BRM Reviews the 5/28/2019 205 Live

[Big Red Machine]

BRIAN KENDRICK vs. MIKE KANELLIS (w/Maria Kanellis)- 6.75/10
The story was Kendrick working over the head with his usual signature moves while Bennett worked over Kendrick’s back. There was an odd point after a big spot on the outside where the referee seemed to forget he was supposed to start counting them out after making sure they were both able to continue. Kanellis getting the win as a bit of a surprise, considering his wife’s recent Twitter grousing, but maybe this is a sign that WWE really wants to keep them.

DRAKE MAVERICK, TONY NESE, & AKIRA TOZAWA BACKSTAGE- Nese called this meeting so that he could push Tozawa as a #1 contender to Maverick. Maverick says Nese makes good points, but he has a lot on his plate right now and doesn’t “want to make any rash decisions.”

ARIYA DAIVARI PROMO- great!
He’s angry at Oney Lorcan for getting in his way and costing him last week’s main event. He wound up needing stitches because of Lorcan, so he vows to be responsible for Lorcan’s next set of stitches.

NOAM DAR vs. A JOBBER- no rating, good squash.
Dar taunted and humiliated the jobber during the match while the commentators told us about his new arrogant and trollish attitude.

SARAH SCHREIBER INTERVIEWS NOAM DAR- good heel stuff, including making fun of Oklahoma for cheat heap.

KAYLA BRAXTON INTERVIEWS DRAKE MAVERICK- why is this happening to me?
Some rare fumbling of the question from Kayla. Her question was basically “well if you’re not ready to name Tozawa the #1 contender then who else is being considered?” Maverick reiterated his statements from earlier, then caught sight of R-Truth strolling around backstage and went to chase after him, even though he didn’t even have a referee present. So is the angle that Drake Maverick is neglecting his job as GM of 205 Live because he wants to be the 24/7 Champion?

ONEY LORCAN PROMO- great!
He’ll give Daivari a second set of stitches on the other side to match the first. This has gotten heated quite quickly.

JACK GALLAGHER vs. HUMBERTO CARRILLO- 7.5/10
Aiden English seems to be operating under the belief that when Carrillo was hanging around with the Submission Commission, it was Gallagher who did all of the training with him and Gulak didn’t teach him one single thing. This is exactly the sort of assumption exaggeration that announcers will make that drives me nuts because of the way it takes the babyface/heel roles to such incredible extremes even though doing so makes the heels actions less logical and makes the heel feel like less of a real person. Gulak wanted Carrillo on his side and to see him as a mentor, so why would he leave the teaching to Gallagher?
A solid, fun, athletic, kind of scrappy match, with both guys showing respect for both the other and his chosen style, making for something of a nice capstone to the whole angle with Gulak.
One negative from this match was that the commentary- though really just Aiden and Vic- felt painfully WWE-ified, which usually doesn’t happen on 205 Live. At one point Vic was basically trying to make the point that Gallagher doesn’t want Carrillo to take his spot, but he jumped through about six different hoops to say it, including trying to tell us that we should be impressed with Gallagher because he has “been in the Royal Rumble” and has been here “since the beginning of 205 Live” and thus doesn’t want Carrillo to (paraphrasing this time) “take championship opportunities away from him” via beating him in matches. It was so painfully clumsy and came off as almost stupid for being so damn obvious but stated in such a non-straightforward way.

Anyway, this was a good episode of 205 Live, but I’d be lying if didn’t say I was getting a little worried.