205 Live – September 12, 2017: Deck Chairs on the Cruiserweight Show
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Live
Date: September 12, 2017
Commentators: Nigel McGuinness, Vic Joseph
This is a slightly delayed episode as it’s taking place after the Mae Young Classic Finals and since we can’t just cancel the show for a week, let’s have WWE going for three hours and fifteen minutes on back to back nights. Tonight’s big match is Rich Swann vs. TJP in what should be their big blowoff. Let’s get to it.
Rich Swann is in the back to talk about beating TJP in their first match. TJP comes in to show a video of their second match where he beat Swann. This included TJP acting quite a bit more heelish, which didn’t sit well with Swann. Tonight, TJP can’t handle this.
Opening sequence.
Rich Swann vs. TJP
You can see the empty seats throughout the arena. Swann headlocks him down to start for a good while, which isn’t the best move in the world for a crowd that is rapidly dwindling. Back up and Swann tries his flip over TJP but gets pulled down into a quickly broken kneebar. Instead TJP is sent outside for a flip dive from the apron, followed by a hard kick to the back.
TJP takes him down without too much effort though and rips at Swann’s face for a bit. A basement dropkick gets two and we hit the chinlock on Rich. That goes nowhere so it’s a hard belly to back suplex into a slingshot hilo for two more. Swann fights back with his series of kicks but TJP catches him with the springboard forearm.
Back up and a double kick puts them both down again as we have another breather. The second kneebar works a bit better but TJP has to settle for the chickenwing gutbuster for two instead. The weakest THIS IS AWESOME chant you’ll ever hear doesn’t change much so they hit a pinfall reversal sequence. Swann’s Fantastic Voyage gets two but the Phoenix splash puts TJP away at 12:05.
Rating: B-. Good match with a nice story of them knowing each other so well and being pretty much even until the ending but the dead crowd hurt them a lot. Throw in the fact that neither of them is going near what’s soon to be Enzo’s title and this didn’t have any meaning to it. At least it was good though.
TJP eventually shakes his hand though it’s not a long one.
We look back at Enzo becoming #1 contender with Cedric Alexander cleaning house until Enzo stole the pin.
Mustafa Ali asks Alexander how he can be so calm after last week. Cedric wants to rip Enzo’s head off but it doesn’t do anything because Enzo caught him sleeping. Brian Kendrick comes in to ask where Cedric wants to be. Cedric’s attitude reminds Brian of Jack Gallagher: spineless and lacking what it takes.
Drew Gulak is in the ring and it’s time to complete the PowerPoint presentation! Last week he was cut off by Akira Tozawa, who isn’t even here tonight. Since there’s no chance of him being interrupted, we get to slide #3 (of 277): no chants. Gulak: “Even Mr. McMahon’s music says no chants!” Drew demands complete silence before moving on to slide #4: no elaborate ring gear (with the picture clearly being inspired by Kazuchika Okada).
Slide #5: no interruptions! They’re very rude….and here’s Breezango for a cameo. That certainly wakes the crowd up with a loud BREEZANGO chant. They bring up the Captain Underpants nickname and you know what the fans are chanting now. Gulak denies it so Fandango threatens to treat him like the perp that he is. He gets rather close to Drew’s face and Gulak seems a bit disturbed.
They’ve received complaints about someone walking around in underpants. Breeze: “We like underpants.” He lists off a variety of them with Fandango liking this discussion far too much. Gulak goes to leave so Fandango cuffs him. Breeze lists off his rights (to remain stylish, to have everything you wear seen in a mirror, to a fashion consultant) but Gulak escapes to the floor for a chase. Fandango trips him down and Breeze declares the case closed. Breezango instantly looked like bigger stars than anyone not named Enzo and show just how badly this show is lacking charisma.
We look back at Miz destroying Enzo both verbally and physically last night. I can’t believe they would actually show that on this show.
We look back at Brian Kendrick beating up Jack Gallagher two weeks ago.
Cedric Alexander vs. Brian Kendrick
Kendrick knocks him into the corner to start so Cedric dropkicks him away. The springboard clothesline gets two and a back elbow sends Kendrick outside. A big flip dive takes Brian down again but he sends Cedric throat first into the bar between the turnbuckle and post. Cue Jack Gallagher with William III though….and he attacks Alexander for the DQ at 3:42.
Rating: D. This didn’t have time to go anywhere and was all about the heel turn anyway. In theory this sets Cedric up against Kendrick and Gallagher, which is yet another feud for him where he’s not fighting for the title. Gallagher turning might do good things for him but he’s going to need something a bit more than that to really make it work.
Gallagher destroys Cedric as Brian is stunned. They shake hands to end the show.
Overall Rating: C. This show going so late into the night hurt things and the fans were clearly leaving before the show started, with even more of them being gone by the end. It still doesn’t help to have everyone aside from the champion and #1 contender feel like deck chairs being rearranged and that’s what the whole place feels like most of the time. The first match was good but they need something more than just a bunch of people running around until the next #1 contender shows up.
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