KB Reviews ROH — page 7

Ring Of Honor
Date: March 23, 2023
Location: Universal Studios, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: Ian Riccaboni, Caprice Coleman

We continue the rapid fire build towards Supercard Of Honor with week four of this show, which hopefully continues to have solid action. At the same time, things need to loosen up a bit as the show is so packed that it is hard to remember much of what happens week to week. Odds are they won’t slow down but you have to have hope. Let’s get to it.

Ring Of Honor
Date: March 16, 2023
Location: Universal Studios, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: Ian Riccaboni, Caprice Coleman

It’s the third week of this show and hopefully the improvements they made last week are taken further this week. Last week’s show was a bit shorter than the debut and also felt like it was more important, with fewer squashes. They need to start announcing some more stuff for Supercard of Honor so let’s get to it.

Ring Of Honor
Date: March 9, 2023
Location: Universal Studios, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: Ian Riccaboni, Caprice Coleman

We’re still on the first taping of this new show so things are likely to look like they did last week. The wrestling itself was pretty good, but the length of the show was quite the drag. They did offer something big at the end with Eddie Kingston showing up to challenge Claudio Castagnoli, so there is at least a path forward in the main event. Let’s get to it.

Ring Of Honor
Date: March 2, 2023
Location: Universal Studios, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: Ian Riccaboni, Caprice Coleman

So after a year or so of Ring Of Honor being a major part of AEW, it is time for the company to get its own show. That might mean quite a few things, but there is a good chance that we are going to be seeing a bunch of AEW stars around here. This show could go in a few different ways though so let’s get to it.

Jay Briscoe: A Celebration Of Life
Date: January 26, 2023
Location: Save Mart Center, Fresno, California
Commentators: Ian Riccaboni, Carpice Coleman

As you might have guessed, this is a special show honoring the life of Jay Briscoe, who passed away last week. The show was filmed after last week’s AEW taping and features special matches, plus presumably tributes and maybe classic matches from Briscoe’s career. That should be more than enough so let’s get to it.

Final Battle 2022
Date: December 10, 2022
Location: College Park Center, Arlington, Texas
Commentators: Ian Riccaboni, Caprice Coleman

It’s the third or so Ring Of Honor event of the year, assuming you don’t count a good chunk of the Rampages from earlier this year. The main event of the show is (probably) Chris Jericho defending the Ring Of Honor World Title against Claudio Castagnoli, with a bonus feature of FTR vs. the Briscoes in a dog collar match for FTR’s Tag Team Titles. Let’s get to it.

Death Before Dishonor 2022
Date: July 23, 2022
Location: Tsongas Center, Lowell, Massachusetts
Commentators: Ian Riccaboni, Caprice Coleman

Ring Of Honor is back and that should be a good thing. The company certainly has a history and it is nice to see that history continuing, but there has only been a limited build to the show on AEW TV. Then again, Ring Of Honor has always been about the in-ring work more than anything else and maybe that is enough to make the show work. Let’s get to it.

Supercard Of Honor XV
Date: April 1, 2022
Location: Curtis Culwell Center, Garland, Texas
Commentators: Caprice Coleman, Ian Riccaboni

Now this is a big one as we have the first new Ring of Honor show in about three and a half months. The catch this time though is that the company has been purchased by AEW President Tony Khan, which means there is likely to be a bigger AEW presence on this show. Most of the card hasn’t been announced, but we are getting the Briscoes vs. FTR, which should be pretty good. Let’s get to it.

Final Battle 2021
Date: December 11, 2021
Location: UMBC Events Center, Baltimore, Maryland
Commentators: Ian Riccaboni, Caprice Coleman

It’s the end of an era and quite possibly the end of a company, or at least the end of the company as we know it to be. Ring of Honor is going into hiatus after this show for about four months, leaving a pretty big cloud over their future. I’m not sure what that is going to mean, but hopefully they can have a great show on their way out. Let’s get to it.

No this won’t be a regular thing but I figured I’d throw all the regular shows I do on here for the sake of Wrestlemania Week.

Ring of Honor
Date: April 7, 2021
Location: UMBC Events Center, Baltimore, Maryland
Commentators: Ian Riccaboni, Caprice Coleman

Things are in a bit of a shifting phase here as we are done with the 19^th Anniversary Show but I’m not sure if we are going to be seeing the fallout just yet. The taping cycle usually has a few weeks of lag but when everything is being taped in the same place at the same time, I’m not sure if that is going to be necessary. In other words, I have no idea what to expect here. Let’s get to it.

Ring of Honor/New Japan G1 Supercard
Date: April 6, 2019
Location: Madison Square Garden, New York City, New York
Commentators: Kevin Kelly, Colt Cabana, Ian Riccaboni

My goodness it feels wrong to be typing that for another company. This is the indy/non-WWE main event of the weekend and the only show that stands a fighting chance to topple NXT for best event of the weekend. It’s a combination Ring of Honor/New Japan card and the first time New Japan gets to take the big stage in the big time. Let’s get to it.

Coming off the heels of the controversial and problematic Border Wars iPPV, ROH is at yet another turning point. Kevin Steen is the new heavyweight champion, so now the question of whether he delivers on his threats to hold ROH hostage like a French Canadian version of Ben Chang or whether he embraces the fact that he’s become the biggest anti-hero in Ring of Honor remains to be seen. How ROH handles the fallout of the transmission problems with Border Wars, and their possible lawsuit against their former booker Gabe Sapolsky, also remains to be seen. With so many feuds having been blown off going into the summer, and Best In The World still a ways away, the next TV tapings (which took place this weekend in Baltimore) should lay some new cards on the table. Until then, we have last weekend’s show, which aired the same night as Border Wars but is still reflective of the last taping schedule, as Davey Richards is still the champion and Wrestling’s Greatest Tag Team are not yet tag champs. In a fast paced, action packed ROH TV we see WGTT in action, a Trios match from CHIKARA, and a Proving Ground main event between Davey Richards and “The Man Beast” Rhino.

–In the spirit of the fast pace of this episode, I’m gonna keep this recap quick & dirty. First off we have Wrestling’s Greatest Tag Team vs. D-Line. D-Line are Black Ice and Bodysnatcher, two large black guys who look like football players, dress like generic indie jobbers, and represent some civic organization that packed a number of their members into the crowd, wearing red t-shirts in a block. Pairing that with the horror movie names, I really don’t know what their gimmick was supposed to be. Haas & Benjamin were generous in letting D-Line handle a lot of the offense to show what they could do, but that wasn’t much. In the end the taller of the two D-Liners (Bodysnatcher, I guess?) tapped to the Haas of Pain. WGTT are pros for letting a pair of lumps like that get so much offense in.

–Kevin Kelly and Nigel McGuiness were joined on commentary next by UltraMantis Black, as we featured a guest match from CHIKARA. I was hoping that the CHIKARA deal would involve some of their talent appearing on ROH TV, because it shakes up the roster a little bit and they’re always entertaining, if completely differently styled from ROH. This one featured The Colony (Soldier Ant, Green Ant, and Fire Ant) vs. The Ice Creams (Ice Cream Jr. and El Hijo del Ice Cream) and Ophidian. Ophidian might be known to some people as one of Osirian Portal, the YouTube sensations from last year with the hypnotizing gimmick. The Ice Creams used to have a third member, Very Mysterious Ice Cream, who is now of course Antonio Cesaro in WWE, aka Claudio Castagnoli. Both teams had custom music for their entrance, which I’m not sure is something that comes straight from CHIKARA. I know the ants were using “Ants Marching” by Dave Matthews Band, anyway. This was wild lucha rules action. CHIKARA style in general, especially with these guys, has so much lucha libre influence that you really have to teach yourself not to take it too seriously, or too realistically anyway. I think there were a few miscommunications or botches in this one: the ants attempted a three man Antapult onto the Ice Creams, who were holding each other in fear on the outside, and they stood there for way too long before Ophidian broke it up, and at one point they cut away for a preposterously long time to a crowd shot of some dude with a Manson beard. The Colony scored the win with The Anthill, which looks like a cheerleader throw move into a big splash. Sadly, no hypnotism in this one.

—Jay Lethal vs. Ricky Reyes was next. No story to this one, just a quick match to fill time, but it was good to see an ROH alumnus like Reyes come around again, because it made it feel just a little more important than a squash match. Lethal hit a few of his trademark spots and ended quickly with the Lethal Injection. Even though there wasn’t much to it, I’d rather see more guys get a chance to show what they have in shorter bursts on a TV show than long matches that drag on.

–With Best in the World still in the distance and Border Wars having not officially happened yet, Inside ROH was actually interesting this week for one reason: they hyped next week’s TV. Radical, I know, but it’s easier to care about what happens on TV when you get some background behind it. Next week we’ll see some rematches from recently that are building into real feuds: Eddie Edwards will take on Mike Bennett, and The All Night Express will battle The Young Bucks.

—Then-still-ROH World Champion Davey Richards against Rhino was the main event. It was billed as a Proving Ground match, which is ROH’s way of papering over non-title matches. As I said when we last saw him, Rhino might be in the best shape of his career. He seems to have trimmed up a lot and his muscle tone is through the roof. If anyone could pass the message along though, will someone please mention to him: two kneepads or none, bro. You look like Zack Gowen with just the one. This match was one I’m surprised they didn’t save for a PPV, because it’s an intriguing matchup and Rhino has star power. Of course maybe they wanted it on TV so people could actually see it. (Sorry, cheap shot, I know). Davey never dogs it on a TV match, especially against a marquee opponent like Rhino. Rhino was a completely different worker from the former ECW champion or WWE hardcore fanatic that we know. He was much more methodical and wrestled a match that was in Davey’s wheelhouse, with suplexes and even a Boston crab. Davey was pure Shawn Michaels in this one: working from the bottom, not only playing the underdog but pulling all his moves out as desperation. Interference from Roderick Strong and Truth Martini at ringside was negligible, which was rare. This one was a solid 15-20 minutes that seemed to fly by, because they both managed to make “less is more” work well without seeming like they were stalling at all. The end sequence saw Rhino getting more and more hard hitting and blown up with each near-fall and knockout attempt, until he went for the Gore and Davey reversed into a sunset flip for the win. I’d definitely like to see these two go a little longer. Afterward the House of Truth contingent beat down on Davey until Jay Lethal made the save, and I smell a tag match in the future.

–I like this kind of show. In my opinion, as long as you give wrestlers a chance to do their things in the shorter segments they get, then a TV show should absolutely be built around quicker matches like this. A nice variety of things was featured too, with a main event worthy of PPV. So a definite thumbs up from me on this one. If ROH did things like this a little more often, they can get out of the relative funk they’ve been in regarding the TV show and make a show of good faith toward any fans who might be ready to bail after the Border Wars fiasco. Til’ next week (and sooner next week at that, I promise): Don’t take my word for it. Go to ROHwrestling.com and check it out for yourself.

–Tonight we have Border Wars, ROH’s first iPPV of the summer where we will see “Wrestling’s Worst Nightmare” Kevin Steen take on “American Wolf” Davey Richards. Before that we have the most recent ROH TV, where Steen will take on Kyle O’Reilly,  Richard’s partner in Burt Macklin, FBI Agent’s favorite team Team Ambition. Also, “The Dominant Male” Tommaso Ciampa battles Matt Taven and “Technical Lightning” TJ Perkins squares off with “No Fear” Mike Mondo.

 –

–Ciampa is on his way to the ring for the first match, only accompanied by Prince Nana, Ernesto Osiris and Barrister RD Evans this time. So clearly he’s already coming in at a disadvantage, having only three managers instead of his customary four. Something I’d never really noticed about Ciampa & The Embassy’s entrance music: it’s title is “McDuck Money”. I’m surprised that’s never been a song title for Rick Ross or somebody. I’m imagining a mid-90s style No Limit album cover, except with Ross or Waka Flocka swimming in a bank vault full of gold coins. Anywho, Matt Taven, with cool tights that play off of the old MTV logo and “Did Matt just happen?” as a catchphrase, is his opponent. They start out with a cool moment where Taven skins the cat to make his entrance and Ciampa catches him on the way in and drops him with a Tiger Suplex. Jay Lethal is at ringside for this match but he never gets involved although Ciampa plays to him by dropping Taven with a Kryptonite Krunch to the outside. Ciampa spent most of this one on the defensive, letting Taven control most of the match. To this point we’ve seen Taven on ROH a few times but he’s mostly just been there to job & bump around. This match he got to show off his skills. He’s mostly a high flyer, but he works in a Ricky Morton/Shawn Michaels type underdog style where every spot he builds up to is a desperate last resort. That’s a good role for him to play, but his flying offense is a little sloppy. A tope suicida to Ciampa ended up seeing Taven wrap all the way around him, looking almost like he’s trying for a tornado DDT but not pulling it off. Taven did pull out a pretty emphatic looking frog splash, rivaling RVD or D-Lo Brown. Tommaso turned things around with a distraction and two running knee strikes from the Tree of Woe position, and ended it with the Project Ciampa. Like Scrooge McDuck’s vault, Ciampa’s fucking bank.

–TJ Perkins starts out with a promo that gets interrupted by The Young Bucks, and general sniping results. Perkins vs. Mondo was god awful, if only for the fact that TJ Perkins is someone who ROH should be getting behind due to his marketable look and talent, and Mike Mondo is a WWE castoff who does spots that amount to comedy and seems to be the only one that ever gets in any offense in his matches. His gimmick is stupid and unoriginal, his talent is negligible, and I’d be willing to bet that based on the way he doesn’t give his opponent anything in his matches, he’s probably got a bad attitude. At one point he set up a spot where he appeared to be attempting to bite Perkins’ eye. For some reason all of Mondo’s big “bully” spots seem to be like the kind of weird shit I’d expect Chang to do on Community. Anyhow, after what seemed like an eternity of Perkins doing nothing and Mondo hamming it up, the Bucks interfered and Mondo finished with a draping double arm DDT, and the heels did a post match beatdown until ANX made the save. If anyone from ROH is reading this: you’ll never make Mike Mondo happen. Let him spin his wheels in CZW or somewhere where he won’t be stealing TV time from people who actually can cut it in the ring.

–Kyle O’Reilly cut a promo that shows why they don’t let him cut a lot of promos, and then he went to the ring for the main event against Kevin Steen, who was accompanied by “Zombie Princess” Jimmy Jacobs. I am still waiting to see Jimmy Jacobs wrestle on the TV show, I can’t remember the last time I actually saw him compete on the show. I think it was jobbing to Mike Bennett from the first TV taping. Anyhow, as much as I love Kevin Steen’s character and his ring work, you could probably lob some of the same criticisms at him that you would at Mike Mondo: if it’s a TV match or if his opponent is lower on the card than him, it will pretty much be a squash for Steen. To be fair to him, in the build to a PPV main event against someone as unproven as KO, it probably should be one-sided, although KO had a few moments of hope in this one. Steen hit a bunch of his signatures like the apron powerbomb and the running flip butt smash in the corner. Steve Corino was on commentary here, and he & Nigel did a commendable job of discussing the different strategies they feel Davey & Steen should take in their title match. Steen at one point knocked O’Reilly’s mouthpiece out and put it in his own mouth, and slapped on Davey Richards’ ankle lock, leading to KO reversing into an enziguri with Steen spitting the mouthpiece out in a cool visual. He then threw it at Jacobs, who distracted KO long enough for Steen to drop him with the F-Cinq and get the win. Afterward Steen & Jacobs continued their beatdown, until Davey made the save and had Steen in his own ankle lock, before Jacobs scored a low blow to break it and the ROH officials came out for a pull-apart. Davey then cut a promo promising that at Border Wars, Steen is gonna see The Wolf.

–Well, pretty much a storyline-heavy week. It seems like every TV taping, they end up with one show’s worth of weaker material featuring Mike Mondo. Usually that’s at the end of the taping cycle, and it becomes predictable that they saved their “B” material for last. This time they put it on in the second show of the cycle, which is fine, but it’d be better if they just stopped featuring such a drab wrestler, especially when they’ve got guys like Jimmy Jacobs, El Generico, and the All Night Express at their disposal and they rarely appear on TV. They’d be better off if they spread the wealth out a little bit, just letting some of their up and coming talent shine with a basic jobber match. As it is, not utilizing some of the better talent they have while continuing to give Mike Mondo TV time is basically head-up-your-ass territory. Hopefully ROH learns this lesson before they turn off any more fans. Until next week, don’t take my word for it, go to ROHwrestling.com and check it out for yourself.

–ROH is back after a two week break from new action. Now that the dust has settled completely on the action of Showdown in the Sun, we begin the build to the next iPPV, Border Wars from Toronto. ROH confirmed this week that they will be bringing all their iPPVs in-house, available to be pre-ordered and watched on ROHwrestling.com. This is a smart move from them after the disasters that came from their partnership with Go Fight Live, but lets all hope they can avoid having similar transmission problems in-house. This week in Ring of Honor, we will see The Briscoes take on Caprice Coleman and Cedric Alexander, Adam Cole facing Roderick Strong, and the ROH TV debut of Rhino.

—The Briscoes vs. Caprice Coleman & Cedric Alexander (or C&C Wrestling Factory, as Shelton Benjamin named them) starts us off. The story going in is that the Briscoes are still fired up after the post-match beatdown from Showdown by Haas & Benjamin, so they weren’t interested in upholding the Code of Honor. This was a rapid paced tag match, with C&C getting to show off a lot of their offense. One of Coleman’s trademark moves is an STO called the Bless-T-O, which might be the worst wordplay-name for a move since Eat Defeat. Coleman also attempted a version of the 619 on Jay to the outside, swinging around the ring post and under the ring ropes, but Jay blocked it and turned it into a giant swing to the guard rail. Mark Briscoe is getting to be more and more fun with the semi-comedic moves he’ll throw in during the middle portions of a match. This time he did a crabwalk across the middle rope (a shiny new donkey to the first person to name which Michinoku Pro alum that was cribbed from in the comments!) into his Froggy ‘Bow. The end came when, with the ref and all other participants distracted, Haas & Benjamin came to ringside and held Jay up for a kick to the nuts, leading to C&C taking advantage of the distraction with a no-hands hurricanrana from Coleman into a body splash from Alexander for the pin. According to ROH rules, this would mean that C&C are due for a title shot sometime soon, and presuming it happens after Border Wars, I’d like to see these two teams get even more time to tear it up. I still think C&C’s gimmick and personalities are a little obnoxious but they are definitely up to snuff between the bells.

–Before Rhino vs. Vinny Marseglia we see a backstage promo with Prince Nana and RD Evans of The Embassy, Ltd. as they announce that they’ve sold Rhino’s talent contract to Truth Martini, who cuts a promo on his Border Wars opponent Eddie Edwards. They’ve been advertising Rhino as being Truth Martini’s hired hand for the last few weeks, so this segment didn’t really play as a surprise, but at the same time it was nice that they acknowledged that Rhino had previously been with The Embassy for all 20 of us that remembered. The match was just a jobber squash. Marseglia is another local Maryland area talent, with a preposterous amount of tattoos. Rhino looks to have trimmed up and worked on his definition quite a bit since has most recent appearances with TNA during the EV2.0 mess. I’d dare say this is the best he’s looked in his career. The match was just a quick clothesline, belly to belly suplex, and GORE~!, all sold very well by Vinny. As Kevin Kelly said: “He don’t get paid by the hour!”

–Our weekly Kevin Steen interview segment starts off with Jim Cornette calling him out regarding Border Wars. Steen is joined by his new lackey, Jimmy Jacobs (still no explanation as to why he’s now “Zombie Princess” Jimmy Jacobs, although he has been acting a little more fey as of late). Steen is also wearing a Canadian flag in the spirit of US vs. Canada, so Cornette can pretend it’s 1997 again. (And hey, what else happened regarding a Canadian vs. an American in 97? I fucking called it, folks). This brings out Davey Richards, draped in an American flag. I like that this isn’t just convenient American patriotism for Richards, as “American Wolf” and “American Strong Style” have always been a part of his gimmick. Harsh words are exchanged, but this time Steen has a point to prove: he brings up that he & Richards used to be friends and Davey claimed he would help Steen get back into ROH, and then tasks Richards for being a hypocrite since he claims to love and defend ROH after every match and yet every time something doesn’t go his way he threatens to leave ROH and take the title to Japan. Things escalate into a pull-apart until Cornette lays down the line. If the piledriver is to be reinstated for their match, he wants both men to sign a waiver so they can’t sue ROH if either of them breaks their neck (Steen: “What am I gonna sue you for? Some old Smoky Mountain tapes?”) Cornette then reveals that, much as he did to Lex Luger in 93, he’s tricked Steen into signing a contract stating that he only gets one shot at the ROH title. I don’t know if this directly points to Steen winning at Border Wars, or if there’s going to be more storyline justification, but it’s an interesting concept anyway. With each week, Richards is getting less and less likeable, whereas Steen would have to try really hard to get the ROH faithful to turn on him.

–I’ll skip over most of Inside ROH since, just as it has been for a few weeks, it’s built mainly around a drawn out Lance Storm promo. Lance Storm saying anything that isn’t a sarcastic aside about his opponents using steroids or being American is Ambien in promo form, of course.

—ROH TV Champ Roderick Strong vs. Adam Cole is our main event. These two are pretty evenly matched in size and style. Strong actually adheres to the Code of Honor, as Nigel McGuiness suspected he would on commentary due to being confident at his place in his career. Subtle seeds are being sown for a Roddy face turn, which makes sense if he’s going to be involved in the Jay Lethal/Tommaso Ciampa feud. I sense a 3 way is forthcoming and then possibly focus being shifted to Strong vs. Ciampa. Twice toward the end of this match, Roddy launched Cole to the outside and caused a collision with Michael Elgin. Much as they did a month or so ago, this looked almost intentional on Roddy’s part, and I can see those two splitting soon too. Roderick as a face is usually preferable anyway: if a match is structured in the traditional face/heel/face/finish pattern, Roddy as a face can condense his offense into the shorter face portions. Strong is a talented wrestler all around but he’s at his best either as the recipient of the hot tag in a team or as a babyface who can go fast paced with his offense in short bursts. As a heel he slows down his style to a more methodical pace, and it takes a lot of the wind out of the sails of his offense. This match was a fun one because the pace was kept nice & rapid. Cole’s body language in the ring is very sharp, and he’s great at playing up crowd sympathy. He also fired off a nice suplex into a face first drop to the knee. The finish came with the ref distracted by Elgin and Martini interfering, allowing Strong to his his new, as far as I know unnamed, finisher: a suplex into a double knee backbreaker. Great main event, and a harbinger of better things to come for Roderick Strong.

–After an inconsequential episode and two clip shows, ROH is back in fighting form this week. The opening tag match and the main event both functioned the way a good TV match should: fast paced, fun, and not too long so as to leave you wanting more. The storyline building in the Steen/Richards segment added more layers of intrigue to the upcoming title match, and the show as a whole moved things in a direction toward the future. Can’t ask for much more than that. Of course, don’t take my word for it: go to ROHwrestling.com and check it out for yourself.

Sorry this one is a little behind, folks. It’s been a busy weekend for yr. humble scrivener. Friday I was in Watertown, NY for Night One of Squared Circle Wrestling’s Living On The Edge. 2CW is the hottest indie in the Upstate NY area and, for that matter, a lot of the northeast. They regularly feature top-level indie talent from ROH, CHIKARA, and others, as well as having regular visits from WWE legends and other free agents. Couple that with an impressive local roster, and a 2CW show is always a good time. So, join me for a recap of both that show, featuring some big ROH names, and of course, (last weekend’s) ROH TV, where we see the final 4-way in the March Mayhem tournament between Jay Lethal, Tommaso Ciampa, Mike Bennett, and Adam Cole.

I’m gonna go a little quick and dirty on ROH this week, because there really isn’t too much to say. This one was from the very tail end of the taping schedule and it’s from before the last iPPV, so a lot of it is no longer relevant.

–We opened with The Young Bucks vs. TJ Perkins and Shiloh Jonze. Not much to go on with this one. TJ is ready to break out in ROH but as of now they don’t really have a direction for him. Jonze has been used as a jobber before in ROH and hasn’t really showed much of anything as far as being a worker. Usually Bucks matches tend to fall into tornado tag formula, with everyone in the ring at the same time, which works well for their double teams. This one was a more standard tag formula match, and it worked well that way. The Bucks got to use their stick & move high flying to beat down Jonze, and TJ got to come clean house off the hot tags and show his own high flying offense. The end had both babyfaces incapacitated with superkicks and Jonze falling victim to More Bang for Your Buck for the loss. Not bad at all, but TJ deserves better than meaningless jobs in tag teams. Possibly, once things work out with Amazing Red and ROH, those two can keep going on as a team.

–Following up from a while ago, Mike Mondo vs. Matt Taven was next.  Why is a question I have no answer for. Mondo doesn’t really interact much with the rest of the ROH roster, and his style is drastically different than most. What little I’ve seen of Taven on YouTube hasn’t impressed me greatly (his big claim to fame is having a really good arm drag). I just don’t get the continued need to have these guys fill TV time, especially when nothing they do effects anything else on the roster. Mondo is positioned as the star here, but his WWE-trained style is going to clash with the rest of the roster if he ever starts to mingle with them. So I just don’t see the point in keeping him around, especially since his character is so derivative of Crash Holly. Not much of note happened here, with Mondo playing some kind of mind games with Taven regarding his boot, and Mondo capitalized and finished off with his double-arm DDT.

–Inside ROH was comprised this week of a press conference for the Toronto event in May, Border Wars. (Incidentally, reports are that ROH is no longer going to be working with GoFight Live, so I’m not sure what their iPPV status is at this point. After the massive technical problems that turned so many people off of Showdown in the Sun, this is the best course of action for ROH if they don’t want to risk losing fans because of something that was someone else’s problem). Davey Richards and Jim Cornette addressed the event with some general platitudes, and then of course Kevin Steen interrupted. Steen made a challenge to Davey, which Davey was hot to accept, but of course Cornette objected. Finally, Richards had to play hardball: either give him a match with Steen or he takes the ROH title and leaves for Japan. Kind of an interesting choice for Davey’s character to put Cornette in a position where he could risk screwing ROH either way. I see this as another clear sign that Davey is working toward a big heel turn. So Cornette relents, and we have what I imagine will just be the first of many matches this year between Davey Richards and Kevin Steen.

–The main event is the Final 4-Way in the March Mayhem tournament, Jay Lethal vs. Mike Bennett vs. Tommaso Ciampa vs. Adam Cole. The winner of this one wins $24,000 as was put up by each of the 8 tournament competitors. The main issue here is between Lethal and Ciampa, as this was taped before Lethal lost the TV title to Roderick Strong. Lethal starts off by tearing into Ciampa, and before long Ciampa tags out to Mike Bennett and attempts to stay on the apron for as much of the match as possible. Lethal looked great here, as a fired up Jay Lethal is an exciting Jay Lethal. A lot people can’t work as well at a faster pace but Lethal seems more comfortable there.  Adam Cole gets incapacitated during a commercial break by a spinebuster to the ring apron by Bennett, making him the underdog for the rest of the match. After Ciampa took over on Lethal, Bennett tagged himself in, leading to heel miscommunication between the two. Lethal scored the pin on Bennett with Lethal Injection to eliminate, but then immediately got eliminated himself by Ciampa’s knockout knee strike. Adam Cole works really well from the beaten up, underdog position. He’s good at pulling out “desperation” moves, and he does well to inspire crowd sympathy. One cool spot saw Ciampa hitting the repeated knee strikes to the corner, only to have Cole cut it off with a strong superkick. Cole got a near-win with a rear naked choke, in one of the only times I can remember a heel doing the “arm drops twice and stops before three” gimmick. In the finish, Lethal attempted to run back in and take out Ciampa, and Ciampa used the distraction to crotch Cole on the ropes (which didn’t really make sense, since Ciampa is the one who should’ve been distracted, but it does work in terms of Ciampa’s crazy-intense character). Ciampa then finished with a particularly sick looking Project Ciampa, leaving Cole folded in half for the pin and the 24 Gs. Everyone was on their top game here and the fast paced action was really fun. Cole showed a really adept talent for playing Ricky Morton, while Lethal showed that breakneck speeds suit him well. Ciampa showed, as always, that’s he’s fucking bank.

–In all, it wasn’t an utterly skippable ROH TV, because the opening tag was decent and the main even was really enjoyable, plus the press conference set the main storyline for the company further into motion. But, it was still kind of a lame-duck show, since not a lot of the storylines really carry over to what’s going on now. Either way, don’t take my word for it: go to ROHwrestling.com and check it out for yourself.

As for the 2CW show, it was one of the biggest shows they run all year. While they were at the Fairgrounds in Watertown, rather than their usual location in the smaller, auxiliary YMCA arena, they were in the larger main arena, with several bleacher seat sections. All told they filled all their reserved front row seating and the large bleacher sections. At one point they said they had over 800 people in attendance, a really solid crowd for them. A few highlights:

–The main draw was Sgt. Slaughter, who came out to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance before being cut off by The Insurgency. I believe that kind of thing is what go Finlay fired from WWE, right? I haven’t seen The Insurgency before, and I think they might be guys that travel around with Sarge just for indie shows. Their manager is a chubby guy named Bin Hamid (? ..maybe?), and the other two guys names were unclear. One of them looked a lot like one of the Maximos from former ROH/TNA tag team The SATs. Sarge was joined in the ring by a Marine that jumped the rail, as though he was a fan making a run-in. I never caught his name but the 2CW Facebook page says he’s Jason Wayne. They set up the main event for later, with Sarge & Wayne against the two Insurgency guys. Not much went on there, although Sarge did get in there and brawl a little bit. In the end he locked on the Cobra Clutch and the manager came in for the interference with the Iranian flag for the DQ. Sarge took him out with the Cobra Clutch and led a big USA chant to close the show. The idea with Sarge was to appeal to all the Army guys in Watertown that are stationed at Fort Drum, who got in with free admission. I didn’t see anyone that I noticed in uniform though, although many may have been there in street clothes. I’m pretty sure Drum had a big field drill this weekend, so maybe they would have had an even bigger turnout if not.

–After a match won by local talent Matt Milan, “God’s Gonna Cut You Down” by Johnny Cash hit, and Brodie Lee made a surprise appearance through the crowd to take him out. This drew out Kevin Steen, who was advertised for the 2CW title match in a 3-way with champ Jay Freddie and SWB. Steen made some jokes about Brodie having recently signed to WWE developmental, and made note that he’s never wrestled Brodie and may never get to, leading to Brodie getting added to the title match. The match was a fun brawl, with mostly outside brawling. At one point the much smaller Freddie locked Brodie in a Sharpshooter and Steen responded by locking SWB (better known as Slyck Wagner Brown, but I guess he’s simplifying these days) in his own Sharpshooter, face to face with Freddie, and then spitting on him. After Freddie and Steen were both eliminated in short order, Brodie scored the win over SWB to claim the 2CW title. I’m not sure what the outcome of that will be, regarding when Brodie goes to FCW. Steen cut a promo on Brodie afterward, thanking him for appearing, and then kicking him in the nuts and heeling out on the 2CW fans for not having him back after his first appearance years ago. Steen then left out the back arena doors with the 2CW belt.

–The Briscoes were also in attendance, as they wrestled The Olsen Twins, Jimmy and Colin (aka Colin Delaney, formerly of WWE). It was very cool seeing the Briscoes up close and personal, and they had a lot of fun with some comedy spots with the Olsens, involving the Briscoes’ beer supply and the Olsens’ Four Lokos. After taking over with some Hillbilly Kung Fu from Mark, Jay hit Jimmy with a chokeslam, of all things, and Mark hit a frog splash for the win. Briscoes let the fans know afterward that they will be back to Watertown (and, as I type this, word is breaking that the Briscoes have defeated First Class for the 2CW Tag Titles in Rome tonight, so I’m sure they’ve got more appearances in store). Afterward Jimmy Olsen turned on his partner Colin, leaving him laying in the ring and spitting on the crowd to massive boos.

–As for the regular 2CW talent, the big news was the bloody hardcore match between “Juggernaut” Jason Axe and Isys Ephex. After a quick wrestling sequence, they set to taking each other apart with chairs, a barbed wire baseball bat, and a broken beer bottle. Axe had a small trickle of blood at first but, after gouging Ephex with the bottle, Ephex did about a 1.4 Muta. He has bleach blonde hair, and it was stained completely red, and even from the back bleachers, you could see the blood pumping out of the cut. After the match in the bathroom, a number of people were complaining about having been bled on in the front row. Thumbtacks also got involved, and Ephex gave Axe a really sick and dangerous looking curb-stomp into them. The end saw Ephex get driven through a ladder propped up between the apron and the guard rail for Axe to take the win. Check out 2CW’s Facebook page for a picture of Ephex’s bladejob, it was truly sick. From where I was sitting in the bleachers I could see the open backstage area, and Steen and the Briscoes were all milling about. After Ephex started bleeding, they all watched the match intently, and you could tell they were impressed with the juice.

–Other matches saw Loca Vida pin Muscle Marcos in a fun opener, The DOS defeat First Class in a tables match that led to a retirement match being booked between Zaquary Springate and I.B. Green, and Matt Milan beating the large trio of Pete D. Order, The Beast, and Superbad. All exciting matches featuring talent that is ready to break out on the indie scene.

All in all it was a very fun show, and I highly recommend anyone that is in the Upstate NY area to check out a 2CW show. It’s a great crowd and the wrestlers are all extremely dedicated to their craft. As another plus, I got to meet Steen briefly, and wished him well in his upcoming match with Davey. I met the Briscoes during the beginning of the Milan/Order, Beast, and Superbad match, and Mark was dancing up a storm to “Bad Boys” while the heels entered the ring. Very cool to meet some of my favorites from the ROH roster. Unrelated to 2CW, this morning I went to an autograph session in my town with Jay Lethal. It wasn’t, unfortunately, too heavily attended, so I got to hang out for about an hour and just shoot the shit with Jay and some local wrestling fans. He had some cool stories about Ric Flair, Randy Savage, Jim Neidhart, and about the tiny plane he flew up here in. Jay’s a very cool guy and it was a lot of fun to just sit and hear some of his stories. So all in all, it was a great wrestling weekend for me. But don’t take my word for it, go to a 2CW show and check it out for yourself.

On this week’s installment of ROH TV, we see the last two qualifiers for the March Mayhem tournament as Kyle O’Reilly takes on Tommaso Ciampa and Eddie Edwards battles Mike Bennett. Not only that, but ROH World Champion Davey Richards is in action in a proving ground match, and we hear from “Wrestling’s Worst Nightmare” Kevin Steen. All this comes on the heels of Showdown in the Sun, (literally, as this show aired originally not long after the second night of that show ended) and many things are in flux for the ROH roster.

First off, we have Tommaso Ciampa vs. Kyle O’Reilly. This was after KO’s heel turn at Young Wolves Rising but for the purposes of this match, KO is still the babyface. This one was almost all Ciampa. Considering the bigger angles that KO has been involved with lately, you’d think that the match would be booked more evenly between the two, but KO barely landed any offense. Remember that a few weeks ago, Kevin Steen wrestled KO’s former partner Adam Cole and similarly dominated, with Cole getting nearly no offense.in. This makes me wonder if the former Future Shock have some heat with the ROH locker room. I’d imagine the fact that they were basically the main event focus of the 10th Anniversary show might have rubbed some people the wrong way, and it’s hard to say whether they have any attitude problems, since the ROH locker room doesn’t leak. Regardless, Ciampa took KO apart with a variety of mat wrestling moves and knee strikes until scoring a knee strike to the head for the MMA-style ref stoppage. That ending is becoming a trademark for Ciampa, and it’s effective in making him look like a killer. It seems like he’s dirt roading his awesome Project Ciampa finisher in ROH, which is too bad but I imagine its a bigger bump and a bigger risk than most opponents would want to take. Nonetheless, Ciampa advances while KO gets KO’d.

ROH World Champion Davey Richards vs. Ryan McBride in a Proving Ground match is next. For those unfamiliar with a Proving Ground match, it’s where a new, untested talent comes to ROH and challenges one of the champions. If the challenger can either beat the champ or go to a 15 minute draw, they get a title shot. In this case, McBride is a local Maryland standout who apparently is well known to the fans in that area, as he was greeted with a big “Let’s Go Ryan!” chant. It says something interesting that ROH’s top babyface is losing face heat to an ostensible jobber, but I’ll get to that. The match, in totality, was Davey hitting McBride with two knees in the corner at the bell, a running knee strike on the ground, a cocky pin attempt, and a quick reversal into an ankle lock (can I just interject that I hate that Davey is using the ankle lock? He has a million other interesting submissions in his arsenal and the ankle lock is pretty much “Shooter Gimmick 101”) for the tapout with a great sell by McBride, who was flopping like a landed fish. The whole match was about 26 seconds by my watch.

I don’t think I’ve ever really touched on how I feel about Davey Richards. At times I’ve been kind of down on him, and there are a lot of complaints about him amongst ROH fans: he works too stiff, he takes too many head shots, he’s too serious, he lacks charisma, he’s too much of an MMA guy, and he treats wrestling too much like it’s “real”. While I don’t agree on some of those fronts (namely, the charisma thing. I think while his promos are a little too squeaky clean and “go get ’em!” styled, he’s actually got some personality and he never sounds lost or nervous on the mic, and at times can be somewhat funny or at least easy going, if the situation calls for it.) I do feel as though Davey has lost connection with his audience. ROH has always tended to push their main event babyfaces as stoic, battle tested do-gooders. Davey seems to be the epitome of that booking, but it’s all been seen before. I’m a fan of Davey’s wrestling, which a lot of people are put off by because of the high risk style of it, but in general I think he’s a fantastic worker and, at the very least, I look forward to seeing him wrestle. The fan base is turning on Davey, slowly but surely. A lot of that has to do with the never ending feud with Roderick Strong and/or Eddie Edwards, which I’m hoping will finally be blown off after the last iPPV. That feud produced some great matches but it never really had a strong personal connection with the fans, namely because they didn’t pull the trigger on an Eddie heel turn. So now Davey’s in the position of being the do gooder, superhero babyface that is losing his connection with his fans and starting to act more and more heelish (like the way he squashed McBride so quickly). Contrast that with the next person to have a feud with Davey…

In our next segment, Kevin Steen comes out for more interview time. Steen’s really making the most out of the tennis racket prop, hitting the rolls of streamers and using it to high five fans around the ringside area. Babyface behavior, no question about it. Steen wants Kevin Kelly to tell him why he never gets to have matches on ROH TV, and instead only gets interviews with Kelly. Kelly posits that it’s because Steen is a danger to his opponents, and often attempts to attack them after the bell. Steen makes the valid point that if he shook hands with his opponents after destroying them like Davey Richards does, he’d get matches. Steen wonders why Davey never answers any of his challenges. It’s not because he has no pride, so maybe he can’t hear him. Because of his cauliflower ears from all his jiujitsu training? Nope. It’s because Davey’s head is shoved too far up Jim Cornette’s ass. This brings Davey out, ready to fight but being held back by ROH officials and Jim Cornette. Davey goes to the one line he’s used at all to respond to Steen’s challenges: “he’s not a wrestler, he’s a novelty act”. This does more to make Davey seem heelish IMO, because Steen is so over with the fans and Davey is basically implying that anyone who uses chairs or power moves and doesn’t grapple and do MMA strikes isn’t a “real” wrestler. Plus the constant fat jokes about Steen just play into Steen’s accusations that Cornette only wants to push pretty boys.  Cornette tells Davey that he’s just trying to piss Davey off to get him in the ring & screw the company over. Steen says that screwing the company over is banning the piledriver when Davey is allowed to go around and break people’s ankles. Steen goads Davey some more and catches a slap to end the segment.

So what we’ve got here is Steen exposing everything that the fans have been saying about Davey Richards, and using it as fodder in his feud with Jim Cornette. Meanwhile, Steen is getting the biggest face pops in the company while Davey is getting less and less. Davey Richards, the character, seems to think that a guy like Steen isn’t a “real” wrestler and he doesn’t see why anyone would cheer for a “novelty act” like that. From the way he carries himself and the way his gimmick has progressed, I would honestly not be surprised if Wesley David Richards himself felt like that in real life. Either way, the anti-authority anti-hero brawler who gains fan support by threatening the establishment and the boss, being at odds with the serious technical wrestler who is supposed to be a hero to everyone but sees fans turning their backs on him in favor of someone he considers to be inferior to him? That’s pretty much the Bret Hart/Steve Austin feud in a nutshell. I’ve been calling that as the dynamic for Steen/Richards since before the two even had any contact with one another. I get the feeling that it will play out in much the same way, with Steen leaving the firm, unquestionable babyface and Richards now a heel. If ROH tries to keep Steen the bad guy and Richards clinging onto his diminishing babyface returns, they will be in some serious trouble, because the fanbase is not behind Davey Richards right now.

“Die Hard” Eddie Edwards vs. “The Prodigy” Mike Bennett is our main event in the last March Mayhem qualifier. I’ve made no bones about how I’m not a fan of Bennett in the ring, and in the past I’ve felt like he was “generically charismatic”: he is playing his character well but he’s not really saying or doing anything beyond typical pretty boy heel schtick. Since Maria has come in as his valet/girlfriend, he’s really hit on something that makes him stand out. It’s not just that you hate Bennett for being a cocky ass, you hate him for having a bitchy girlfriend and being completely obnoxious about making out with her. The dynamic is, if you’ll pardon the un-manly reference, Spencer & Heidi from MTV. It was as easy to hate those two in the media as it is to hate Bennett and Maria in ROH. I’m waiting for Brutal Bob to get the axe however, he’s just baggage, apart from back-suplexing Eddie onto the guard rail in this match, which is pretty egregious for a manager interference. Eddie carried this match from the bottom. While he did most of the heavy lifting, he definitely made Bennett look good here, as Eddie really gave the impression that he was scoring his offense where he could and that Bennett was dominating. Even though Eddie probably landed more offense, his body language definitely said “desperate” while hitting his chops and dropkicks. Eddie still doesn’t have great mic skills but the guy is almost unmatched when it comes to body language telling a story.  The end saw Maria get on the apron and Eddie collide with her, which she held off on selling for a second and then overacted, causing the ref to check on her and miss Eddie’s O’Connor roll, which Bennett reversed with a handful of tights for the win. Says Nigel McGuinness about Maria: “I’ve seen better acting on Red Tube.”

So overall ROH had a great week. Coming off a weekend where all anyone would normally be talking about is WWE, ROH managed to get attention with a Davey Richards/Michael Elgin 5-star match. Their TV show featured some solid wrestling and, since a lot of angles were blown off at the iPPV, they’ve set the table for some interesting shakeups going forward in the next few months until Best In The World 2012. Until next week, don’t take my word for it: Go to ROHwrestling.com and check it out for yourself.

ROH TV 3/24/12

This week from our friends in Ring of Honor, we get the final lead up to the two night iPPV Showdown in the Sun. Also Wrestling’s Greatest Tag Team, Charlie Haas & Shelton Benjamin, take on Caprice Coleman and Cedric Alexander, and in a March Mayhem qualifier, “Unbreakable” Michael Elgin faces Adam Cole.

–We start off with Jim Cornette in the ring, bringing out all the contenders for the 3 way World title match for this Friday. Roderick Strong is of course joined by Michael Elgin and Truth Martini, who comes to the ring on Elgin’s shoulders for some reason. I thought that was pretty funny just considering that he’s supposed to be a cult leader type character, and Elgin was basically playing the Smithers to Martini’s Burns from that one episode where they try to ride the two person bike & Smithers gets stung by a bee. Anyhow, Davey Richards and Eddie Edwards also join, and Davey makes clear right away that while he’s not going to try anything physical in the interview, he doesn’t trust either guy in the ring. Things have touched so lightly on how much animosity there really is between Eddie & Davey at this point that I was glad to see they at least put somewhat of a point on it, even if they still don’t have any real reason to dislike each other. (If I have to start thinking about the Dan Severn issue again, I might pop a blood vessel). Eddie takes offense, and Roddy pipes in with some trash talk and an assertion that even if he doesn’t win in the 3 way on the 30th, Elgin has agreed to give him his match against Davey on the 31st if Davey is still champ. Before we get a clear read as to whether Elgin is down with that plan, Jay Lethal interrupts to declare his intentions at getting the World title. Jay’s part of this get’s pretty damn hilarious, as he’s supposed to be fired up and pissed off, and yet his character (and probably Jay himself) are so clean cut and goody two shoes that his insults (spread in the general direction of the House of Truth guys) are “buttmunch” and, I swear to God, “fart head”. Fart head! Seriously! ROH now has their own “JBL is Poopy!” Anyhow, Kevin Steen interrupts from the ramp and makes general threats at taking ROH hostage to close us out.

–Promos from WGTT and Coleman & Alexander lead us into their match. It seems like most of the heavy lifting in the character work for WGTT’s feud with The Briscoes has been done by Charlie Haas. It makes sense that ROH would think the drab white guy would be the one to focus on (although I do like the way he’s kinda been going for “badass Kurt Angle meets Hollywood Batista” in his personal style), but they should have given Shelton more to do because, of course, he’s the star of the team. Neither man says much about their opponents but Shelton does coin his personal nickname for Caprice & Cedric: The C&C Wrestling Factory. I dunno if ROH is gonna use it on TV but I damn sure am here. Then C&C Wrestling Factory really surprise me: first, Cedric Alexander actually speaks! I had him pegged as the Roadkill of the team. Caprice Coleman then had a particularly trenchant observation about WGTT: They got into the entertainment business because they were great athletes, but now they’re in the world of great athletes and they’re trying to entertain. He also calls them “Sisquo on steroids and Ben Stein’s love child”. I’m really shocked they would drop wrestling’s own forbidden “S-word” but I guess ROH feels their wrestlers are beyond reproach.

–The first time I ever saw C&C was a few months ago in their Proving Ground match against Haas & Benjamin. I was not especially impressed by their mic skills at the time, and I didn’t see anything too special about their ring work. Between that uncharacteristically fired up pre-match promo (with no fucking Gospel singing) and this match, I think I might have been wrong about them. I still don’t like their religious gimmick (wrestling and religion don’t mix, and with the fact that Coleman is nearly 20 years older than Alexander, it all feels a little too “priest and altar boy” for my tastes), but they have an interesting approach on offense. Coleman gets insane height on his flying moves, Alexander is pretty adept at playing Ricky Morton, and their double team attack is unique. In this match in particular, their big double team spots seem to be based around “stereo” moves: stereo superkicks, stereo tope suicidas, and stereo dropkicks which, rather than being done Rock ‘N Roll Express style, were done by sandwiching Shelton between them. WGTT were great opponents to play heel off of, as they started with some grounded mat wrestling and caught each guy with some unique sympathy building spots (Coleman saw a cross body get caught and dropped straight into a gut buster by Benjamin, while Alexander took a belly to back suplex onto the guard rail by Haas). They worked the tag formula quite well here, and each team tailored their offense to that formula. The finish saw WGTT setting up the Hanging Leapfrog spot and getting it reversed, with Haas ending up on the ropes 619 style. The Briscoes then gave their receipt to WGTT, blasting Haas in the head with a chair and giving C&C the win. Great tag team wrestling here, and I’m definitely willing to say I was wrong in my initial reception of The C&C Wrestling Factory.

–Allow me to interject before we get to our Main Event: as I write this it’s Saturday morning on March 31st. Last night was the first night of Showdown. I didn’t check it out but according to the results: Davey is still champ after the three way, going into his match tonight with Michael Elgin. Kevin Steen beat El Generico after Jimmy Jacobs interfered and sided with Steen; maybe we’ll be seeing the beginnings of a new stable? Former ROH booker and current NWA champion Adam Pearce made an appearance and wrestled Adam Cole (who has been burning the candle at all ends, doing ROH, NWA, and Big Japan shows in the last month.) Mike Bennett beat Lance Storm, Jay Lethal beat Kyle O’Reilly, and the All Night Express beat The Young Bucks in a tornado match. Should set things up to be very interesting tonight.

–The main event was another qualifier for the March Mayhem tournament, Adam Cole vs. Michael Elgin. These two are still gaining their sure footing in ROH but they’re both at the level where, with some ring work and a little charisma injection, they can both be solid match carriers. Elgin in particular is one who continues to impress. At 245 of stocky muscle he’s about the biggest powerhouse that ROH has, and he’s using that size advantage to work in new moves all the time. This match saw him mostly dominating, and using some big throw-style suplexes, something I haven’t really seen out of him before. The best were a high angle belly-to-belly (and really high angle, as Cole was practically upside down) and a German suplex into the turnbuckle. Elgin is still a void of charisma (and not just on the mic. His body language still looks nervous and scared) and he really needs a new haircut to be taken seriously, but he’s well on his way to being ROH’s go-to monster. Cole held his own in this match, hitting his high flying spots and building sympathy heat very well. My only ding against Cole is that he needs to develop more unique spots, or at least spots that he can call his trademark. As a worker he’s got all the tools, he just needs something you can point to and say “That’s what Adam Cole does” besides his finisher. The way he’s wrestling all over the world right now, I wouldn’t doubt that he gets there eventually. The end of this one saw Roderick Strong coming out for the interference, and Cole reversing in time for Roddy to deck Elgin, with Roddy doing that Lex Luger-Ric Flair thing where he stops for just a second to maybe indicate that he meant to do it. Seeds of dissension are thus sowed between the House of Truth guys, although I don’t know who comes out of it as the heel. Logic says to keep Elgin heel but Roddy is the aggressor here. Either way the HoT gets it together for a beatdown on Cole until Eddie Edwards makes the save to close the show out.

–The wrestling this week certainly made up for last week’s showing. All the strands of storylines in ROH seem to be ready to spiral off in different directions after tonight, and hopefully we see the end of the ongoing Richards/Edwards/Strong feud. ROH is always adamant about creating new stars, and now is the time where their new stars can start to move and rearrange in different places to work with their other headliners. I think what ROH’s endgame is, is to not push too many individual standouts so much as having a culture of great wrestlers who call ROH home like they have in the past. Some of the particulars might need more polish than others but with some miles on them, they might pull it off.

   Fantasy Booking Entrance Music

–One of the things that bums me out the most about mainstream wrestling these days is that, above a certain level of notoriety, you can’t use whatever song you like as entrance music without paying licensing fees to the artist, which of course would total up to a huge cost. ROH has sidestepped this by having everyone’s entrance songs be recorded by low level unknown bands, with names like The Stoves and Blue Smock Nancy. On a recent commute I got to thinking about what songs I would use if I could set everyone in ROH’s entrance music, and didn’t have to worry about licensing fees or silly little things like “what the wrestler would actually want”. In my experience, a lot of wrestlers, espcially ROH ones, have piss poor taste in their own entrance music anyway. It’s usually overly heavy metal songs that don’t really benefit the guy coming out to them, or else it just belies the particular wrestler’s bad taste (I mean, really Davey? “Running With the Devil”?). So here’s what I would use for each guy, hopefully fitting with their character or personality. Feel free to diagree. I also realize that most of these guys have real entrance themes they use outside of ROH or had previously used real songs in ROH. This is not my concern.

–Adam Cole: “Dead End Friends” by Wavves

–Andy “Right Leg” Ridge: “Battle Without Honor or Humanity” by Tomayasu Hotei from the Kill Bill soundtrack.

–Caprice Coleman & Cedric Alexander: “I Believe I Can Fly” by R. Kelly

–Wrestling’s Greatest Tag Team: “It’s All About the Benjamins (Rock Remix)” by Puff Daddy etc. The passive aggressive dig at Haas is purely unintentional, I promise.

–Davey Richards: Something by Metallica. “Of Wolf and Man” would be the obvious choice but maybe something like “Through the Never”. Pretty much anything that sounds like it was recorded by someone with a clenched anus.

–Eddie Edwards: “Twilight Zone” by Golden Earring

–El Generico: He’s pretty much locked into using “Ole!” by Bouncing Souls because of the gimmick. Good tune anyhow.

–The Embassy as a whole: “If I Ruled the World” by Nas & Lauryn Hill

–Tommaso Ciampa in solo matches: “Blue Orchid” by the White Stripes

–Grizzly Redwood: “The Lumberjack Song” by Jackyl, obviously.

–The Bravado Brothers: “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” by Vampire Weekend

–The Briscoes: “Gimme Back My Bullets” by Lynyrd Skynyrd. They got it right the first time.

–Jay Lethal: “Last Name Ever, First Name Greatest” by Drake, Lil’ Wayne, Kanye, Eminem, etc.

–All Night Express: “Sexy & I Know It” by LMFAO until it gets completely played out past the point of parody, and then maybe “Bright Lights, Bigger City” by Cee-Lo Green

–Kevin Steen: “We’rewolf” by Every Time I Die, keeping the American Wolves howl & gunshot sample, which would work really well both thematically and with the start of the song.

–Kyle O’Reilly: “Nightmare” by Avenged Sevenfold. Basically, a metal song by a band who wants to sound like an older metal band that recorded everything with a clenched anus.

–The Young Bucks: “crushcrushcrush” by Paramore

–The House of Truth: “Uprising” by Muse, although when Roderick wrestles solo he should still have the dialog sting from Boondock Saints.

–Mike Bennett: “Hip to be Square” by Huey Lewis & The News

–Mike Mondo: “Biggest & the Best” by Clawfinger

–TJ Perkins: “Chica Me Tipo” by Sublime

–Jimmy Jacobs: “Image of the Invisible” by Thrice

Any other opinions?

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From the home of John Waters, crab cakes, and The Wire comes this week’s ROH TV. The hole in the TV taping schedule has been somewhat mended, as we’ve finally caught up to the fallout from Young Wolves Rising. At YWR we saw Adam Cole score the pinfall over ROH Champ Davey Richards in a tag match pairing Richards with Cole’s ex partner Kyle O’Reilly against Cole & Richard’s ex partner Eddie Edwards. Afterward, O’Reilly got on the mic and declared that he doesn’t respect Edwards or Cole, turning part-way heel. Kevin Steen then appeared in the balcony, declaring that he didn’t respect anyone in the ring, and again calling out Davey Richards.

We start out with Adam Cole taking on local talent Chris “The Psychedelic Superstar” Silvio. What you’re picturing a “Psychedelic Superstar” would look like, Silvio pretty much is. Considering Cole just scored a clean win over the champ and Silvio, though he’s appeared with ROH before, isn’t a full time member of the roster, this should have been an outright squash. For my taste though, Cole let Silvio get a little too much offense in; most of it was the kind of over the top entry-level indie wrestling that usually doesn’t fly in ROH. I’ll give Silvio credit for a cool looking arm-wring-into-crossface spot, but not much else. Cole looked good here but didn’t do a hell of a lot. The end was a pretty nice sequence with Cole hitting Silvio with an enziguri, sending him off the ropes and backward into the Florida Key (straitjacket suplex). Afterward, Kyle O’Reilly (who was on commentary and not making much more of a point than he did at the PPV) challenged his former partner to a match for March 31st, the second night of Showdown in the Sun. As far as I can tell, the second night is going to be the money show, whereas the first night might be kind of skippable. Kind of like this match.

Next we see a package featuring some of the bloody action between Jimmy Jacobs (rocking an awesome fur coat adorned with red paint, “Fur is Murder” style) and Kevin Steen from YWR. Despite being attacked with a railroad spike, slammed from the guardrail to the concrete, and speared through a table, Steen was able to give Jacobs the F-Cinq (not F-Sanc as I now realize thanks to reader the next big thing) onto two upright chairs and score the win. That leads us to a Kevin Steen interview in the ring. Steen’s music now starts with the American Wolves’ trademark howl, cut short by a gunshot. It’s been too long since someone’s subverted someone else’s entrance music in wrestling. Steen has also adopted the gimmick of carrying a tennis racket, ala Jim Cornette, but with a picture of Davey Richards. Steen points out that Blind Destiny means Cornette must be blind, for putting him that much closer to taking the ROH title and holding the company hostage, which is his destiny. Steen has more harsh words for Eddie Edwards, his opponent for the 31st, but out comes Cornette. Cornette makes it clear that he isn’t worried about Steen taking the title on the Saturday show, because his opponent for Friday will take him out beforehand. This opponent hadn’t contacted Cornette in a long time, but he sent him an email with only two words: “La Revancha”. That is, Revenge. Steen will thus face his former partner turned vicious foe El Generico on March 30th. Generico hasn’t appeared since Final Battle, and the rumors I’ve heard have said that he won’t be appearing with ROH past the end of this month, so look for this battle between two friends to be Generico’s swan song with the company. Steen ends things up by telling Cornette that he’s going to take out every person that Cornette puts in front of him until he gets ahold of Richards and the ROH title.

I love the way these two play off of each other. Steen hits every note in being a combination of crazy, disgusting, and anarchic. Cornette plays his part by giving Steen every cue to bounce off of: Steen complains about Cornette favoring pretty boys, Cornette makes the fat jokes. Steen tries to slip “Kiss my balls!” past the censors (and they’re only on a 2,629,743 second delay!) and Cornette chastises him for being vulgar. Steen threatens to wreak havoc on ROH and Cornette seems as scared as he is mad. Compare this to something like Smackdown, where Teddy Long will be scared of Mark Henry one week and then shout down orders at him the next. Cornette is just the consummate pro, knowing exactly what beats to hit to make everything Steen says resonate, and Steen is one of the few guys in wrestling today with the mic skills to keep up.

Inside Ring of Honor brings us some more hype for Showdown, including a hype video from Lance Storm (with a shaved head) where he calls out Mike Bennett for not having respect, and shows off how great his physique is for a guy his age. His rope pressdowns looked a little sloppy though, considering he’s supposed to be Mr. Strict Form in the gym. We also get a rundown of March Mayhem, ROH’s answer to March Madness. This week we’ll have Jay Lethal vs. Roderick Strong, next week will be Adam Cole vs. Michael Elgin. In 2 weeks we have Tommaso Ciampa vs. Kyle O’Reilly and also Eddie Edwards vs. Mike Bennett. On April 7th the 4 winners will have a Final Four four-way match, and the winner of that will claim a $24,000 prize, half put up by each wrestler and half matched by ROH. I love how ROH uses these purely fictional financial incentives to spice up the storylines. It’s a good way to make matches seem more important without diluting the titles (although involving the TV champion in so many of these matches, as well as the World title picture, dilutes that title a lot). Money and love are the two biggest motivational factors in most of our lives that can cause conflict; wrestling in general needs to work those kind of storylines in more often.

Lethal vs. Strong was…well it just was. I think they were going for that epic standing slugfest kind of feel, where each man just unloaded with chops and punches. I just didn’t feel the stakes. It’s a thrown together gimmick match bertween two guys who will be wrestling again for higher stakes in a few weeks. This was another one of those trademark ROH “fetch quest” type matches: it went on for an extraordinarily long time, and most of that length just felt like padding for the sake of adding minutes to the match. Pretty much the whole match was both guys standing in the middle of the ring, hitting each other. Joe/Kobashi this weren’t, however. Lethal still came out just a smiling and high fiving away, despite not having possession of his ROH TV title due to Ciampa stealing it. Strong and Truth Martini are both incapable of expressing any emotion beyond heel smugness. So at no point did I really feel like either guy was really bringing it. A few signature spots got hit (Lethal Combination, Death By Roderick) and Martini got up on the apron to distract the ref and tease a collision a few times (and at least once too many) before Michael Elgin came out, attempted to interfere, and ended up colliding with Roddy to allow Jay to get the O’Connor roll for the win. I get what they were going for but this match was not an example of what either guy is capable of, by a long shot.

Kind of a lackluster ROH this week. Only two matches, one of which could have taken a whole match’s worth of time out of it and been more fun to watch. ROH doesn’t have a huge roster but nevertheless, a number of guys that they do have at their disposal seem to rarely get any time on TV. Shows like this one, where a promo segment featuring one wrestler and one non-wrestler is the most exciting thing on it, is not generally what ROH is known for. I’d like to see them have more one-off matches featuring indie talent outside of the exclusive ROH contracted roster, mixing it up with their current stars. I’d like to see a wider variety of guys get featured each week, even if they’re just winning squash matches. And I’d really like to see less matches that are just 20 minutes of chopping and rollups. ROH still brings it when it comes to their iPPVs and DVDs. They’ll be jacking off in a mirror for their small handful of fans if they don’t do more to spruce up their TV show, and I’d really hate to see that from such a great company. With that, it is now 9:53pm on March 22nd, and as always: Don’t take my word for it. Go to ROHwrestling.com and check it out for yourself.

Ring of Honor’s March 10th episode kicks off by introducing the “Blind Destiny Challenge”, building toward a challenger for the main even of the second night of this months iPPV double-header Showdown in the Sun. Not only does it leave the question open of who is going to challenge for the ROH title, but of who they’re going to challenge against, or whether that match will be for the title at all…

We kick off with Jim Cornette explaining that he wants to have a title match for both nights of Showdown, and thus he explains the Blind Destiny Challenge. Or at least I think that’s the idea. In theory this sounds like some intriguing booking that has probably never been seen before; in explanation it sounds like something Vince Russo and Jesse Baker would cook up while rolling on Ecstasy with the writers from Lost. On March 30th, we will have the triple threat match booked last week between Davey Richards, Eddie Edwards, and Roderick Strong. All three of those guys will have singles matches on the 31st. The winner between Kevin Steen and Adam Cole will face Eddie Edwards. The winner of Michael Elgin vs. Kyle O’Reilly will face Davey Richards. Either Jay Lethal or Kenny King will face Roderick Strong. These matches will all happen. However, if I’ve got this right (and after watching the segment three times, I kind of think I do), whoever leaves with the title on the 30th will be defending against his chosen opponent for the 31st; the other two matches will mean nothing. So, basically, with this show we’ll be seeing people qualify for a 1-in-3 chance of getting a shot at a title. Imagine all of that being explained in Jim Cornette’s hyperactive babble and you’ll see why it’s so headache inducing. The upshot is that it’s leaving a wider variety of people in the World title picture than just Richards, Edwards, and Strong. The downside is that in most of those cases, the match will either be one-sided or underwhelming for a World title match. You can also basically discount King winning his qualifier (since the All Night Express have matches against The Young Bucks booked both nights) and Steen competing for the title (because that’s for another time with more buildup). So with that…

Funny moment in one of the bumper segments promoting Showdown: ANX are interviewing with Kevin Kelly about their “Dual Duel” (that’s the kind of name that needs trademarking) against the Young Bucks. Their match on the 30th is a street fight, which Kenny King brushes off because “the Bucks are from Rancho Cucamonga, they play hopscotch in the streets out there”. Meanwhile, King is from the Dr. Phillips-Windermere area of Orlando, where I happened to personally know some preppie white kids who knew him growing up and said that he used to get picked on by all the dweeby rich kids in the neighborhood. So, yknow, glass houses and all that. That segues into a Kenny King solo promo and we kick off with his qualifier against Jay Lethal. There wasn’t much to this match, despite both guys being talented and similar in styles. A lot of stand up strikes, and a few high flying spots, nothing leading to much. Roderick Strong and Truth Martini came out to the entrance to scout toward the middle. He didn’t interfere, as I expected he wouldn’t, because he really has no dog in that fight. The cloest he comes to having a beef with Lethal is that Elgin inadvertantly cost Lethal his match against Davey. Strong would be more likely to want to see King take it since ANX are already booked for matches both nights. In any event, he was a non factor, as Lethal took the win by reversing a bridged O’Connor roll into a waistlock pin. There was enough here to keep the match moving, and Lethal/Roddy should be more interesting.

Adam Cole vs. Kevin Steen was next, which could have easily been the main event. The winner of this one faces Eddie Edwards, which raises some interesting drama. Cole of course is now Eddie’s partner, whereas Steen and Eddie have a common enemy (or frenemy or whatever in Eddies case) in Davey Richards. If there’s any ding against Steen in this match, it’s that he dominated a little too heavily against Cole. Steen’s brawling/devastating power move style works well against jobbers or else in long form matches where his opponent has more of a chance to take over. It was still great to watch against Cole here but it didn’t do Cole any favors. Cole threw enough reversals and cut-off comebacks that it wasn’t really a squash, but the match was mostly Steen in control. It’s fun to see where Steen is at in terms of his style: he’s really not that big in a general sense but he outweighs most of the ROH roster, so it’s easy for him to do big powerlifts and things like the front-press into a powerbomb he did here. But also, he’s still agile enough to do things like a springboard moonsault and a running upside down senton into Cole, seated in the corner. Steen ended with the F-Sanc, and then continued the beatdown until Eddie came out to make the save. Definitely worth checking out, if only because Steen’s Bruiser Brody style is really fun to watch.

Eddie vs. Steen is an intriguing proposition. Both have issues with Davey, who is more than likely going to feud with Steen, culminating at Final Battle this year. Eddie would be a good choice to keep Steen busy throughout the summer. There is something to the idea that, while Eddie has been on the verge of turning on Davey for a year now, he still is basically a face and still doesn’t have an outright hatred of Davey. How will he react when he’s in a position where he has to get in the way of Steen, who is hot to outright destroy Davey and hold ROH hostage? Will Steen try and bring Eddie all the way over on to his side? Or will Eddie’s battles with Steen help build the bridge between he and Davey? I hope that this issue between Edwards and Steen goes beyond this month, because it’s a ripe opportunity for storylines.

The last qualifier is between Kyle O’Reilly and Michael Elgin. The winner will face Davey Richards (KO’s trainer and Elgin’s enemy from the House of Truth). Davey joins us on commentary here, and I’d like to note, was awesome at it. He called moves, explained pxychology, referred to history with both himself and Nigel, and gave commentary to KO’s performance. He didn’t just blandly cheer him on though: he was critiquing the mistakes he made and explaining what the next move he should make would be. If Davey ever gets injured, sitting in the commentary booth would be a great way for him to keep busy. As for the match, it was great, and way better than I expected. KO and Elgin are both newish to the business, and they both have different styles. Elgin always comes off as a powerful beast in ROH. I find that kind of funny, since he’s 5’10 and 245 lbs., which makes him about on par, size wise, with Taz. Yet, much like Steen, he can throw around most of the smaller ROH roster. He’s also developing a great repertoire of unique power moves. At different points he was doing big suplexes, side slams, and even rolled through a small package into a version of Matt Morgan’s Hellevator. He’s still pretty charisma-deficient, but he is definitely finding his groove in the ring. It played well against KO, who did more of the plucky underdog thing that his former partner did against Steen in the last match. He continually used his kicks to try and go toe-to-toe against Elgin, and caught the kinds of submissions that can neutralize Elgin’s power. Repeatedly he tried for a guillotine choke, including coming out of a tornado DDT position. Strong and Martini attempted to interfere on a few occasions, which finally brought Davey out of the booth to brawl it out with Roddy. During the last portion of this, Elgin caught KO with the spinning sitout powerbomb. I don’t much expect Davey to lose on the 30th, so unless my instincts are off, we can expect Richards/Elgin for the title on the 31st.

All in all the wrestling on this show was great for fans of power moves, and not so much for those who aren’t. I am a fan of power moves, and I enjoyed it because of that. While some of the booking was convoluted or fell flat, it all will lead to more interesting scenarios on the 31st. That’s the thing about ROH: at their worst they’re still better than most. Don’t take my word for it: go to ROHwrestling.com and check it out for yourself.

This week’s Ring of Honor TV features a Number one contenders match for Davey Richards’ ROH World title, as his former partner and frequent foe “Die Hard” Eddie Edwards faces Roderick Strong. Also in action is “The Dominant Male” Tommaso Ciampa, and “The Prodigy” Mike Bennett takes on “Technical Lightning” TJ Perkins.

A couple things I wanna touch on before I get into things. I didn’t get the chance to check out last weekend’s iPPV, Young Wolves Rising, just due to personal reasons. If I’m being honest, ROH really needs to consider finding a better timeslot for their iPPVs or just abandoning the format until someone will put them on regular PPV. Starting at 5pm Eastern time doesn’t really make for engaging action, especially when someone might be just settling down to dinner or doing whatever else. Plus, consider how that comes across for people on the west coast or abroad. In California, you’d have to sit down at 2pm to watch an ROH iPPV, and that just isn’t a prime time. Still, I heard the show was excellent, and I’m considering getting the DVD when it becomes available. Also, I wanted to poll my readers about when I do these recaps. I’ve been doing them for the last month for the weekend, or Thursday night at the earliest. That’s when the show posts for any unpaid, General Admission members at ROHwrestling.com, and I assume by that point it’s aired everywhere on the Sinclair syndication package (since, as far as I know, it doesn’t air in the same time slot everywhere). Does this seem too late to anyone? I don’t have the Ringside membership where the show becomes available on Mondays just because it doesn’t seem really valuable to me, since I’ll be lucky if I find the time to watch it before the weekend anyway. I know other sites have their ROH analysis up by Tuesday morning; does anyone who reads this feel like I should be doing these that early as well? I’m willing to do that if any readers really feel like it’s what they want. Otherwise, I think this might get lost in the mid-week shuffle. Anyone who has an opinion, let me know in the comments. I aim to please.

Anyhow, we kick off with a promo from Mike Bennett and Maria (who I recently found out was his real-life girlfriend. Lucky bastard.) At the 2 night event in Tampa later this month, Bennett is facing Lance Storm, coming out of retirement for this one match. Storm did something similar years ago against Bryan Danielson, and while many people love that match, I feel like it’s the purest example of “Perfectly Acceptable Wrestling” stretched out to a point where it becomes nearly unbearable. Taking Storm, a wrestler who is more give than take and mainly excels at making his opponent look great, and putting him against Bennett, who could use the rub but doesn’t have nearly enough offense to make Storm’s giving worthwhile, should make this match a trainwreck in progress. I was trying to think this week of what it is about Bennett that inspires so much apathy in me. The conclusion I’ve come to is this: he’s another Randy Orton. Not (I hope) in terms of backstage attitude or no-selling. He’s like Orton in the way he’s percieved inside the business. Guys like Storm don’t just pop out of retirement and fly to Florida to take on anyone that happens to be hanging around. Obviously Storm wants to put Bennett over. Bennett has gotten a tremendous mid-card push in ROH, and from what I’ve gathered from different sources, people in the business and out have judged him to be a star in waiting. Despite all this, he just doesn’t deliver. His ring work is competent, but nothing special. He has charisma, but his mic skills are “generically charismatic”, if that makes any sense. I keep hoping that working extensively with Jay Lethal and El Generico would have rubbed off in a way that makes Bennett raise his game, but he mainly does the same kind of spots that most NXT rookies have in their arsenals. As I said, he’s Orton: someone who can fake the total package of looking and acting like a star without actually having the quality to back any of that up. Still, he’ll have a long and successful career in wrestling, simply because he’s able to position himself as having potential that he doesn’t actually have. Someday ten years from now, when we’re more familiar with Bennett as future WWE Champion Roscoe Riggins, I’m sure more people on the internet will share my opinion.

Despite all that, Bennett’s match against “Theoretical Thunder” TJ Perkins was actually really well booked. Perkins hasn’t quite made his name in ROH yet, but last weekend, his slapped together match teaming with Amazing Red against the House of Truth stole the show, from all reports. Perkins has a youthful look but a few years of experience, and he has a lucha-influenced style that makes for great babyface pops. He has the look of a young skate punk mixed with a Latin heartthrob, like a Hernandez Bros. character come to life. I think he’s got a path carved out for him in ROH if he stays with the company. Even though ostensibly this was just a jobber match for Bennett to get heat for his match against Storm, Perkins isn’t quite at that job level. Most of the match was built around Perkins hitting an array of high flying spots, while Bennett got almost no offense in and generally only gained the upper hand due to interference from Maria and his “trainer”, Brutal Bob Evans (and as far as shitty Denny’s ripoffs go, Bob Evans is pretty brutal. Almost as Brutal as a guy doing a “Mick from Rocky” gimmick). Those sort of shenanigans led to Bennett getting the win with a TKO. As far as what it was meant for, this match did its job. It made me want to see “Arguable Atmospheric Pressure” TJ Perkins wrestle again, and it made me like Bennett less.

Next we get promos from Jay Lethal and Tommaso Ciampa, hyping their TV title match that happened this past Sunday (this show first aired last Saturday. Another point toward me doing these sooner?). Ciampa had the rest of The Embassy, LTD with him (Prince Nana, Princess Mia Yim, Ernesto Osiris, and Barrister RD Evans, who unfortunately did not speak), and he cut a fairly intense if unremarkable promo against Lethal, really selling the kind of steely intensity that has led to, in addition to “The Dominant Male”, his nickname becoming “The Sicilian Psychopath”. Even if Ciampa isn’t on the top level of mic skills, he has RD Evans at his side. Anyone who reads these comments knows about RD’s cult following here: the guy is a seriously gifted comedic actor and he should be doing a lot more on ROH TV. To top that off, Ciampa is stellar in the ring. Tonight he faced Guy Alexander (Sidenote: first the chirons at the bottom of the screen didn’t list either wrestler’s name, and then the Tale of the Tape featured Cedric Alexander instead of Guy. Very bush league from ROH, something that they can’t afford to come off as.) It was an out and out squash, as Ciampa completely unleashed on Alexander. Ciampa does a lot of kicks & Knees to the head, and he employs a lot of that Sheamus-style repeated blows to his opponents. He’s not meat & potatoes by any means, though: when I saw him live late last year, he worked a more technical/submission style, and even worked in some comedy spots while playing babyface. No comedy here though. One really cool moment saw Ciampa whipping Alexander back and forth between the guard rail and the ring apron several times; it was a simple enough spot that broke the babyface down completely without having to really do anything too high risk. The ending had Ciampa driving running knees into Alexander’s face, face wash style in the corner, six times in a row before the referee intervened and declared Alexander unable to continue. What an awesome way to put someone over as a killer. The only disappointment is that he didn’t get to finish Alexander off with his choice finisher, the Project Ciampa II: a powerbomb-into-Backstabber. Mark my words, Tommaso Ciampa has the ROH World title in his future. Ciampa is fucking bank.

The Number One Contender match between Eddie Edwards and Roderick Strong, with the winner facing Davey Richards at Showdown in the Sun on March 30th. Eddie won his first and only ROH World title from Roddy, so there’s some history there. While it’s not surprising that these two are perennial challengers to the ROH title, it does seem as though Richards, Edwards, and Strong are the only three people who are even a part of the ROH title scene. Not that ROH has a deep roster but they’ve been running with those three guys for almost 2 years now, and they need to variate things a little so they don’t get stale. Nevertheless, these two are very well suited to one another. Their styles are extremely similar, with lots of standup striking, simple high flying, and a variety of power moves from both men. This match seemed almost effortless from these two, and they played well off one another. Strong has always had a little problem with being charisma deficient but, while his mic skills are still pretty rough, he’s developing quite a bit of physical charisma in his heel role. Eddie & Roddy are both big choppers, and inevitably they ended up trading chops in the ring. No surprise, Eddie won out. Toward the end, Eddie kicked out of a Death By Roderick gutbuster rather quickly, and then as they moved toward the top rope, Eddie reversed a top rope DBR attempt into a rana. Following up with a Chin Checker (backpack stunner), both men were slowed. Truth Martini made an attempt to interfere from the outside, which drew out Adam Cole to lay him out with a superkick. That brought Michael Elgin out to even the odds, and referee Todd Sinclair got involved long enough for Strong to make a move from Heel 101. He put something around his boot, which was more than likely just some tape but it could have been anything. With this he delivered the Sick Kick (running sitout big boot) and Eddie did a full double twist Jannetty sell in a great visual. Sinclair got back in to count the win for Strong, but referee Paul Turner came out of the back to dispute. Edwards wasn’t going to wait around for someone to restart the match officially, so he hit the Die Hard (a cross legged fisherman buster, and might I add, a move that needs renaming if “Die Hard” is gonna be his nickname) and knocked Sinclair down in the process, with Turner counting the pin. After the break everyone is in the ring and Cornette declares both men to be Number One Contender, to face Davey in a 3 way on the 30th. If I were booking ROH, I’d be extremely careful about overusing these kind of Dusty Finishes and fuck finishes every week. That kind of thing used to be a dirty word in ROH, and it doesn’t sit well when compared to the overwealth of 50/50 booking in wrestling right now.

In total, this week was highlight to some great wrestling. Even though all these matches were, basically, short TV matches meant to advance angles rather than stand on their own, the in ring quality here was top notch. If nothing else, ROH continues to impress by keeping it simple: take a talented roster full of quality workers, and let them go out and have matches to show what they got. Leave a comment below if you’d like to see me knock these out sooner and as always, remember: Don’t take my word for it. Go to ROHwrestling.com and check it out yourself.