Official Death Before Dishonor XIII Thread

[DBSommer]

Eh, I can't really fault them for that and frankly, it didn't even cross my mind live until I read your message here. I mean, every time they mention the clock in a match, you know they're going for a draw so the less they talk about it the better imo, but I get your point about how unrealistic that is.

This. The more they talk about the time limit, the more they foreshadow it going to be a draw. I'd rather they 'play dumb' and assume it's not going to be a draw until there's only 5 minutes left or so.

[DXvsNWO1994]

ROH Death Before Dishonor XIII
Baltimore, Maryland 7/24/15

1.) Silas Young vs. Will Ferrara: **1/2

2.) Cedric Alexander (with Veda Scott) vs. Moose (with Stokely Hathaway): ***1/2

3.) The Briscoes vs. Roppongi Vice: ****

4.) Adam Cole vs. Dalton Castle: ****

5.) No DQ Match - ACH vs. Adam Page (with The Decade): ***3/4

6.) ROH World Tag Team Titles - Four-Corner Survival - The Addiction vs. War Machine vs. The Kingdom (Matt Taven & Michael Bennett with Maria Kanellis) vs. reDRagon: ***1/2

7.) ROH World Title - Jay Lethal (with Truth Martini) vs. Roderick Strong: ***1/2

Overall: 8.25/10

This wasn't a blow-away show, but aside from the opener, everything was *** or higher (though nothing went above ****). Thoroughly enjoyed The Briscoes vs. Roppongi Vice & Adam Cole vs. Dalton Castle. I enjoyed the Alexander/Moose match, even with the interference. The No DQ Match had some really cool stuff in it (ACH's 450 off the apron and the ending table spot were great). The World Tag Team Title Match was really fun for what it was. As far as the Main Event goes, it wasn't horrible by any means (I saw somebody give it **1/2 and I don't think it warrants that low of a rating at all). The wrestling was good, even great in spots (Lethal & Strong are fantastic), but for me, it never felt like they got out of that first or second gear for the majority of the match. It honestly reminded me of the first Styles/Elgin match that went to a draw, in the sense that there was really no sense of urgency, and they were just exchanging moves waiting for time to run out. Nobody made a serious attempt to actually win the match. Lethal's Time Limit Draw with ACH last summer (which was a great match) is a good example of how this match should have been booked. As far as the time issue goes, at some point, I realized that they were going to do the full hour, but the fact that the commentators made no mention of it whatsoever was really annoying in retrospect.

[jordidebaas]

Eh, I can't really fault them for that and frankly, it didn't even cross my mind live until I read your message here. I mean, every time they mention the clock in a match, you know they're going for a draw so the less they talk about it the better imo, but I get your point about how unrealistic that is.

This. The more they talk about the time limit, the more they foreshadow it going to be a draw. I'd rather they 'play dumb' and assume it's not going to be a draw until there's only 5 minutes left or so.

They could just mention the time limit more often in matches that won't be going the full hour/half an hour/whatever the time limit is.

[AssShooter]

They could just mention the time limit more often in matches that won't be going the full hour/half an hour/whatever the time limit is.

You're right, but they didn't and it was too late for this match.
The last time i remember them talking about it was during ACH vs Lethal and it ends up being a time limit draw...
I though Lethal would win the match and the surprise came from the time limit, i didn't though about it at all during the match especially because they never do it.
Personally, i loved the match and the ending.
The iPPV overall was great, my second favorite match was Dalton Castle vs Adam Cole.
Too bad they didn't show another angle for the flip where ACH hit the cameraman, it was fun but we saw nothing.

[Burnside]

Genuinely surprised to hear that not many others were thinking time limit draw. Honestly, once they hit about the 40 minute mark I pretty much knew that was happening. However, if I'm indeed in the minority then they were right not to mention it, because as you can imagine the last 20 minutes of the match felt kind of meaningless to me since I was expecting the finish and the longer it went the more certain I was.

[AlexROH]

Good show, crowd wasn´t too hot but nothing was bad. My MOTN was Cole/Castle (my god, Castle is having such an amazing year). Tag matches were good too. I didn´t like as much as everybody here the No DQ match between ACH and Page, it felt like they were just doing spot+rest time+spot in the last 10 minutes of the match. With a great ME this could have been easily one of the best shows ROH has produced this year, but it wasn´t. Match didn´t felt too long for me but was like they only were waiting for the time limit, no one was looking for the victory.

Silas Young vs Will Ferrara **3/4
Moose vs Cedric Alexander ***1/4
The Briscoes (Mark & Jay Briscoe) vs RPG Vice (Trent Baretta & Rocky Romero) ***1/2-
Adam Cole vs Dalton Castle ***3/4
ACH vs Adam Page – No DQ Match ***1/2
reDRagon (Bobby Fish & Kyle O´Reilly) vs The Kingdom (Mike Bennett & Matt Taven) vs War Machine (Hanson & Raymond Rowe) vs The Addiction (Christopher Daniels & Frankie Kazarian) ***1/4
Jay Lethal vs Roderick Strong ***3/4

Final rating for the show: 7.25

[Big Red Machine]

ROH Death Before Dishonor XIII (7/24/2015) Baltimore, MD

SILAS YOUNG vs. WILL FERRARA- 5.25/10
Good for what it was. They set up the finishing sequence very well. After the match the Boys came out. Silas attacked one of them but the second one saved him and Silas still wound up being humiliated.

CEDRIC ALEXANDER (w/Veda Scott) vs. MOOSE (w/Stokely Hathaway)- 6.75/10
Veda Scott is dressed like the world’s most prudish hooker, which kind of works perfectly with her character. Like she wants to dress really sexy, but she has WAY too much self-respect to show up looking like a total skank.
GAH! GET THE F*CKING CAMERA OFF THE ANOUNCERS WHEN THERE’S ACTION GOING ON IN THE RING!
The match was very good, even with the overbooking. Some people might think that this finish is repetitive, but as Stokely said in a promo during the video package, there is a difference between taking advantage of a situation when you’re desperate and going out of your way to cheat.

THE BRISCOES vs. ROPPONGI VICE- 7.25/10
Apparently Rocky Romero is the one singing the terrible lyrics in Roppongi Vice’s terrible entrance music. Great match, and without any annoying Forever Hooligans spots. It’s almost like Rocky has finally realized that Trent Barreta is not Alex Koslov.

ADAM COLE vs. DALTON CASTLE (w/his boys)- 7/10
Good nearfalls towards the end with some of those roll-ups for Castle. Cole shows Castle respect after the match, but while that is happening, Silas jumps the boys on the outside.

BJ WHITMER PROMO- he’s on crutches (apparently he had some knee surgery) and says he wants to do commentary. He is an ass to Corino who decides to just let BJ do commentary rather than fighting him, which is what I was hoping would happen.

NO DISQUALIFICATIONS MATCH: ACH vs. Adam Page (w/Colby Corino)- 8/10
Great weapon use, scary bumps, and a great finish that manages to make you feel cheated even though it was a no DQ’s match.

FOUR CORNER SURVIVAL MATCH FOR THE ROH WORLD TAG TEAM TITLES: The Addiction(c) vs. War Machine vs. reDRagon vs. The Kingdom (w/Maria Kanellis)- 8/10
Cole came out to do commentary, letting us know that he’s not happy that he wasn’t part of his stablemates’ strategy meeting for this match. The match had some great action and also did a great job of setting up the next challengers for the tag titles. Awesome match.

ROH WORLD TITLE MATCH: Jay Lethal(c) (w/the House of Truth) vs. Roderick Strong- 9.25/10
A slow-paced, grueling match that really felt like the marathon it was, while having you biting on every nearfall.


I seem to be the only one who wasn't expecting a Broadway, I was expecting them to go 45-55 and then have a fall, so it caught me a little by surprise.

[BigTChamp]

That was a great show top to bottom.. I was glued to my TV during the main event and was honestly surprised when the bell rang, I hadn't looked at the clock at all. Greatest ROH title match of all time is probably pushing it but I don't understand how anyone could put it under 4 stars, especially when it gets a match of the year chant.

[IchaelMelgin]

'Match of the year' probably pushes it too as I easily preferred Lethal/Briscoe partly for the spectacle and the build-up. The main flaw in this match is that it would've taken me about 45 minute before I started to think "hang on, Roddy might win this" but this was still excellent. Really well booked match, the interferences, the nearfalls all in place, Oh, and that near-tap, fuck. I see some of you saw the time limit coming but time flew for me and it didn't cross my mind once.
ACH/Page and Castle/Cole were also ace

[Wilson]

I have not yet seen the show (I am not sure if I plan to), but I think I really like the booking of this Lethal and Roddy encounter. Lethal this year has been booked tremendously and is easily carrying the weight of the company’s dramatic interest. His recent losses to Kyle and this recent stalemate are in some sense unfortunate—new ROH World champions would be better off completely protected—though the whole company seems to be benefitting from this recent shakeup. These two events will have generated two constant protagonists in Lethal’s reign.

Further, I’m very happy they protected Roddy in this one, who probably needed it more than Lethal. Roddy has practically taken the role left by Danielson and Steen, which the card has accepted. Using his newfound importance to merely feed Lethal (and so early on) would have been a waste of such a good thing.

Jay Lethal’s reign so far seems very promising. I hope I am a happy camper all the way until Final Battle.

[ROHfan2002]

Let me post my response to the whole announcing the time left in the main event:

I ordered the event, but due to unforeseen circumstances, was not able to watch it live. I was able to watch the last 21:00 the next morning. If you also did it this way, you know that they never talked about the time, which was perfect. I had no idea how long they had been wrestling when I started up, so had no clue a time limit draw was a possibility. Got caught up in the match and was surprised it ended in a 1 hour draw. That drama I felt during the last ten minutes would have been totally ruined if they had been calling out the time left in the time limit. No way should they have done that, no matter what a real sport would do.

Also, I very much have enjoyed the whole show. I thought every match was at worst good, and was very much impressed by Moose/Alexander and ACH/Page. Those who are shitting on those matches are just totally biased against Moose, or have some high standard I don't know about. Two very strong bouts that together were worth the fifteen bucks I paid.

[JigsawVs.Jason]

top notch PPV, never have been so thoroughly entertained by 3 plus hours in a couple of weeks, miles better than anything NJPW has done in this year's G1 so far.
Also shocked at some of the ratings for the main event, that was an outstanding classic that had me marking out like a child when I realized they were going 60 and how awesome that was fitting to the storyline they were pursuing. Lethal's facial expression when he realized that Roddy was fitter and better conditioned and would simply not die, rendering the survival by time limit draw his only hope was phenomenal.
Genereally, I do have the impression with all those neat little storylines for every midcard match, that ROH is going back to its roots, ROH has never felt so much like the Gabe era, ever since he left obviously. Absolutely great show with several must-see matches. And damn, it felt good to see a top to bottom great wrestling show after the disappointment that is the new version of the G1.

Young/Ferrara ***
Cedric/Moose *** 3/4 Absolutely the best match in the career of Moose, if he is booked like that, I have no problem whatsoever with him getting more spotlight.
Briscoes/RPG Vice **** Vintage Briscoes match, they're finally back where they thrive in.
Cole/Castle **** 1/4 Wow, outstanding, the most entertaining wrestling match in a long time, both Cole and Castle ooze charisma like nobody else in the American wrestling business.
Page/ACH **** 1/4 best match in the career of Page, absoulte break-out match in my opinion, not a spotfest but an amazingly crafted grudge match with a lot of intensity and - who would have thought - the heel is winning the feud, great bookign once again.
4 Corner Surivial *** 1/2 nice spotfest
Lethal/Strong **** 1/2 absolutely epic and amazing storytelling and pure wrestling. Pretty much no spots, match was worked almost exclusively without pre-planned spots, reminded me a lot of some of the amazing Danielson matches. Outstanding psychology and storytelling, plus a Roddy that was able to quicken the pace whenever necessary to keep the fans going. Match of the Year might be a bit exaggerated, but this was worth the price of the iPPV alone.

[Burnside]

My ratings were:

Young/Ferrara - **1/2. Decent opener. The post-match sequence where The Boys (who should actually be called "My Boys") sexually harassed Silas was awkward both in conception and execution.

Cedric/Moose - *1/2. Whatever most of you guys are seeing in Moose, I'm just not, at all, seeing it. I thought this match was junk, despite the efforts of Cedric and both managers to try to make something out of Moose's three moves with stalling and stooging. Moose nearly killed Cedric with a botched powerbomb, dropping him right on his tailbone. Cedric's Michinoku Driver was sweet.

Briscoes/RPG Vice - ***. Fun match. Baretta is a really interesting wrestler.

Cole/Castle - ***1/4. Castle is not on Cole's level as a worker, but he held his own here. This was given time and felt like they were trying to give Dalton a break-out match to establish him as an upper-level worker; I'm not entirely convinced either way.

ACH/Page - ***1/2. The good kind of garbage match. Page hitting a nasty Rite of Passage off the apron through a table should have been the finish, and, in fact, it was! Props for not doing three or four more moves after that.

4 Corner Tag - ***1/2. Entertaining chaos.

Strong/Lethal - ****. Really good but I struggled to stay with it. They did succeed in creating a faint flicker of belief that Strong could win. I knew the draw was coming from around the 40-45 minute mark so that hurt it for me because I felt like I was waiting for an inevitable finish. Kevin Kelly calling it the greatest match in ROH history was really dumb and I kinda felt like he knew it the moment he said it. I do like this booking.

[lariat_tubman]

I think if I had not known it was going to be a 60-minute draw going into it I would have had a bit more negative opinion of the main event. But knowing what I was getting into I liked it a lot.

As far as the "greatest match" comment goes, yes it was Michael Cole-esh.

[DieHard]

Young/Ferrara **
Cedric/MOOSE ***1/4. MOOSE! Glad to see more ppls jumping on the bandwagon.
Briscoes/RPG Vice ***1/2
Cole/Castle ***1/2. Awesome. Just awesome.
Page/ACH ***3/4. Break out match for Page, finally. Loved every second of it
4 Corner Surivial ***1/4
Lethal/Strong ****1/4. Wasn't MOTY or obv best title match in ROH's history, but yes, fantastic match. Kinda surprised by some of the ratings here, imo no way its under the 4* territory.

Great show! everything was good-great, with the main event being outstanding. ROH's on a roll.

[Mike0284]