Thursday, February 9, 2017

Weekly Wrasslin' Wroundup (Feb 6-9)

POPPINS DROP MOTHERFUCKERS!
Elimination Chamber is days away, but it was 205 Live that stole the show this week, in the best show they've put on ever, and the best match the Cruiserweights have had since the Classic.


THE GOOD:

(205) Jack Gallagher, my new wrestling boyfriend, wins the Fatal Five Way to challenge Neville at Fastlane! It's official, Jack Gallagher is the first true breakout star of the Cruiserweight division, and this match proved it. From a Poppins Drop to the outside early in the match, to incredible selling of a leg injury, he had the crowd in the palm of his hand. ANd props to TJ Perkins, who's been inching heel for a couple of weeks now and worked the end of the match heel style to help the crowd get behind Gallagher's win. JG's not gonna win at Fastlane, but he might win at Wrestlemania.

(205) TAJIRI'S BACK! Glad his injury wasn't too bad and he misted THE FUCK out of Kendrick to reset their feud from where they left off. Kendrick sold the mist again like it was fucking acid death poison and there's an incredible slo mo shot of the misting.

(SD) Solid opening promo and Fatal Four Way that saw Baron Corbin beat Styles, Ambrose, and The Miz in a largely meaningless match to promote the Chamber match.

(Raw) Bayley had a competitive match with Nia Jax, but lost after Charlotte-ference. Pretty basic stuff, but the regular crowd is really starting to react properly to Bayley, and that's good to see.

(Raw) Akira Tozawa got a pretty good crowd reaction in his Raw debut, defeating Drew Gulak and getting a creepy handshake from Brian Kendrick post-match.

(NXT) The idaa, at least, of Tye Dillinger, Roderick Strong, and No Way Jose in a temporary alliance against Sanity for a while. The interference by Nikki Cross at the end of their initial mediocre match this week makes me wonder if Asuka will join the fray, which I'd be fine with.

(Raw) Credit where credit is due, while the match was nothing, the attempt to give the Cruisers an actual segment, with Austin Aries leading a series of interrupting entrances that broke down into a brawl is actually a step forward for the CWs.

THE BAD:

(SD) Horrible dueling promos between Natalya and Nikki Bella before their Elimination Chamber match.

(SD) Dolph Ziggler got rolled up after like  aminute in his match with Apollo Crews, so Ziggler destroys Crews and Kalisto with a chair and Seattle cheers him. None of this is working. It sets up a handicap match for Elimination Chamber, which seems like an awful idea. Two faces against one heel?

(NXT) Killian Dane. Big fat hairy guy with big guy moveset and no-selling as his superpower. He looks like Braun Strowman and Bray Wyatt had a love child and is approximately as interesting. He singlehandedly squashed The Bollywood Boys in an opening tag match, then was heavily protected in the six man against Dillinger, Strong, and Jose.

(NXT) Speaking of big hairy guys, Heavy Machinery is the new name for Tucker Knight and Otis Dosovic, which is not that far off from my suggestion, Fatty and Boombalatty. They had a moderately competitive loss to the Revival to further Revival-Authors interactions, which is an odd next step since everyone's a heel and despite the crowd reaction, Revival were making no attempts to tween.

(Raw) Samoa Joe is The Destroyer, the monster hit man placed at the right hand of the most powerful man in WWE in story terms, HHH. For him to beat Roman Reigns, not only does he have to beat Roman Reigns down pre-match, he has to have the help of Braun Strowman interference, because ROMAN FUCKING REIGNS.

(Raw) It was bad when the Universal Champion and the United States Champion were used as props for Elderlyberg. But then they made a Fastlane title match between Owens and Goldberg. The latter has wrestled for approximately eight minutes since his return months ago and I believe still has displayed fewer than five moves total. How the fuck can a title match against Owens be credible? Plus, more fake Owens-Jericho tension, unless they're building to legit Owens-Jericho split and Wrestlemania match.

(Raw) Braun Strowman squashes 4x Local Talent, does a rerun of his "I Want Competition" deal from back before the Rumble, all to set up Strowman-Reigns at Fastlane to hopefully keep them away from everyone else.

(Raw) A bullshit finish to the tag title rematch when Big Cass caused a DQ at ringside by kicking Gallows after Gallows kicked Enzo. I sense a Triple Threat at Fastlane.

(SD) The Ascension inexplicably wins a short, sloppy 12 man tag match promoting the Tag Team Turmoil match at EC.

THE WEIRD, AMBIVALENT, AND BORING:

RAW: The incredibly shallow Raw tag team division means The New Day beat The Shining Stars while yelling about ice cream in what was either random or hasn't paid off yet. Chris Jericho defeated Sami Zayn thanks to Owensference in what had better be the start of a program that puts the belt on Sami and gets the US title out of the main event mosh.

SMACKDOWN: John Cena beat Randy Orton after inter-Wyatt shenanigans. Lynch, Naomi, Bliss, and James had a perfectly tolerable double contract signing and brawl.

NXT: Bobby Roode's Glorious Celebration was OK in spots, but overlong, and, like so much of Roode's tenure at NXT, not successful enough at being a heel to Full Sail.

205: Mustafa Ali defeated Ariya Daivari to take the injured Tony Nese's spot in the five-way. Odd choice, since it swaps a heel for a face. OK match.

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