Alexander, Jack Gallagher, Noam Dar and Tony Nese.
We get a nice opening pyro display as the commentary team of Mauro Ranallo, Corey Graves and “The Greatest Man That Ever Lived” Austin Aries welcome us to the show.
Aries lets us know that Nese was injured during last night’s episode of Raw and is not medically cleared to compete in tonight’s number one contender main event match. However, Graves lets us know that the main event will still be a Fatal 5-Way and that Nese’s spot will be taken by the winner of a match between Ariya Daivari and Mustafa Ali, which will take place right now.
Ariya Daivari vs. Mustafa Ali
Both men kick off the match with a series of counters, until Ali catches Daivari with a hurricanrana, forcing Daivari to retreat outside the ring. Ali follows Daivari out of the ring and Daivari catches Ali with a big neck breaker. Daivari gets back in the ring and Ali just makes it back in the ring before a count of ten.
Daivari hits Ali with a reverse DDT for a two count. Daivari stays in control with forearm shots to Ali’s back followed by a spine buster. Daivari goes to the top rope for his signature frog splash, but Daivari misses as Ali rolls out of the way in time. Ali hits Daivari with a neck breaker for a two count. Daivari turns Ali inside out with a huge clothesline, but only gets a two count.
Ali gets back in control by countering another Daivari clothesline attempt into a Tornado DDT, and follows this up with an inverted 450 Splash for the win after six minutes.
Winner by pinfall: Mustafa Ali
Evaluation: Okay match. Daivari and Ali didn’t have much time to work with, but we saw a lot of their signature spots and they showed some good aggression. I’m imagining they’ll keep any other matches that take place before the main event short as the main event will likely take up a lot of time since it’s an elimination match.
A video hyping Gran Metalik is shown. He’ll be making his 205 Live debut next week! It’s about time!
Lince Dorado makes his way to the ring for a match. Kendrick makes his way to the ring next and he has a microphone in hand. Kendrick says that he is the gatekeeper of 205 Live, meaning that he is here to snuff out others’ dreams. However, he says that Akira Tozawa is the exception. He tells Tozawa that if he plays his cards right, he can be Kendrick’s protégé.
Lince Dorado vs. Brian Kendrick
Dorado does a couple flips, which catch Kendrick by surprise, and follows it up with a head scissors takedown, sending Kendrick to ringside. Dorado follows this up with a springboard moonsault outside the ring and onto Kendrick. Dorado brings the action back into the ring.
Dorado hits Kendrick with chops to the chest and a tilt-a-whirl back breaker. Dorado with another head scissors takedown followed by a suplex. Dorado heads to the top turnbuckle and nails Kendrick with a flying crossbody.
Dorado then hits Kendrick with a handspring stunner, but it only gets a two count. Once again, Dorado goes to the top turnbuckle and looks to finish off the match with a shooting star press, but Kendrick gets his knees up. Kendrick locks in his Captain’s Hook submission move and Dorado taps after four minutes.
Winner by submission: Brian Kendrick
Evaluation: Although he got the win, it was not an impressive showing from Brian Kendrick. Dorado was in control for pretty much the entirety of this match and was connecting with big moves for most of it. This is starting to become a trend in Dorado matches; he’ll dominate most of the match and wow the audience with big spots, then quickly lose at the end due to one or two moves. I was a little disappointed with how quickly Dorado tapped out to the Captain’s Hook submission. I would have liked to have seen Dorado try and fight out of it a bit longer before tapping.
Post-match, Aries is in the ring with a microphone as it looks like he’s going to be interviewing Kendrick. Aries asks Kendrick what it is about Tozawa that he’s taken a liking to. Kendrick said there’s just something special about Tozawa and that they’ve formed a bond. Kendrick tells Tozawa to come on out and Tajiri’s music starts up instead! Kendrick faces the entrance ramp, ready for Tajiri, but Tajiri’s standing in the ring behind Kendrick. Once Kendrick turns around, Tajiri sprays green mist in Kendrick’s eyes forcing Kendrick to fall to the mat and grasp at his eyes in pain.
Evaluation: That was cool. I enjoyed that because I genuinely did not see it coming. I know Tajiri injured his leg, but I didn’t know how long he would be out of action for. I guess it was just a minor injury as he’s back now. I wonder what this means for Kendrick’s next feud. It looked like he was going to work a program with Tajiri, but then Tajiri got injured and it seemed that he’d be working with Tozawa instead. Maybe Tozawa vs. Kendrick is put on the back burner since Tajiri’s back. Or maybe all three are involved in a feud now. Either way, I’m looking forward to it!
Neville is interviewed backstage by Dasha Fuentes. Neville talked about tonight’s main event saying that he’s not worried about the victor of tonight’s main event, saying that whoever it is, they will bend the knee to the King of the Cruiserweights.
It’s main event time.
Fatal 5-Way Elimination Match (Winner faces Neville at WWE Fastlane for the Cruiserweight Championship): Jack Gallagher vs. Noam Dar vs. Cedric Alexander vs. Mustafa Ali vs. TJ Perkins
Dar gets in each person’s face and tells them that he’s the man. Bad decision by Dar as all four babyfaces team up against Dar and toss him out of the ring. Alexander tosses Ali into Gallagher who hits Gallagher with a big dropkick. Gallagher takes down Dar outside the ring with a nasty uppercut. Dar and Alexander trade punches and kicks. Gallagher runs in the ring and tries rolling up Dar for a pin, but Dar kicks out. Ali runs in the ring, but Gallagher throws him over the top rope onto the other three. Gallagher takes his umbrella and heads to the top turnbuckle. He opens up the umbrella and jumps onto all four men at ringside. I guess the umbrella is supposed to make the impact more devastating?
Gallagher and Dar bring the action back in the ring, Dar takes out Gallagher, but Alexander sneaks up behind Dar and hits him with his finishing move the Lumbar Check for the three count.
Noam Dar is eliminated.
Ali sneaks up behind Alexander, but Alexander catches Ali and hits him with a standing Spanish fly. However, Ali kicks out at two. Perkins enters the ring and Alexander hits him with a handspring kick to the head. Alexander goes to the top turnbuckle, but the eliminated Dar pulls on Alexander’s leg, knocking Alexander off balance. Perkins takes advantage of this and hits Alexander with his finishing move, The Detonation Kick for the three count.
Cedric Alexander is eliminated.
Gallagher gets Perkins up on his shoulders. Ali sees this and jumps off the top turnbuckle, knocking Perkins off Gallagher’s shoulders with a flying crossbody. Ali hits Gallagher with a neck breaker and goes for his inverted 450 Splash, but Gallagher rolls out of the way. Perkins locks in an arm bar submission on Ali, forcing Ali to tap out.
Mustafa Ali is eliminated.
Perkins runs right at Gallagher, attacking his knee. Perkins locks in a knee bar submission on Gallagher in the middle of the ring. Gallagher flips over though and miraculously makes his way to the ropes to a huge reaction from the crowd. Perkins continues to attack Gallagher’s left leg, but Gallagher fights back with a head butt to Perkins’ chest. Perkins hits Gallagher with The Detonation Kick, however Gallagher’s momentum bounces him off the ropes and he hits Perkins with a huge headbutt. Gallagher falls onto Perkins for the pin, but Perkins kicks out at two. “This is awesome” chants from the crowd.
Perkins gets Gallagher back up in position for The Detonation Kick, but Gallagher fights out of it with elbows and another headbutt which sends Perkins into the corner. Gallagher runs at Perkins in the corner and hits him with a double kick to the face for the one… two… three after fourteen minutes.
Winner by pinfall: Jack Gallagher
Evaluation: That was awesome and a really fun match to end the show with. This was definitely the hottest a crowd has ever been for a cruiserweight match since the Cruiserweight Classic. I think it was a mixture of elimination matches always being fun, all five guys giving it their all, and there being stakes to this match as it was determining the number one contender to Neville’s Cruiserweight Title. Good for Gallagher winning. He’s clearly very over with the crowd. It also makes sense that he won considering he’s the only one of the five men, aside from Ali, who was not currently in a feud with anyone.
Post-match, Neville’s music hits. 205 Live goes off the air with Neville standing at the stage and menacingly staring down Gallagher as he holds his Cruiserweight Title above his head.
Final Thoughts
Overall, this was a good episode of 205 Live. The opening match was solid, Dorado was very impressive in the second bout, Tajiri returned and the main event was great. Can’t ask for too much more than that.
Gran Metalik debuts next week! It’s only taken twelve weeks!
I noticed that TJ Perkins was getting some boos during the main event. I think it may be a good idea to turn him heel, and that’s not just a knee jerk reaction from the boos. I’ve been thinking for a while that it might be a good idea to turn Perkins heel since the division has so many strong babyfaces. Perkins also displays a lot of cockiness in his character. He was getting booed slightly on this week’s Raw simply from the way he was talking to the other cruiserweights, which was in sort of a demeaning tone. Therefore, I think it would be an easy transition for him.
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That’s all for this week. As always, thanks for reading and if you like this review feel free to share it with your friends.
Picture used above is courtesy of WWE.com.