6/13 WWE 205 LIVE REPORT: Cedric Alexander vs. Akira Tozawa, TJP vs. Akira Tozawa, plus Nese, Aries Gallagher

WWE 205 LIVE
JUNE 13, 2017
NEW ORLEANS,  LA. AT SMOOTHIE KING CENTER
AIRED LIVE ON WWE NETWORK
REPORT BY JOEY GALIZIA (@RamJam89), PWTORCH SPECIALIST

Announcers: Vic Joseph, Corey Graves

JG here. Still riding the high from the Samoa Joe and Brock Lesnar brawl.

The show opens with Akira Tozawa taping up his wrists backstage. Titus comes in and says that Akira’s not even fully in the Titus Brand yet and is still reaping the benefits from the promotion already done. Titus then mentions that he got Akira into the main event of 205 tonight: A one-on-one match against the first ever cruiserweight champion, T.J.P. With Titus’s guidance, “Akira could become the next Kobe Bryant of Japan.” (End quote.)

“Hail the Crown” plays. This song will always suck.

Corey welcomes us to the show along with Vic Joseph, the newest member of the WWE commentary team. Vic has been calling matches for Main Event, and is very excited to be involved in the most exciting hour on television. Austin Aries will be addressing the WWE Universe since his loss to Neville. Graves and Joseph then hype the evening’s aforementioned main event.

Cedric Alexander is out first for action. Clips from last night’s horrific segment involving Alicia’s FaceTime call are shown. If you missed it…lucky you. The gist is that Cedric is done with Foxy and Noam.

His opponent, Ariya Daivari. Joseph tells us he’s wearing a $1,500 shirt. Graves asks when the last time he had a shirt that nice. Joseph says he may not even have $1,500 in his bank account. (I like this kid.)

(1) Cedric Alexander vs. Ariya Daivari

Tie-up. Daivari snatches Cedric’s arm but he reverses the pressure. Daivari hits the first bump but Cedric bounces right back to his feet. Staredown.

Second tie-up and Cedric takes control with a headlock. Daivari forces him to a corner and opens up with knife-edged strikes. Cedric responds with a headscissor takedown and a flush dropkick. Cover but only two.

On the apron Cedric lands an elbow and then goes for a springboard clothesline, but Ariya sweeps his leg and Cedric hits the turnbuckles. HARD. Ariya covers but only for two.

Ariya works Cedric down with rest-holds. Cedric tries to mount a comeback but Ariya surprises him with a neckbreaker. Cover…two count. Hard Irish-Whip into the turnbuckle. Cedric begins another comeback but Ariya slows him down again, this time with a running knee.

Cedric escapes a sleeper hold and lands some stiff strikes. Springboard enziguri! Springboard Clothesline!

Noam Dar comes out and Alicia Fox is FaceTiming him again. (SO F%^% STUPID.) Dar tells Fox that he’s gonna get Cedric. As he gets on the apron Cedric hits him with a dropkick to the face. Ariya rolls up Cedric but he kicks out! Lumbar Check and Cedric gets the win.

WINNER: Cedric Alexander at 6:54

You can still hear Fox yelling. (I know this is just a review, but I want to take this moment now to tell you that I would like to do nothing more than turn this off.) Cedric picks up the phone that Fox was on, and hangs up on her, and we hit our first commercial break.

MITB promo hyping both the men and women’s ladder matches. Talking Smack will have Jinder mahal, Mojo Rawley, Zack Ryder, and Shinsuke Nakamura as guests.

Back from break and the greatest man who ever lived is on his way to the ring. (He is not holding on to his lucky banana this time.) Highlights are shown from his epic third encounter with Neville at Extreme Rules. A.A. did get Neville to submit, but it was outside the ring. Neville would hit the Red Arrow and win with the Rings of Saturn.

Crowd gives him a big response. He thanks them and says it’s great to be back in New Orleans. However, he says he expected this moment to be different because he thought he would be champion of the division at this point. He admits that when it counted most, he didn’t get the job done. He says no matter what, you get up, and keep going.

Aries then says that he’s not medically cleared to wrestle because of his long battles with Neville and his lackey T.J.P. He doesn’t know what his future holds, but he promises to be back.

Tony Nese comes out and says that his future should be to get out of the ring and sit in the audience while a Premier Athlete takes his place. Tony then says that A.A. should quietly fade into the past, because the future is right in front of him. Aries reminds him that in the past…he’s made Tony tap out in the middle of the ring. He compliments Tony on his abs, but wonders what exercise Nese did to grow a pair. (OOoooooOOOOOooo) Tony says that A.A. has always had jokes, but he no longer has time for them.

This brings out Jack Gallagher. (He’s all suited up!) He says that there is always time for jokes. He then says that if Tony Nese thinks he can replace Austin Aries, that is the biggest joke of all. Jack pokes him with his umbrella. Nese grabs it and takes a swing at Jack. Jack dodges it and nails him with said umbrella breaking it. Tony flees the ring and A.A. and Jack high five, but instead of using their hands, Jack uses his umbrella and Aries uses his banana WHICH CAME OUT OF NOWHERE. (RKO level.)

T.J.P. is walking backstage and runs into Rich Swann. Rich says that he thought T.J. looked good against Neville, and that last week the WWE Universe looked like they were starting to get behind T.J.P. Swann then says that both of them have held cruiserweight gold, but when T.J. lost, he gained a chip on his shoulder that made him forget who he was. Swann ends the confrontation by telling T.J. to get his head in the game.

Ad break. I was typing so I didn’t see what it was for but I’ll assume WWE related things since this show is on the network. (You don’t have to thank me, I know I’m the G.O.A.T.)

Back to the commentary table and Vic Joseph sends us to a video package for Mustafa Ali. In the video, Ali talks about how much he enjoys using his high-risk offense. The video is interrupted with a video message by Drew Gulak.

It turns into a smear campaign where Drew says that Mustafa has done nothing with high-flying offense, and that he wishes to create a better 205 live. The video ends and Graves and Joseph tells us that next week’s 205 already has two matches set: Jack Gallagher will take on Tony Nese, and Drew Gulak and Mustafa Ali will go at it for the third time. (And hopefully, the last involving this angle.)

T.J.P. comes out first for the main event. Graves says that T.J. should take this opportunity to rebound after last week’s loss.

Akira’s out next, and he’s Mojo Rawley HYPED. (He always is.) Highlight of Akira and Brian Kendrick’s street fight is shown.

No handshake. (Is that still a thing?)

(2) Akira Tozawa vs. T.J.P.

Akira does his AHHHH chants. Tie-up. Break-apart.

Second tie-up and Akira SCREAMS while locking in a headlock. Nice sequence sees T.J. catch Akira a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker, but Akira lands on his feet and counters with an arm-drag. T.J. kips up and they both staredown seeing each other as equals.

Akira gets the first offense in with a penalty kick to T.J.’s chest after rolling through a roll-up. Akira goes to the second rope and jumps for an attack but T.J. surprises him with a dropkick.

Powerslam and springboard summersault by T.J. and he gets a two count. Vic Joseph asks who the real T.J.P. is. Corey can’t really answer, but he knows that he likes to dab. (While at least there’s some continuity somewhere in the WWE.)

Akira lands a few elbow strikes but T.J. hits a springboard forearm. (C.M. Punk chants start, and then other fans who boo the Punk chanting fans and start chanting for Corey Graves.)

Standing Indian-Deathlock by T.J. and Akira yells in pain. Modified submission by T.J. and he’s really wearing Akira down. Akira tries to escape but T.J. uses the pressure to keep him on the mat.

Back-drop attempt by T.J. but Akira lands on his feet. He sends T.J. to the outside then hits a suicide dive. (The fans are so uninterested in this match they might as well be fighting in an empty arena.) Back in the ring Tozawa hits a running-knee. Cover but only two. Akira goes to the top rope again but T.J. meets him and attempts a superplex. Akira blocks it and pushes T.J. off. He follows T.J. down but walks right into a chicken-wing gutbuster. (Thanks to Corey Graves for finally calling what that move was.)

The two men trade strikes but Akira hits a stiff knockout blow. Akira charges off the ropes but T.J. locks on the knee-bar in the middle of the ring! Akira escapes and rolls him up. Kick out! T.J. goes for the detonation kick, but Akira blocks it and hits a back-drop. Akira goes to the top again and lands his screaming top rope senton and gets the win. (Nice ending sequence.)

WINNER: Akira Tozawa in 11:00.

Graves commends Akira on the victory, and immediately plugs the Titus Brand. T.J. looks heartbroken yet again. I wonder if it’s because he lost again, or because he keeps getting put into the main event and no one cares.

Backstage Titus is celebrating and starts singing “It’s raining Yen.” Neville shows up and says that the drivel coming from Titus is unnecessary. He says the only thing Titus is setting Akira up for is failure, because he’s not even close to the Neville level. Titus says Akira is the future of 205 Live and walks out, leaving a very angry Neville to sulk as the show goes off the air.

JG FINAL ANALYSIS: All of the good on this show will once again get overshadowed by inconsistency and utter nonsense. It’s hard to truly get behind the entirety of the cruiserweights when creative makes it so easy not to watch. No one has cared about the Alicia Fox love triangle angle since its debut, and MONTHS later it’s still being shoved down our throats. Thus far it has involved Rich Swann, Cedric Alexander, poor Noam Dar, and even Sasha Banks. I’ll never say anything good about it, because nothing about it is entertaining.

Austin Aries continues to reminds us of what a good talker he is, and Gallagher coming out to defend his name seemed like a nice way to push a storyline forward with Tony Nese. The main event was fine, but the crowd was too tired and uninterested to care. Special kudos to Akira, who tried his hardest to get them back into it, but when an entire division is treated so poorly, who could blame the good people of New Orleans? However, an Akira Tozawa and Neville feud has a lot of potential. Titus going all-in on Akira like he’s legit his agent could make for an interesting story down the line and, in the meantime, Titus could serve as Akira’s mouthpiece. All those great possibilities seem like a rainy cloud though, as the show end-to-end couldn’t keep the streak of exciting 205’s going.

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NOW CHECK OUT LAST WEEK’S REPORT: 6/6 WWE 205 LIVE REPORT: Neville vs. TJP main events second good episode in a row, Cedric-Dar, Valle-Ali