WWE Week in Review: RAW stumbles, SmackDown shines

WWE 205 Live

The show kicks off with Tom Phillips giving a quick interview to Jack Gallagher, who says he knows exactly how Neville will be in the State of 205 Live Address, you know, because The State of the Union was on Tuesday night, but states that he’ll overcome the odds at Fastlane on Sunday.

Noam Dar is out with Alicia Fox for the first match of the night to take on Lince Dorado and this felt more like a Monday Night RAW match. The action was decent but the focus was once again more on Alicia Fox getting flowers and eating them. I’ve got no problem that I’ve always loved crazy Alicia but even I’m getting annoyed with this whole thing. I suppose it does give Dar that little something extra, which he probably does need at this point as he’s a bit stale in the ring, but how many times can they run this angle? Rich Swann was watching backstage and Dar did get a win but it was pretty average.

Austin Aries is in the ring to interview Akira Tozawa and wants to address the situation with Brian Kendrick. Tozawa admits to having respect for Kendrick but he wants to forge his own path. Tozawa is looking for a fight but Kendrick hits the ring and knocks that down, saying he has a plan for when that happens and things will happen on his terms. He tells Tozawa to learn English and walks out. Okay, that might have been an okay segment but we already know that Kendrick is teaming with Dar at the Fastlane kickoff show to take on Tozawa and Rich Swann.

We get the main event a bit early — we all knew Neville would close the show — with a six-man tag match featuring Tony Nese, Ariya Daivari and Drew Gulak taking on Cedric Alexander, Mustafa Ali and TJ Perkins. Like most of the main events of this show, I had a good time with this match. It broke down a couple of different times but these six put on a very solid contest. The later part of the match was insanely fun and everybody (yes, even Daivari) looked good here. The heels picked up the victory here as Tony Nese got the pin for his team. Not much storyline stuff working here but at least it was entertaining.

Neville is out to close the show with his address and this is what they should have done on RAW. The champ is upset that he gets no appreciation for saving the division and he’s going to decimate Jack Gallagher at Fastlane, which naturally brings Gentleman Jack out to give his take on things. The two battle it out for a few minutes and in a shocking turn of events, the crowd is actually into it. It’s about time. I thought this was a good closer and a nice segment leading into the title match on Sunday.

Overall, this was an average episode. There were good parts and there were bad parts. And yes, much like I’ve been doing every time I talk about the cruiserweights, I’m going to continue my plea for a big match for the division at WrestleMania and you can read all about my idea here.