source: WWE
This week, we dive in to more first round tournament matches in the Mixed Match Challenge and Cruiserweight Championship tournaments, as well as UK Championship and NXT Women's Championship matches on NXT.
Mixed Match Challenge
source: WWE
Bayley and Elias vs. Rusev and Lana
Winners: Rusev and Lana
The show kicks off with Bayley and Elias who introduce themselves with guitars in the center of the ring. Before they can sing, they (unfortunately) get interrupted by Rusev and Lana in matching outfits. Bayley and Lana start, and Bayley easily gets the upper hand at first. Rusev gives his wife a pep talk and she charges as the Hugger before grabbing Elias’ guitar. She screams and threatens to hit Bayley with it, but Rusev calms her down.
Rusev drops Elias’ guitar on the ground, and Elias gets fired up. He gets in the ring with Rusev, and Elias takes control straightaway, but Rusev knocks him down with a brutal kick to the face. He goes for the Accolade, but Elias escapes right into a suplex. Elias gets to the corner to tag Bayley in, and Lana attacks before she even gets into the ring.
After some harsh beatings from Lana, Bayely creates some separation angers an advantage. Lana, however, utilizes a distraction created by Rusev and Elias to get a cheap shot on Bayley and get the win, marking this as her first televised victory in her WWE career. Both Lana and Rusev pretty much ignore Renee Young in a post-match interview as they scream about how they’re number one.
In this match, Lana has debuted a new aggressive style, and it feels like as a character, she’s really embracing her inability to wrestle well. Leading up to this match, Rusev and Lana have been “training”, which involves lots of screaming about how she’s the best and she wants to win.
In the ring, she seems to do whatever she can to eliminate Bayley, even if it’s not actual moves. It seems like WWE is taking advantage of the “you can’t wrestle” chants she used to get and incorporating that into her character, similar to how they used Eva Marie before her departure.
Personally, I wouldn’t mind having first round matches (and maybe some second round matches) be joke matches. Only hardcore fans seemingly tune in to Facebook Live each week for these matches, and all of the comedy has been tasteful and timed really well.
In my opinion, this show is a great way for superstars to show off their characters in a different way, and it can only help people like Lana, Mandy Rose, and Shinsuke Nakamura further develop their personalities. The MMC has helped the women superstars especially by constantly putting them on an equal platform as the men—they get about the same in-ring and promo time (sometimes more) and are taken as serious competitors.
205 Live
source: WWE
Akira Tozawa vs. Mark Andrews
Winner: Mark Andrews
Mark Andrews kicks off his WWE (and 205 Live) debut by tying Tozawa in holds and delivering dropkicks. The two men exchange chops and strikes, and this is where Tozawa’s strong style gives him the upper hand. The men go back and forth with some more holds, but every time Tozawa locks something in, Andrews escapes.
Tozawa keeps the advantage, though, when he delivers a hurricanrana and a Shining Wizard kick. When he climbs to the top rope, Andrews rolls out of the ring, prompting a suicide dive from Akira. Mark Andrews delivers an incredible twisted corkscrew flip onto Akira Tozawa in the center fo the ring. He reverses Tozawa into a Stundog Millionaire, a brutal 180 degree stunner. He goes for a shooting star press, but Tozawa rolls out of the way. Anderws reverses Tozawa’s new momentum into a small package, getting the upset victory.
source: WWE
Drew Gulak vs. Tony Nese
Winner: Drew Gulak
Before the match begins, Gulak offers Nese his hand to shake, and Nese kicks it away. In response, Gulak rolls him into a hold, stretching his arm out. In the first few moments, Gulak is brutal with his chops and hits, but Nese seemingly has an answer for every one of his moves. Drew attempts to knock Tony off the apron, but Nese cartwheels over it and smacks his arm into Gulak’s chest.
In the ring, Drew Gulak takes control. He targets Nese’s left arm with an armbar. He dumps Nese on his side with a suplex, vicious expressions on his face. Nese eggs him on, though, yelling while he hits him over and over in the face.
When Gulak is on the apron, the Premier Athlete swipes his feet, knocking him to the ground, and when he stands up, Nese backflips from the mat and over the ropes onto his “friend”. He goes to the top rope and aims for a 450 splash, but Drew rolls out of the way. Nese impresses with the way he lifts Gulak and slams him into the turnbuckle several times.
After being dominated for several minutes, Gulak regains an advantage by running Nese into the announce table several times. The ref calls off the match when Gulak applies the Dragon Sleeper, bending the neck of Tony Nese back, and Drew Gulak gains the victory.
This match is a prime example of great storytelling on 205 Live. Drew Gulak and Tony Nese utilized subtle facial expressions throughout the match, but towards the end of the bout, it seemed like a switch flipped for Gulak.
Nese controlled most of the match, but all of a sudden, Gulak showed no remorse as he brutalized someone who was supposed to be his friend. He grabs the title like it was his all along, and it’s exciting to think about how this side of Gulak can come into play in the future.
NXT
source: WWE
Pete Dunne vs. Roderick Strong
WWE United Kingdom Championship Match
Winner: Pete Dunne
Early on, Pete Dunne focuses his attack on Roddy Strong’s left arm. He stomps on Strong’s fingers on the steel steps once, but when he goes for it again, Strong picks Dunne up and drops him on his back on the stairs. Strong delivers several painful looking backbreakers to Dunne.
Pete delivers a hard kick to Roddy’s arm on the apron, and Strong responds with several enziguiri kicks to the head and drops Dunne onto the apron. The bruiserweight pulls Roddy’s fingers back and stomps on them again before delivering a sit-up power bomb. He goes onto the top rope and aims to jump onto Strong, but Strong counters with a dropkick to Dunne’s neck and face.
Roddy Strong escapes a triangle submission by lifting Dunne, putting his head and neck between the middle and top rope, and launching him upwards. He hits him with a couple knees to the face, but only gets a nearfall. The pair exchange hard strikes and Strong attempts for the Strong Hold, but the bruiserweight yanks his fingers apart and almost breaks them. He gives him a Bitter End and gets the three count.
This match was fantastic, but is anyone surprised? It was quick-paced and both Strong and Dunne kept it interesting with good back and forth and utilization of strong kicks and holds. Roddy Strong has been putting on amazing matches lately, both in NXT and 205 Live, and it wouldn’t surprise me if he went far in the cruiserweight tournament. If he doesn’t win the championship, he definitely deserves to be on the main roster.
source: WWE
Killian Dain confronts Aleister Black
Black states that there’s a devil on his back—the NXT Championship. Shortly after, he is interrupted by Killian Dain of sAniTy. He says that the devil isn’t on his back, he is. Dain claims he also wants the NXT Championship, and he wasn’t going to let Aleister Black stop him. This sets up a match for these two, with the winner likely going on to face Andrade “Cien” Almas for the NXT Championship somewhere down the line.
Last week, Killian Dane was the star of his match with sAniTy against the Undisputed Era, so it’s no question that this opportunity is well deserved. Both Aleister Black and Dane are worthy of title opportunities, and it’ll be cool to see what they can do in the ring together down the line.
source: WWE
TM61 (Shane Thorne and Nick Miller) vs. John Skyler and Andrew Duckworth
Winner: TM61
Nick Miller hits John Skyler with rough hits and kicks before tagging in Shane Thorne. They double team Skyler and Thorne also eliminates Duckworth. Still fresh, Thorne tags Miller back in, and Miller gives Skyler a dropkick, DDT, and spinebuster.
Nick tags Shane, who barrels into Duckworth as he sits in the corner. The team delivers their Thunder Valley, a double-team gorilla press slam, for the victory. While this was a squash match, TM61 came out looking great—they didn’t even break a sweat and (obviously) worked well as a team. They definitely are deserving of a tag team title opportunity in the near future.
source: WWE
Ember Moon vs. Shayna Baszler
NXT Women’s Championship Match
Winner: Ember Moon
As soon as the match begins, Moon attacks Baszler, taped-up arm and all. She climbs to the top rope and Shayna gets out of the ring, only to be hit by a suicide dive onto the corner of the announce table. Ember Moon seems to have hurt her arm even more, and Baszler takes advantage of it.
Baszler captures Moon in an arm bar, refusing to let go until Moon escapes. Baszler does it again, hyperextending the injured arm until Moon grabs the rope and forces the break. Baszler takes it outside the ring, holding Ember’s arm between two bars of a steel barricade until the referee stops her.
Out of nowhere, Kairi Sane attacks Shayna Baszler and disqualifies her, but Sane isn’t finished. She takes the battle in the ring, where she keeps the upper hand and forces Shayna to retreat backstage.
This was a great way to end this feud. While Baszler is definitely intimidating, she isn’t ready to be Women’s Champion just yet. She has unfinished business with Kairi Sane, and that rivalry should be good. Also, it doesn’t make sense for Ember Moon to drop the title just yet. Baszler needs to be more established in the women’s division before she takes Moon’s title, and the finish of this match kept some of her creditability.
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