Random ROH Thoughts Thread

[monster mafia]

Lineup for Zero Hour:

- Willow Nightingale vs. Trish Adora
- Top Flight vs. The Kingdom
- Menard/Parker vs. Shinobi Shadow Squad
- Mascara Dorada vs. Jeff Cobb

[dhads7161]

Once again Isom is going to have to be Burger's fall boy. Fuck that.

[McXal]

I’m moderately excited for the show. As others have said - Briscoes/FTR is the obvious stand-out. But unless Tony is at the point where a brand separation & ROH TV/streaming show is imminent then I just don’t see the Briscoes winning. And I really don’t want to see FTR beat them whilst a largely AEW crowd cheers to the rafters for a third time.

Jericho/Claudio is fine for the World Title match. Not necessarily where I’d have gone - but I’m in an apparent minority on this board that has really enjoyed Jericho’s title run. My dream ending is Bryan getting the ROH Title back and I could feasibly see Claudio in the JAS as a route to that eventuality too. REALLY hope this doesn’t go on last though (but equally having Briscoes/FTR 3 go on last makes me even more sceptical that the Briscoes will win - which I really want to see).

I’ve literally just finished reviewing the Mercedes/Athena rivalry in my SHIMMER review series so, on some levels theirs is perhaps what I’m looking forward to most on the show. I LOVE Athena’s new direction, I loved their mini-feud in SHIMMER and I’m always down to watch a Mercedes Martinez match. I just hope they get enough time and enough creative freedom (and Mercedes has enough left in her physically) to deliver the hard-hitting, exciting ‘strong style’ fight I’d love to see from them. My head says we won’t get that time or freedom though - and I’m preparing myself to be disappointed by this in all honesty.

Garcia/Yuta and Joe/Juice are both only ok. As other posters have pointed out, the BCC/JAS stuff has gone on a long time, and I really don’t feel the need to see another match between Garcia and Wheeler - but having said that I think they could steal the show if they get a decent time allowance. Meanwhile I love Joe dearly so getting him on an ROH show will never not feel special. But I’ve been pretty disheartened at how he’s been booked for pretty much all of his AEW run and I’m not liking what he’s doing now either (nor do I like Wardlow just FYI). I’m not the biggest Juice fan either so I’d be lying if it wasn’t just the ‘special’ feeling that having Joe back on another ROH show that was carrying my intrigue for their match.

I have some problems with some of the rest though. I was PUMPED to see Shane Taylor finally show up in AEW. He was super under-rated in the dying days of Sinclair’s ownership and one of the best parts of the show so deserves the spotlight. I even tweeted as such. But my excitement was instantly diminished when they made his match with Keith Lee a tag match that I care substantially less about. And I just don’t have faith that it will ‘lead anywhere’ and we’ll get the Taylor/Keith match I actually really wanted to see down the line. (And if we do it’ll be 7 minutes on Dynamite/Rampage and a fraction as good as it could’ve been)

And why the hell is the Six Man Title not on Zero Hour? I don’t need to see Dalton doing the exact same act he was doing five years ago in ROH, and the ROH Trios belts have to be one of the least prestigious and most pointless prop championships around right now. I love Nana but I’m hardly invested in the current Embassy incarnation either. All I know is that on the main show all this does is suck time away from matches I’d rather see (Garcia/Yuta, Mercedes/Athena & Briscoes/FTR). Absolute best case scenario is that Embassy do a G1 Supercard Rush job on Dalton and take up as little time as possible. I’ve just seen that Kingdom vs Top Flight is on the pre-show. I would SO much rather have that on the main show than Dalton/Boys vs Cage/GOA

So…a mixed bag. Easily the least excited I’ve been for an AEW-owned ROH event so far. Luckily I think the wrestling will still be decent. Above all else I’m hoping the show is the platform for an announcement of a full split and ROH starting its own TV in early 2023. But also hoping for Briscoes winning, Jericho beating Claudio to lead to Bryan getting the ROH Title, Athena/Mercedes and Yuta/Garcia getting enough time to deliver on the potential of their matches…and Joe just being Joe.

Having said all of that the slightly odd start time means I’ll be skipping a live review as I’m out for the England vs France World Cup QF. And as I have plans over the next few days I’m not actually sure when I’ll be getting round to watching it!

[Montana]

Bit the bullet and got the PPV. Wanted to support it mostly. Would hate to see ROH dissolve.

As expected, the matches have been good to start.

Some open seats to start, but filled in with the ppv. Not a huge crowd, but decent. Said it was the highest in FB history. It’s a big venue though.

Some surprising results thus far too.

[Montana]

So it sounds like there will be a weekly ROH tv show on HonorClub starting in mid-Jan-ish. TK made it sound like ROH would work with NJPW, CMLL, and AAA moving forward for the content. More details coming mid-Jan.

The brands would mostly be separate, but some overlap.

[Montana]

All in all, quite a good show. 8.5/10

Pre-show
Cobb vs. Mascara Dorado 3.25 - Fun opener
Willow vs. Adora 2.5 - Crowd was way into willow
Parker/Menard vs. SSS - 2.5
OGK vs. Top Flight 3.5


Main Show

Rush/Dralistico vs. Blake Christian / AR Fox - 3.75 - I don't know if the ending was supposed to happen like that, but entertaining way to start the show.

Athena vs. Mercedes 3.25 - Surprised this was second, but good.

STP vs. Sweve in our glory - 4.25 - Thought this was great. Griffey is still a bit green, but this match delivered.

Dalton & BOys vs. Embassy - 3.00 - Tonga Loa sucks, but still a pretty fun match. The boys have gotten a lot better i've noticed.

Garcia vs. Yuta. 3.5-3.75 - This match didn't click with me as much, and probably the let down of the show. FAR from a bad match by any means. It just wasn't what i envision as a top tier "Pure" match. They tried to build it as these guys hating each other. Just took away from the match, more than it helped.

FTR vs. Briscoes III - 4.5 - A lot of folks are calling this MOTY; and must watch. It was great, brutal war. Probably go down as one of the greatest trilogies ever. Probably the best tag team one. Great finale, but for my taste, preferred the first. A decent amount of blood in this one, which can turn some folks away.

Samoa Joe vs. Juice Robinson 3.25 - Hard to follow that match up, but good.

Jericho vs. Claudio - 3.5 - Nice ending to the match. Kind of came out of no where.


All in all, good show. Nothing really bad. Not much in the way of surprises. Think a big surprise or major announcement would have bumped it up for me to a 9 or better. Think 8.5 is fair though. Ian & Caprice did a great job too. I find myself getting more sucked into the action with their commentary. They really are noticeably better than any commentary team out there, in my opinion.

Note; Tony Deppen & Trent Seven were in the crowd.

Media Scrum - Was patiently waiting for the update on ROH TV. TK said it would be a nuanced answer. Basically said a weekly show would start/be announced for Mid JAN on HonorClub 9.99. More details forthcoming. Wants to use NJPW/CMLL/AAA a lot for the show. Said the new ROH app; has a lot of improved functionally as well. Sounds like the brands will mostly be separate ; but room for stuff like forbidden door.

Still a lot of details missing. Sounds like more information forthcoming. If done right, this could be really good. Not good that it's behind a paywall; but i'd rather have a pay wall and keep the quality higher, than a show like AEW dark. I imagine they'll still have a way to get content out for free; to bring you into the paywall product. Who knows too... this could move to "MAX" the new HBO Max/Discovery app; OR they could have an actual TV deal; and the TV show will also live on HonorClub. For now; it's look like a weekly show on HC for 9.99.

[tigermask7.0]

Need to sell episodes of the new television show into syndication after they debut on HonorClub. This would expand the market past the pay wall & help generate revenue.

[monster mafia]

[Wavelet Transform]

The news on the “television” deal is disappointing. I guess this the original TNA model - gain enough buzz on a paid platform to get picked up by a television station. There’s still a lot of questions. When / where will these shows be taped? Ideally, not before Dynamite / Rampage. How do talent deals work? Do you get paid the same working Dynamite that you do ROH? Will any talents that do well (and aren’t the Briscoes and Cabana) not get scooped up for AEW (as Tony already does w/ Impact and NJPW)? Is there really no station that wants ROH? Or is Tony limited to Warner-Discovery?

Dumb, greedy move to not include ppvs with an Honor Club subscription at the 9.99 price. There isn’t nearly enough content to justify that price - WWE network gets you all their ppvs plus orders of magnitude more content for the same price. $ 5 / month with no ppvs and 9.99 / month with ppvs would have been fine. Would also help gauge interest in the old content. Also a dick move to put ppvs up 90 days later. That’s 3x longer than the UFC platform. Tony’s either delusional or setting this up to fail intentionally.

[Montana]

Need to sell episodes of the new television show into syndication after they debut on HonorClub. This would expand the market past the pay wall & help generate revenue.

My guess is that it's not a good time for them to go away from Warner/Discovery. They seem to be fine with airing the PPV's on B/R live; so i think this is just the first step, to starting recording content; and not have it interfere with AEW angles. If my memory serves me correct, AEW is going to be negotiating their 2024 TV deal with Warner soon, which is the top priority. Maybe TK negotiates additional programming with ROH , on say TruTV.

[Montana]

The news on the “television” deal is disappointing. I guess this the original TNA model - gain enough buzz on a paid platform to get picked up by a television station. There’s still a lot of questions. When / where will these shows be taped? Ideally, not before Dynamite / Rampage. How do talent deals work? Do you get paid the same working Dynamite that you do ROH? Will any talents that do well (and aren’t the Briscoes and Cabana) not get scooped up for AEW (as Tony already does w/ Impact and NJPW)? Is there really no station that wants ROH? Or is Tony limited to Warner-Discovery?

Dumb, greedy move to not include ppvs with an Honor Club subscription at the 9.99 price. There isn’t nearly enough content to justify that price - WWE network gets you all their ppvs plus orders of magnitude more content for the same price. $ 5 / month with no ppvs and 9.99 / month with ppvs would have been fine. Would also help gauge interest in the old content. Also a dick move to put ppvs up 90 days later. That’s 3x longer than the UFC platform. Tony’s either delusional or setting this up to fail intentionally.

While yes, having it on TV would be nice... i think it's more of a timing thing really. Like you said, still a lot of questions. Although i think it could work well taping with Dynamite or Rampage given the built in crowd. I've been to one Dynamite & Rampage and one Rampage/ Battle of the Belts. The Dark tapings were AWFUL. 60-90 minutes of squashes?!? No thanks. Personally i'd like to see ROH tour soon, but who knows. I think for now; it's in AEW's and ROH's best interest to share resources. I don't know what that looks like financially with the books.

I think they can and will provide more value than one TV show for 9.99. They already said NJPW and their global partners would play a big part in ROH moving forward. So my guess, is they are going to try and stack these shows with some good matches. We aren't seeing filler with like dark. Plus , who knows how long it will last with this format. Maybe they bundle NJPW strong with it...or maybe ROH & NJPW Tour together. Seems very strange to wait until Wrestle Kingdom to not announce more... so there must be something there. Maybe they do have like a monthly themed show, as like a PPV included with HonorClub. Plenty of options with this approach, and no restrictions like with a TV deal. Start here; and see where things go with Warner/Discovery.

[Wavelet Transform]

While yes, having it on TV would be nice... i think it's more of a timing thing really. Like you said, still a lot of questions. Although i think it could work well taping with Dynamite or Rampage given the built in crowd. I've been to one Dynamite & Rampage and one Rampage/ Battle of the Belts. The Dark tapings were AWFUL. 60-90 minutes of squashes?!? No thanks. Personally i'd like to see ROH tour soon, but who knows. I think for now; it's in AEW's and ROH's best interest to share resources. I don't know what that looks like financially with the books.

Taping before Dynamite makes ROH seem second-rate - real WWECW vibes. But, an ROH / Rampage combo show could be cool and make a Rampage show more appealing. I’d rather see ROH tour separately - smaller venues w/ hot crowds and a product that’s clearly differentiated from AEW. But, more opportunities for talent sharing if you overlap the tapings and larger crowds, certainly.

[Reaper G]

Congratulations to Prince Nana for finally getting his men a championship after 20 years of shrimp cocktails.

[Big Red Machine]

Dumb, greedy move to not include ppvs with an Honor Club subscription at the 9.99 price. There isn’t nearly enough content to justify that price - WWE network gets you all their ppvs plus orders of magnitude more content for the same price. $ 5 / month with no ppvs and 9.99 / month with ppvs would have been fine. Would also help gauge interest in the old content. Also a dick move to put ppvs up 90 days later. That’s 3x longer than the UFC platform. Tony’s either delusional or setting this up to fail intentionally.

This.

Unless he's got the ENTIRE library up there, not putting the PPVs on is inexcusable at this point when you look at what everyone else does.

[Big Red Machine]

ROH Final Battle 2022 (12/10/2022)- Arlington, TX


The old logo (or at least an approximation of it) is back. That’s nice.

A.R. FOX & BLAKE CHRISTIAN vs. AFO (Rush & Dralistico) (w/Jose the Assistant & Preston Vance)- 6/10
They did some good athletic stuff early on, then Rush tagged in and did his stupid Rush sh*t on the floor. We got back to some good action after that. Dralistico appeared to at least attempt to kick out on the finish, which confused a lot of people. Even if he didn’t actually kick out, he shouldn’t have made it look like he was trying, as he had just taken a big combination of moves, including two of A.R. Fox’s finishers. This feels like the Munoz family being up to their usual bullsh*t, and I don’t understand why Tony brought Rush in in the first place, giving his reputation.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- bad
The AFO beat the babyfaces up after the match. Dralistico managed to get Fox in the head with a chair even though Fox had his hand up. The camera then missed a chairshot by Rush to Christian because upon seeing Rush wind up, the idiot director decided to cut away to show us A.R. selling. Rush yelled at the referee and grabbed a cable to choke Fox with, but then decided not to. If you’re going to do this (and you shouldn’t, because it basically negates the babyfaces’ victory), at least have Preston Vance be an active participant, to show us that he has fully bought into the AFO’s ways. But that didn’t happen, which left this feeling not like something done for any artistic reason, but rather as something that the Munoz’s insisted on in exchange for losing the match, and do you really want people like that in your company?


ROH WOMEN’S WORLD TITLE MATCH: Mercedes Martinez(c) vs. Athena- 6.75/10
That googly-eye third eye on Athena’s head looks atrocious. Even worse than her wings did. The LED message board on the back of her jacket was good heel douchebaggery, though. The fans still cheered her, though, and they showed her parents in the crowd. So Tony Khan turned Athena heel, and then booked her first big match as a heel to be her challenging for the title in her home market. *Facepalm.*
This was a good match, as physical as you’d expect from these two. Athena won after ripping a turnbuckle pad off and giving Mercedes a Shotgun Dropkick, sending her head into the exposed turnbuckle, then hitting the O-Face. The crowd went crazy for this heel cheating to win. And apparently she’s now on a fifteen-match winning streak. Well… if they had mentioned that at some point during the build to this match, she wouldn’t have seemed like such a ridiculous choice of a challenger.

SWERVE IN OUR GLORY vs. SHANE TAYLOR PROMOTION (Shane Taylor & JD Griffey)- 7/10
Lee offered Swerve a fist-bump during their entrance but Swerve left him hanging. I don’t understand that. Doesn’t Swerve want Lee to remain his partner? Why needlessly offend him? Or, if this is a swerve and their going to do the Ole turns on Dusty/Flair turns on Sting at Halloween Havoc 1995 deal, why do anything that could make him suspicious?
Ian Riccaboni started to talk about a match booked for the 15th Anniversary Show involving Lee and Taylor for which graphics aired on TV but which never wound up happening because Lee left the company, but I have no memory of this, and couldn’t find it in my notes of those TV shows, either.
Ian stopped talking about said match because Swerve tagged himself in, robbing the fans of this Lee vs. Taylor showdown which Ian said was “five years in the making.” This is one of those spots that bugs me, because while it makes perfect sense from the perspective of trying to get the fans angry at Swerve, it doesn’t seem to serve any in-character purpose for him. If he wants Lee to remain his partner, why is he doing things that seem like they will only annoy Lee?
Anyway, they did stuff and it was all great. Then we got a spot where Lee caught Griffey on a dive and was going to powerbomb or tree-slam him into the apron but Griffey said “Mom will kill you. Mom will kill you” and Lee relented. Then Swerve ran in and kicked him Griffey in the side of the head, which angered Lee. Why? It’s a professional combat sport! Deal with it. And it’s not like you yourself weren’t trying to hurt this guy several times in the match already!
The other spot that really irritated me was when Lee went into the ring to break up a submission that Griffey had on Swerve, but instead of just stomping on him, Lee walked past them, climbed up to the second rope, and did a moonsault. Not only was it idiotic to just walk past them, but the submission in question, if Swerve hadn’t already escaped on his own, any kind of high-flying move would have crushed Swerve just as much as Griffey.
Other than those few bits, I really enjoyed the action here, and they did a decent job of Lee and Taylor apart enough that a singles match will feel completely fresh. What I didn’t like was the storyline stuff. In addition to what I listed above, there was also the big moment in the match where Lee accidentally hit Strickland with a big strike, and Strickland walked out on him. I just can’t reconcile Strickland being so desperate to keep Lee on his side that he tried to recruit him even after Lee walked out of a title match on him and then manipulated this tag team match into happening (as was implied on AEW TV), and yet also being so petty that he would walk out on Lee after what was clearly an accident.
Fortunately for Lee, Griffey accidentally hit Taylor with a kick soon after that, and Lee was able to hit the Bing Bang Catastrophe for the win. I guess that could lead to Taylor turning on Griffey and then Lee and Griffey teaming up to face Strickland and Taylor, but that doesn’t interest me anywhere near as much as Lee, Strickland, and Taylor all being singles wrestlers.

ROH WORLD SIX-MAN TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: Dalton Castle & the Boys(c) vs. the Embassy (Brian Cage & the Gates of Agony) (w/Prince Nana)- 5/10
The Embassy dominated most of this, but the match went on for way too long. The spot where Toa Liona got both Boys up for a Samoan Drop didn’t go well, and undermined him as a powerhouse. The Embassy won pretty much cleanly.

LEXI NAIR INTERVIEWS TOP FLIGHT, BUT THAT GETS INTERRUPTED AND THEY BRAWL- bad
Darius was okay. Dante started to cut a wacky promo, which- I assume through some sort of magnetic pull, drew 2.0 to them to interrupt them. They told Lexi to back up, presumably so Menard’s yelling would blow out the microphone. Menard dared them to punch him… so Dante did. I popped huge. They brawled off camera as Lexi called for someone to come break the fight up. Ian Riccaboni getting so upset about Lexi being called “toots” came off as an overreaction. Don’t get me wrong: it was a heelish thing to do, but of the bad things you can call someone in pro wrestling, it’s pretty low on the scale.
The two teams brawled to ringside. Dante Martin got to hit a big dive, but 2.0 wound up winning the brawl. Parker got a mic and climbed into the ring to cut a promo. He asked why ROH died if it was so great?
That’s a good question, Angelo. In short, ROH died because it strayed from its established identity of top-notch in-ring wrestling with a major emphasis on clean finishes, character development, logical booking and storytelling where the booker made an effort to fill in as many potential plot-holes as possible and then worked with the announcers to ensure that this information was clearly communicated to the audience, and an atmosphere that what you were watching was a sport, where the results mattered and the promotion would do what they could to enforce fair play, and instead it became a place where work-rate standards were lowered for those willing to pay money for enough training camps, while other wrestlers were not given the time to show what they could do, even on shows streamed on ROH’s streaming service, the storylines became full of plot-holes, heel were constantly undermined by being shown to be completely unable to win cleanly, which also resulted in a sharp move away from the emphasis on clean finishes, characters didn’t develop- partially due to incompetence and partially due to the booker trying to focus on far too many people for the TV time he had, meaningless titles were introduced that only further diluted both the value of a championship and the depth of the divisions and further taxed the TV time, and the presentation became more about shtick than about being a sport where results mattered, title shots were earned with victories over formidable competition, and fair play was valued by the promotion. Are you paying attention, Tony?

Anyway, Parker continued to talk about how ROH was bad, but only Chris Jericho can make it worthwhile. Menard then cut a promo about what would happen to Claudio Castagnoli if he lost tonight. So yeah. Tony Khan is wasting time on a PPV trying to sell the importance of the main event to an audience who have all either already bought a ticket to the show or bought the PPV.
Eventually Wheeler YUTA came out and chased them away so we could get down to the…

ROH PURE TITLE MATCH: Daniel Garcia(c) vs. Wheeler YUTA- 7.5/10
Both guys got warned for using closed-fist punches to the face within the first thirty seconds. They did some stuff on the outside, including YUTA getting necked on the rope in a clever way. Garcia wound up in control and knocked YUTA into the ropes, then locked on a submission, and the referee charged YUTA a rope-break for this, even though in the past it has been made clear to us that if you’re already in the ropes and someone grabs you, it’s not a rope-break. Then it got even more ridiculous, as Garcia PULLED YUTA INTO THE ROPES and applied a kind of Romero Strech kind of thing leaning back off the apron. It was actually a really cool spot… except the referee then charged YUTA with a rope-break even though he was pulled into the ropes by his opponent specifically to set up an illegal hold that could not have been possible without the aid of the ropes!
Then Garcia went and started working YUTA’s neck with legal holds. Why not just go and do the same thing until he’s out of rope breaks, and then keep doing it?
Things would get worse later in the match when YUTA was out of rope-breaks and Garcia got him in a Sharpshooter and YUTA valiantly crawled to the ropes for a break but didn’t have one, so he managed to grab Garcia’s chin and pull him down in a kind of Inverted Muta-Lock, which Garcia’s back clearly bent over the ropes… and somehow this was not a rope-break counted against Garcia. Ian Riccaboni assured is that this was “the right call” even though it was the same situation as the one YUTA was in before, and in that case it went the other way, and Ian thought that was a good call, too.
I feel bad spending so much digital ink on that because otherwise this was a great match, but a part of the drama was designed to come from the fact that YUTA had to fight back from such a disadvantage because he lost all three of his rope-breaks early on while Garcia never lost any, but that was undermined by the fact that the way they chose to set that up directly contradicted the way that this rule had been enforced in the past (not the distant, Nigel McGuinnes past, either. The voice in my head explaining that ruling to me is Ian Riccaboni, not Lenny Leonard or CM Punk or whatever alias Gabe Sapolsky was using on commentary). The match really was great, though, with Garcia working over YUTA’s neck and YUTA having great babyface fire. YUTA came back and got the win, eventually just turning it on and going into kill mode, targeting the head with the aforementioned submission in the ropes, a big move or two, and then getting the win via stoppage with Crucifix Elbows.
After the match, YUTA offered Garcia a handshake, but Garcia kicked the belt out of his hand… but then he bent down and picked it up and handed it to YUTA. I hate this crap so much. Either have him show actual respect and accept the handshake (and then deal with the consequences from Jericho) or don’t have him show any respect at all.

DOUBLE DOG COLLAR MATCH FOR THE ROH WORLD TAG TEAM TITLES: FTR(c) vs. the Briscoes- a PERFECT 10/10!
It would have been nice if the video package they showed before this match had actually mentioned the Briscoes getting a phantom pinfall on FTR in their previous match to explain why they were getting another rematch. I shouldn’t have to look that kind of thing up in my review of a show from five months ago. Putting that kind of thing on TV makes it look like the promotion actually cares about fair play and determining who truly is the best team in the world instead of what we got here, which was essentially “OMG their last two matches were SOOOOO AWESOME that we want to book another match because that one will be awesome, too! And we’ll make it even more awesome by making it a gimmick match this time!”
Ian said that there had only been one Dog Collar match in ROH history “to my recollection.” A note to all announcers: if you’re not absolutely certain of something like this, follow Ian’s lead here and qualify it with something like “to my recollection.” I came up with three on my own (CM Punk vs. Jimmy Rave, CM Punk vs. Raven, and Austin Aries vs. Jimmy Jacobs), and a search of my previous reviews yielded two more (Adam Pearce vs. Delirious, and Necro Butcher vs. Jimmy Rave).
By the way, the reason I was able to remember Aries vs. Jacobs is because the show it was on was called Bound By Hate. That right there is why the individual show names (and especially the non-generic ones) were so important. They created shortcuts to help fans remember the history of the promotion. And that’s for a show I haven’t actually even seen yet (the Rave vs. Necro match was on one of the Final Countdown Tour shows, and Delirious vs. Pearce was on Without Remorse, and while I didn’t remember that match, I did remember that the top two matches on the show were the No Remorse Corps getting tag and world title shots).
Ian was correct when he asserted that there had never been a Double Dog Collar match in ROH before. Steen & Corino vs. Cabana and Generico from Glory By Honor IX immediately came to my mind, but then I remember that that was a double Steel Chain match instead. I was actually kind of shocked at both there not having been a Double Dog Collar match in ROH before and the relatively small amount of singles match of the gimmick. It seems like the kind of thing the Briscoes and ANX would have done, or Cabana and Homicide or as some random blow-off in 2003 or 2004.
The match itself was… well… everything you’d expect it to be. That’s the only way to put it. Wonderful, brutal, bloody violence. If you haven’t seen it yet, just go watch it now, before I have to spoil it for you.


POST-MATCH SEGMENT- good
The Briscoes left with their belts, at which point Gunn Club hopped the barricade and attacked the weakened FTR. They said they would kill FTR’s legacy. The Briscoes came back to make the save. Dax crawled over to a microphone and said that their new mission would be to beat the Gunns’ asses.


ROH TV TITLE MATCH: Samoa Joe(c) vs. Juice Robinson- 6.75/10
They gave Juice a lot of offense, but he never came across as a real threat to. Joe got the win after crotching Juice on the top rope and hitting the Muscle Buster.

ROH WORLD TITLE MATCH IN WHICH IF CLAUDIO CASTAGNOLI LOSES, HE MUST JOIN THE JERICHO APPRECIATION SOCIETY: Chris Jericho(c) vs. Claudio Castagnoli- 6.75/10
The bell rang. Claudio offered Jericho a handshake. Jericho responded by kicking Claudio in the stomach… and then wasted his advantage to go after the announcers on the outside. Why would he do that? If he wanted to go after them so badly, surely he would have done it before the match started, right?
As Jericho chased Ian and Caprice around the ring, Claudio intercepted him with a European Uppercut to start off the shine, but Jericho cut him off soon after and worked on his back. Eventually 2.0 came out to distract the ref and had Jericho his baseball bat. No one came out to try to stop them. Where is Wheeler YUTA or Top Flight? Where is Jon Moxley, who was so gung-ho on preventing this same heel stable from cheating on Dynamite just a few days ago?
Jericho hit Claudio with the bat, but Claudio kicked out. The referee ejected 2.0 from ringside. Claudio got a small package, but Jericho kicked out. Jericho hit a Codebreaker, then set up for the Judas effect but Claudio countered it, then did a Big Swing… and Chris Jericho eventually tapped out to a Big Swing. Yes, really. Are you f*cking kidding me?
Oh. And this match only got seventeen minutes. Seventeen minutes for your big ROH World Title match blowoff where Claudio is saving ROH from Jericho once and for all. Here’s a thought: Maybe learn from Delirious’ mistakes, and instead of doing that pointless brawl and promo earlier, you could have given those five minutes to this match? Or maybe even cut out the pointless tag in the opener and given those thirteen minutes or so (including entrances) to this match, the Women’s World Title match, and TV Title match?


POST-MATCH SEGMENT- snore
Wheeler YUTA and Jerry Lynn came out to celebrate with Claudio, while Ian exclaimed that “the dark cloud has been lifted” because ROH has been saved from the JAS. With the way Ian was reacting, you’d think more people would come out to celebrate with Claudio, but apparently not.
And how does Ian (or Moxley, on Wednesday, for that matter) know that this war is over? Jericho and Garcia can’t have rematches? What’s to stop Jericho from still trying to attack announcers? Doesn’t Jericho still hate ROH and want to desecrate and/or destroy it for his still unexplained reasons? If tapping out in Blood & Guts didn’t make Jericho want to end this feud, why should this loss?


This show was, unfortunately, what I have come to expect from Tony Khan’s ROH. Some good wrestling (albeit relatively disappointing in the big matches outside of FTR vs. Briscoes and YUTA vs. Garcia), but with almost no attempts at stringing together storylines that feel like ROH storylines rather than extensions of AEW. Matches on an ROH PPV should not feel like a part of an AEW storyline that didn’t fit on Rampage (Swerve in Our Glory’s match and the opener, for example, or Gunn Club’s post-match attack on FTR, which surely would have happened on this week’s Dynamite after FTR lost to the Acclaimed if Final Battle hadn’t happened to be this weekend).
Where are guys who feel like ROH guys as opposed to AEW guys? At the moment, the only ones they have are the Briscoes, and arguably Samoa Joe, Claudio Castagnoli and Mercedes Martinez. Where is, say, Colt Cabana or Bandido? Why was Juice Robinson challenging for the TV Title instead of Cabana, and why was that challenge not set up with Cabana winning at the previous ROH show (and then keeping a good record on Dark/Dark Elevation or AEW TV)? For a guy who supposedly loves booking so much and who bought this company purely out of affection for it, Tony seems to have absolutely no plans in place for what it’s going to be and who is going to be featured. The only consistency has been the Briscoes vs. FTR, and that has only been such a big deal because the matches have been so great. It feels like if their first match had flopped, the tag division would feel just as aimless as everything else.
And I don’t care that they don’t have TV at the moment. You can still create a sense of direction coming out of a show by teasing matches via post-match confrontations and big returns, etc. You know… like what Tony seemed to be doing on the first show, but then followed up on almost nothing (and certainly didn’t follow up on anything at the next ROH show. I’m still waiting for any kind of story between Lethal and Joe). That’s what this show needed to do, but all most of it did was make me feel like I was watching more AEW. They didn't even announce the expected news of some sort of ROH TV or internet deal at the end of the show.

[KL_]

From wrestlinginc:

Wrestling Inc. Senior News Editor Nick Hausman spoke with AEW and ROH President Tony Khan at the Final Battle media scrum, and he inquired about Colt Cabana's whereabouts during the show.
"He's injured. He hasn't been cleared," Khan revealed. "Because he has been wrestling in the Ring of Honor matches, and that was also what the Chris Jericho storyline is -– all Ring of Honor champions and everyone was really all people from either this new Ring of Honor or, in the case of Bryan Danielson, a Hall of Famer and the greatest champion ever, but pretty much everybody who came in there represented the new era of Ring of Honor for the most part, including Colt Cabana, who had been on the last two shows and was 2-0 on Zero Hour."
However, Khan stated that Cabana would have competed at Final Battle if he'd been medically cleared. "I think that would have made a lot of sense because he's done great opening up the show. But he's injured or he would have been [on the show]. He was coaching."

[DougN]

The nuance to the answer was that he spent the year trying to get ROH a TV deal and no one wanted it. I wish he would have been a bit more transparent about it, but basically, he bought ROH and it's in a worse spot than it was before. Honor Club is basically what it was before, except you can't get the big shows through it anymore. And the gap in missing content is still there after a year.

[Montana]

The nuance to the answer was that he spent the year trying to get ROH a TV deal and no one wanted it. I wish he would have been a bit more transparent about it, but basically, he bought ROH and it's in a worse spot than it was before. Honor Club is basically what it was before, except you can't get the big shows through it anymore. And the gap in missing content is still there after a year.

To be fair… the transaction wasn’t finalized until May 2022. So he’s had it for 6 months. I’m no expert in shopping TV shows to networks, but I assume they plan things far in advance. (At least bigger networks) Plus the whole dynamic of Warner and Discovery merging at the same time.

I think it’s more complicated than can they get a tv deal. It doesn’t make sense for TK to partner with another network with a competing product to AEW, going into AEW renewal discussions…. With the new discovery team which is firing all the TNT / TBS exec’s. The down side , Is ROH is kind of limited, and being like the step sister to AEW.

Just a hunch, I think TK tries to bundle more products with Warner Discovery in 2023…. And if they don’t want ROH. He either keeps it separate as streaming with Honorclub or can cut it. Or rebrand it as AEW : Ring of honor. I don’t think TK is in a rush just to find any network for ROH until their next AEW deal is finalized.

[DougN]

Not disagreeing with anything you said there. My frustration is more with that Honor Club went dark and relaunches basically worse than it did before. And I, for the life of me, can't understand why AEW/ROH wasn't folded into a streaming deal.

Would have made more sense to keep Honor Club alive all of these months and then shutter it once something comes along. As it stands now, it's open, close, open, close, which doesn't build a lot of faith from fans.

[Montana]

That's a fair point. I haven't re-subbed yet, as i'm waiting until they announce when TV is starting. I did download the App. Didn't spend a lot of time with it, but it looked cleaner / and slightly better organized, but not all that different. I also only noticed 2022-2013 on the site... which was odd because it originally had almost all of the shows before the shut down. Imagine TK will have the same issue SBG had with the copy right stuff... but thought like 2011 & 2012 was owned by SBG too.

But yeah, it certainly isn't a "Grand Opening" of HonorClub, but maybe the info leaked before TK was ready (not to make excuses). It was UN-officially announced... so maybe TK ran with it .

Could be wishful thinking; but hopefully the service grows/evolves. I imagine one day AEW & ROH would be on the same service; and would be more robust.