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Well, we have arrived as the final week of the round robin portion of the C2. As such, the league finals and by extension tournament finals at Worlds End are crystallizing. Let’s unpack everything that happened last week and look ahead next week and next weekend.
Gold League
Well, finally something unexpected happened in the Gold League. It wasn’t Jay White defeating a very game Mark Briscoe in a well-worked match. It definitely wasn’t Rush beating Jay Lethal in a quick five minutes via an uncharacteristic sleeper hold. No, the unexpected happening was Jon Moxley defeating Swerve Strickland. The two engaged in a fantastic match before Mox pinned Swerve with a roll-up. While I wish that the finish had been more decisive, I’m willing to look past it given what I believe the league final is going to be.
Mox is sitting comfortably atop the standings with 12 points. Swerve and White are right behind him tied at 9 points apiece. Rush has 6 points. Briscoe and Lethal are both scoreless. Mox clenched a berth in the league final last week with his win over Swerve. That realistically leaves Jay White and Swerve to fight over the final spot.
Because Swerve owns the head-to-head tiebreaker over him, the only way for Switchable to make the final is beat Moxley and hope that Rush beats Swerve. If both men win their respective matches, Swerve will advance. Barring an upset, Swerve feels like a lock to make the league final next week.
Unfortunately, Tony Khan likely tipped his hand as to the outcome of that match by reintroducing Keith Lee into Swerve’s orbit. (See my Feud Tracker). Nonetheless, if that match is indeed being ran back, there should be a decisive finish this time.
Blue League
As per usual, the Blue League continues to be the less predictable. To get things caught up, we got a total of four matches on this side of the bracket last week. On Dynamite, Andrade took on Brody King. Let me say that Brody King is even bigger in person than he appears on TV. These two had a very good, very physical match. The finish came when Andrade DDT’d Brody on the exposed bolt that hold the buckle to the post, something I couldn’t see that from where I was sitting in the arena. He followed it up with his hammerlock DDT for the three. It did look like the pad being ripped off was intended to be an accident therefore Andrade wasn’t deliberately cheating.
On Collision, Andrade lost to Claudio, who has motivated equally by a desire for points and a desire for revenge for Bryan Danielson. Claudio crotched Andrade on the bolt. For some reason, Claudio then low-blowed Andrade. That felt like a hat on a hat, completely unnecessary.
Eddie Kingston and Daniel Garcia had a stiff, scrappy affair. Garcia gave as good as good as he got and put up one hell of a fight. A particular highlight was Garcia weakly attempting to dance in the corner as Eddie chopped his chest black and blue. In the end, Eddie won after hitting a second spinning backfist.
The final Blue League match was slobberknocker between Bryan Danielson and Brody King. Once again, Danielson found his eye targeted, his patch removed, and his scar opened up. He wouldn’t stay down, though. Neither would Brody. It took three consecutive Busaiku knees, including one to the back of the head, to finally put the big man down for three.
Nobody clenched a league final berth in the Blue League. Instead, there’s a tie between Andrade and Danielson, who each have 9 points. Eddie, Claudio, and Brody are just under them tied at 6. Daniel Garcia remains at zero.
With this week’s slate of final matches, there are a couple possible scenarios. First of all, Eddie Kingston has to beat Andrade to have any shot of making the finals. He then has to hope that either Claudio beats Danielson or Garcia beats or goes to a draw with Brody. Brody is all but eliminated from contention given his back-to-back losses this week. Claudio could make the final with a win and loss or tie by Kingston and a loss or tie by Brody.
Danielson and Andrade have simplest path to the league finals. They just need to win. My guess is that Danielson and Kingston end up being in the league final. It would be quite the circuitous route to get Eddie in the league finals, but it’s only fitting given everything he risked. It would also mean that Daniel Garcia, who is fighting for pride at this point, would get at least one point on the board.
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