WWE 205 Live results: Neville battles Mustafa Ali

The Big Takeaway —

Neville cemented his status as King of the Cruiserweights by defeating Mustafa Ali in convincing fashion, much to the chagrin of Austin Aries. Brian Kendrick continued to gain the upper hand on Tozawa through mind games. Noam Dar tried to find the source of Alicia Fox’s gifts while claiming them as his own, and Tony Nese defeated TJP in a one-on-one bout.

Show Recap —

We started off with Neville being interviewed by Dasha Fuentes. She asked why he requested a match against Mustafa Ali tonight. He said that the locker room needed to know why Neville was the King of the Cruiserweights.

He then ran down Austin Aries, saying that he probably wouldn’t learn tonight’s lesson, but at WrestleMania he will make him bow down to the King of the Cruiserweights. 

Tom Phillips and Corey Graves are on commentary for tonight’s show.

Tony Nese defeated TJ Perkins

TJP controlled early, wiping out Nese on the outside with a corkscrew. Nese countered with a gutbuster and worked over TJP. To say this wasn’t exciting would be an understatement. TJP eventually floated over Nese and landed a neckbreaker.

Some good back and forth followed until Nese cut off TJP and went for the running strike in the corner. TJP countered with an armbar, but Nese escaped. Nese German suplexed TJP into the exposed turnbuckle, which Nese undid earlier, then followed with the running knee for the win. This improved as time went on, but felt a little long and the crowd wasn’t that into it.

Drew Gulak was backstage with Dasha, who asked him about his comments last week about 205 Live having a problem. He said there is, and it needs to change. He said the WWE Universe are directly at fault for this, cheering for all the high level action. Athletes act like glorified stuntmen, and so on. He eventually thanked Dasha for her time.

Akira Tozawa defeated Alex Reynolds

Tozawa pinned him quickly with the German suplex.

Tozawa wanted Kendrick after the match. He started to leave, but Kendrick jumped him, dressed as a security guard. Kendrick planted him with the Sliced Bread off the apron as he told him about rule number eight, which is appearances can be deceiving.

Rich Swann and Jack Gallagher were backstage when Noam Dar and Ariya Daivari showed up. Dar was wondering about a dress. Swann said hey, whatever you do in the privacy of your own home is none of our business. Dar said he stopped a courier from delivering this to Alicia Fox, saying that one more gift from him would be overkill.

Swann asked what that has to do with them. Dar said he’s trying to sort this out like gentlemen, but Swann is being annoying so next week he’ll take care of him. Swann said fine, but Dar can’t handle this.

Austin Aries came out. Since last night’s interview with Neville went so poorly, tonight he’ll eliminate the one thing that made it go poorly — Neville.

He proceeded to ask himself his own questions. Why do you think Neville repeatedly calls himself the King of the Cruiserweights? He thinks he’s overcompensating. Why do you think you’re on Neville’s level? Well, he’s not — he’s above him. What is the most embarrassing thing he discovered about Neville while being a journalist?

We never got that answer as Neville made his way out. Aries called him a Debbie Downer, and said that’s why no one likes you. This got a “Debbie Downer” chant. Neville told him to scuttle off. Aries started to oblige, but came back and said he’s been invited to do color commentary for the main event.

Neville defeated Mustafa Ali

Neville dominated early until Ali hit a twisting crossbody off the turnbuckle onto the outside. Ali went for a tornado DDT but Neville held on and instead crotched Ali on the ropes. Ali springboarded across the corner of the ropes and hit a standing Spanish Fly off the top rope in a really cool spot.

Ali went for something off the top rope, but saw Neville recovering and instead spiked him with a DDT. He went for the imploding 450 again but Neville made it to the apron. Neville caught Ali on the top rope again and hit a German suplex off the top rope, with Ali landing face first.  

Neville paused, then dragged Ali to the outside where he swung him into the ring post. He dragged Ali over to Aries, said “this is you,” and threw him back in the ring where he quickly submitted him with the Rings of Saturn. This was a pretty good match, with Ali looking strong while also cementing Neville as the man to beat at WrestleMania.

Final Thoughts —

This continued the build towards WrestleMania, as well as the feuds going on and off over the last few weeks. They’re also doing something with Gulak, but I didn’t really get an impression of what they’re doing with him yet, which makes me not care all that much.

The rest of the programs going on right now on 205 Live aren’t revolutionary, or even hot for that matter, but the main event was pretty decent and none of the work tonight felt like it dragged for too long.