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| Fighting Spirit Returns! Photo Credit: WWE.com |
Tozawa Lives
Last week, Akira Tozawa and Lio Rush got the main event slot on 205 Live, which got me hot and bothered because it was a meeting between the actual Dragon Gate alumnus and a guy who would've killed in Dragon Gate had he been born like five or seven years earlier. Instead, it was a muted contest that was better suited for the opening slot. I guess when you're in between challengers for Alexander, you can take a week off with the big main events. So this week, Tozawa got to shake off said loss against Jack Gallagher, who proclaimed he would eschew being part of the most dominant tag team on a show without a tag division to show singles excellence again. In all seriousness, I wonder if a 205 Live Tag Title is in the works with all the alliancing going on. Couple this with the buzz about the Women's Tag Team Titles, and you'll see tandem matches are so hot right now.
The match itself was solid if uneventful. It bucked the trend of having a slow heat segment based on boring restholds if only because Gallagher always seems to have the presence of mind to do joint manipulation and really make those stretches pop off the screen. Tozawa again was a master of injecting life into a tired crowd like some manic Dr. Frankenstein. What I liked best here was after Gallagher worked over Tozawa's arms and it came time for his comeback, he did the sensible thing and used every other part of his body to attack. Sometimes, selling isn't standing around, making ouchy noises, and holding the afflicted body part. The 205 Live opening match has settled into a niche of being solid but unspectacular, and it stayed well within that groove this week. After Tozawa netted the win with the bombs away senton, he got up in Drake Maverick's grill to demand a rematch with Lio Rush, which the Man of the Hour rebuked later on in a promo. I guess the reason for said sleepy match last week was that these two have a few more battles left in them. I'm still holding out for something exciting.
Talento Local
Just as the opening match of 205 Live has become the nice little match and the main event has become a breeding ground for match of the year candidates, the sandwich match on the show seems to be the landing spot for local talent. This week's enhanced parties were Kalisto and Lince Dorado. Honestly, the most notable thing about the match for me was that Gran Metalik was nowhere to be seen. I'd say WWE was wasting him, but I mean, he has the reputation for whatever company employs him not to utilize his talents. Yuck. Anyway, los luchadores looked really good here, but of course, Kevin Dunn's crack production team missed focusing on the coolest move in the match, Kalisto launching himself off Dorado's shoulders for a splash, to focus on Buddy Murphy brooding backstage. Ah well. Hopefully this match of Good Lucha Things helps get the lads back into focus, because it'd be a shame if Kalisto was off kilter for his next match against Tony Nese like he was for the first one.
THERE IS NO ITAMI, ONLY KENTA
Honestly, this episode's main event went so hard in the paint, you'd think it was Hakeem Olajuwon in 1994. It had so many threads to break down. First and foremost, it fixed a problem from prior weeks, not just with eliminating the long, headlock-based heat segment, but throwing the heat segment out altogether. The four wrestlers really did a fine job interplaying with each other to keep downtime to a minimum, which is usually a problem with modern WWE multi-person matches. Something was always happening, whether involving two, three, or all four of the combatants. It also did a fine job of integrating TJP in ways that didn't make him a total cipher. WWE leans too hard on metatextual storytelling where it doesn't belong on the main roster, but here, in this match, treating TJP like the annoying biting fly that he is worked as a major plot element.
That presence actually added to perhaps the best bit of psychology in the match, which helped frame Mustafa Ali as having a puncher's chance against three heels who didn't like him because his face was too pleasant. In the beginning of the match, it was TJP allowing Hideo Itami and Drew Gulak to do the heavy work that allowed Ali to recover and mount his first offense. TJP trying to betray his loose allies while he was doing double team moves with them allowed Ali to slip back into an offensive role and even enter into a phase of the match where all three wrestlers fed him (a term usually reserved for when the hot tag comes in and just takes out everyone on the heel team in a six-person or more tag match). And even though it didn't lead directly into an Ali win, it tied together to eliminate TJP from factoring into the fall with Itami and Gulak yanking him off the ropes mid-springboard and factoring into him taking the 054.
Gulak obviously ended up winning the match, and no doubt he was tremendous throughout as well. His offensive spots were as big as the moment needed them to be, and his timing, especially on ambushing Itami at the end of the match to take him out, was impeccable and displayed a great sense of opportunism. His interplay with all three other wrestlers was tremendous, but the star of the show was Itami, no doubt. Gulak brought the fire out of him during their standoff towards the end of the match. They started trading blows, and suddenly, the milquetoast Itami that had limped around NXT and 205 Live since returning from his injury disappeared and the KENTA that made headway in Pro Wrestling NOAH came out with fire blaring from his nostrils. He had pepper behind his elbows, purpose behind his kicks, and murder in his eyes once more. While it was Gulak who ostensibly lit the fire, Itami's assault to take Ali out of the match was as vicious as anything you'd find in or out of the Fed all year. If this is the Itami that 205 Live is getting from here on out, it's a whale of a gain for a division that is already fuckin' stacked.
Meanwhile, Gulak finally gets his turn to challenge for the Purple Belt. I imagine him vs. Alexander will be a stellar match, even if they fall back on the old heat segment stuff. Gulak knows how to grind, man, more so than nearly any other heel on the roster outside of his teammate Gallagher. Either way though, how they got to that future title match was outstanding. Folks, this week's 205 Live is must watch.
