WWE Weekly Takes: The ‘Real’ Liv Morgan should face Bayley

205 Live has been instrumental in developing stars

Now that NXT is entrenched as WWE’s “Third Brand” as a USA Network show going head-to-head with AEW on Wednesday nights, nobody is calling it “developmental”. And on a technical level, wrestlers are constantly improving their craft and reinventing themselves on any show, so “developmental” is even more blurred outside obvious developmental contexts such as the Performance Center.

But I’d like to highlight 205 Live here, especially since fans were concerned about the future of the Purple Brand. Despite rumors that 205 could be cancelled, the show will take place on Friday nights after SmackDown, just as it used to take place on Tuesday nights after SmackDown.

We can talk all about low ratings and an increased platform on NXT as ways of judging 205 Live’s existence, but I’ve always seen the brand as invaluable. And the best way to understand 205’s value to WWE is to examine the stars it has produced.

Ali, Cedric Alexander, and Buddy Murphy have all looked like future champions in 2019. These three men were the cornerstones of 205 Live, bringing eyeballs to the show before boosting their stocks to the point where WWE had to take notice. They’ve had great matches with the likes of Daniel Bryan, AJ Styles, and Roman Reigns on the main roster. In other words, they’ve held their own against three legitimate living legends of the wrestling business.

205 has been working to replenish their main event scene by building new top stars for the brand, and they clearly have a few. Drew Gulak and Lio Rush will have a Cruiserweight Championship match soon, and these two undeniably have superstar-level talent; we’ve seen Rush flash that talent on NXT and Raw before, too.

It will be exciting to see how others on the brand develop, such as Humberto Carrillo, who looks like another charismatic athlete on the ascension. Ali, Alexander, and Murphy used 205 as a platform to become true stars in WWE, and I can’t wait to see who else emerges on Friday nights to stake their claim on the main roster one day.