I love 205 live reviews I love that show I watch it every week usually not live unfortunately due to the time difference in being on the Atlantic times but I do you watch it most times on Wednesday when I get home from work. I love your take on this show! If you don’t want to make it part of the Smackdown review could it be in a patron exclusive later in the week?
I’m guessing John and Wai talked about possibly not watching 205 anymore on the podcast?
I must have missed that while I was fast forwarding the part where they talk about 205.
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I literally just registered here to say “Save 205 Live”. These guys are great workers, and - mostly - great wrestlers (well, at any rate, I usually enjoy 205 more than Smackdown most weeks*) - please don’t have Post Wrestling ignore them like 70% of the SD audience do. 
- This week no exception - the tornado tag was match of the night for me.
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i kinda agree with John and Wai about this. Why should they care about reviewing 205 live when you can clearly see that WWE couldn’t cares less about this show.
This week especially, if you take the main event out of the episode, this was a horrible episode of 205 live they had to sit through. The opening match between Mustafa Ali and Arya davari was boring, The reasoning for not putting Buddy murphy in the title match at the saudi arabia show made no sense and the squash match was fun but unnecessary at this point of the evening.
They are treating this show like they do Main event on monday with the exception that they tape main event before raw while they aired this show live after smackdown. I like the cruiserweight and respect their efforts but they no way in hell that this show will get over with the live audience when they aired after the final segment of smackdown. This week they went from Daniel Bryan and Aj styles vs Rusev day to Arya davari vs mustafa ali. No wonder the crowd didn’t care.
WWE need to actually put some effort into producing 205 live and that mean actually stopping to aired it live and tape it before smackdown where you’re probably get a more responsive crowd. For now, i don’t blame John and Wai if they want to stop reviewing 205 live after next week because quite frankly while i really like the cruiserweight, 205 live isn’t worth watching anymore and in 2 weeks when i go to the smackdown tapings in Montreal, their a pretty good chance i will be one of those fans that don’t stick around for 205 live.
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Piss and moan about Vince wanting character…now turn on Triple H’s wrestling first approach…bipolar wrestling fans.
Maybe people should be honest with themselves and realize the majority of people who watch pro wrestling, don’t give a shit about this type of wrestling and would rather watch Enzo cut promos instead.
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I personally really like the 205 reviews. I watch it each week but it’s not destination programming like the three brands. That being said I really appreciate John and Wai’s hard work and will support them with any decision they make.
For now I’m #save205live
I don’t think the issue is the booking style; I think it’s that there’s little consequence to the show. The stakes aren’t high, and there’s very little meaningful continuity carried across programming. Even if 205 Live is meant to exist in a bubble like NXT, viewers aren’t given incentive to watch.
The show would be better-served as a taped lead-in to NXT, and recorded prior to Smackdown while the crowd is still awake and present. I understand that starting a TV taping an hour earlier than intended would throw the production schedule off-kilter, but it would also save the presentation of 205 Live and possibly start the live crowd hotter for Smackdown.
Show has a title they all want…what other stakes do you want?
Add more titles? Ugh…like this company needs more of that.
They do have feuds that are 205 Live specific.
I could live without the 205 reviews. I’m a fan of podcasts on the shorter side (60-70 min). I’d rather see 205 go and maybe add in an extra mini review of something else more relevant.
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I’ve only seen 205 Live once (when I attended Smackdown in person back in December of last year), and I don’t feel like I’ve missed much at all not watching 205 Live. This show is beyond repair at this point. They might be better off bringing back Heat and Velocity with all this depth they have on the roster.
At this point, you may as well complain about John and Wai not wanting to review Superstars. Reviewing 205 Live is pointless.
Agree… The only reason they cover 205 live is because it’s on the same night at smackdown. I’d rather have them spend the time they currently do watching 205 watching and recapping RoH TV instead.
Thats valid in a way, but I also feel strongly about rewarding guys for great work. I know I would feel like shit if I stopped watching to send WWE some kind of message and they ended up letting go of the guys on the 205 roster. Cause I think we can all agree the talent in that division is just absolutely ridiculous. And despite being somewhat hamstrung by limitations I know WWE forces on these guys, they still manage to put on great matches.
Here is how you can elevate 205. Not saying WWE will do this, they won’t, but here is how you do it. First off drop the “live”. Make it 205. Record the show in tandem with NXT. Put the titles matches on the Takeover cards. But to really heat up the division you have to bring in a big name and put the belt on him in front of that hot NXT crowd…I think you bring in Ricochet and put the belt on him. Bring in Pete Dunne and put him in a feud with Ricochet, I mean really heat up that division and that NXT crowd will do the rest. It will take a little time. Half a year or so I would expect but before long 205 will be up there with NXT.
Also you have to be smart about placement of the matches on the card both in Takeover and in tapings. 205 needs to be treated as a equal to NXT and given the same respect. Title matches should be at the top of the card, not at the bottom “just because its 205”.
205 can be saved, but I feel like WWE is holding on tightly to this idea of 205 being some deadbeat stepchild of the main roster and doing it “live”. When the way you get a great product over is by putting it in front of the right audience. Main is not the place for it. But you get the right guys in front of a Takeover crowd and they will eat it up. And after enough time passes with quality matches and hot crowds…it won’t be that program John and Wai have to suffer through anymore.
To the question about John and Wai reviewing 205…well I’d obviously love if they continued but I get that after watching 5 hours of sometimes infuriating WWE main event programing, 45 minutes of admittedly great in ring in front of a dead and sometimes actively rebelling crowd…its not an easy sell. Ideally WWE gets that product in front of the right audience so it doesn’t feel like a buzzkill to watch it.
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I agree with you that putting 205 in front of a better crowd would do wonders for the show. If they had 205 film in full sail or work the house show circuit in front of small crowds of more invested fans, the show would work much better than trying to get the matches over in arenas where the smackdown roster can’t even fill 50%
The other problem that 205 live has is that they still perform on the main event tapings before Raw every monday night and something like it happened last week, they tape 2 cruiserweight matches for main event and still their was no reaction to any of those matches because fans even the most hardcore fans have been conditioned by WWE to not take the matches taped for main event seriously so they’re no reaction to those matches either.
Right now, if WWE is very serious about making this work as a side brand, they need a complete reboot of the whole division, take it off the main roster, tape it around the same time they tape NXT at the same venue and made it part of the NXT brand by that i mean, have the cruiserweight title matches on takeover special instead of main roster PPV because right now, nobody cares about the cruiserweights no matter how good the matches are or how hard the performers work.
Also like John and Wai said last week, give us a reason to care about these guys. During the cruiserweight title tournament, you ad a reason to care about them because they had a goal attach to those matches. While i wasn’t a huge fan of Enzo during his run, at less it gave those characters some sort of goal and you wanted the babyfaces to get enzo. Same goes during the Nevile era of the show. Now they’re back to just being nameless wrestlers that nobody cares about because they all look the same and really don’T have personalities or any goal that makes you want to cheer or boo them. They are just doing wrestling for wrestling sake and it doesn’t work and that’s why fans just don’t watch the show or the crowd either leave after smackdown or just watch without responding.
Never watched an episode of 205 Live and have never felt like I’ve missed one thing. The 205 experiment has been a failure and WWE should just move on. They dont know how to book CW’s and I feel like having it around pigeonholes guys who could be bigger deals on the main roster to a D show.
I have watched the show a couple of times, but I really can’t justify taking out an hour of my week to watch it. There is no atmosphere and nobody is made out to be a star. Also half of the roster is about the same size as the WWE champion, AJ Styles and bigger than Finn Balor. So basically if I want to to see high flying, high energy in ring action there is already plenty of that on Raw, Smackdown or NXT.
Frankly I would be happy for WWE to just scrap the division and to just move the superstars they see potential in to the main roster or a featured role in NXT.
The stories on 205 Live suck for the most part. There are tremendous in-ring talents on the show and the matches are always good to great, but why would I watch that when I can watch other wrestling (non-WWE) that has good to great matches and better stories? I don’t want them to have a relationship with NXT, but if they did a TV taping once a month at a smaller venue similar to the way NXT runs their tapings with a hot crowd that actually came to see the 205 wrestlers, and actually developed stories, segments, interviews, promo packages, etc. similar to NXT, with the talent they have they would at least stand a chance at developing some kind of following.