3 Ups & 2 Downs From WWE 205 Live (January 24, 2017)
Without Gallagher, there’s Jack sh*t to write home about.
205 Live, at its worst, is the punchline of the most cynical message board jokes; divorced almost entirely from the Cruiserweight Classic, the original, real sports framework has been abandoned altogether. So too has its eclectic range of styles. The cruiserweights wrestle in much the same mode, if not manner, in adhering to the archetypal, slower-paced, story-driven WWE style.
Classic wrestling tales, like the fraught war contested by partners that was Johnny Gargano Vs. Tomassa Ciampa, have been jettisoned, supplanted by sports entertainment love triangles and hackneyed sub-plots of betrayal and dated geopolitical tensions.
It’s hard to focus on the positives, though there are a few. There are more roster members than segments; consequently, the show, at just an hour of length, is nowhere near as interminable or indulgent as RAW. That show, a bloated mess of filler, has so much time to fill with nowhere near enough creativity to fill it that matches are often repeated ad nauseam - even given away for free in the week before we’re meant to pay for it.
The structure of 205 Live means that WWE need not preview pay-per-view offerings with a feature-length trailer - but, to indict this week’s episode, the company did just that...