The Other Two Hours – 205 Live and NXT – Week of 11/20/2017

Since I was in the house for the taping on this week’s NXT Matches, be warned that the second half of this recap are spoilers for matches that will not air until Wednesday night.  As with most TakeOver events, the remainder of the NXT broadcast will just be recaps of the amazing action from WarGames.

Another hour of wrestling, another hour in Houston.  Let’s see what the high flyers have for us this week:

• Akira Tozawa def. Drew Gulak in a street fight.  I love Drew Gulak, in case you haven’t picked up on that yet.
• Tony Nese def. Mustafa Ali with the Running K-Nese.  Another solid match.  This was a good show.
• Rich Swann and Cedric Alexander def. Noam Dar and Ariya Daivari.  Following the match, Enzo got in the ring and took it to Swann.  Tozawa and Ali came out to help, but the remainder of the Zo train took to the ring and laid waste to the four good guys on the roster (Is Kalisto hurt?  Did he get fired after his ridiculously botched trampoline misstep at Survivor Series?).
• I’m good if this is how every episode goes, aside from the ending brawl.  Just keep matching these guys up in random pairings because they’re all awesome.
• The real important takeaway from this week’s episode of 205 is another NXT Call Up of importance:

NXT RESULTS – 11/22/2017 BROADCAST

Sonya Deville vs Ruby Riot

As we’ve seen this week, the entirety of the NXT Women’s Division, save for Ember, Kairi and The Iconic Duo, have been pulled to the show.  Before Deville would head to Raw Monday night and Riot to Smackdown on Tuesday, they would tangle one last time in the NXT ring to get the crowd going in Houston before WarGames went on the air.  It was a solid match, that probably could have been 5-10 minutes longer.  Both of these women are pretty talented, and I hope they highlight just how damn strong Deville is on the main roster, even though that Mandy Rose Double Underhook Facebuster Move is awesome.  Ruby Riot wins via pinfall.

Pete Dunne defends the United Kingdom Championship against Johnny Gargano

This match was great.  I was a little confused why this was in the preshow and the Ohno-Sullivan match made the PPV card, but they didn’t have enough time for this match to really get the love it needed on the main show.  Ohno-Sullivan got screwed with the short time slot as it was, but these two had a great match together.  I can promise you, both of these guys felt it the next day, because they were beating the hell out of each other.  Pete Dunne retains the UK Championship with the Bitter End.  Gargano is being booked kind of strangely lately, but I’m hoping it is a way to have him lose his mind and take Ciampa back when he returns.  It’s the only logical reason for him losing every damn match he’s in since the DIY breakup.

Those are your shows, both are definitely worth watching.  Great action in both hours of television, and you can skip through the majority of the NXT show since you have hopefully already watched the great show from Saturday, TakeOver: WarGames.