WWE 205 Live Review - December 12, 2018

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

WWE Cruiserweight Champion Buddy Murphy def. Gran Metalik (Non-title)

Murphy was originally schedule to face Noam Dar on this show, but we were told that Dar wasn't medically cleared to compete, causing Metalik to take his place. I believe these two had a match over the summer and worked well together then, so it was no surprise that they contested another entertaining outing here. Granted, the outcome was never in doubt with Murphy defending his WWE Cruiserweight Championship on Sunday, but they still managed to keep some people guessing with the suspenseful nearfalls down the stretch. It's a shame The Lucha House Party are totally different on this show compared to how they're booked on Raw. It's almost like night and day.

Cedric Alexander def. Tony Nese

Shortly after losing the Cruiserweight Championship back in October, Alexander suffered a rare loss to Nese on 205 Live, so this was his shot at redemption. Similar to the previous match, it was obvious that Alexander was winning, but that didn't take away from my enjoyment of it whatsoever. They have strong chemistry and once again went all out. The crowd wasn't incredibly invested in the action early on, but thankfully, they came alive for the final few minutes. I loved that Alexander and Murphy offered fans a small taste of their upcoming clash at TLC with their post-match brawl and left them wanting more.

Overall Show

It's super cool that WWE is apparently taking chances on the Cruiserweights again by featuring them on the TLC card (yes, they were at the Big Four pay-per-views as well, but that's about it), and that's coming off Mustafa Ali's impressive performance against WWE Champion Daniel Bryan on Tuesday's SmackDown Live. Nevertheless, this was a pretty straightforward show with two great matches with the sole purpose of giving Alexander and Murphy momentum ahead of their rubber match on Sunday. Next week, The Brian Kendrick and Akira Tozawa will face off with Drew Gulak and Gentleman Jack Gallagher in a tag team Street Fight.