Weekly ROH TV Thread (on Sinclair Networks)

[BurningHammer]

I don't know where to begin with how bad that last Philly episode was, just everything about that was the bad side of ROH. You would never feel good after watching that episode. Whoever decided to make Marty get dominated by Cheeseburger should be put out to pasture and the general lack of ability alot of 3S showed was just horrific.

I'm not surprised Philly's attendance is going down when they are being surved events like this.

Atlanta was a marked improvement, although I didn't see the hype behind Haskins and Bandido, it was good but there was a lot of miss communication and I thought the two Bandido matches during the Texas tour were better. Thought Tracy, David Finlay and Isom looked great, especially Finaly, thought that was his best singles match I had seen up till now.

Finally we are getting replays of what happened during the break, it makes so much of a difference to the physcology for enjoying the match, so more of this please. I also thought replays of moves was a good idea to come back to.

Can there not be better production for backstage promos even in the building, the Kingdom promo was just placed and seemed shodily produced especially in asthetics.

There does need to be a balance found between the idea of Life Blood and The Plague (Whatever they are called) with the affect both are having on ROH, ROH is either the true home of pro wrestling and the other group is just trying to ruin it or Life Blood are trying to rid ROH of the Plague that's deep with in, it can't be both which it's trying to be at the moment.

Also the Fight App getting the new ROH episode before Honor Club is something else I've got to say. Another thing which would be great, can Honor Club members get the TV episode without breaks or just run an uncut version. It's getting a tad tiresom having breaks for something I'm never going to use in my life.

[AlexROH]

F'n awesome hour of television this week!!! Atlanta looks super good on TV and the crowd was hot for everything. Just 45 minutes of pure wrestling, with everybody looking great and putting on phenomenal performances. Not a bad thing to say, tbh. I'm really looking foward to both Cobb vs Silas and Cobb vs. Taylor II.

Like Burnning Hammer said, the replays are something great. Also, you can see the Lagana involvement with the backstage stuff.

I'm super excited this year with 2019. I mean, ROH has always been my favourite promotion, but 2019 feels super fresh and you don't really know how the booking/storylines are going to advance, so that adds a lot of interest, IMO.

Finlay vs. Williams ***1/2
Bandido vs. Haskins ****
Isom vs. Young ***1/2

[AlexROH]

Also the Fight App getting the new ROH episode before Honor Club is something else I've got to say. Another thing which would be great, can Honor Club members get the TV episode without breaks or just run an uncut version. It's getting a tad tiresom having breaks for something I'm never going to use in my life.

Back in the day, as a ringside member you could watch the episode on Mondays, instead of Thursday, that was the day that everybody could watch it on the website.

In the first months of Honor Club, ROH TV was available on Mondays, but since like a month or so ago, they don't upload it before for Honor Club members. I don't know why.

[BurningHammer]

Also the Fight App getting the new ROH episode before Honor Club is something else I've got to say. Another thing which would be great, can Honor Club members get the TV episode without breaks or just run an uncut version. It's getting a tad tiresom having breaks for something I'm never going to use in my life.

Back in the day, as a ringside member you could watch the episode on Mondays, instead of Thursday, that was the day that everybody could watch it on the website.

In the first months of Honor Club, ROH TV was available on Mondays, but since like a month or so ago, they don't upload it before for Honor Club members. I don't know why.

They need to sort it, if you are an Honor Club (a pay for service) then you should be entitled to far more benifits than is bein given at the moment. If we are going to regurly recieve a late TV product for now on then there needs to be another service given instead, like say a live stream of the TV show.

[famicommander]

Usually the episode hits Honor Club literally right after the initial "live" airing on Fite TV on Mondays. That's how I generally watch it since Comcast doesn't carry Charge or Stadium and I'm too lazy to switch to the antenna.

[BurningHammer]

I can only assume it's a contractual obligation but to me it's just another reason not to have Honor Club, when you can just get it for free somewhere else earlier.

[famicommander]

I can only assume it's a contractual obligation but to me it's just another reason not to have Honor Club, when you can just get it for free somewhere else earlier.

The experience isn't as good on Fite, though, because Fite's own ads don't line up with the ad breaks built into the episodes.

Often times you'll get a Fite ad in the middle of a sequence of moves. It's essentially twice as many ad breaks, but half of them are placed randomly throughout the show and you can't skip or fast forward them.

[Big Red Machine]

DAVID FINLAY JR. vs. TRACY WILLIAMS- 6.5/10
Juice Robinson was on commentary with Ian and Colt and was extremely annoying. I don’t care if it’s something you do in everyday life and/or you think it makes your friendship seem more kayfabe authentic. Calling Finlay by your stupid little nickname for him (Debbie-Chan) is only going to hinder his ability to get over for the TV audience by making him seem like a joke. This was only one of Juice’s annoyingly quirky comments. Between him and Ian’s forced musical references, the commentary was very difficult to listen to. Why don’t any announcers just call the moves anymore?
This was a solid opener, and it was nice to see Tracy actually given some credibility with a victory. We got a nice post-match handshake.
We got a little commercial hyping up Mark Haskins and Bandido before the announcement that they would be wrestling each other next. I don’t ever recall seeing ROH do this before, but I thought it was an excellent idea and is something that should be done not just for new faces but for a lot of others as well.

THE KINGDOM PROMO- Corny, generic crap that never should have aired. They’re feuding with Villain Enterprises, so they took an umbrella and wrote “Taven Enterprises on it.” Quite the geniuses they are.

MARK HASKINS vs. BANDIDO- 7/10
Juice was still on commentary and was still very annoying. The match was certainly great, but was nothing crazy like some people have talked it up as.

NICK ALDIS PROMO- boring

TV TITLE #1 CONTENDERSHIP TOURNAMENT FINALS: Silas Young vs. Eli Isom- 7/10
Silas picked up the clean win here, but Isom had a great showing. I really hope that this is a touchstone point in what turns into a long-running story for Isom where he will later be built up and defeat Silas to earn a TV Title shot and then go on to have a competitive match against Cobb to show us how far he is come when contrasted with the squash loss he suffered against Cobb in Cobb’s second match back at last year’s Glory BY Honor.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- fine, I guess
Silas Young cut a relatively generic promo on Cobb, calling him a “disappointment” to his friends, family, and country. Cobb came out and had a stare-down with Silas Young. Shane Taylor showed up, and after several unnecessary moments off Cobb turning from one heel to the other to have a stare-down, they finally started to brawl. Cobb got hit with a low blow and laid out with a Fire Thunder Driver from Taylor (does anyone know what he calls it?). Despite this total heel ending, Ian Riccaboni inexplicably still decided to sign off with his usual “happy wrestling, everybody.” Any time you have to use a mournful tone to say something, you should probably avoid wishing people a “happy” anything.

This was a very good episode of ROH in the ring, and the promos, while not good at all, were at least kept short. The biggest negative on this show was Juice Robinson’s horrendous commentary. I don’t ever want to hear him do commentary again. If he even so much as steps towards the booth, Colt or Caprice or whoever should knock him out.

[AlexROH]

Meh episode this week.

VE vs. Skyler/Hollis/Other guy was a fun little trios match; another showcase, almost squash, for VE.

Then Aldis vs. Black for the NWA Title. They gave them like 23 minutes. Not a bad match, but I'm not really into Black, so I was kindda bored.

Liked the ending segment with Lifeblood... But we already watched it like 3 weeks ago on ROH's official YouTube page. Maybe instead of airing TV segment way before on social media, ROH should start changing their ROH TV schedule. I know they aren't a lot of people in the production team, but c'mon.

After a strong start, this week my hype for the new ROH went a little bit down with the unspectacular BBH: Miami show and this week of TV.

Next week, the main event is a f'n match that was straemed LIVE on Honor Club last month: Briscoes vs. Chuckie T (a guy that HAS SIGNED WITH ANOTHER COMPANY) & Colt Cabana. Fun match, but that supposed to be an HC exclusive, so I don't really understand why that is now a ME in ROH TV. Road to the Anniversary show, TV wise, is gonna be weird.

[Big Red Machine]

Next week, the main event is a f'n match that was straemed LIVE on Honor Club last month: Briscoes vs. Chuckie T (a guy that HAS SIGNED WITH ANOTHER COMPANY) & Colt Cabana. Fun match, but that supposed to be an HC exclusive, so I don't really understand why that is now a ME in ROH TV. Road to the Anniversary show, TV wise, is gonna be weird.

I have no problem with Chuck being shown on TV as long as he takes the loss, but I agree with everything else you said. It also seems silly to do that sort of thing when on this week's show they told us that we should all sign up for Honor Club to see Kelly Klein defend her title against Rockelle Vaughn. How do we know they won't just show that match for free in a few weeks, too?

[famicommander]

It also seems silly to do that sort of thing when on this week's show they told us that we should all sign up for Honor Club to see Kelly Klein defend her title against Rockelle Vaughn. How do we know they won't just show that match for free in a few weeks, too?

I may simply be blind and/or stupid, but I can't even find that match on Honor Club. I looked.

[Big Red Machine]

COREY HOLLIS, JOHN SKYLER, & JOSEY QUIN vs. VILLAIN ENTERPRISES- 2/10
This did not need several minutes of pre-match promos to set it up. Something else that didn’t need to happen was these three dorks getting offense on Villain Enterprises. Villain Enterprises is a new top faction, and these three guys are dork jobbers. This should have been a squash (and a quick one at that).
Ian Riccaboni told us that PCO “sleeps with a casket.” I really hope Ian meant “in” a casket. Ian also claimed that Josey Quinn was from the “inaugural class” of the ROH Dojo. I’m pretty certain that’s not true, or else I would have seen him on countless pre-shows over the years. Either that, or all of those Punk/Dragon/Aries/Delirious/Daizee trainees don’t count.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- an infuriating waste of everyone’s time
Balloons came out from under the ring, so Marty Scurll goes to check for Vinny Marseglia. He doesn’t find him, and instead we just hear obnoxious laughter. Then all three members of The Kingdom come out onto the stage. SO WHO LET THE F*CKING BALLOONS GO, THEN?! WHAT PURPOSE DID THAT WHOLE THING SERVE?! To trick us into thinking Marseglia was under there when he really wasn’t? What does doing that actually accomplish? NOTHING!
The Kingdom then proceed to cut the same f*cking promo they’ve been cutting for what feels like months at this point, where they say they have no problem defending their titles, anytime and anywhere… but they’re not going to do it tonight because *INSERT BABYFACE HERE* isn’t worthy. Please note that Taven does the same f*cking thing with his “Real ROH World Title.”
Also please note that they did this SAME THING on TV two weeks ago, also with Villain Enterprises. Also please note that ion that segment they even cut this promo to somehow GET OUT OF AN ADVERTISED TITLE DEFENSE AGAINST VILLAIN ENTERPRISES… AND MANAGEMENT STILL HASN’T DONE SH*T ABOUT IT! You’ve “empowered the referees to enforce the rules more strictly.” GREAT! Now how about you do something to empower the wrestlers to not have their matches switched out on them without their consent because Matt Taven feels like being a whiny baby, and empower the fans to NOT GET SCREWED OUT OF THE MATCHES YOU’VE ADVERTISED!
And it’s even worse than that because there was ABSOLUTELY NO REASON AT ALL FOR THIS SEGMENT TO EVEN TAKE PLACE! The Kingdom came out, completely unbidden, just to troll the fans… except that this point no one has any reason to believe that the match would happen in the first place because THE KINGDOM ALWAYS DO THIS, so in reality, ALL THIS ENTIRE SEGMENT DID WAS WASTE OUR F*CKING TIME!
And I really, truly, do mean “waste our time” because despite all of this heavy TV build to Villain Enterprises challenging The Kingdom for the six-man tag titles, no such match has happened or been announced for any of the EIGHT SHOWS that took place after this taping. ROH has one hour of TV a week. There is absolutely no excuse to waste a quarter of that time on what was, AT BEST absolutely nothing (the squash served no purpose other than as an excuse for Villain Enterprises to be in the ring so The Kingdom could come out and do all of their stupid time-wasting, plot-hole-exposing dull, bullsh*t).

THE KINGDOM CUT A BACKSTAGE PROMO- utter sh*t.
OH MY G-D THE KINGDOM ARE SOOOOO LOW RENT! Calling them early-90s cartoon WWF heels isn’t fair because at least those guys were TRYING to be cartoonish. The Kingdom is three guys trying to be deadly serious and still coming off as cartoonish. They said basically the same f*cking sh*t they said before: they have the belts and they run ROH so everyone must respect them and they get to decide when they defend their titles. Why did this even air if they were just going to repeat the same sh*t? Also we’ve now upped our “time wasted on pointless Kingdom/VE crap” to almost ONE THIRD OF THE SHOW.

JAY LETHAL PROMO- Jay’s delivery was good, but it’s been THREE WEEKS since Lethal’s confrontation with Taven, several months since the first time Taven attacked him from behind, and over half a year since Taven claimed to be the “Real ROH World Champion.” Shouldn’t he have had your attention before this, Jay?

A video aired telling me to go to Honor Club to see Kelly Klein defend the Women of Honor World Title against some debuting jobber. So ROH Management is happy to keep booking Kelly Klein against random jobbers knowing that it will be a title match, but they won’t actually force The Kingdom to defend their titles in a match that ROH Management themselves specifically booked to be a title match? How does this make any sense?

NWA WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE MATCH: Nick Aldis(c) (w/Kamille) vs. P.J. Black- 7/10
The match eventually made its way to being just barely acceptable for a main event, but when a match goes as long as this one did, I expect a lot more. The heel vs. heel aspect of this match also totally failed for me. I get that Aldis is a heel, but P.J.’s heel antics didn’t line up with the story Ian briefly mentioned. If the idea that P.J.’s slide into heeldom is due to frustration, then P.J. played this all wrong. He came across like someone who was doing heel stuff in a Yano-esque attempt to funny kind of way, not like someone who was in any way frustrated. Both guys being heels did absolutely nothing to help me care about the outcome.
The crowd was also quite annoying, with their WWE chants and random “THIS IS AWESOME!” chant when Kamille got bumped. Colt’s reaction to Kamille’s bump wasn’t much better.

JUICE ROBINSON ANNOUNCES THE FORMATION OF LIFEBLOOD- extremely underwhelming
“ROH was founded by guys like Samoa Joe, AJ Styles.” Samoa Joe? Founded seems like quite the stretch, considering that AJ didn’t show up until the third show and Joe until the eighth. Am I nitpicking? Yes. But this is your big f*cking speech that is supposed to connect you to the history of the promotion, so I do think it’s important to make sure that you get that history RIGHT in your speech. Perfectly good “founders” to mention would include Low Ki, Bryan Danielson, Jay Briscoe, Amazing Red, Brian Kendrick, and even Eddie Guerrero. You can still mention AJ and Joe later when you talk about guys whose “hard work” went into this company and who cared about honor, but if you want to position yourself as the successor to the legacy of the history of this company, you need to show that you really know that history.
Juice says that ROH’s honor has been missing over the past few years but he is going to help restore it. Then the LifeBlood graphic pots up on the screen, as well as a message declaring that this is “A New Beginning,” and when we come back, the lights go back on and Tenille Dashwood, Mark Haskins, Bandido, Tracy Williams, and David Finlay Jr. are in the ring with Juice, who declares them to be ROH’s “LifeBlood.”

I found this to be extremely underwhelming for several reasons. First is that the group feels rather eclectic. It’s just Tenille and a bunch of the new guys (or, if you prefer, “The New Guys and Tenille”). It would have been nice to hear why they have joined this group: what ROH means to them. Since the time this was taped (and ROH but the video up on Honor Club soon afterwards) there have been FOUR ROH shows, plus one TV tapings, and the only person other than Juice who we have heard from is Tenille, who we heard from in the form of an interview with Kevin Eck on ROH’s website. Wrestlers in this group should be able to tell me what ROH means to them, and they need to be given the opportunity to do so.
Another reason this felt underwhelming was the combination of knowing not just that it was coming (which ROH themselves told us all about soon after it happened) but also the manner in which they did it. We were told Juice would speak on TV this week, but right before the commercial, they told us exactly who would be in the group. Then they had them all magically appear for no reason, which came off as a lamer version of the same magical appearance debut that Villain Enterprises got on the preceding taping.
Third, it would have been really nice to have Juice give some actual specifics of the stuff they were here to put an end to. On this very show we saw cowardly heels refusing to defend their titles and we saw a world title match where both wrestlers cheated several times. We have now had several shows since this has happened, and LifeBlood have come across no different than any other babyface faction. This idea of “restoring honor” to ROH feels like a general idea rather than something with actual thought and details to it, and just running with general ideas without putting any thought into the details has been one of the biggest flaws of Delirious’ booking, so it’ shard for me to get too optimistic about this.


This was a pretty disappointing episode of ROH on just about every level. I really hope the show gets better.

[BurningHammer]

If they had just flipped everything around on this weeks episode it would have worked great, sadly it just feels oddly place and lacking in the end.

[alexsmellzzz]

Not sure why you guys would watch an episode with MAGNUS vs PJ BLACK and be surprised like whoa, this isn't that good.

[Big Red Machine]

Not sure why you guys would watch an episode with MAGNUS vs PJ BLACK and be surprised like whoa, this isn't that good.

This match was by far the best thing on the show.

[Mr. Mojo Risin]

Not sure why you guys would watch an episode with MAGNUS vs PJ BLACK and be surprised like whoa, this isn't that good.

This match was by far the best thing on the show.

I agree. I thought the match was laid out fairly well. For 2 heels it wasn't a shockingly overbooked finish either.
If you went into this match expecting it to be what it was, you wouldn't have been disappointed...or blown away either. It was what it was... and what it wasn't.

[Big Red Machine]

SIX-MAN MAYHEM MATCH: Luchasaurus vs. Shane Taylor vs. Flip Gordon vs. Chris Sabin vs. Kenny King vs. Rhett Titus- 6.25/10
A fun, chaotic, fast-paced match. At one point Kenny King hit Flip Gordon with a chair, so the referee “ejected” him from the match. EXCELLENT! I’ve been calling for this sort of thing for years whenever people insist that “you can’t have DQs in a multi-man match.” This is the logical solution. Taylor got the pin, so that’s good for him.

THE BOUNCERS vs. MARCUS KROSS & GRIFF GARRISON- no rating, decent semi-squash.
Marcus Kross is a DBZ cosplayer. If you’re trying to be a serious pro wrestler, don’t cosplay. If you’re Leva Bates and making your various cosplay outfits your gimmick it’s one thing, but don’t come out with f*cking Saiyan hair and an orange gi with blue trim.
This was one of those old “ROH squashes” where the squashees are at least allowed to get something in because the booker does actually see something in them and doesn’t want them to come off as total jobbers. Personally I didn’t see much in these two in terms of charisma and would have preferred a straight squash, but at least doing it this way didn’t make the company look terrible when Ian Riccaboni told us that one of them was supposed to be in the Top Prospect Tournament but got injured and that the other was on the radar for it.


ROH WORLD TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: The Briscoes(c) vs. Chuck Taylor & Chuck Cabana- 6.5/10
This was originally supposed to be Briscoes vs. Best Friends but Berretta had a family emergency so Chuck was allowed to pick a replacement and chose his “really good friend” Colt Cabana as a replacement.
The Briscoes won a kind of flat match, pinning Taylor. They beat the babyfaces up after the match and went to put Taylor through a table. Didn’t last week’s show feature the formation of a big babyface unit who wanted to put a stop to things like this?
Yeah. That one. That you’re now cutting to a video package about. Why didn’t LifeBlood come out to save Colt and Chuckie?

CLOSING SEGMENT- horrible!
Jay Lethal comes out to cut a promo in which he complains about “having to watch the company {he} love{s} deteriorate” right in front of him, due to guys like Bully Ray and the Briscoes thinking they can run around and do whatever they want. Well then where the f*ck were you five minutes ago?
He said that “the worst part is that there is a man walking around with a fake belt claiming to be the Ring of Honor World Champion.” Dude… he was walking around with a fake belt claiming to be the real champion FOR MONTHS before you even noticed him. He even attacked you from behind and you didn’t mention it for months! And now you’re here in the ring on verge of tears and want me to believe that this is really that important to you? If it was so f*cking important to you why didn’t you do anything about it for months?
He vows that change will come in 2019. LifeBlood came out to interrupt him… so we know they were in the f*cking building and didn’t even come out to stop The Briscoes from assaulting people. At this point they feel like they’re all talk and no game.
They agree that they share the same belief that SOMETHING MUST BE DONE! Lethal says there are a bunch of other guys in the back who also agree with them. WELL THEN WHY THE F*CK HAVEN’T ANY OF YOU ACTUALLY DONE SOMETHING ABOUT IT YET?!
Lethal thinks they want him to join their group but he doesn’t want to join. Juice tells Lethal they don’t want him to join, and this is supposed to be tension between them, but then they just move past it. Lethal begins to put them all over, including flat-out breaking kayfabe by complementing Tracy Williams (and Jonathan Gresham) for “tearing the house down, but not with weapons and not with funky, fancy storylines.”
Lethal keeps going down the line, putting them over. Juice says that if they want to bring the honor back to Ring of Honor they need to “stop singing it and start bringing it.” How will they do this, you ask? By agreeing to run out to prevent people from using weapons in matches and stopping post-match beat-downs? Of course not. Juice says that Lethal should get the other babyfaces who agree with them and they’ll all fight each other.
Even without those logical issues, this was still a bad segment. It went WAY too long, got extremely boring, and Lethal in particular was intolerable. “Oh look at me. I’m the world champion and therefore I’m so busy and have so much on my plate.” He came off like someone trying to impress you by projecting false importance rather than someone who actually was important.


A very underwhelming episode of ROH, which has left me with very little hope that LifeBlood will be anything but some babyfaces with a catchphrase. They (and Lethal) have a mission statement, but I have no faith in the ability of the booker to book the storylines in such a way that they will attempt to fulfill that mission statement in a manner that is consistent with logic rather than being consistent solely with the needs of the story the booker wants to tell at that moment.

[Big Red Machine]

SUMIE SAKAI vs. JENNY ROSE vs. MADISON RAYNE- 5.75/10
A decent three-way. Madison has a new finisher.

JAY LETHAL, JONATHAN GRESHAM, JEFF COBB, FLIP GORDON, & DALTON CASTLE (w/the Boys) vs. LIFEBLOOD (Mark Haskins, Juice Robinson, Tracy Williams, Bandido, & David Finlay Jr.)- 8.25/10
I know I often complain when WWE doesn’t show wrestler’s entrances, but sitting though ten straight entrances for this match was just plain boring. That’s not excusing WWE doing it, as they usually either cut out a wrestler’s entrance to show us another wrestler cutting a promo making the other wrestler look like a lesser star rather than someone’s entrance getting just not making it on TV because it happens to happen during a commercial break, but any sort of introducing someone as “already in the ring” makes that person look like an afterthought. We couldn’t have stuck someone’s entrance during a commercial here and had the announcers just not his/their presence afterwards instead of having an entire segment of the show devoted solely to entrances?

Tenille Dashwood joined the commentary team for this match. Both she and Cabana were upset about Lethal running in to break-up a pinfall and at Gresham for doing so to break up a submission. I’m certain LifeBlood themselves have done this at times, and if they haven’t, it should be pointed out to me by the announcers. All three announcers seemed to agree that the non-LifeBlood guys were acting dishonorably by doing this, which feels like something of a stretch to me, compared to the usual standards we’ve seen in ROH over the years. I don’t ever remember such things being considered dishonorable at any point in company history, which means it doesn’t actually fit into the honor LifeBlood is supposedly trying to restore.
Also, if they’re going to complain about that, then Mark Haskins should not be running over while he is the legal man and knocking all of the other team’s non-legal partners off the apron.
Other than that, the match was an awesome half hour of wrestling and definitely felt like the big moment it was portrayed as being.

A great episode of ROH, although a rather minimalist one. Shows like this should happen every few months just to keep this sort of pure wrestling competition in the back of people’s minds as something that ROH stands for at its most ideal when things aren’t kayfabe “going wrong” via those dastardly heels causing trouble.

[Chrisvegas27]

I normally think roh t.v. product not bad but the ones I don't like is ones after ppvs like for the last two weeks the Briscoes have been on the show with the tag titles and Jay lethal had the belt with him in the main event even though it got It stolen by Marty

[AlexROH]

Fantastic tag team match in the main event of this week's ROH TV. Great stuff by The Briscoes and Mack/Cobb. Mark and Jay are on another level.