Weekly ROH TV Thread (on Sinclair Networks)

[FanSinceHDNet]

I kind of like the way they did it. Built up something that has a bit of a following on their YouTube page, delivered a special with mostly in house names, and now are adding bigger outside names.

Those Youtube views mean very little and don't translate to any kind of growth (well, that's not true). Most videos still do abysmal numbers, even WOH stuff that aren't matches.

Serious question because I don't know: how'd the WOH episode do viewers-wise? I'd be curious to know.

[TYFDK]

[JTCole]

I kind of like the way they did it. Built up something that has a bit of a following on their YouTube page, delivered a special with mostly in house names, and now are adding bigger outside names.

Those Youtube views mean very little and don't translate to any kind of growth (well, that's not true). Most videos still do abysmal numbers, even WOH stuff that aren't matches.

Serious question because I don't know: how'd the WOH episode do viewers-wise? I'd be curious to know.

They don't release viewing numbers.

[Thelone]

Serious question because I don't know: how'd the WOH episode do viewers-wise? I'd be curious to know.

They do well above average for the channel considering six matches have 100k+ views in less than a year. After that, the 7th match "only" has 43k (still a ton more than usual), then 34k twice and almost 33k for the 10th.

[KL_]

[Wilson]

That video does not portray as vividly the state of ennui the product is in at the moment. ROH has hardly ran an exciting event this year nor has it started a compelling story nor has it contested a great match nor has it been successful in creating new stars. The production and creative team must just be satisfied in spinning their wheels because airing nine or so weeks of non-produced-for-TV programs in six months is a massively removed and insensate decision for any television-based product.

[BurningHammer]

I thought they got back to a good base this week. The matches were all good and worked well, Kincaid maybe should have just held off a couple of moves as he just tried and bit too much and he didn't come as clean and tight as he could have, the match was good though. The Fish Tank as always I like, but they do need to make more of this maybe just have special music or a general look in lighting, just something to set it apart from the rest of the show. I liked that they actually had build up or videos for each of ACH and Mark, ACH has improved so much in promos and his general delivery it's great to see. The Match overall was good, again some iffy spots but if they went at it again I think they could have a very good match indeed.

Bad point's as always the commentary, seriously, just put Kelly in the back interviewing wrestlers or just helping in production because his general look and voice just make the whole show come off as timid and flat when in the reality the fans and the matches are hot, unfortunately Nigel really just isn't up to the job either, I wish they would just have Riccaboni on every event as he actually has the intensity and passion that help the product.

[DXvsNWO1994]

So here are my reviews for Voices of Wrestling of the last two weeks of ROH TV (WOH Special & ACH vs. Mark Briscoe):

http://www.voicesofwrestling.com/2016/0 ... -showcase/

http://www.voicesofwrestling.com/2016/0 ... tagnation/

[Big Red Machine]

It really sucks that Roddy's last ROH match was a 12 minute pointless TV match in front of 400 people, most of whom were more interested in chanting "fan up" than thanking Roddy.

[WHG]

The last 2 weeks have been the best ROH TV in some time. I thought the Lethal/O'Reilly match came off really well, with the exception of Lethal overacting the sympathy, which surprised me. He could have been 100 times more subtle and almost been more effective at conveying his his new face persona. Helping Fish make the save at the end would have done it alone practically.

My big complaint is the timing, though. So following the taping, ROH avoids spoiling future TV like that always do, with one reference to a spoiler in the article for the Cabana title defense in Philly. Then the TV airs this weekend, where Nigel tells Adam Cole he'll NEVER get a World Title match as long as he's the matchmaker.

And what happens today, they announce Lethal/Cole at DBD for the title...and Lethal appears randomly totally bald in the promo photo, with no reference to the reason for this new looks. WTF? Back your TV into how long you need to promote the Main Event. Lethal could have just as easily challenged Cole after the O'Reilly match on TV this weekend it'd have all made sense.

[BurningHammer]

I think with Lethal, he sold it way to early, just coming to the ring with that sort of emotion of sympathy on your face for me was a bit over the top and all round they did the match kind of backward. I think I would have Lethal come out and be aggressive and "lethal" trying to take him apart but Kyle still survives and then you can have Lethal just trying to keep him and then have the sympathy build come out from Lethal and I imagine the fans even more to Kyle.

All that being said I really enjoyed the match and felt it was one of the best title matches Jay has done in a long long time, whoever put the angle and match together overall I felt deserves praise regardless and it shows that there can be real attention to detail which has really been missing in some instances.

One real negative for me was not having a re-showing or the full showing of the sit down interviews they did with both Lethal and Kyle from last week either leading into the beginning of the TV show or at least during it. It was nice to see from ROH and there needs to more of this sort of thing and should be one of the basic details ROH should have for it's TV.

[Mr. Mojo Risin]

Shockingly I thoroughly enjoyed Kyle vs. Lethal. This is the first time O'Reilly came across as sympathetic and Lethal had one of his best defenses in awhile.
Conversely the Cabinet vs. Moose, Cheeseburger, and Little Willy was fucking atrocious. Nobody was leading this mess. Guys were out of position, there was no flow, it was just awful.
The shows have been better lately, but they need to just not show some of these guys. Why is there no Jonathan Gresham, but I have to see Cheeseburger and Little Willy?

[DXvsNWO1994]

Here are my reviews/columns discussing the last two weeks of ROH TV (Roderick Strong's farewell & Lethal vs. O'Reilly) on Voices of Wrestling:

http://www.voicesofwrestling.com/2016/0 ... ck-strong/

http://www.voicesofwrestling.com/2016/0 ... rty-again/

[JTCole]

Moose had a good send off match with Dijak.

[Big Red Machine]

My thoughts on this week's show:

Cabana gets his rematch next week.

JAY LETHAL PROMO- he’s a babyface now, so he says it was wrong what the Young Bucks and Adam Cole did to Kyle O’Reilly and how Kyle had his title shot stolen from him. He says that Cole will always be where the Bucks so, he asks Nigel to change this week’s main event from Briscoes vs. Bucks to being Cole & Bucks vs. Briscoes & Lethal. Nigel says okay.
I didn’t like this. I think it would have been better for Lethal to offer to have the Briscoes’ backs and have the Briscoes not trust him. Lethal would then bring up the eight-man tag they had a few weeks ago where it was Bullet Club vs. Lethal, Roddy, and the Briscoes and point out that he didn’t turn on them then, and that was right before he faced Jay Briscoe for the world title so he had more incentive to turn on them then than he does now. The Briscoes would remain suspicious, but consent to his present at ringside, telling him that he had better not cross them, or what they do to the Bucks tonight will look like a walk in the park compared to what they did to Lethal. This would both keep our advertised main event intact while also giving us a segment that feels more like Lethal is earning the babyfaces’ trust instead of just being given it.

On the bright side, this segment was very short and concise. When it ended Lethal went to the back with no Bullet Club attack whatsoever (which I was certain we were going to get when the camera started to follow Lethal up the ramp). It’s good to have something not happen every once in a while to make it more surprising when something actually does happen.

STEVE CORINO TALKS TO KEVIN SULLIVAN- terrible
They’re sitting a picnic table in the park. Yes, really. Steve Corino and the man who helped his mortal enemy defeat him by STABBING HIM IN THE HEAD WITH A SPIKE. Just sitting and talking. We keep fading back and forth between that and clips from the Whitmer vs. Corino Fight Without Honor. Now we’ve got some pictures of Corino and his family, too. Shall I copy and paste the “you’re not Lucha Underground so don’t try to be” paragraph from my review of Impact from a few days ago?
In addition to the above issues, this segment gave us NO NEW INFORMATION AT ALL. Every question Corino asked was a question that he already would have known the answer to if he had watched the promo Sullivan and Whitmer cut on TV a few weeks ago. The fact that people high enough up in the company to get it okayed thought that any of this Kevin Sullivan crap was a good idea is a very, very bad sign for the future of ROH creatively.

Once that crap was over, they cut to the ring… and f*cking P-Dog and the Get Along Gang were in the ring. At that point I screamed “OH COME THE F*CK ON!” at the top of my lungs, and was then immediately thankful no one else was home.

P-DOG CALLS OUT MOOSE- we’ve seen Moose beat these losers up before. His promo was about thirty seconds long and managed to get boring chants. Why do they even keep using this guy? Surely between the Georgia, both Carolinas, and eastern Tennessee there must be at least one other jobber, right?

P-DOG (w/the Get Along Gang) vs. MOOSE (w/Stokely Hathaway)- DUD!
Like I said above, we’ve seen Moose beat up the whole Get Along Gang before. It was boring then and it’s even more boring the second time around.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Prince Nana and Donovan Dijak come out and Nana sets forth the challenge: Moose vs. Dijak… right here right now. If this was what you wanted to do, why waste time and money with P-Dog and Get Along Gang instead of JUST BOOKING THIS MATCH IN FIRST PLACE? Then you could actually hype it up! As Nana said, this is a contest to determine “the king of the big men” in ROH. How do you not hype this up?

DONOVAN DIJAK (w/Prince Nana) vs. MOOSE (w/Stokely Hathaway)- 5.75/10
The match was a fun “big guys doing power moves” match, with Dijak winning clean. It… could have been smoother, but not unwatchable, either. I could have done without Moose kicking out of a chokebreaker at one for no reason (especially when Kevin Kelly kept trying to put the move over strong on commentary).
Both Kevin Kelly on commentary and Nana in his earlier promo feel the need to hammer home that Nana played an important part in bringing Moose into ROH. Kevin’s exact words were “let’s not forget” that Nana helped bring Moose into ROH. “Not forget?” This is a fact that been relevant a grand total of ONCE. And that was eighteen months ago. Meanwhile, they apparently want us to forget pretty much everything that happened in Whitmer vs. Corino feud before Whitmer turned heel (including the entire f*cking SCUM angle).
Speaking of forgettable things, we got a post-match segment in which Dijak hit Stokely with a bicycle kick on Nana’s orders. This prompted Kevin Kelly to angrily shout “THAT’S FAMILY! How do you do that to FAMILY!?” This would have been a lot more effective if Nana and Stokely had been seen together more than five times EVER. And all of those were over eighteen months ago. If you want us to feel some sense of betrayal at this because “Stokely is Prince Nana’s protégé” (news to me), then you need to spend the time to SHOW US THEM INTERACTING. No one is going to care about a relationship if you don’t spend the time to MAKE us care… and that is doubly true for background characters like Stokely and Nana.

ADDICTION PROMO- they said absolutely nothing of any consequence and did nothing to build up any matches. This was literally just a waste of one minute of TV time.

QUICK VIDEO HYPING THE LETHAL VS. CABANA MATCH- THIS is what they should be doing if they have extra time on the show.

THE CABINET PROMO- and this is the exact opposite of what they should be doing, period. They can’t possibly think at ANYONE gives even a fraction of a sh*t about this angle. It’s just not possible.
They said that they want to “build a wall around the Young Bucks” and “make the Young Bucks pay for it.” Get it? Because that’s like what Trump says, except instead of “Mexico” they said “Young Bucks.” Isn’t that so clever?
They also buried Will Ferrara and Moose. Their comments about Moose were actually very funny, but two good lines about Moose don’t make the other minute and fifty seconds of this promo worthwhile.

JAY LETHAL & THE BRISCOES vs. BULLET CLUB (Young Bucks & Adam Cole)- 6/10
Matt Taven is on commentary, and buries the fans that cheered for the Young Bucks after the Bucks ruined a perfectly good PPV main event. Join the club, Matt.
I guess Taeler Hendrix is just completely gone with no explanation now that Lethal is a babyface. That’s dumb.
They made a big f*cking deal about the ring being surrounded by security, who were under strict orders to stop the match if anyone started to use chairs or the like. Mark Briscoe got shoved off the top rope by whichever Jackson had the broken ribs and landed on a table, although the table didn’t break well, so Mark pretty much landed right on the floor. It was decided that Nigel McGuinness would then have to personally take Mark Briscoe the back for the sake of Mark’s health, because I guess they didn’t have any medical personnel backstage. There were some spare referees at ringside, too. It was never explained why one of them couldn’t take Mark backstage. At the end of the show, it was completely transparent that the only reason for this was to get Nigel McGuinness out of the way, as if Nigel being there would somehow prevent the heels from doing the dastardly thing they were doing to do, even though that hasn’t ever stopped them before.
So now it’s basically a handicap match with Bullet Club taking on the pair of Jays. Brisoce and Lethal won completely cleanly, despite this disadvantage, completely burying Bullet Club. COME THE F*CK ON. Our big main event got just thirteen minutes when you factor out the thirty seconds of stalling at the beginning.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- bad.
Bullet Club beat the babyfaces doesn’t. Those security guys Nigel was talking about are nowhere to be found. Because using a chair during a match must be stopped, but apparently it’s perfectly okay to attack someone with one after the match is over. Say… didn’t they do a big angle last week where someone got in big trouble for doing exactly this?
No one comes out to help Briscoe and Lethal. Not Cabana, not Bobby Fish, not MCMG, not the House of Truth. Not anyone.
The Bucks knocked Lethal out and Cole shaved his head. Okay… SO WHAT?! I’m being serious here. Sure it’s probably a bit embarrassing for Jay, but really: why should I care? Kevin Kelly is reacting like this is the ultimate humiliation. Meanwhile, we just saw a match featuring Mark Briscoe, who voluntarily shaved his head a short time ago, and Kevin Kelly even said that this was a very fashionable look earlier on in this match. And while the shaving was going on, they cut to a shot in the crowd of a young African-American boy with a very closely-cropped haircut, and he didn’t seem humiliated by his lack of hair at all. Earlier in the night, we saw Stokely Hathaway, Christopher Daniels, and Moose, all of whom are bald, seemingly voluntarily. Let’s not pretend this is some sort of major humiliation here.
One aspect of storytelling that appears to be completely lost on Delirious is the idea that if you want something to be important, you have to MAKE IT IMPORTANT. If Lethal had been cutting promos for years (or even months) about his beautiful hair then this would have been a good angle. But that hasn’t been happening. At least with Elgin’s mullet they had been merchandising it. I don’t think Jay Lethal’s hair has even been mentioned by anyone in ROH ever. This wasn’t a “big” angle. This was just a random angle; one more random occurrence in a series of random barely-connected occurrences that Bullet Club have instigated since their big storyline began.

A very bad episode of ROH. Sh*t booking, logic/continuity issues abound, and yet another completely random occurrence that Kevin Kelly is reacting to like it’s the biggest thing ever.

[jordidebaas]

Why does everyone hate P-Dogg?

[ROHfan2002]

My thoughts on this week's show:

Cabana gets his rematch next week.

JAY LETHAL PROMO- he’s a babyface now, so he says it was wrong what the Young Bucks and Adam Cole did to Kyle O’Reilly and how Kyle had his title shot stolen from him. He says that Cole will always be where the Bucks so, he asks Nigel to change this week’s main event from Briscoes vs. Bucks to being Cole & Bucks vs. Briscoes & Lethal. Nigel says okay.
I didn’t like this. I think it would have been better for Lethal to offer to have the Briscoes’ backs and have the Briscoes not trust him. Lethal would then bring up the eight-man tag they had a few weeks ago where it was Bullet Club vs. Lethal, Roddy, and the Briscoes and point out that he didn’t turn on them then, and that was right before he faced Jay Briscoe for the world title so he had more incentive to turn on them then than he does now. The Briscoes would remain suspicious, but consent to his present at ringside, telling him that he had better not cross them, or what they do to the Bucks tonight will look like a walk in the park compared to what they did to Lethal. This would both keep our advertised main event intact while also giving us a segment that feels more like Lethal is earning the babyfaces’ trust instead of just being given it.

On the bright side, this segment was very short and concise. When it ended Lethal went to the back with no Bullet Club attack whatsoever (which I was certain we were going to get when the camera started to follow Lethal up the ramp). It’s good to have something not happen every once in a while to make it more surprising when something actually does happen.

STEVE CORINO TALKS TO KEVIN SULLIVAN- terrible
They’re sitting a picnic table in the park. Yes, really. Steve Corino and the man who helped his mortal enemy defeat him by STABBING HIM IN THE HEAD WITH A SPIKE. Just sitting and talking. We keep fading back and forth between that and clips from the Whitmer vs. Corino Fight Without Honor. Now we’ve got some pictures of Corino and his family, too. Shall I copy and paste the “you’re not Lucha Underground so don’t try to be” paragraph from my review of Impact from a few days ago?
In addition to the above issues, this segment gave us NO NEW INFORMATION AT ALL. Every question Corino asked was a question that he already would have known the answer to if he had watched the promo Sullivan and Whitmer cut on TV a few weeks ago. The fact that people high enough up in the company to get it okayed thought that any of this Kevin Sullivan crap was a good idea is a very, very bad sign for the future of ROH creatively.

Once that crap was over, they cut to the ring… and f*cking P-Dog and the Get Along Gang were in the ring. At that point I screamed “OH COME THE F*CK ON!” at the top of my lungs, and was then immediately thankful no one else was home.

P-DOG CALLS OUT MOOSE- we’ve seen Moose beat these losers up before. His promo was about thirty seconds long and managed to get boring chants. Why do they even keep using this guy? Surely between the Georgia, both Carolinas, and eastern Tennessee there must be at least one other jobber, right?

P-DOG (w/the Get Along Gang) vs. MOOSE (w/Stokely Hathaway)- DUD!
Like I said above, we’ve seen Moose beat up the whole Get Along Gang before. It was boring then and it’s even more boring the second time around.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Prince Nana and Donovan Dijak come out and Nana sets forth the challenge: Moose vs. Dijak… right here right now. If this was what you wanted to do, why waste time and money with P-Dog and Get Along Gang instead of JUST BOOKING THIS MATCH IN FIRST PLACE? Then you could actually hype it up! As Nana said, this is a contest to determine “the king of the big men” in ROH. How do you not hype this up?

DONOVAN DIJAK (w/Prince Nana) vs. MOOSE (w/Stokely Hathaway)- 5.75/10
The match was a fun “big guys doing power moves” match, with Dijak winning clean. It… could have been smoother, but not unwatchable, either. I could have done without Moose kicking out of a chokebreaker at one for no reason (especially when Kevin Kelly kept trying to put the move over strong on commentary).
Both Kevin Kelly on commentary and Nana in his earlier promo feel the need to hammer home that Nana played an important part in bringing Moose into ROH. Kevin’s exact words were “let’s not forget” that Nana helped bring Moose into ROH. “Not forget?” This is a fact that been relevant a grand total of ONCE. And that was eighteen months ago. Meanwhile, they apparently want us to forget pretty much everything that happened in Whitmer vs. Corino feud before Whitmer turned heel (including the entire f*cking SCUM angle).
Speaking of forgettable things, we got a post-match segment in which Dijak hit Stokely with a bicycle kick on Nana’s orders. This prompted Kevin Kelly to angrily shout “THAT’S FAMILY! How do you do that to FAMILY!?” This would have been a lot more effective if Nana and Stokely had been seen together more than five times EVER. And all of those were over eighteen months ago. If you want us to feel some sense of betrayal at this because “Stokely is Prince Nana’s protégé” (news to me), then you need to spend the time to SHOW US THEM INTERACTING. No one is going to care about a relationship if you don’t spend the time to MAKE us care… and that is doubly true for background characters like Stokely and Nana.

ADDICTION PROMO- they said absolutely nothing of any consequence and did nothing to build up any matches. This was literally just a waste of one minute of TV time.

QUICK VIDEO HYPING THE LETHAL VS. CABANA MATCH- THIS is what they should be doing if they have extra time on the show.

THE CABINET PROMO- and this is the exact opposite of what they should be doing, period. They can’t possibly think at ANYONE gives even a fraction of a sh*t about this angle. It’s just not possible.
They said that they want to “build a wall around the Young Bucks” and “make the Young Bucks pay for it.” Get it? Because that’s like what Trump says, except instead of “Mexico” they said “Young Bucks.” Isn’t that so clever?
They also buried Will Ferrara and Moose. Their comments about Moose were actually very funny, but two good lines about Moose don’t make the other minute and fifty seconds of this promo worthwhile.

JAY LETHAL & THE BRISCOES vs. BULLET CLUB (Young Bucks & Adam Cole)- 6/10
Matt Taven is on commentary, and buries the fans that cheered for the Young Bucks after the Bucks ruined a perfectly good PPV main event. Join the club, Matt.
I guess Taeler Hendrix is just completely gone with no explanation now that Lethal is a babyface. That’s dumb.
They made a big f*cking deal about the ring being surrounded by security, who were under strict orders to stop the match if anyone started to use chairs or the like. Mark Briscoe got shoved off the top rope by whichever Jackson had the broken ribs and landed on a table, although the table didn’t break well, so Mark pretty much landed right on the floor. It was decided that Nigel McGuinness would then have to personally take Mark Briscoe the back for the sake of Mark’s health, because I guess they didn’t have any medical personnel backstage. There were some spare referees at ringside, too. It was never explained why one of them couldn’t take Mark backstage. At the end of the show, it was completely transparent that the only reason for this was to get Nigel McGuinness out of the way, as if Nigel being there would somehow prevent the heels from doing the dastardly thing they were doing to do, even though that hasn’t ever stopped them before.
So now it’s basically a handicap match with Bullet Club taking on the pair of Jays. Brisoce and Lethal won completely cleanly, despite this disadvantage, completely burying Bullet Club. COME THE F*CK ON. Our big main event got just thirteen minutes when you factor out the thirty seconds of stalling at the beginning.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- bad.
Bullet Club beat the babyfaces doesn’t. Those security guys Nigel was talking about are nowhere to be found. Because using a chair during a match must be stopped, but apparently it’s perfectly okay to attack someone with one after the match is over. Say… didn’t they do a big angle last week where someone got in big trouble for doing exactly this?
No one comes out to help Briscoe and Lethal. Not Cabana, not Bobby Fish, not MCMG, not the House of Truth. Not anyone.
The Bucks knocked Lethal out and Cole shaved his head. Okay… SO WHAT?! I’m being serious here. Sure it’s probably a bit embarrassing for Jay, but really: why should I care? Kevin Kelly is reacting like this is the ultimate humiliation. Meanwhile, we just saw a match featuring Mark Briscoe, who voluntarily shaved his head a short time ago, and Kevin Kelly even said that this was a very fashionable look earlier on in this match. And while the shaving was going on, they cut to a shot in the crowd of a young African-American boy with a very closely-cropped haircut, and he didn’t seem humiliated by his lack of hair at all. Earlier in the night, we saw Stokely Hathaway, Christopher Daniels, and Moose, all of whom are bald, seemingly voluntarily. Let’s not pretend this is some sort of major humiliation here.
One aspect of storytelling that appears to be completely lost on Delirious is the idea that if you want something to be important, you have to MAKE IT IMPORTANT. If Lethal had been cutting promos for years (or even months) about his beautiful hair then this would have been a good angle. But that hasn’t been happening. At least with Elgin’s mullet they had been merchandising it. I don’t think Jay Lethal’s hair has even been mentioned by anyone in ROH ever. This wasn’t a “big” angle. This was just a random angle; one more random occurrence in a series of random barely-connected occurrences that Bullet Club have instigated since their big storyline began.

A very bad episode of ROH. Sh*t booking, logic/continuity issues abound, and yet another completely random occurrence that Kevin Kelly is reacting to like it’s the biggest thing ever.

This is one of the worst reviews I've ever read. I can't say your wrong, because it's just your opinion. But man does this review read like nothing more than somebody who simply wants to hate a TV show justifying his hatred.
1. Lethal Promo-The way you suggested would have worked, but this worked just as well. It has been well documented on PPV, TV, and live events, that Lethal has issues with Bullet Club. Jay Briscoe has already teamed with him against Bullet Club. So him having to earn their trust wouldn't have been bad, but wasn't really necessary. Following the storyline, Briscoe's already know about Lethal's heat with the Club. Having him prove it one more time wouldn't change that.
2. Corino talking to Sullivan--I'm not a fan of the Sullivan parts of this program, but I won't call this terrible. I'm giving it time to play out. This is just step three in what could be a long program. I'm giving it a chance. Most here hated the thought of the Corino/Whitmer feud for the entire buildup, but to me that one match at the PPV was the best match on the show, was a throwback to classic blood feuds, and made every single step along the way worth it. Anything with Sullivan is stupid to me, but I'm trusting Whitmer and Corino to make it work
3. Moose stuff with P Dogg is just some silly fun, and puts over Moose as the big monster destroying all those jobbers. Yes, it happened before, but didn't it happen on a live event? Those who just watch ROH TV haven't seen it, so it's new to them. Moose v. Dijak was very good match. Post-match angle worked well for me. With Moose leaving, I'm guessing Stokely is too. This continued to make Dijak look like a killer, injuring people. I don't need constant reminders about the Stokely/Nana relationship. They have hinted at it here and there over the last 2 years, and that little subtlety is good to me. Had they started to push this hard, it would have given away that something was going down soon.
4. Main EVent and post-match angle--Thought the match was good. I'm not in the school that a main event must last 20 plus minutes to be a good one. This was under 15 minutes, but worked. Really felt like Lethal & Briscoes hate the Club,, and vice versa. Letting Lethal get the pin was good booking, because you let the world champion get a small measure of revenge on the Club by getting the fall (remember, he put himself into this match to get a bit of revenge for the Club ruining last week's match; to not have him get that revenge would have made him look weak. Like WCW always failing against NWO weak)

Your take on the post match angle truly baffled me. So it is your opinion that, because there are people who willingly shave their heads, that having your head shaved against your will is in no way humiliating? I don't know if you have a head of hair, but if you do, and suddenly some co-workers (or some people you hate) were to hold you against your will and shave your head, you'd be cool with that? Wouldn't be humiliating? It's not humiliating that the WORLD CHAMPION of the promotion was just attacked and had non-consensual hair removal? Wrestling is a tough guy business. His biggest current enemies did something to him without his permission That's bad.

When Bundy and Studd cut Andre's hair (not shaved off, just cut), I felt humiliated for Andre (granted I was only like 10, but still). Never once did I say "Well, Bundy is bald, so why should Andre care that his enemies just cut his hair without his permission".

thought it was a strong show, with a very hot angle to end it. The crowd reaction added to that, as the people who were cheering the Club throughout the night got really quiet during that haircut. It was more "real", and the reaction was kind of "shit, did they just do that?" which created an eerie atmosphere that added to the angle.

[Big Red Machine]

Why does everyone hate P-Dogg?

Because he is bad and embarrassing to watch and a waste of time?

[Thelone]

The Corino/Whitmer feud has been going on for YEARS at this point, you can't seriously expect people to give this tripe even more time, especially for garbage like Kevin fucking Sullivan being evil and MINDGAMES.

[Big Red Machine]

My thoughts on this week's show:

Cabana gets his rematch next week.

JAY LETHAL PROMO- he’s a babyface now, so he says it was wrong what the Young Bucks and Adam Cole did to Kyle O’Reilly and how Kyle had his title shot stolen from him. He says that Cole will always be where the Bucks so, he asks Nigel to change this week’s main event from Briscoes vs. Bucks to being Cole & Bucks vs. Briscoes & Lethal. Nigel says okay.
I didn’t like this. I think it would have been better for Lethal to offer to have the Briscoes’ backs and have the Briscoes not trust him. Lethal would then bring up the eight-man tag they had a few weeks ago where it was Bullet Club vs. Lethal, Roddy, and the Briscoes and point out that he didn’t turn on them then, and that was right before he faced Jay Briscoe for the world title so he had more incentive to turn on them then than he does now. The Briscoes would remain suspicious, but consent to his present at ringside, telling him that he had better not cross them, or what they do to the Bucks tonight will look like a walk in the park compared to what they did to Lethal. This would both keep our advertised main event intact while also giving us a segment that feels more like Lethal is earning the babyfaces’ trust instead of just being given it.

On the bright side, this segment was very short and concise. When it ended Lethal went to the back with no Bullet Club attack whatsoever (which I was certain we were going to get when the camera started to follow Lethal up the ramp). It’s good to have something not happen every once in a while to make it more surprising when something actually does happen.

STEVE CORINO TALKS TO KEVIN SULLIVAN- terrible
They’re sitting a picnic table in the park. Yes, really. Steve Corino and the man who helped his mortal enemy defeat him by STABBING HIM IN THE HEAD WITH A SPIKE. Just sitting and talking. We keep fading back and forth between that and clips from the Whitmer vs. Corino Fight Without Honor. Now we’ve got some pictures of Corino and his family, too. Shall I copy and paste the “you’re not Lucha Underground so don’t try to be” paragraph from my review of Impact from a few days ago?
In addition to the above issues, this segment gave us NO NEW INFORMATION AT ALL. Every question Corino asked was a question that he already would have known the answer to if he had watched the promo Sullivan and Whitmer cut on TV a few weeks ago. The fact that people high enough up in the company to get it okayed thought that any of this Kevin Sullivan crap was a good idea is a very, very bad sign for the future of ROH creatively.

Once that crap was over, they cut to the ring… and f*cking P-Dog and the Get Along Gang were in the ring. At that point I screamed “OH COME THE F*CK ON!” at the top of my lungs, and was then immediately thankful no one else was home.

P-DOG CALLS OUT MOOSE- we’ve seen Moose beat these losers up before. His promo was about thirty seconds long and managed to get boring chants. Why do they even keep using this guy? Surely between the Georgia, both Carolinas, and eastern Tennessee there must be at least one other jobber, right?

P-DOG (w/the Get Along Gang) vs. MOOSE (w/Stokely Hathaway)- DUD!
Like I said above, we’ve seen Moose beat up the whole Get Along Gang before. It was boring then and it’s even more boring the second time around.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Prince Nana and Donovan Dijak come out and Nana sets forth the challenge: Moose vs. Dijak… right here right now. If this was what you wanted to do, why waste time and money with P-Dog and Get Along Gang instead of JUST BOOKING THIS MATCH IN FIRST PLACE? Then you could actually hype it up! As Nana said, this is a contest to determine “the king of the big men” in ROH. How do you not hype this up?

DONOVAN DIJAK (w/Prince Nana) vs. MOOSE (w/Stokely Hathaway)- 5.75/10
The match was a fun “big guys doing power moves” match, with Dijak winning clean. It… could have been smoother, but not unwatchable, either. I could have done without Moose kicking out of a chokebreaker at one for no reason (especially when Kevin Kelly kept trying to put the move over strong on commentary).
Both Kevin Kelly on commentary and Nana in his earlier promo feel the need to hammer home that Nana played an important part in bringing Moose into ROH. Kevin’s exact words were “let’s not forget” that Nana helped bring Moose into ROH. “Not forget?” This is a fact that been relevant a grand total of ONCE. And that was eighteen months ago. Meanwhile, they apparently want us to forget pretty much everything that happened in Whitmer vs. Corino feud before Whitmer turned heel (including the entire f*cking SCUM angle).
Speaking of forgettable things, we got a post-match segment in which Dijak hit Stokely with a bicycle kick on Nana’s orders. This prompted Kevin Kelly to angrily shout “THAT’S FAMILY! How do you do that to FAMILY!?” This would have been a lot more effective if Nana and Stokely had been seen together more than five times EVER. And all of those were over eighteen months ago. If you want us to feel some sense of betrayal at this because “Stokely is Prince Nana’s protégé” (news to me), then you need to spend the time to SHOW US THEM INTERACTING. No one is going to care about a relationship if you don’t spend the time to MAKE us care… and that is doubly true for background characters like Stokely and Nana.

ADDICTION PROMO- they said absolutely nothing of any consequence and did nothing to build up any matches. This was literally just a waste of one minute of TV time.

QUICK VIDEO HYPING THE LETHAL VS. CABANA MATCH- THIS is what they should be doing if they have extra time on the show.

THE CABINET PROMO- and this is the exact opposite of what they should be doing, period. They can’t possibly think at ANYONE gives even a fraction of a sh*t about this angle. It’s just not possible.
They said that they want to “build a wall around the Young Bucks” and “make the Young Bucks pay for it.” Get it? Because that’s like what Trump says, except instead of “Mexico” they said “Young Bucks.” Isn’t that so clever?
They also buried Will Ferrara and Moose. Their comments about Moose were actually very funny, but two good lines about Moose don’t make the other minute and fifty seconds of this promo worthwhile.

JAY LETHAL & THE BRISCOES vs. BULLET CLUB (Young Bucks & Adam Cole)- 6/10
Matt Taven is on commentary, and buries the fans that cheered for the Young Bucks after the Bucks ruined a perfectly good PPV main event. Join the club, Matt.
I guess Taeler Hendrix is just completely gone with no explanation now that Lethal is a babyface. That’s dumb.
They made a big f*cking deal about the ring being surrounded by security, who were under strict orders to stop the match if anyone started to use chairs or the like. Mark Briscoe got shoved off the top rope by whichever Jackson had the broken ribs and landed on a table, although the table didn’t break well, so Mark pretty much landed right on the floor. It was decided that Nigel McGuinness would then have to personally take Mark Briscoe the back for the sake of Mark’s health, because I guess they didn’t have any medical personnel backstage. There were some spare referees at ringside, too. It was never explained why one of them couldn’t take Mark backstage. At the end of the show, it was completely transparent that the only reason for this was to get Nigel McGuinness out of the way, as if Nigel being there would somehow prevent the heels from doing the dastardly thing they were doing to do, even though that hasn’t ever stopped them before.
So now it’s basically a handicap match with Bullet Club taking on the pair of Jays. Brisoce and Lethal won completely cleanly, despite this disadvantage, completely burying Bullet Club. COME THE F*CK ON. Our big main event got just thirteen minutes when you factor out the thirty seconds of stalling at the beginning.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- bad.
Bullet Club beat the babyfaces doesn’t. Those security guys Nigel was talking about are nowhere to be found. Because using a chair during a match must be stopped, but apparently it’s perfectly okay to attack someone with one after the match is over. Say… didn’t they do a big angle last week where someone got in big trouble for doing exactly this?
No one comes out to help Briscoe and Lethal. Not Cabana, not Bobby Fish, not MCMG, not the House of Truth. Not anyone.
The Bucks knocked Lethal out and Cole shaved his head. Okay… SO WHAT?! I’m being serious here. Sure it’s probably a bit embarrassing for Jay, but really: why should I care? Kevin Kelly is reacting like this is the ultimate humiliation. Meanwhile, we just saw a match featuring Mark Briscoe, who voluntarily shaved his head a short time ago, and Kevin Kelly even said that this was a very fashionable look earlier on in this match. And while the shaving was going on, they cut to a shot in the crowd of a young African-American boy with a very closely-cropped haircut, and he didn’t seem humiliated by his lack of hair at all. Earlier in the night, we saw Stokely Hathaway, Christopher Daniels, and Moose, all of whom are bald, seemingly voluntarily. Let’s not pretend this is some sort of major humiliation here.
One aspect of storytelling that appears to be completely lost on Delirious is the idea that if you want something to be important, you have to MAKE IT IMPORTANT. If Lethal had been cutting promos for years (or even months) about his beautiful hair then this would have been a good angle. But that hasn’t been happening. At least with Elgin’s mullet they had been merchandising it. I don’t think Jay Lethal’s hair has even been mentioned by anyone in ROH ever. This wasn’t a “big” angle. This was just a random angle; one more random occurrence in a series of random barely-connected occurrences that Bullet Club have instigated since their big storyline began.

A very bad episode of ROH. Sh*t booking, logic/continuity issues abound, and yet another completely random occurrence that Kevin Kelly is reacting to like it’s the biggest thing ever.

This is one of the worst reviews I've ever read. I can't say your wrong, because it's just your opinion. But man does this review read like nothing more than somebody who simply wants to hate a TV show justifying his hatred.
1. Lethal Promo-The way you suggested would have worked, but this worked just as well. It has been well documented on PPV, TV, and live events, that Lethal has issues with Bullet Club. Jay Briscoe has already teamed with him against Bullet Club. So him having to earn their trust wouldn't have been bad, but wasn't really necessary. Following the storyline, Briscoe's already know about Lethal's heat with the Club. Having him prove it one more time wouldn't change that.
2. Corino talking to Sullivan--I'm not a fan of the Sullivan parts of this program, but I won't call this terrible. I'm giving it time to play out. This is just step three in what could be a long program. I'm giving it a chance. Most here hated the thought of the Corino/Whitmer feud for the entire buildup, but to me that one match at the PPV was the best match on the show, was a throwback to classic blood feuds, and made every single step along the way worth it. Anything with Sullivan is stupid to me, but I'm trusting Whitmer and Corino to make it work
3. Moose stuff with P Dogg is just some silly fun, and puts over Moose as the big monster destroying all those jobbers. Yes, it happened before, but didn't it happen on a live event? Those who just watch ROH TV haven't seen it, so it's new to them. Moose v. Dijak was very good match. Post-match angle worked well for me. With Moose leaving, I'm guessing Stokely is too. This continued to make Dijak look like a killer, injuring people. I don't need constant reminders about the Stokely/Nana relationship. They have hinted at it here and there over the last 2 years, and that little subtlety is good to me. Had they started to push this hard, it would have given away that something was going down soon.
4. Main EVent and post-match angle--Thought the match was good. I'm not in the school that a main event must last 20 plus minutes to be a good one. This was under 15 minutes, but worked. Really felt like Lethal & Briscoes hate the Club,, and vice versa. Letting Lethal get the pin was good booking, because you let the world champion get a small measure of revenge on the Club by getting the fall (remember, he put himself into this match to get a bit of revenge for the Club ruining last week's match; to not have him get that revenge would have made him look weak. Like WCW always failing against NWO weak)

Your take on the post match angle truly baffled me. So it is your opinion that, because there are people who willingly shave their heads, that having your head shaved against your will is in no way humiliating? I don't know if you have a head of hair, but if you do, and suddenly some co-workers (or some people you hate) were to hold you against your will and shave your head, you'd be cool with that? Wouldn't be humiliating? It's not humiliating that the WORLD CHAMPION of the promotion was just attacked and had non-consensual hair removal? Wrestling is a tough guy business. His biggest current enemies did something to him without his permission That's bad.

When Bundy and Studd cut Andre's hair (not shaved off, just cut), I felt humiliated for Andre (granted I was only like 10, but still). Never once did I say "Well, Bundy is bald, so why should Andre care that his enemies just cut his hair without his permission".

thought it was a strong show, with a very hot angle to end it. The crowd reaction added to that, as the people who were cheering the Club throughout the night got really quiet during that haircut. It was more "real", and the reaction was kind of "shit, did they just do that?" which created an eerie atmosphere that added to the angle.

1. Fair enough. I just find Lethal's change to being a complete and total babyface very jarring. He feels like a completely different character than he felt like at the PPV, and there was no real transition. He just decided to act like a babyface last week.

2. I feel the same way you do about the feud. I just had an issue with this particular segment that it added nothing new whatsoever, and was shot in a way that is inconsistent with the way every other segment on the show is presented.

3. Silly fun? If you feel that's what it is, that's your opinion. But opinions about P-Dog aside, I would much rather have seen Moose and Dijak go an extra two or three minutes than watch Moose (or Dijak) squash ANY jobber.
As for Nana and Stokely- my complaint is not that they didn't push it hard, but rather that they didn't push it at all, and then expected us to care about it like it was this big thing. I'm not saying they should have pushed it hard. I'm saying that if it was some sort of defining characteristic of Stokely's it should have been mentioned more often. Nana is one of the top three managers in ROH history. If you're going to push Stokely as being important, him being Nana's protege should have been mentioned more often. It plays into a big problem I have with Delirious' booking, which is that things will happen, then not be mentioned again for months before being brought up once again. A story that seems like it should lead to a rematch very soon is completely dropped, only to be brought up again in six or eight months (for example, the who deal with the finish between ANX and the Bucks at SOTF 2015: Night 2 was mentioned once, then dropped for about five months until the rematch was signed... except that just ignoring it for months at a time made the angle seem unimportant so it didn't add anything at all to the rematch).

4. I'm not saying 20+. I just thought this one was disappointing for a six man tag featuring these two trios. I do with ROH would let their TV main events go longer, though. Most of them this year have been in the ten minute range, which is too short for a company that build itself up as being the company focused on in-ring action.
I totally disagree that having Lethal get revenge here was a good idea. It doesn’t matter if he’s gets revenge or not if they’re just going to get more heat three seconds later. Look at the Addiction. How many times this spring did they lose a match and then attack the other guys afterwards… and the same thing would happen the next time and the next time and the next, and then people stopped taking the Addiction seriously as title contenders and stopped caring about the angles. The reason no one cared when they attacked Cheeseburger at the PPV wasn’t because it was Cheeseburger. It was because they’d done the same thing to Lio Rush, and to Chris Sabin on multiple occasions, and nothing ever came of it.
It’s also WAY too early to invoke the nWo vs. WCW example. This would be Lethal’s first attempt at revenge, and when his team would lose, it would already be essentially a handicap match.
Having the Bullet Club lose three-on-two was a big mistake. What kind of dominant, dangerous heel faction can’t win three-on-two? I think this was more likely a case of Delirious just not wanting to pin Jay Briscoe ever for whatever ungodly reason he has. There is no shame in losing a handicap match when you have the disadvantage. It won’t make you look any worse because you’re not expected to win. Losing one when you have the advantage, though… that makes you like pathetic.

You have a point about the head-shaving. It’s just that… we’ve seen these guys trying to murder and/or maim people on a regular basis, including just last week. As a viewer, I am much less outraged about this than I was about the angle with Kyle last week or the attempted hangings of Sabin and Cabana. It was probably humiliating for Lethal, but it really didn’t come across to me like a big deal because it was about fifteen levels below the things that came before it. I think it would have been a lot more effective to smash the world title belt or something like that.