His weekend in his hometown didn’t start off as planned. Drew Gulak lost to Matt Riddle at Evolve’s 10th Anniversary show Saturday night (July 13), which may have been why he launched a drop kick at Tony Nese as soon as the bell sounded at Extreme Rules in Philadelphia on July 14.
Philadelphia's own @DrewGulak gets things started in a HURRY as he defends the #CruiserweightTitle against @TonyNese LIVE on #ExtremeRules Kickoff! pic.twitter.com/6bNBAwzss6
— WWE Network (@WWENetwork) July 14, 2019
The story here was both that Nese knows his former training & tag partner Gulak better than anyone, and that the Premiere Athlete was not pinned or submitted to lose the Cruiserweight title. Gulak won it at Stomping Grounds by defeating Akira Tozawa in a Triple Threat.
Would it add up to the Philadelphia Stretcher’s second bad night in a row in the City of Brotherly Love?
It looked like it for most of the match. The aggression the champ showed early worked against him, creating openings for Nese to connect with punishing offense like a moonsault on the apron and a 450 splash...
.@TonyNese going 450!
— TDE Wrestling (@tde_wrestling) July 14, 2019
➡️ https://t.co/E0MswUzX3G pic.twitter.com/F6FsHEqASB
... but Gulak had answers ready himself. He refused to stay down after any of Tony’s big moves, and once he finally connected with a cyclone crash, the Philadelphia Stretcher wrapped up his weekend at home on a sunny note.
Get complete Extreme Rules results and coverage of every match on the card by clicking here.