Our commentary team for this new show is Mauro Ranallo, Corey Graves… and AUSTIN ARIES. From Aries’ first line it was quite clear that he wants to be the top cruiserweight in the company, and if you need someone to carry an entire division personality-wise, Aries is one of the best choices in the entire history of wrestling.

We then get an introduction of the competitors with them all standing on the stage, which I didn’t like. It puts them all at the same level of generic interchangeable bodies. I would have preferred intro packages staggered throughout the next few weeks like what they did for the Cruiserweight Classic.

Or like they’re doing for the Bollywood Boyz right now.

BOLLYWOD BOYZ VIDEO PACKAGE- good.

THE BOLLYWOOD BOYZ vs. TONY NESE & DREW GULAK- 5.25/10
The match was a fine first match for 205 Live, but if I were booking it I would have gone all out with something like Gulak vs. Cedric and given them like fifteen minutes. I think it would be best for both the Bollywood Boys and for WWE if they were in the tag team division instead of the cruiserweight division. In fact, I’d like them to rarely do tag matches in the cruiserweight division (like maybe never unless you are either making a big deal out of it in advance or if you set it up with an angle) just to differentiate it even more.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Nese blames their loss on the poor conditions of the ring. Good heel excuse, I guess.

NOAM DAR VIDEO PACKAGE- fine

TOM PHILIPS INTERVIEWS BRIAN KENDRICK- great promo by Kendrick. Then TJP showed up to talk about his rematch, which just takes attention away from where it should be, which is Swann vs. Kendrick. TJP wasn’t so good here. He also mentioned that Kendrick owes him a rematch but then said that he would “fall out of the title picture” if Kendrick loses. Why would he fall out of the title picture? A title shot is a title shot and if you have done something to deserve one (and beating the champion via count-out, especially in a title match like TJP did definitely counts) then you deserve the title shot no matter who the champion is.

ARIYA DAIVARI vs. JACK GALLAGHER- 4.5/10
Gallagher does his stuff, but Daivari gets to get some offense in as well. I don’t like Gallagher. He’s too goofy for me, and I’ve seen the likes of Zack Sabre Jr. and Mike Quackenbush and others do his style even better than he does, so I’m just not impressed by him.

LINCE DORADO VIDEO PACKAGE- good

RICH SWANN VIDEO PACKAGE- good

WWE CRUISERWEIGHT TITLE MATCH: Brian Kendrick(c) vs. Rich Swann- 7.75/10
We get the expected title change and the title is definitely on the right guy for this point in time in the division. A great main event and thankfully there was no TJP run-in.

POST-MATCH PROMOS- Swann was great Kendrick was very good.

A great first episode of 205 Live. Personally I’d rather see two longer matches instead of one long one and two short ones, but that can change depending on the needs of the week. The presentation of everything had a more “real sports” feel to it than anything WWE has done other than the Cruiserweight Classic itself, the announcers were fantastic, and maybe it’s just me but I don’t remember a single match being interrupted for a commercial!

I take it Aries eventually gets in a fight with a wrestler and that's how he transitions into competition

cero2k wrote:I take it Aries eventually gets in a fight with a wrestler and that's how he transitions into competition

I think they'll just wait until his injury is healed and have him attack the champ at the end of a show.

What about Gallagher's style makes him inferior to ZSJ or Noam Darr, who are two of the most boring generic indy geeks I've ever seen? At least Gallagher is colorful and has a gimmick beyond 'I do fancy wrist locks" and the crowd is into his stuff so what's the problem? Also, I think you're undercrediting the Bollywood Boyz as they managed to get a dead crowd into their match. While I agree there should be limited if any tag teams on 205 Live, it's the best application of the Bollywood Boyz, and they have potential to get over.

NWK2000 wrote:What about Gallagher's style makes him inferior to ZSJ or Noam Darr, who are two of the most boring generic indy geeks I've ever seen? At least Gallagher is colorful and has a gimmick beyond 'I do fancy wrist locks" and the crowd is into his stuff so what's the problem? Also, I think you're undercrediting the Bollywood Boyz as they managed to get a dead crowd into their match. While I agree there should be limited if any tag teams on 205 Live, it's the best application of the Bollywood Boyz, and they have potential to get over.

You see "colorful" and I see a guy pretending to not know it's 2016 and not 1916. Get rid of the mustache and I'd like him more.
The crowd is into his stuff because 1) it's the first they've seen of most of this, whereas I've been watching guys wrestle this style for almost a decade now, and 2) because the crowd likes "colorful" goofballs now more than they do actual wrestlers and wrestling. The Vaudevillains, Blue Pants, Dalton Castle, James Ellsworth, most of what Golden Truth does, a good chunk of the Young Bucks current schtik, Cheeseburger, The Social Outcasts, Toru Yano... these are all things that need to stop (and this is coming from someone who thinks Dalton is a great wrestler, but he hurts his own matches with dumb "comedy" spots). I'm not saying there can't be comedy or outlandish characters. I'm just saying that if you're going to do them you need to not make the show a total farce. Characters like Bayley or Famous B or The Miz or Adam Rose do a much better job of straddling this line because I can believe that they are real humans trying to win matches and not people acting like buffoons because the script says so and because their various kinds of BS have been accepted by the fans because the fans like quirkiness.

And we can have the whole "it doesn't matter what it is as long as it gets over" debate if you want, but I firmly believe that by choosing to push this sort of bullsh*t (instead of equally over wrestlers like Cesaro, Ambrose a few months ago, etc.) WWE (and others) are training their audience in a direction that is not sustainable for the future of the business in the long term.

Big Red Machine wrote: You see "colorful" and I see a guy pretending to not know it's 2016 and not 1916. .

Can a guy just not be a wrestler with a unique fashion sense? He's not trying to be the Vaudevillains, he's just a guy who happens to like his mustache and his rainbow tights.

And we can have the whole "it doesn't matter what it is as long as it gets over" debate if you want, but I firmly believe that by choosing to push this sort of bullsh*t (instead of equally over wrestlers like Cesaro, Ambrose a few months ago, etc.) WWE (and others) are training their audience in a direction that is not sustainable for the future of the business in the long term

There's a difference between guys who are pure comedy/silly wrestlers (Adam Rose, James Ellsworth) between guys who are goofy but still put on good matches (Hurricane Helms is also in this category), Plus, what's actually silly about Gallagher's in ring work besides maybe the Pretzel Hold (which I adore)?

NWK2000 wrote:

Big Red Machine wrote: You see "colorful" and I see a guy pretending to not know it's 2016 and not 1916. .

Can a guy just not be a wrestler with a unique fashion sense? He's not trying to be the Vaudevillains, he's just a guy who happens to like his mustache and his rainbow tights.

But that's not how they push him. They talk about him being a "throwback" and an old-timey gentleman or whatever.

NWK2000 wrote:

Big Red Machine wrote: And we can have the whole "it doesn't matter what it is as long as it gets over" debate if you want, but I firmly believe that by choosing to push this sort of bullsh*t (instead of equally over wrestlers like Cesaro, Ambrose a few months ago, etc.) WWE (and others) are training their audience in a direction that is not sustainable for the future of the business in the long term

There's a difference between guys who are pure comedy/silly wrestlers (Adam Rose, James Ellsworth) between guys who are goofy but still put on good matches (Hurricane Helms is also in this category), Plus, what's actually silly about Gallagher's in ring work besides maybe the Pretzel Hold (which I adore)?

The problem is that the lines here are getting blurred. Dalton Castle is a great wrestler and I have no problem with anything he does before or after the bell, but he takes me out of his matches when he does silly things in the middle of the match that make me feel like he isn't trying to win. Same with the Bucks, same with the Young Bucks or Ciampa when he does stupid shit in the middle of the match casually biting someone for no reason or Sami Callihan with the stupid cat mask. I think there are a lot of wrestlers who have forgotten how to do comedy in a believable way in a match.