This RULED big time. Nese got lots of time to shine w/ his high impact, fast paced offense - he looked very good overall, but goddamn, is Drew Gulak amazing or what?! What a terrific performance from the man! His facial expressions were superb & all of his offense, my goodness. So gritty w/ those strikes & limb targeting. Right from his first offensive move of the match I knew he was gonna own the thing - he really cranked on that Chinlock. It was absolutely lovely. The ending with him completely destroying Nese by throwing him right to the announce table, followed by throwing him back to the ring to finish him off with a nasty looking Lariat, a couple of Powerbombs & that wonderful Dragon Sleeper was WONDERFUL. Great, great stuff! ****

Really enjoyed the finishing stretch. The crowd was pretty dead for it to start and so was I but everything from the slaps to the face onwards really turned up the violence and intensity which made this a surprisingly entertaining watch by the end. Gulak really did shine with his character work and that was really one of the highlights of the match.

 

***3/4

Fun match. I haven't seen much 205 Live aside from some matches from the Cruiserweight Classic and some matches on the PPV's and on various RAW's, but this is easily the best I've seen from the division. Gulak's performance was fantastic with him bringing the intensity, cutting Nese off with some neat takedowns during the matwork, cutting Nese off with that running dropkick, etc. Nese was alright as the Jr. flying around and bringing the more flashy offense. Not really much to knock on this aside from the silent crowd and some awkward moments such as the face first turnbuckle bomb and the ref. not counting Nese's shoulders down after the first powebomb by Gulak.

Not an MOTYC or anything, but the mid-match transformation of Gulak to brutal grappler was fantastic and one of my favorite things I've seen in wrestling so far this year.