Reloaded Tour: California Review

[Big Red Machine]

ROH Reloaded Tour: California (9/25/2015)- California, PA

THE ADDICTION vs. WILL FERRARA & TAKAAKI WATANABE- 5.75/10
Standard tag team stuff.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Daniels cuts a promo saying they are pissed that they lost the tag titles without ever being pinned and demand that the titles be returned to them or else they will “start crippling people.” They decide to start with Ferrara and Watanabe, but the Briscoes come out and make the save. The Briscoes challenge the Addiction to a match tonight, and the Addiction say they’ll think about it.

ACH vs. CAPRICE COLEMAN- 6/10
Caprice cut a short promo to give this match a bit of context. Caprice was very frustrated after his loss… which is the same angle ROH did earlier this year which led to Cedric Alexander turning heel and it is way too quick to bring it back. Furthermore, if Caprice goes and does the same thing as Cedric, he loses the moral high-ground that he should have, what with him being a preacher and all.

ADAM COLE PROMO- he calls Kyle O’Reilly out… but of course Kyle is in Japan right now. Cole claims Kyle is afraid of him. He claims this means he has the night off, which makes no sense because he wasn’t booked against Kyle in the first place.
Cheeseburger comes out, so Cole offers to wrestle him instead.

ADAM COLE vs. CHEESEBURGER- 5.5/10
This was your standard Cheeseburger vs. arrogant heel match where Cheeseburger gets his butt kicked but gets in a few good hope spots. Cole made it even more entertaining than usual, though, with his facial expressions, commentary, and general Adam Cole-ishness. Cole went to beat Cheeseburger up even more after the match, but Matt Jackson showed up and gave Cole a Superkick to make the save.

WAR MACHINE & MOOSE (w/Stokely Hathaway) vs. THE HOUSE OF TRUTH (w/Truth Martini & Taeler Hendrix)- 6.5/10
This match was actually a few different things I’ve been calling for ROH to do for a long time now: They gave us a very fresh combination of wrestlers, they’ve used the House of Truth as a trio (which is something they could do more often to make a lot of matches that feel fresh), and they gave some time to guys who don’t normally get it so we can see what they can do (in this case, Diesel and Dijak). Unfortunately, in this case, I just wasn’t feeling the match. It was good, but I didn’t see anything that felt new or impressive out of anyone at all, and nothing that really gave me much hope that Dijak or Diesel have any sort of future potential that they just haven’t been given the chance to show yet.

SHAHEEM ALI vs. “BRUTAL” BOB EVANS- 4.25/10
Brutal Bob cut a boring promo. The crowd pooped all over it. Brutal Bob worked over Ali’s arm and got the win via roll-up while pulling the tights.

PROVING GROUND MATCH: ROH World Tag Team Champions The Kingdom (w/Maria Kanellis) vs. All Night Express- 6.75/10
A very good match, but I was hoping for something more. With this being Rhett and Kenny’s third match back (and their first without either TV or PPV time constraints) and this being the Kingdom’s first match as a two-man unit since winning the titles, I was hoping ROH would use this as an opportunity to go out and show everyone what they could do: For ANX to remind us why we should be excited that they’re back and for The Kingdom to mollify some of the bad feelings from fans who have been saying that their in-ring work isn’t up to snuff for the ROH World Tag Team Champions. You can still do the same finish, but I was hoping they would let them go twenty or twenty-five minutes before it happened.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Matt Jackson once again came out to superkick Adam Cole (this time as punishment for Cole interfering in the previous match. Then he came back out and did again for no reason. That wasn’t cool. An angry Adam Cole then challenged Matt to a match right now. This was a fine segment, but it would have been a lot better without that completely dickish and unnecessary second superkick. It just made Matt a lot less likeable going into…

ADAM COLE vs. MATT JACKSON- DUD!
Jackson started the match off by offering to Too-Sweet Cole instead of the pre-match handshake, but instead he poked Cole in the eye. Again… why is Matt acting like a heel against the guy who just turned on the top babyface a mere week ago? Then they started off with Jackson showboating a lot and Cole finally took control of the match when he took advantage of Jackson’s showboating giving him time to recover. The beginning of the match felt like Matt Jackson the dickhead heel who attacked his opponent before the match facing off against the valiant babyface who has already wrestled once tonight but who wants to get his hands on the heel so badly that he is willing to wrestle twice. It would have been a lot better to just have Matt come out and cut a promo saying “I know you already wrestled once tonight, Adam, but it sure looks to me like you still want to be involved in the action, so how about you face me one-on-one?” Then Cole could tease saying yes, only to turn the match down and then sneak back in and jump Matt from behind to lead to the match, and we wind up with Cole still looking like the heel and Matt being the babyface he is supposed to be.
Cole then hit a superkick to the knee and worked it over for a bit. Matt made a comeback and sold his knee well except for all of the times he was running around and doing hurricanranas or superkicks, which, unfortunately, was about 95% of the match. Then, after the match, Cole went to give Matt a superkick, but Matt countered it by giving Cole one instead. Not only was this pointless, but it was actually counter-productive because no one should be getting best of Adam Cole before Kyle O’Reilly does. And now that there are no more superkicks or dives or spots to do, Matt has decided to start selling again. F*cking terrible.

RODERICK STRONG vs. MICHAEL ELGIN- 7.5/10
Holy crap it’s a Roderick Strong match with ZERO backbreakers! The story of this match was that they just tried to beat the crap out of each other and knock each other out. I think they went too heavy on the fighting spirit at the end, but otherwise a great match.

THE BRISCOES vs. THE ADDICTION- 7/10
A great match, but I completely hate the fact that the Briscoes won. The Addiction are getting set for their rematch for the tag titles, which they lost without ever being pinned. The only thing the Briscoes have going on right now is Jay’s singles feud with Adam Page. If you don’t want the Briscoes to lose to a team that already wrestled tonight you can have the Addiction cheat to win, but there was absolutely no reason for the Addiction to lose this match. Very poor booking.

A complete and total nothing show from ROH. The wrestling was mostly decent (aside from Cole vs. Jackson, which stunk), but there was nothing even close to being worth going out of your way to see, either for the match itself or for storyline advancement. This wasn’t a “bad” show per se, but it is definitely the worst ROH show this year. In fact, it was the worst ROH show since A New Dawn almost two years ago. Don’t buy it unless you’re a completionist.


STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. Kevin Kelly (to Steve Corino) “They never made you champion here.”
MADE him champion? Like… the matches are predetermined or something? I F*CKING HATE when people break kayfabe during the show, and especially when they do it for absolutely no reason.

2. Kevin Kelly “The frustration of the Addiction led to the Briscoes accepting the challenge.”
What the f*ck is he talking about? It was the Briscoes that issued the challenge for this match and Kevin Kelly himself informed us that Nigel McGuinness had been the one to make the match official (and I must say it doesn’t seem very fair that Nigel can force them to wrestle twice). Nothing that Kevin said in that sentence fits in any way with what we saw and were told tonight.

[monster mafia]

what about the women of honor?

[Big Red Machine]

what about the women of honor?

It wasn't on the VOD. They have the Veda Scott vs. Sumi Sakai match listed for Lockport, though.

[Thelone]

I think there's Hendrix vs. Leon on that show, but it was pretty poor according to some reports so they probably removed it from the VOD.

[DBSommer]

I think there's Hendrix vs. Leon on that show, but it was pretty poor according to some reports so they probably removed it from the VOD.

I can see that. There were noticable botches enough that it dragged the match down. They might show the aftermath on youtube or something as there was an attempt at storyline building after the match, however.

[Marketh.]

I expected to hate the Cole/Buck stuff, but not as much as I ended up hating it.

I already could've lived without seeing a "Suck It" or "Too Sweet" again in my entire lifetime, unfortunately I have to add Superkicks to that list now.

Adam Cole is better than being a stooge for only one Young Buck.

[Big Red Machine]

Adam Cole is better than being a stooge for only one Young Buck.

Especially when they are supposed to be building up Kyle O'Reilly getting revenge on Cole. Having Matt Jackson humiliate him just makes Kyle's revenge less special.