WWE 205 Live Review - January 7, 2022

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

​Malik Blade def. Draco Anthony

Anthony has gotten a vignette or two on NXT TV in recent months and I have no idea why he's barely been featured since. He's a promising prospect and has already shown a lot of upside in the ring. That much has been true about Blade for a while, but he's only ever been slotted in an enhancement role. Thus, it was cool to see him finally pick up his first win here. We'll see if it leads anywhere on this show or it was just a one-off to surprise people.

Nikkita Lyons def. Erica Yan

It was pretty evident in Lyons' debut that she had a long way to go in the ring and I came away from this match with that same feeling. Not being able to run house shows right now is arguably one of the biggest issues with the current NXT system because they aren't getting any actual experience at the moment and absolutely are not TV ready. I mean, the finish of this match looked terrible. How was that not re-taped? The best thing I can say about this match is that it was only a few minutes.

Ikemen Jiro def. Ru Feng

Jiro flew solo here without Kushida, though I'm pretty sure they're still a team because NXT needs teams to fill out the men's Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic. Feng has not stood out to me in the slightest so far, but he had a decent showing here. Jiro is full of charisma and helped make this match a serviceable main event. Jiro winning was obviously the right call and they made the most of the time they had.

Overall Show

This past week on the New Year's Evil edition of NXT, the NXT Cruiserweight Championship was retired after being merged with the NXT North American Championship. That means the Cruiserweight division is finally dead and there's no more need for 205 Live. It hasn't been used for the Cruiserweights since last summer, but I assume the show will simply be renamed. As for this episode, it was fine. The opening and closing matches had their moments, but the matches are too short to be anything out of the ordinary. Meanwhile, matches like the one we got in the middle shouldn't be televised.

SEE MORE: 205 Live Reviews