BRM Reviews the 2/19/2019 205 Live

[Big Red Machine]

DRAKE MAVERICK ANNOUNCES AN EIGHT-MAN TOURNAMENT TO DETERMINE THE #1 CONTENDER TO THE CRUISERWEIGHT TITLE AT WRESTLEMANIA, WHICH WILL START NEXT WEEK- cool

TJP vs. HUMBERTO CARRILLO- 6.75/10
A nice strong win for Carrillo over an established name. Drew Gulak and Jack Gallagher continued their courtship of Carrillo by coming out to cheer him on, but you could tell they were slightly disappointed when he got the win via high-flying move. They celebrated with him afterwards, though.

TONY NESE PROMO- good
He says he’ll win the tournament and the Cruiserweight Title at WrestleMania. Methinks there is going to be some dissension in the future between him and his training partner, Cruiserweight Champion Buddy Murphy.

MIKE & MARIA GET INTERVIEWED BY KAYLA BRAXTON- Maria took offense to Kayla’s question and cut an awesome promo simultaneously deriding Kayla and talking up Mike and building up his main event tonight against Cedric Alexander.

ARIYAH DAIVARI PROMO- good heel heat making fun of the Saints’ loss but in a way that tied into his match rather than just as cheap heat.

AIRYAH DAIVARI vs. A JOBBER- squash

BUDDY MURPHY PROMO- GREAT

CEDRIC ALEXANDER vs. MIKE KANELLIS (w/Maria Kanellis)- 7.5/10
Cedric had a lot of trouble with his knee again and probably did too much running and flipping on it. The real story here, though, is Bennett getting one of those pinfalls that is so close that the ref can’t stop his hand from coming down the third time and has to tell the winning wrestler “no, you didn’t win.” This will almost certainly result in complaints from Mike & Maria, who once again came so close to victory, to the point that they are almost starting to feel like babyface. Cedric got the win with the Lumbar Check.

DRAKE MAVERICK ANNOUNCES TWO TOURNAMENT MATCHES FOR NEXT WEEK- We’ve got Kalisto vs. Tony Nese and Drew Gulak vs. Brian Kendrick. Part of me doesn’t like going back to Kendrick vs. Gulak so quickly, but having Kendrick around Gulak will create a veteran counterpoint for young Humberto Carrilllo to warn him “don’t trust this guy. I know from experience.”

While this was slightly below the usual greatness, it was still a good episode of 205 Live. The return of the tournament for Mania seems like it could be the beginning of this being an annual tradition rather than last year being a one-off thing, which I fully support, as it helps 205 Live stand out from the other brands, where you have a Royal Rumble winner and then that match is usually locked in for Mania months in advance and we get several months of very little movement around the top singles title(s).