WWE Week in Review: Staredown City on RAW, Cena & Styles shine on SmackDown

WWE 205 Live

As I said in the intro, this is probably the best episode of 205 Live that we’ve gotten since the debut.

Neville kicked things off with a nice promo on Rich Swann and claims that he showed him too much mercy, a mistake he won’t make again. He’s set to take on Cedric Alexander later in the evening and I was immediately hooked into the episode as I knew those two would put on a show. And I can’t say enough how much I enjoy this version of Neville.

I thought the match between TJ Perkins and Tony Nese was a very solid contest but just lacked that little extra I was looking for with these two. Perhaps they’re looking towards building a program with these two and they can deliver the match I know they can deliver. They worked well together in EVOLVE and I’m betting it can go well in WWE as well. Nese attacking Perkins after taking the loss seemed to indicate that this is the case and I’m good with that.

The debut of Akira Tozawa is announced for next week’s episode and I’m extremely excited to see what he brings to the show.

Brian Kendrick is out next and it’s looking as if he’s going to be getting some quick wins until Tajiri returns. He ran through Tripp Bradshaw in just over two minutes here. Kendrick is still good at what he does and was enjoyable here.

After some chatter between Alexander and Swann in the back in which the champ told Cedric to save some of Neville for Sunday, we’re on to main event and what a main event it was. Neville and Alexander worked a brilliant match, working a great pace from the start and they told a great story throughout. Neville is thriving in this heel role and played it perfectly as he angrily and repeatedly slammed Alexander into the barricade on the outside but Cedric was able to get his share of offense in as well in this one before we got a bit of a screwy finish with Noam Dar getting involved to keep that whole thing going. Neville got the submission win but I can’t help but think it would have been perfect if Alexander had just lost clean. I know that sounds strange but with a guy like him right now, you could just play up that he’s so close to getting to that next level without the interference. But maybe that’s just me.

Neville proceeded to beat down both Alexander and Dar following the match, which led to the inevitable clash with Rich Swann at the end, which is exactly what you want heading into the Royal Rumble. I’m really looking forward to this match on Sunday and this was a great go-home episode to get us there.