1 Up & 4 Downs From WWE 205 Live (January 17, 2017)

1. A Thrown-Together Video Package

Apollo Crews
WWE.com

The first Akira Tozawa vignette was beautifully simple; installing Cesaro, internet darling, as his cheerleader, fans were to receive him as a star through inference. It was a novel way of introducing a talent to the wider audience - but the returns have diminished to a blackly comic extent since.

Last week, Kalisto was plucked from undercard obscurity to put over a man who will soon render him even more irrelevant. On this week’s show - confirming that the producer of these segments must just lurk in the SmackDown! dressing room, waiting to see which undercard guy wasn’t scheduled to lose a three minute match that night - the honour was bestowed upon Apollo Crews.

Crews was game for the job - at this point, he’s probably used to it - but the lack of conviction of his words betrayed his chipper disposition. “Akira Tozawa is a well-known Japanese sports entertainer,” said Crews, reading from his Wikipedia page. “He throws his body, he does that dive through the, uh, middle of the ropes,” he followed up.

The vignette wasn’t dreadful - anything containing within it a highlight reel of those gorgeous snap German suplexes can’t be all bad - but video packages are the one thing WWE excels at in even the most barren of creative periods. This smacked of laziness.

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Contributor
Contributor

Michael Sidgwick is an editor, writer and podcaster for WhatCulture Wrestling. With over seven years of experience in wrestling analysis, Michael was published in the influential institution that was Power Slam magazine, and specialises in providing insights into All Elite Wrestling - so much so that he wrote a book about the subject. You can order Becoming All Elite: The Rise Of AEW on Amazon. Possessing a deep knowledge also of WWE, WCW, ECW and New Japan Pro Wrestling, Michael’s work has been publicly praised by former AEW World Champions Kenny Omega and MJF, and current Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes. When he isn’t putting your finger on why things are the way they are in the endlessly fascinating world of professional wrestling, Michael wraps his own around a hand grinder to explore the world of specialty coffee. Follow Michael on X (formerly known as Twitter) @MSidgwick for more!