WWE Week in Review: Braun Strowman impresses, Battle Royal controversy

WWE 205 Live

Given what’s happened between these two in recent weeks, including their no-start on Monday night, Brian Kendrick and Akira Tozawa are opening the show to really get their program rolling with an actual match and the newcomer was pretty aggressive from the start with some forearms, a standing senton and some punches and chops before Kendrick turns the tide and gets his share of offense in on the floor. He’s looking for the Captain’s Hook but Tozawa fought it off twice and hits a suicide dive back to the outside. He tries to get Kendrick back in the ring to finish him off but the veteran is trying to crawl under the ring. He ends up tripping Tozawa and ties his boot to the ring, climbs back in and gets a countout victory. Great booking here. This thing is just getting going and everybody wins. Kendrick gets a win but a cheap win and Tozawa looked really strong. They didn’t go that long but will get more time as the weeks pass and needs to be the main event of a future episode. Tajiri will likely get involved somewhere here.

Noam Dar is interviewed ahead of his match with Mustafa Ali and he calls Rich Swann a lowlife for making a move on Alicia Fox, who he’s dedicating this match to. So we’re getting another angle with that. I liked it the first time but come up with something else. But maybe that’s all that they’ve got for Dar, who continues to be simply average in the ring. It’s not that his matches are bad but they’re nowhere near great either. Ali needs something better moving forward. He looked good here but took the loss.

Austin Aries announces his own video package, which works perfectly for him but I think I would have preferred him attacking someone instead of this. But it’s still okay. At least he’ll be getting back in the ring soon.

It’s main event time with number one contender Jack Gallagher taking on Tony Nese and his abs (still loving that bit) and as usual, the final match of the night was the best one. They had a great back and forth and both had some really nice spots in this one. I thought Nese did a great job in the match and he continues to impress me, even if he’s still taking a few losses. It doesn’t seem that they’re affecting his push right now and that’s a good thing. Gallagher had to win this one to keep his momentum going as we get closer to Fastlane and looked solid here as well. This was just a good wrestling match.

This was a pretty crisp episode. The first two matches weren’t spectacular and the middle match was certainly nothing to write home about but they’re furthering some storylines and the main event was fantastic. We’ll see if they can keep it going next week.