WWE 205 Live Review 03/21/17 by Mark McAllen

The seventeenth episode of 205 Live is here! This week’s episode comes from the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut.

The opening video package highlights last week’s awesome Fatal 5-Way Elimination Match. Austin Aries won, thus earning himself an opportunity to face Neville for the Cruiserweight Championship at WrestleMania.

Dasha Fuentes interviews Neville backstage. Fuentes asks Neville why he requested a match tonight against Mustafa Ali. Neville said that Ali needs a reminder of how things work around here. Ali interrupted Neville’s promo last week, so Neville said tonight will serve as a reminder of the repercussions of such idiocy. Neville finished the interview by saying that at WrestleMania, Aries will adhere to his rule and bend the knee to “The King of the Cruiserweights.”

We get a nice opening pyro display as the commentary team of Tom Phillips and Corey Graves welcome us to the show. Phillips is once again replacing usual 205 Live play-by-play man Mauro Ranallo as Ranallo is out sick. Phillips and Graves lets us know that Austin Aries has a WrestleMania message for Neville that he will deliver tonight. They also remind us that we’ll be seeing Cruiserweight Champion Neville take on Mustafa Ali in tonight’s main event.

TJ Perkins vs. Tony Nese

Nese and Perkins quickly trade counters to kick off the match with Perkins getting the upper hand. Perkins hurricanrana’s Nese, forcing Nese outside the ring. Perkins follows this up with a dive outside the ring onto Nese. Perkins rolls Nese back into the ring and locks in a crucifix submission. However, Nese escapes and takes out Perkins by launching him into the turnbuckle.

While on the mat, Nese locks in his favorite rest hold, the body scissors. Perkins fights out of it, but Nese stays in control by laying out Perkins with a big clothesline. Nese slows down the pace and keeps control with a chin lock. Nese unloads on Perkins with a series of kicks, but Perkins fights back and hits Nese with a neckbreaker.

Perkins starts getting into his comeback sequence, hitting all his signature moves, concluding with a springboard cross body which gets a two count. Nese counters Perkins’ next attack, which leads to Nese hitting Perkins with a big springboard moonsault, which gets another two count. Nese sits Perkins down in the corner, looking for his signature running knee, but Perkins gets out of the way in time and locks Nese into a cross arm breaker submission. Nese escapes and Perkins quickly hits Nese with a gutbuster, which only gets a two count.

Perkins gets Nese in position for the Detonation Kick, but Nese reverses it and hits Perkins with a big German Suplex, launching Perkins into the turnbuckle. Nese follows this up with a running knee attack to Perkins’ head. Nese covers Perkins for the one-two-three after about 11 minutes.

Winner by pinfall: Tony Nese

Evaluation: This was a good match that the crowd was totally dead for. This hasn’t been a good couple of days for Perkins as he lost on this week’s Raw to Brian Kendrick in under two minutes and now losses clean to Tony Nese.

Drew Gulak is seen shaking a backstage worker’s hand. It looks like he was thanking him. Dasha Fuentes showed up and asked Gulak to clarify his comments from last week when he said that 205 Live had a problem and it needed to change. Gulak said there’s a problem and the WWE Universe is directly to blame. He said the WWE Universe only cheers for death defying stunts and reckless behavior from the cruiserweights. Gulak said nobody wants a broken cruiserweight division. Gulak finishes by saying that there is hope for 205 Live and how he has the solution.

Akira Tozawa vs. Jobber

Tozawa hits the snap German Suplex into a pin attempt right away for the win. I think the “match” lasted six seconds.

Winner by pinfall: Akira Tozawa

Post-match, Tozawa asks where The Brian Kendrick is. He tells Kendrick to come out and fight as the crowd does Tozawa’s war cry. Kendrick doesn’t come out. Tozawa said that if you won’t come to me, I’ll come to you. Right as Tozawa exits the ring he’s attacked by a “security guard.” That security guard reveals himself to be Brian Kendrick. Kendrick hits Tozawa with Sliced Bread #2 outside the ring off the apron, laying Tozawa out. Kendrick said Tozawa’s next lesson (#8) is that appearances can be deceiving.

Jack Gallagher is shown in the locker with Rich Swann. They’re both wearing matching suits. Noam Dar and Ariya Daivari interrupt Gallagher and Swann’s conversation. Dar is carrying a box with a bow on top. He asks Gallagher and Swann if any of them know anything about this; “this” meaning red lingerie. The story here is that gifts keep being delivered to Alicia Fox every week. Dar keeps playing it off as though he’s the one getting Fox the gifts even though he isn’t. When away from Fox, Dar is trying to find out who’s getting Fox these gifts. Swann and Gallagher make a joke about the red lingerie. Dar said the gifts should stop heading Fox’s way, assuming that one of them is the person responsible for the gifts. Swann gets in Dar’s face, sick of being accused of getting Fox gifts. Dar challenges Swann to a match next week on 205 Live and Swann accepts.

Austin Aries’ WrestleMania Address to Neville

Austin Aries’ music hits and he makes his way to the ring for his WrestleMania address to Neville. Aries came out holding a banana peel and gave it to a young fan as if it was something special. That was pretty funny. Austin Aries chants from the crowd as he’s clearly the most over cruiserweight. Aries said that he’s going to ask and answer his own questions. Aries makes fun of Neville in his Q&A session with himself until Neville gets angry and heads down to the ring. Neville said Aries is talking his way into an early grave. Aries calls Neville a Debby downer and that’s why nobody likes him. The crowd starts chanting Debby downer. Aries tells Neville that he’s been invited to do color commentary for the main event tonight and wishes Neville good luck.

It’s main event time.

Neville vs. Mustafa Ali

Both Neville and Ali show exchange a series of counters to start off the match. Neville is momentarily distracted due to taunting Aries at ringside. When Neville turns around he’s met with a big clothesline from Ali. However, Neville quickly gets back in control and keeps the pace slow. The match is five minutes old and nothings really happened.

Neville throws Ali hard into the corner then taunts the crowd. Neville continues to slowly picks apart Ali. Neville goes for a couple pin attempts, but Ali kicks out at two. When Neville goes to the apron, Ali catches him with a kick to the head, sending Neville to ringside. Ali follows this up by leaping off the second turnbuckle and hitting Neville with a twisting cross body at ringside. Both men crawl their way back into the ring just before the count of ten.

Ali hits Neville with a dropkick followed by his signature rolling neckbreaker, which gets a two count. Ali looks for the tornado DDT, but Neville uses his power to stop Ali’s momentum and throw him crotch first onto the ropes. Neville heads to the top turnbuckle, looking for some sort of big move, but Ali counters and hits Neville with a springboard Spanish Fly off the top rope! Wow, that was cool. Ali goes for the cover, but Neville kicks out at two.

Ali heads to the top turnbuckle again, looking to hit his finishing move, the inverted 450 Splash. However, Neville gets up too quickly and Ali instead hits a big tornado DDT. Ali once again goes for the cover, but Neville kicks out at two. Ali tries to hit the inverted 450 Splash again, but Neville slides out of the way and kicks Ali. Neville jumps up to the top turnbuckle and nails Ali with a huge German Suplex in which Ali flips over and lands on the mat face down. That looked amazing. Neville could clearly go for the cover and win, but Neville drags Ali to the corner of the ring and swings Ali into the steel ring post.

Neville drags Ali’s body around ringside before rolling Ali in the ring and toying with Ali more. Neville locks in the Rings of Saturn submission and Ali has no choice but to tap. The match went about 15 minutes.

Winner by submission: Neville

Evaluation: That was a very good match and some huge spots throughout. It started off slow, but really picked up in the second half. Ali proved he can hang in the main event with the Cruiserweight Champion and put on a great match. It was of course the right call to have Neville win since he’s the Cruiserweight Champion and has a big match against Aries at WrestleMania, but this loss doesn’t hurt Ali. He walks away looking strong. I liked how Neville didn’t go for the pin at the end and decided to torture Ali in front of Aries some more. Great example of Neville showing that he’s an awesome heel.

Post-match, Neville leaps out of the ring and stands in front of the commentary table, taunting Aries. Aries stands up and takes off his jacket, but Neville rolls back in the ring to celebrate his win. 205 Live goes off the air with Neville taunting Aries from inside the ring.

Final Thoughts

Overall, this was a good episode of 205 Live. The opening match was good and the main event was great as it usually is.

Big win for Tony Nese tonight. I’m interested to see where he goes in the future. He’s clearly got the look and the wrestling ability, but he’s having a lot of problems garnering any kind of reaction from the crowd.

Drew Gulak’s storyline to change 205 Live is interesting. I like that they’re letting Gulak speak more, but I’m not too sure if this will be successful. It sounds like his solution to fixing 205 Live’s “problem” is to just continue being himself and not doing high flying moves, which clearly isn’t connecting with the crowd.

I’m not feeling the Tozawa/Kendrick storyline right now. This whole Kendrick teaching Tozawa lessons stuff seems like its dragging and isn’t that interesting. Let’s just have a match already between these two and move on. By the way, whatever happened to Tajiri? He returned from injury a few weeks ago to spray green mist in Kendrick’s face and we haven’t seen him since.

Great main event match between Neville and Ali. It’s the match of the night and I definitely recommend you give it a watch.

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That’s it 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.