10 Early Wrestling Predictions For 2018

6. 205 Live Will Die

Braun Strowman Wwe
CC BY-SA 2.0 Wikimedia Commons

Stop, stop! It's already dead!

205 Live is a dumpster fire nobody cares to extinguish. Watch virtually any lighter performer on virtually any other stage of note, and the differences become starkly apparent. The stuff Ricochet does in Pro Wrestling Guerrilla is insane. Will Ospreay is a speed demon, whereas Hiromu Takahashi's sickening, brutal offence is just demonic. KUSHIDA's submission work looks agonising.

The work on 205 Live is only slightly more aerial-based than the work on the WWE main roster, on which the heavyweight and cruiserweight disciplines have been conflated over a period of years, all but rendering the latter redundant. It's token stuff from a company apparently repulsed by spots for the sake of spots. If Seth Rollins had signed with WWE in 2017, there's every chance he'd debut on 205 Live. That's a sobering thought. If Ricochet does sign with WWE in 2017, there's every chance he'll debut on 205 Live. That's a depressing thought.

WWE has taken several cost-cutting measures in 2017. 205 Live is relatively inexpensive to produce, but then, so is pyro. Its poor quality is infectious, too; AJ Styles took a month off SmackDown a month or so back purely to convince fans to stick around for his dark match. Austin Aries and Neville took off, period, feeling stigmatised by the show and its failure.

It would represent an embarrassment for WWE - but it is dead, and there is no reanimating the corpse.

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!