Supercard of Honor XI - Lakeland/Orlando, FL

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Brada
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Re: Supercard of Honor XI - Lakeland/Orlando, FL

Post by Brada »

Bobby Fish is in the building.
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Re: Supercard of Honor XI - Lakeland/Orlando, FL

Post by AlexROH »

Hey! Crowd looks amazing and my stream has worked perfect during the first half in HD. I'm liking the show, it isn't on the same level that the 15th Anniversary or Manhattan Mayhem (I'm sure that will change at the end of the show), but still an enjoyable and easy show to watch. Also, getting the pre-show matches during the intermission was a great detail.

Cole vs Scurll ***1/2 I don't really know why they put this on the opener. I would liked to see as co-ME. They worked a good match, but they weren't going on full speed. It's like the first match of a series of 2-4 matches; but we know that this is more a one night only match. A little too spotty for me, but still a good match.

Silas/Bruiser vs The Kingdom **1/4 - Long promo before the match, didn't like that. It looked more like a TV segment and not like a big iPPV. Fun for what it was. The right team won.

Briscoes/Bully vs Bullet Club ***1/4 - Great match! Much better than I expected to be. Great chemistry between these six wrestlers. Bully looked better than in his debut match. Tonga y Roa worked great and The Briscoes were in "briscoe" mode. Such an entertaining and well-worked match.

[Bull Rope] Lethal vs Cody ***3/4 - I wanted to give this a higher rating, but I can't. I loved their feud and the stipulation behind this match, but the match was just very good, nothing awesome. And I'm happy with that, because I know Cody isn't a MOTYC guy or something like that. As I was saying, match was good, with an old school feel. Cool sequences and a lot of violence. Lethal finally won.

I'm not going to rate the intermission matches because I'm writing this at the same time I'm watching them hahah. People chanted "Nakamura" to Punisher lol. Btw, Martinez had another good performance doing a lot of spots and all of that.
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Brada
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Re: Supercard of Honor XI - Lakeland/Orlando, FL

Post by Brada »

monster mafia wrote:Image

Mafia, where you sitting?
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Re: Supercard of Honor XI - Lakeland/Orlando, FL

Post by monster mafia »

Brada wrote:
monster mafia wrote:Image

Mafia, where you sitting?
i wish i was there...is a photo from twitter :lol: :lol: :lol:
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Re: Supercard of Honor XI - Lakeland/Orlando, FL

Post by monster mafia »

alex what were the other (dark,inttermission) matches?
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Re: Supercard of Honor XI - Lakeland/Orlando, FL

Post by AlexROH »

monster mafia wrote:alex what were the other (dark,inttermission) matches?
Martinez vs Kazarian

MCMG vs Cheeseburger/Ferrara vs Rebellion (Taylor & Titus)
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Re: Supercard of Honor XI - Lakeland/Orlando, FL

Post by AlexROH »

Bobby Fish is in the building. He cut a promo and Silas come out. They had a match for 3 minutes but they went to DQ because they didn't stop brawling ringside. Cool stuff!! It would be great if Silas defeats Bobby in a future match.
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Re: Supercard of Honor XI - Lakeland/Orlando, FL

Post by monster mafia »

AlexROH wrote:
monster mafia wrote:alex what were the other (dark,inttermission) matches?
Martinez vs Kazarian

MCMG vs Cheeseburger/Ferrara vs Rebellion (Taylor & Titus)
they need to do somehting better with mcmg.
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Re: Supercard of Honor XI - Lakeland/Orlando, FL

Post by Brada »

The Bobby Fish segment with Silas was just added today.
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Re: Supercard of Honor XI - Lakeland/Orlando, FL

Post by AlexROH »

Second half was fun:

- Lee/White vs Ospreay/Volador ***1/2 Fun match, but Volador and Lee looked out of place. I don't know why, but there were a lot of weird moments. A fine match, but not your super crazy tag match from the DG guys back in the day.

- Daniels vs Castle ***1/4 - ***1/2 Slow match. Good work by these two. The finish was meh, and we all knew that Daniels was going to retain. Cody attacking Castle and Daniels after the match is somothing I didn't like. They need to do it, bc there isn't other top heel in the company, but having Cody as a main eventer going for the World title in 2017 represent very well the current state of the ROH World title. It sucks.

- [Ladder] Bucks vs Hardys **** I'll have to re-watch this. I liked the match, it had tons of great spots, but it wasn't as crazy as other Ladder Wars in ROH. I have to say that it was 4:30 AM in the morning here in Spain and I thought that the show was going to end at 3:30, not an hour later, so I was so tired. I'll watch it tomorrow and maybe my rating will be higher, but I wouldn't call it, right now, an instant classic or something like that. I'll probably go ****1/4 on a re-watch, I think, because this match didn't make me feel as great as Ladder War VI, which I rated ****1/2.

Final rating: 6,75 - 7. A good show. A great match in the main event and lots of entertaining matches. Tomorrow, when I sleep a little and rewatch some stuff, I'll have a better review of the main event.
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Re: Supercard of Honor XI - Lakeland/Orlando, FL

Post by isles11 »

Well it wasn't billed as a ladder war, it was just a ladder match.
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Re: Supercard of Honor XI - Lakeland/Orlando, FL

Post by The Dragon Saga »

I'm pretty happy with the show. None of the matches were bad. They put out an incredible opener, I was actually quite surprised by it, but it set the tone for the rest of the show. I enjoyed parts of every match I watched - I did skip Kaz/Martinez during intermission - and I especially enjoyed the opener, the international tag team match and the main event. Lethal/Cody and Dalton/Daniels were good, nothing particularly poor about either, I just thought they could have been better.

To see that many people in that arena was awesome. Against NXT, against other shows in the central Orlando area and an hour away in another town and they managed to get what looks like close to 4,000 people out and packed in there. They showed a pair to run the Lakeland Center and it paid off.
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Re: Supercard of Honor XI - Lakeland/Orlando, FL

Post by Mike0284 »

Image

Image

Also the VOD is up.
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Re: Supercard of Honor XI - Lakeland/Orlando, FL

Post by Mr. Mojo Risin »

Mike0284 wrote:Image

Image

Also the VOD is up.
Congratulations to ROH on this excellent achievement. Place looked fantastic.
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Re: Supercard of Honor XI - Lakeland/Orlando, FL

Post by King of Indy Style »

A packed house, and some pretty high critical acclaim. Good for ROH!
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Re: Supercard of Honor XI - Lakeland/Orlando, FL

Post by SweetDaddy »

ROH ain't dead yet.
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Re: Supercard of Honor XI - Lakeland/Orlando, FL

Post by AlexROH »

I've re-watched the Ladder match. Great work by these two teams. I've liked it more than the first time. It had an special feel, but again, I'll say it wasn't on the same level as the last Ladder War or the first one. Great stuff and MOTN.

- [Ladder] The Hardys vs The Young Bucks ****1/4
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Re: Supercard of Honor XI - Lakeland/Orlando, FL

Post by Big Red Machine »

ROH Supercard of Honor XI (4/1/2017)- Lakeland, FL

ROH TV TITLE MATCH: Marty Scurll(c) vs. Adam Cole- 8/10
Cole got this title shot by “petitioning Ring of Honor management.” Is ROH management really willing to just give Cole a title shot after everything he has done in the past year with Bullet Club? Bobby Cruises says that Cole is a member of Bullet Club. I had been under the impression that he had been literally kicked out of the Bullet Club in Vegas. And if he hasn’t, this just makes ROH management deciding to give him a title shot just because he asked for it even more baffling.
But hey. At the least the match rocked!
The story here was a very interesting clash of personalities. Marty, being the flashy jerk that he is, always has his signature spots that he does that involve him either dancing around gloating beforehand or doing something that makes his opponent look silly and he insists on doing these things… but Adam Cole had those things scouted and took advantage of that. But, Cole being Cole, he, too, is a cocky bastard, and Marty always found a way to take advantage of Cole’s overconfidence. In addition to this they had some very good heel vs. heel spots (that weapon standoff early on being my favorite). In other news, Marty Scurll has taken up Chris Hero’s mantle of the man with the sickest piledrivers on the independent scene. Cole actually failed in an attempt to get Marty up for a tombstone and might have hurt his back. Hopefully he’s okay. I haven’t heard anyone say that he’s hurt, but I’ve also been avoiding ROH news in an attempt to stay spoiler-free for this show.

RECAP OF THE SITUATION WITH THE SIX-MAN TAG TITLES AS RELATES TO SILAS YOUNG & THE KINGDOM- a good way to catch people up on a situation that might not have aired yet to give this next match some context.

KINGDOM PROMO- great!
Only Taven and O’Ryan got to talk. Both were quite great. Even better was the fact that Marseglia didn’t talk. Taven did a perfect job of setting TK up to heel on the crowd. Kevin Kelly got all outraged, saying that he “thought we were going to hear some contrition” from O’Ryan, having being humbled by the support of the fans in this time of injury. You know… because Kevin Kelly is a gullible moron who is constantly fooled, no matter how many times The Kingdom or other heels have done things like this. That’s why I joined Colt Cabana in a hearty laugh when Ian Riccaboni flat out told Kevin Kelly that he was naïve for expecting such a thing.

SILAS YOUNG & THE BEER CITY BRUISER vs. THE KINGDOM (Matt Taven & Vinny Marseglia) (w/TK O’Ryan)- 2/10
Silas Young cut a promo before the match explaining his side of things, and managed to be both (mostly truthful and a huge jerk at the same time. This is shaping up to be an excellent heel vs. heel feud.
But do you know how it could be an even better heel vs. heel feud? If Vinny Marseglia had gotten hurt instead of TK O’Ryan. Marseglia is the stupidest, most annoying piece of sh*t I have ever seen in a wrestling ring. He is completely bland in the ring and is SOOOOO annoying whenever he opens his mouth, which is basically all of the time. Whoever came up with that spot where he used Beer City Bruiser’s cigar to try to burn Silas Young right in front of the referee should have been flogged for suggesting it, and Senior Referee Tod Sinclair should be fired for doing basically nothing about it. Also he should be fired for not even trying to keep track of who the legal man is. How the f*ck do you count two pins at once? BY DEFINITION only two of the wrestlers are legal, so there can only be one pinfall at a time! Silas pinned Marseglia, and I hope this is the last time we ever see him in ROH again. I know it probably won’t be, but I’ll hold out hope that he realizes how annoying he is and decides to quit the wrestling business before next weekend’s TV tapings in Baltimore.

BULLY RAY PROMO- very good, although it definitely started to drag towards the end.

ROH WORLD SIX-MAN TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: The Briscoes & Bully Ray(c) vs. Bullet Club (The Guerrillas of Destiny & Hangman Page)- 4/10
The part of Bully’s promo above that started to drag was when he talked about the Guerrillas of Destiny, who he and Devon apparently trained and who he has never faced before. The announcers speculated as to whether either of them would be hesitant to face the other. OH COME ON! We’ve seen Bully have no problem beating the sh*t out of DEVON before, so why would I think he’d have any trouble fighting against two dudes who he trained a decade ago, and especially within the context of the professional combat sport that is exactly what he trained them to compete in?
So anyway, built up to Bully finally getting the tag and he is in there facing off against both guys... and they all stop, and Bully looks at them and beings to f*cking lecture them, telling them to “do it your father taught you and do it how me and Devon taught you, let’s do it the right way.” I guess he was trying to ask them not to cheat, which is f*cking stupid considering that they had just been cheating to keep Mark Briscoe isolated as the legal man. Maybe Bully should have asked them this before the match started.
Meanwhile, Adam Page is on the apron, shouting at the Guerrillas to not shake Bully’s offered hand. Since when does Adam Page have the seniority to yell at the Guerrillas of Destiny? He’s the newcomer job-boy for Bullet Club and they’re former tag champs. Yeah, they do jobs often, too, but at least when they do jobs it doesn’t come off as if they were added to stable specifically to take the pinfalls to protect everyone else.
This was all extremely obnoxious false drama, which is one of the worst things you can have. It ended with the Guerrillas accepting Bully’s handshake… but then pulling him right into a double-team move, which everyone in the world other than Bully saw coming. Doesn’t he know Bullet Clubs’ reputation? Has he watched any of his students’ matches? For someone who is such a world-travelled veteran, Bully sure is naïve. Or maybe just stupid.
So after some spots with Bully and the Bullet Club, it was the babyfaces who really ramp up the cheating by using a variation of the Whazzzzzup! Then Bully tells the Briscoes to get the tables, because I guess they’re not just cheaters but now they’re also looking to get disqualified rather than cleanly retain their titles. But the crowd pops for it anyway because Delirious has booked this company so far away from what it is supposed to be that babyface champions cheating to get disqualified in a title match is something we want to see now. Then the fans all chant “ECW!” which is why we don’t bring in Bubba Ray Dudley in 2017. This company has been dead for long enough that in most states people who were born the day after the last ECW show can now legally get driver’s licenses. But yeah. Let’s keep chanting “ECW!” I would be shocked if more than ten percent of the fans in this crowd were actually fans of ECW when it was alive.
Not a peep from any of the announcers about the babyfaces’ cheating, of course, because they’re the babyfaces so when they cheat it’s completely excusable because hypocrisy is the in vogue these days all over the country, and we know how much wrestling companies love to be seen as culturally in tune so that people who watch don’t have to feel like they’re out of the norm for being wrestling fans.
The rest of the match was fine. So basically, if you cut out the parts where Bully Ray was being Bully Ray rather than just a generic pro wrestler, this match would have greatly improved. I just spent an entire weekend watching Lio Rush, Keith Lee, Donovan Dijak, Michael Elgin, and Kyle O’Reilly have awesome matches (the Kyle match was from AAW two weeks ago, but I got around to watching it this weekend). But who needs those guys when we’re bringing in scrubs obnoxious scrubs like Vinny Marseglia or Attitude Era nostalgia acts. I’m sure this will all work out fine. After all, look at how well it worked out for TNA.

Kevin Kelly is back to talking about those stupid fines for bad language that no one cares about and which make ROH look really lame. I am starting to develop the upmost respect for Kevin’s various broadcast partners (aside from Steve Corino, obviously) because if I were in Ian Riccaboni’s chair right now I would have likely been completely unable to resist the urge to grab Kevin by neck with both hands, slam his head into the commentary table, lean down and scream “ONLY TALK ABOUT SH*T THAT’S ACTUALLY RELEVANT!” right into his ear.
I mean… I don’t understand how this stupid f*cker does this crap. Your job is to call the wrestling match get over the stories and the feuds, and there is a f*cking wrestling match going on right in front of you, so what possesses this idiot to go on tangents talking about pointless, idiotic crap that accomplishes neither of these goals? In WWE we know they’ve got Vince in their ears (although with JBL I’m certain he goes off on his tangents often as well) and with Striker we know that he does it because his ego compels him to try to show off how smart he (thinks he) is, Pope, Lawler, and Corino do it because they’re more concerned with trying to be funny and get themselves over than anything else, and Vampiro is just scatter-brained, but what is Kevin Kelly’s excuse. For a guy who has been in the business for so long and spent time working with guys like JR, Jim Cornette, and Les Thatcher, he sure has no f*cking idea how to call a match or get over an angle without sounding totally phony.

TEXAS BULLROPE MATCH: Cody Rhodes vs. Jay Lethal- 7.75/10
Cody came through the crowd instead of down the ramp for apparently no reason. I think Kevin Kelly tried to tell me that Cody rode a horse into the building for his entrance, in which case ROH is f*cking stupid for not having a camera in place to show us. Cody says he wants to make it on his own, but he’s wearing a shirt that is a Terry Funk reference and having his father’s signature gimmick match, even going so far as to claim that they are using the very cowbell that his father used against Superstar Graham forty years ago. And as long as it’s ECW dress-up day, Jay Lethal is wearing a shirt proclaiming himself to be “The Franchise of ROH.”
Oh. Apparently the “horse” that Cody rode in on was a “Dark Horse” motorcycle. There is still no reason for ROH not having a camera in place to film this abnormal entrance. Also, it is apparently being auctioned off to raise money for a children’s charity. This is the sort of thing that we really don’t have to let people watching at home know that a heel is doing. It makes it kind of hard to hate him.

Now the announcers are letting us all know that Dusty Rhodes was a big draw. Really. What’s next? Are they going to make sure we know that WrestleMania is a big show? That Hulk Hogan once bodyslammed Andre the Giant? That Ric Flair was a member of the Four Horsemen? That Tommy Dreamer used to wrestle for ECW? Why are we even talking about Dusty Rhodes anyway? Oh. Right. Because his son is totally trying to make it on his own and not live off of his father’s name.

Pointless stalling in the beginning before the bullrope is tied. We even had Cody roll out of the ring and head for the back before two small dorks came out to tell him to back to the ring, at which point Cody shoved both of them into the guardrail, but just walked back to the ring anyway. Remember when Gabe was in charge and we didn’t have sh*t like this? Hell… a whole month’s worth of Gabe’s stuff plus a bunch of other promotions costs me less than this one show.

Okay. That bell ringing is REALLY annoying.
Okay. That’s it. I’m muting this.

At one point Cody pulled out his old WWE facemask from under the ring. Why would that be under there in the first place? Aside from that, the match itself was pretty great. It was pretty vicious, Cody cut Lethal off in a very unique way, and had some pretty brutal spots. This definitely had a real blow-off feel, which was helped by a finish which played into the story of the feud perfectly.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- stupid.
After everything that happened in this feud- how Cody put on a false front and then kicked Lethal in the nuts to screw him out of a win, then went and joined Lethal’s enemies in Bullet Club, plus other nut-kicking and chicken-sh*tting incidents, Lethal offers Cody a handshake. I already didn’t like this very much, but it’s ROH so I’ll accept honorable behavior whenever I can get it. Then Cody didn’t shake Lethal’s hand, but instead handed him the bullrope… and Lethal walked off, apparently satisfied with this, as Kevin Kelly told us that “Jay Lethal has won possession of the Rhodes Family heirloom.” I have no idea why I’m supposed to care about this at all. This was very weird and seems to have come out of nowhere.

THE MOTOR CITY MACHINE GUNS vs. WILL FERRARA & CHEESEBURGER vs. THE REBELLION (Rhett Titus & Shayne Taylor)- 4.75/10
Colt Cabana has left the commentary team, which is a major loss consider what we’re now left with, as Ian and Kevin together are extremely grating. Ian tells us that Will Ferrara & Cheeseburger “are looking to make a statement.” Oh f*ck off. Both of these men have been in the exact same place on the card that they were when they each debut in ROH, four years ago for Burger and two and a half for Ferrara. By this point it is clear that whatever story they give Burger will result in him remaining a comedy jobber no matter what the outcome while whatever story they give Ferrara will, at best, be abandoned half way through. And now you want to tell me that they are trying to “make a statement,” the must cliché bullsh*t nebulous phrase in the history of professional wrestling? Yeah. I’m not buying it.
Oh. Apparently they haven’t been getting a long recently. I still don’t care for exactly the reasons I stated above. Delirious has shown me time and again that nothing that happens with these two matters, so I’m not going to waste my time getting invested in this story, either. The only way I could possibly get excited for a feud between these two at this point is if they announce that it will culminate in a “Loser and Winner Leave Town” match.

This right here is a fine example of match that should not be happening at all. You don’t have to bring everyone to every show, and unless you need someone to get squashed you shouldn’t be bringing Cheeseburger anywhere. And unless he’s willing to pay his own trans and work the show for free, ROH shouldn’t be bringing Will Ferrara anywhere, either. They should have cut this match and stuck Kaz, Martinez, Taylor, Rhett, and MCMG in a Six Man Mayhem match so that we avoid the situation we’ve got in the Kaz vs. Martinez match where either our big scary monster or the #1 contender to the ROH TV Title has to lose. If you want to book a show that makes an impact but you’re limiting it to three hours (as ROH often does, even on DVD-only shows) then don’t book unnecessary matches. Keep your card small so that everything can get the time it needs.
The announcers are focusing on the knee injury Rhett Titus faked a few weeks ago, which he seems to have done for no reason, but it just so happened to work out the way Delirious’ storyline needed it to because for some reason Lio Rush was allowed to replace Rhett in the match to tease that he was joining The Rebellion but then turn on them. How fortunate that Rhett decided to fake this injury for no reason on the same night that Lio Rush developed this wacky plan. But yeah. This whole thing totally irrelevant, but the announcers have decided to focus on it instead of more pertinent things such as calling the match or perhaps citing some examples of Ferrara and Cheeseburger not getting along at recent shows.
Apparently Alex Shelley has been out of action for “a few months” with a back injury. Well why haven’t they mentioned this before? I had kind of assumed he was injured, but the way it has been framed one the shows- i.e. not being mentioned at all- has made it seem like Shelley was showing up to shows but ROH officials just kept forgetting to book him in matches.
The match was just… stuff. You’d think that this match would be an opportunity to highlight how new member Shayne Taylor can help The Rebellion by having them pick up the victory with him getting the pin because Ferrara & Burger’s angle is that they’re losing matches and not getting along while MCMG aren’t doing anything right now because Shelley has just come back from this back injury… but instead Delirious gives MCMG the win because he almost always puts the babyfaces over on these shows unless it’s a title match or something like that because he pretty much always goes the instant gratification route and thus is a bad booker and/or he’s lazy.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- bad
The Rebellion attack MCMG after the match to get some heat, except that this sort of thing almost always happens to MCMG and nothing ever comes of it (I’m pretty sure they got attacked from behind after winning a match on, like, eight straight shows last winter and spring). They brawl away so that the focus can be on the ring, where Will Ferrara is yelling at Cheeseburger for losing this match. Yea. Because this loss is the straw that broke the camel’s back in this pairing of a literal jobber and the guy at the absolute bottom of the midcard. We’re supposed to feel bad about this because they’re best friends, but the truth is that we have never once seen them act like best friends. Kevin Kelly just always tells us that they’re best friends we’re supposed to believe him, even though he gets lots of facts wrong. Kevin Kelly (and Ian Riccaboni for that matter) are also fond of telling us that Will Ferrara and Rhett Titus are best pals and we’ve never seen them do anything but fight each other, so I’m not sure how any of this is supposed to mean anything.
Ferrara picks Cheesejobber up like he’s going to attack him but before anything happens he runs away because Punishment Martinez has come out so we have an excuse to draw this non-drama out for another show because he, too, “is looking to make a statement” according to Ian Riccaboni. Oh yeah? So please explain to me what statement he made by kicking an already-beaten jobber in the head.
The fans chant “NAKAMURA!” at Martinez, I assume because of his red pants and long stringy black hair. It’s nice to see that they care about Cheesejobber about as much as I do. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to care about Martinez either, but then again that’s what happens when the only storyline you’ve had in your one year in the company is that you are reincarnation of the Purple Haze in a feud between Steve Corino and Kevin Sullivan and BJ Whitmer and also maybe Cody Rhodes that absolutely no one understands.

PUNISHMENT MARTINEZ vs. FRANKIE KAZARIAN- 5/10
This was actually quite good for the time it got. They did a lot of stuff, almost all of which was designed to make Punishment Martinez look like a star… and yet they still managed to make Kaz look strong heading into his title shot. If I were to write out on paper that the big scary monster heel was going to be the one to kick out at one after a big move and shout for the babyface to hit him again and give him his best shot it would sound utterly backwards, but that’s what happened here and they made it work. The only thing I really didn’t like was the finish, which was, in a way, almost a necessity here. Adam Page came out to distract Kaz, which allowed Martinez to hit his finisher and get the win. The pieces all fit, as Kaz needed to be protected going into his ROH TV Title shot next weekend but Martinez would look bad losing to Kaz and it would kill his momentum, and Page going after Kaz makes sense because Bullet Club wants revenge on Kaz for infiltrating them at stopping Cole from cheating at the 15th Anniversary Show in the match where Cole lost the ROH World Title, but we’ve just seen so many pointless heel finishes in ROH over the past two years that it’s extremely grating, and it hurts both their ability to make it mean something as well as the fans’ tolerance for it in a spot like this where they actually do need to do it. If this leads to Martinez saying he deserves a TV Title shot for beating the #1 contender then this was all fine, but if it doesn’t, then there was no reason to book these two against each other in the first place.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- there isn’t one. Yeah. Apparently Adam Page and Bullet Club are just happy to have cost Kaz this low-stakes match and they’re not going to take the opportunity of him being vulnerable here to, like, attack him or anything.

BOBBY FISH PROMO- no rating, meh segment
So after being removed from the talent list from this show ROH has let Fish show up anyway. It’s good to see that we’ve learned from telling Keith Lee to not bother putting the Briscoes over on his last night in the company.
Bobby says that he isn’t done with ROH. He says he still has issues with Jay Lethal. Okay. That’s fine, I guess. He’s disappointed that he lost… but shouldn’t he be asking for the rematch for the TV Title that he hasn’t gotten yet?
Silas Young comes out and interrupts him. They exchange hostile words (both mentioned Jay Lethal a lot, with Silas’ mentioned feeling extremely forced, so I guess that’s a feud that’s about to happen, even though we just did it back in the fall with Lethal winning basically every match) and the result is…

SILAS YOUNG vs. BOBBY FISH- no rating, fine segment.
How fortunate that both guys came out wearing their gear even though Fish wasn’t even scheduled to wrestle tonight while Silas had already wrestled and would have presumably changed out of it by now. They did stuff until we got a ref bump. Silas then went to use a chair but ROH Senior Official Tod Sinclair came out to stop him, so Silas shoved Sinclair for the DQ.
Fish and Silas brawled a lot more and took some brutal bumps. Kevin Kelly said that both of them were “looking to make statement” which is why they were brawling. This has to be at least the fifth time Kevin Kelly has said that someone is “looking to make a statement.” I wish Kevin Kelly wouldn’t try to make any more statements. That would make this show much more enjoyable.

We have a ref bump in this match and another referee runs out to replace him... so why did a second referee come out in the opener, which was a freakin’ title match? And ref in question here, who stopped Silas from using a chair, was the same ref who made no effort to stop Vinny Marseglia from trying to burn the Beer City Bruiser with a lit cigar. Consistency is important because the more consistent things are, the less you ask your viewers to suspend their disbelief. The answer to my above question is “because the plot demanded that it happen this time but not happen that other time.” That is an answer that should be avoided at all costs, no matter if it’s pro wrestling or any other format of storytelling.

At least Colt Cabana was back on commentary, which great raised the percentage of intelligent statements made.

While recapping the previous segment and selling his surprise that Bobby Fish came out Ian said that he was expecting to see one of the three remaining matches come out. Did no one give in the card for tonight? Even worse just a minute later Kevin Kelly clearly knew what match would be up next, so it’s also possible that Ian did get a sheet and he’s just a moron, or ROH management only gave the sheet to Kevin Kelly and Kevin is being a jerk and not sharing it. Either way, Ian shouldn’t have said that he didn’t know what match would be on next because it buries either him or the company. I know it sounds like I’m picking on the announcers, but good announcing is such an integral part of a good wrestling product that you can’t have announcers going around and saying stupid sh*t that either hurts their own credibility or makes the promotion look disorganized.

DRAGON LEE & JAY WHITE vs. VOLADOR JR. & WILL OSPREAY- 7.5/10
They’re starting off by doing f*cking comedy. Just great. That’s definitely what I want out of a match they’ve been pushing as a fast-paced match full of high flyers.
Ah. Now here comes the high-flying, which was pretty much the whole match, although White added a slightly less… flippy… element to it.

ROH WORLD TITLE MATCH: Christopher Daniels(c) vs. Dalton Castle (w/the Boys)- 6.75/10
Dalton has lots of Boys tonight… but then all but two of them just go to the back. Shouldn’t they all be out there to support Dalton in this match?
To show how nice I can be, I will excuse the spot where Boys almost fanned Daniels as Daniels trying to exploit their previously established stupidity and/or lack of fidelity to Dalton in an attempt to get Dalton angry and throw him off of his game. Otherwise, this would have been an attempt at comedy in a freakin’ ROH WORLD TITLE MATCH.
Okay. Now we’ve got actual comedy going on, resulting in the Boys getting into the ring and ROH Senior Official Tod Sinclair doing absolutely NOTHING to stop them, nor doing anything to get the fans- foreign objects that Colt Cabana proved could be quite dangerous- out of Daniels’ hands.
The match was very good from that point on, but ultimately I found it to be quite disappointing. Yeah, they had some false finishes and they went a while, but this did not feel like a big ROH World Title match by any means.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- fine
Cody Rhodes attacks both men from behind and poses with the ROH World Title belt. Kazarian came out to chase him off. At least Daniels has some direction, now, and the circumstances surrounding it (Lethal having beaten Cody earlier tonight, plus his big win against Fish at the 15th Anniversary Show) mean that this could be setting up Lethal getting a title shot, too. Hopefully Daniels’ future title defenses are better than this one was.

LADDER MATCH FOR THE ROH WORLD TAG TEAM TITLES: The Hardy Boyz(c) vs. The Young Bucks- 9.25/10
This might not have officially been billed as a “Ladder War” but that didn’t stop these four guys from trying to live up to the standards that have been set by ROH’s previous ladder matches. Half interesting twists on the usual Ladder Match spots and half just plain BRUTAL bumps, this is definitely a match that lived up to the hype.
The Bucks regained the belts here, as pretty much everyone assumed they would. So the Hardys came in and won the tag titles in a match that was completely unannounced so you made no money off of it, they beat Roppongi Vice and the Briscoes, then lost the belts right back to the Bucks a month later in the match they were originally scheduled to have, because nothing says “these belts are important” like short, pointless title reigns. Since Delirious got the book from Cornette he has booked fourteen ROH World Tag Team Title changes in four and a half years. Of these thirteen completed title reigns, five of them have had two defenses or fewer, with three of them having zero. More than half of them have not eclipsed five defenses. Only one reign (reDRagon’s first) has surpassed ten defenses. No one else has gotten more than seven. And please keep in mind that most of these are at a time when ROH is running more shows than they ever have before. Add in the similarly short, fruitless and pointless reigns we’ve seen recently with the world title (Kyle’s, and consequently Cole’s third) and Ishii doing nothing in the US with the TV Title, plus the lack of any real build for any sort of feuds with the six-man tag titles now that we are four months into their existence (or even any feuds in that whole division) and the fact that even a long title reign with many defenses is often filled with very little substance or deserving challengers, and it’s clear that we have a booker who doesn’t understand the importance of titles and how to book them.


This was a very up and down show from ROH. The stuff that was good was quite great but the stuff that was disappointing (or worse) was on the extreme end of that part of the spectrum as well. Unfortunately, even the stuff that was good was often made less enjoyable by the terrible announcing. Kevin Kelly in particular was absolutely terrible. He made jokes about Beer City Bruiser getting a DUI, constantly said annoying crap that made him look like the biggest idiot in the world, and instead of just explaining to the fans why something is important he would occasionally say it to Cabana as if Cabana was some sort of idiot who worked in the wrestling business but didn’t understand concepts like “promoters will only pay to fly someone in from overseas if they are really, really great” even though it was Colt who brought the topic up. Think about how dumb it makes the WWE announcers sound when Michael Cole reminds them of the rules of a triple threat match. That’s what Kevin Kelly would do, and I was kind of hoping that Colt would just slap the sh*t out of him.
ROH right now is giving off a very 1999 WCW feel. Business still seems to be going well, often through the efforts of the wrestlers to go out there and deliver every night rather than because anything compelling is happening) but the signs are there for those who are looking for them. The problem is that the higher-ups (i.e. Joe Koff) are ignoring the signs. They are happy with the current financial bottom line so they are taking no effort to fix the problems that are evident now that will hurt that bottom line in the future… and by the time they do take notice, a lot more damage could be done. A great show from ROH, but not one that in any way makes me feel optimistic about the product as a whole.

STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. Kevin Kelly- “The same type of disagreement between Silas and the Bruiser and The Kingdom that we saw at the onset of this match continues here.”
This was how he called MEN TRADING HAYMAKERS TO THE FACE. Byron Saxton would do a better job.

2. Kevin Kelly brings up the fact that Adam Page joined Bullet Club by helping the Guerrilas of Destiny in a match, saying that “the symmetry between Adam Page and the Guerrillas of Destiny goes all the way back to last June.
A) What the f*ck does any of that have to do with symmetry?
B) It was May, not June. You’d think the company’s lead announcer (and a guy who spent most of last year supposedly on the booking committee no less) would be able to remember which month the annual New Japan tour of ROH is in, but apparently not. It’s only been in the same month all four years now (including the announced tour in 2017).

3. Colt Cabana claims that “the Rhodes Family has never lost a Bullrope Match.”
Well that’s sure not true because I know Dusty lost one to Orton, plus I’m certain he lost one to Disco Inferno in TNA. But even if Colt didn’t remember or didn’t know about those, the odds that, between Dusty, Dustin, and Cody, they have never lost one single bullrope match are astronomically small, so why would you even say it when you could just say that it’s their signature match or something else that you can be certain is true.

4. Kevin Kelly said that both Fish and Silas have “intersections through Jay Lethal.”
Putting aside how utterly stupid that phrasing sounds (it’s downright Tenay-esque), not even the general idea is correct. An intersection is two things meeting in the same place. These two didn’t “meet” via Jay Lethal at all. Silas had a short feud with him in September and October, and Fish then started one three months later. That’s not an “intersection.” That’s two roads that run parallel to each other but both happen to cross Jay Lethal Boulevard at different points.

5. Ian Riccaboni (about the Silas vs. Fish match)- “I’m not sure if this match was even sanctioned.”
It took place between two ROH-contracted wrestlers in an ROH ring on an ROH show and an ROH official was sent out to officiate it and it ended when an ROH official disqualified one of the competitors for breaking an ROH rule. WHY THE F*CK WOULD IT NOT BE SANCTIONED?!

6. Ian described Bobby Fish’s appearance tonight as a “shocking return to Ring of Honor.”
He hasn’t missed a single show and his removal from the line-up was never once acknowledged by the company, so within kayfabe, which is what this show is supposed to be, this is not any sort of “return” and barely qualifies as being a mild surprise.
Mr. Mojo Risin
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Re: Supercard of Honor XI - Lakeland/Orlando, FL

Post by Mr. Mojo Risin »

Big Red Machine wrote:ROH Supercard of Honor XI (4/1/2017)- Lakeland, FL

ROH TV TITLE MATCH: Marty Scurll(c) vs. Adam Cole- 8/10
Cole got this title shot by “petitioning Ring of Honor management.” Is ROH management really willing to just give Cole a title shot after everything he has done in the past year with Bullet Club? Bobby Cruises says that Cole is a member of Bullet Club. I had been under the impression that he had been literally kicked out of the Bullet Club in Vegas. And if he hasn’t, this just makes ROH management deciding to give him a title shot just because he asked for it even more baffling.
But hey. At the least the match rocked!
The story here was a very interesting clash of personalities. Marty, being the flashy jerk that he is, always has his signature spots that he does that involve him either dancing around gloating beforehand or doing something that makes his opponent look silly and he insists on doing these things… but Adam Cole had those things scouted and took advantage of that. But, Cole being Cole, he, too, is a cocky bastard, and Marty always found a way to take advantage of Cole’s overconfidence. In addition to this they had some very good heel vs. heel spots (that weapon standoff early on being my favorite). In other news, Marty Scurll has taken up Chris Hero’s mantle of the man with the sickest piledrivers on the independent scene. Cole actually failed in an attempt to get Marty up for a tombstone and might have hurt his back. Hopefully he’s okay. I haven’t heard anyone say that he’s hurt, but I’ve also been avoiding ROH news in an attempt to stay spoiler-free for this show.

RECAP OF THE SITUATION WITH THE SIX-MAN TAG TITLES AS RELATES TO SILAS YOUNG & THE KINGDOM- a good way to catch people up on a situation that might not have aired yet to give this next match some context.

KINGDOM PROMO- great!
Only Taven and O’Ryan got to talk. Both were quite great. Even better was the fact that Marseglia didn’t talk. Taven did a perfect job of setting TK up to heel on the crowd. Kevin Kelly got all outraged, saying that he “thought we were going to hear some contrition” from O’Ryan, having being humbled by the support of the fans in this time of injury. You know… because Kevin Kelly is a gullible moron who is constantly fooled, no matter how many times The Kingdom or other heels have done things like this. That’s why I joined Colt Cabana in a hearty laugh when Ian Riccaboni flat out told Kevin Kelly that he was naïve for expecting such a thing.

SILAS YOUNG & THE BEER CITY BRUISER vs. THE KINGDOM (Matt Taven & Vinny Marseglia) (w/TK O’Ryan)- 2/10
Silas Young cut a promo before the match explaining his side of things, and managed to be both (mostly truthful and a huge jerk at the same time. This is shaping up to be an excellent heel vs. heel feud.
But do you know how it could be an even better heel vs. heel feud? If Vinny Marseglia had gotten hurt instead of TK O’Ryan. Marseglia is the stupidest, most annoying piece of sh*t I have ever seen in a wrestling ring. He is completely bland in the ring and is SOOOOO annoying whenever he opens his mouth, which is basically all of the time. Whoever came up with that spot where he used Beer City Bruiser’s cigar to try to burn Silas Young right in front of the referee should have been flogged for suggesting it, and Senior Referee Tod Sinclair should be fired for doing basically nothing about it. Also he should be fired for not even trying to keep track of who the legal man is. How the f*ck do you count two pins at once? BY DEFINITION only two of the wrestlers are legal, so there can only be one pinfall at a time! Silas pinned Marseglia, and I hope this is the last time we ever see him in ROH again. I know it probably won’t be, but I’ll hold out hope that he realizes how annoying he is and decides to quit the wrestling business before next weekend’s TV tapings in Baltimore.

BULLY RAY PROMO- very good, although it definitely started to drag towards the end.

ROH WORLD SIX-MAN TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: The Briscoes & Bully Ray(c) vs. Bullet Club (The Guerrillas of Destiny & Hangman Page)- 4/10
The part of Bully’s promo above that started to drag was when he talked about the Guerrillas of Destiny, who he and Devon apparently trained and who he has never faced before. The announcers speculated as to whether either of them would be hesitant to face the other. OH COME ON! We’ve seen Bully have no problem beating the sh*t out of DEVON before, so why would I think he’d have any trouble fighting against two dudes who he trained a decade ago, and especially within the context of the professional combat sport that is exactly what he trained them to compete in?
So anyway, built up to Bully finally getting the tag and he is in there facing off against both guys... and they all stop, and Bully looks at them and beings to f*cking lecture them, telling them to “do it your father taught you and do it how me and Devon taught you, let’s do it the right way.” I guess he was trying to ask them not to cheat, which is f*cking stupid considering that they had just been cheating to keep Mark Briscoe isolated as the legal man. Maybe Bully should have asked them this before the match started.
Meanwhile, Adam Page is on the apron, shouting at the Guerrillas to not shake Bully’s offered hand. Since when does Adam Page have the seniority to yell at the Guerrillas of Destiny? He’s the newcomer job-boy for Bullet Club and they’re former tag champs. Yeah, they do jobs often, too, but at least when they do jobs it doesn’t come off as if they were added to stable specifically to take the pinfalls to protect everyone else.
This was all extremely obnoxious false drama, which is one of the worst things you can have. It ended with the Guerrillas accepting Bully’s handshake… but then pulling him right into a double-team move, which everyone in the world other than Bully saw coming. Doesn’t he know Bullet Clubs’ reputation? Has he watched any of his students’ matches? For someone who is such a world-travelled veteran, Bully sure is naïve. Or maybe just stupid.
So after some spots with Bully and the Bullet Club, it was the babyfaces who really ramp up the cheating by using a variation of the Whazzzzzup! Then Bully tells the Briscoes to get the tables, because I guess they’re not just cheaters but now they’re also looking to get disqualified rather than cleanly retain their titles. But the crowd pops for it anyway because Delirious has booked this company so far away from what it is supposed to be that babyface champions cheating to get disqualified in a title match is something we want to see now. Then the fans all chant “ECW!” which is why we don’t bring in Bubba Ray Dudley in 2017. This company has been dead for long enough that in most states people who were born the day after the last ECW show can now legally get driver’s licenses. But yeah. Let’s keep chanting “ECW!” I would be shocked if more than ten percent of the fans in this crowd were actually fans of ECW when it was alive.
Not a peep from any of the announcers about the babyfaces’ cheating, of course, because they’re the babyfaces so when they cheat it’s completely excusable because hypocrisy is the in vogue these days all over the country, and we know how much wrestling companies love to be seen as culturally in tune so that people who watch don’t have to feel like they’re out of the norm for being wrestling fans.
The rest of the match was fine. So basically, if you cut out the parts where Bully Ray was being Bully Ray rather than just a generic pro wrestler, this match would have greatly improved. I just spent an entire weekend watching Lio Rush, Keith Lee, Donovan Dijak, Michael Elgin, and Kyle O’Reilly have awesome matches (the Kyle match was from AAW two weeks ago, but I got around to watching it this weekend). But who needs those guys when we’re bringing in scrubs obnoxious scrubs like Vinny Marseglia or Attitude Era nostalgia acts. I’m sure this will all work out fine. After all, look at how well it worked out for TNA.

Kevin Kelly is back to talking about those stupid fines for bad language that no one cares about and which make ROH look really lame. I am starting to develop the upmost respect for Kevin’s various broadcast partners (aside from Steve Corino, obviously) because if I were in Ian Riccaboni’s chair right now I would have likely been completely unable to resist the urge to grab Kevin by neck with both hands, slam his head into the commentary table, lean down and scream “ONLY TALK ABOUT SH*T THAT’S ACTUALLY RELEVANT!” right into his ear.
I mean… I don’t understand how this stupid f*cker does this crap. Your job is to call the wrestling match get over the stories and the feuds, and there is a f*cking wrestling match going on right in front of you, so what possesses this idiot to go on tangents talking about pointless, idiotic crap that accomplishes neither of these goals? In WWE we know they’ve got Vince in their ears (although with JBL I’m certain he goes off on his tangents often as well) and with Striker we know that he does it because his ego compels him to try to show off how smart he (thinks he) is, Pope, Lawler, and Corino do it because they’re more concerned with trying to be funny and get themselves over than anything else, and Vampiro is just scatter-brained, but what is Kevin Kelly’s excuse. For a guy who has been in the business for so long and spent time working with guys like JR, Jim Cornette, and Les Thatcher, he sure has no f*cking idea how to call a match or get over an angle without sounding totally phony.

TEXAS BULLROPE MATCH: Cody Rhodes vs. Jay Lethal- 7.75/10
Cody came through the crowd instead of down the ramp for apparently no reason. I think Kevin Kelly tried to tell me that Cody rode a horse into the building for his entrance, in which case ROH is f*cking stupid for not having a camera in place to show us. Cody says he wants to make it on his own, but he’s wearing a shirt that is a Terry Funk reference and having his father’s signature gimmick match, even going so far as to claim that they are using the very cowbell that his father used against Superstar Graham forty years ago. And as long as it’s ECW dress-up day, Jay Lethal is wearing a shirt proclaiming himself to be “The Franchise of ROH.”
Oh. Apparently the “horse” that Cody rode in on was a “Dark Horse” motorcycle. There is still no reason for ROH not having a camera in place to film this abnormal entrance. Also, it is apparently being auctioned off to raise money for a children’s charity. This is the sort of thing that we really don’t have to let people watching at home know that a heel is doing. It makes it kind of hard to hate him.

Now the announcers are letting us all know that Dusty Rhodes was a big draw. Really. What’s next? Are they going to make sure we know that WrestleMania is a big show? That Hulk Hogan once bodyslammed Andre the Giant? That Ric Flair was a member of the Four Horsemen? That Tommy Dreamer used to wrestle for ECW? Why are we even talking about Dusty Rhodes anyway? Oh. Right. Because his son is totally trying to make it on his own and not live off of his father’s name.

Pointless stalling in the beginning before the bullrope is tied. We even had Cody roll out of the ring and head for the back before two small dorks came out to tell him to back to the ring, at which point Cody shoved both of them into the guardrail, but just walked back to the ring anyway. Remember when Gabe was in charge and we didn’t have sh*t like this? Hell… a whole month’s worth of Gabe’s stuff plus a bunch of other promotions costs me less than this one show.

Okay. That bell ringing is REALLY annoying.
Okay. That’s it. I’m muting this.

At one point Cody pulled out his old WWE facemask from under the ring. Why would that be under there in the first place? Aside from that, the match itself was pretty great. It was pretty vicious, Cody cut Lethal off in a very unique way, and had some pretty brutal spots. This definitely had a real blow-off feel, which was helped by a finish which played into the story of the feud perfectly.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- stupid.
After everything that happened in this feud- how Cody put on a false front and then kicked Lethal in the nuts to screw him out of a win, then went and joined Lethal’s enemies in Bullet Club, plus other nut-kicking and chicken-sh*tting incidents, Lethal offers Cody a handshake. I already didn’t like this very much, but it’s ROH so I’ll accept honorable behavior whenever I can get it. Then Cody didn’t shake Lethal’s hand, but instead handed him the bullrope… and Lethal walked off, apparently satisfied with this, as Kevin Kelly told us that “Jay Lethal has won possession of the Rhodes Family heirloom.” I have no idea why I’m supposed to care about this at all. This was very weird and seems to have come out of nowhere.

THE MOTOR CITY MACHINE GUNS vs. WILL FERRARA & CHEESEBURGER vs. THE REBELLION (Rhett Titus & Shayne Taylor)- 4.75/10
Colt Cabana has left the commentary team, which is a major loss consider what we’re now left with, as Ian and Kevin together are extremely grating. Ian tells us that Will Ferrara & Cheeseburger “are looking to make a statement.” Oh f*ck off. Both of these men have been in the exact same place on the card that they were when they each debut in ROH, four years ago for Burger and two and a half for Ferrara. By this point it is clear that whatever story they give Burger will result in him remaining a comedy jobber no matter what the outcome while whatever story they give Ferrara will, at best, be abandoned half way through. And now you want to tell me that they are trying to “make a statement,” the must cliché bullsh*t nebulous phrase in the history of professional wrestling? Yeah. I’m not buying it.
Oh. Apparently they haven’t been getting a long recently. I still don’t care for exactly the reasons I stated above. Delirious has shown me time and again that nothing that happens with these two matters, so I’m not going to waste my time getting invested in this story, either. The only way I could possibly get excited for a feud between these two at this point is if they announce that it will culminate in a “Loser and Winner Leave Town” match.

This right here is a fine example of match that should not be happening at all. You don’t have to bring everyone to every show, and unless you need someone to get squashed you shouldn’t be bringing Cheeseburger anywhere. And unless he’s willing to pay his own trans and work the show for free, ROH shouldn’t be bringing Will Ferrara anywhere, either. They should have cut this match and stuck Kaz, Martinez, Taylor, Rhett, and MCMG in a Six Man Mayhem match so that we avoid the situation we’ve got in the Kaz vs. Martinez match where either our big scary monster or the #1 contender to the ROH TV Title has to lose. If you want to book a show that makes an impact but you’re limiting it to three hours (as ROH often does, even on DVD-only shows) then don’t book unnecessary matches. Keep your card small so that everything can get the time it needs.
The announcers are focusing on the knee injury Rhett Titus faked a few weeks ago, which he seems to have done for no reason, but it just so happened to work out the way Delirious’ storyline needed it to because for some reason Lio Rush was allowed to replace Rhett in the match to tease that he was joining The Rebellion but then turn on them. How fortunate that Rhett decided to fake this injury for no reason on the same night that Lio Rush developed this wacky plan. But yeah. This whole thing totally irrelevant, but the announcers have decided to focus on it instead of more pertinent things such as calling the match or perhaps citing some examples of Ferrara and Cheeseburger not getting along at recent shows.
Apparently Alex Shelley has been out of action for “a few months” with a back injury. Well why haven’t they mentioned this before? I had kind of assumed he was injured, but the way it has been framed one the shows- i.e. not being mentioned at all- has made it seem like Shelley was showing up to shows but ROH officials just kept forgetting to book him in matches.
The match was just… stuff. You’d think that this match would be an opportunity to highlight how new member Shayne Taylor can help The Rebellion by having them pick up the victory with him getting the pin because Ferrara & Burger’s angle is that they’re losing matches and not getting along while MCMG aren’t doing anything right now because Shelley has just come back from this back injury… but instead Delirious gives MCMG the win because he almost always puts the babyfaces over on these shows unless it’s a title match or something like that because he pretty much always goes the instant gratification route and thus is a bad booker and/or he’s lazy.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- bad
The Rebellion attack MCMG after the match to get some heat, except that this sort of thing almost always happens to MCMG and nothing ever comes of it (I’m pretty sure they got attacked from behind after winning a match on, like, eight straight shows last winter and spring). They brawl away so that the focus can be on the ring, where Will Ferrara is yelling at Cheeseburger for losing this match. Yea. Because this loss is the straw that broke the camel’s back in this pairing of a literal jobber and the guy at the absolute bottom of the midcard. We’re supposed to feel bad about this because they’re best friends, but the truth is that we have never once seen them act like best friends. Kevin Kelly just always tells us that they’re best friends we’re supposed to believe him, even though he gets lots of facts wrong. Kevin Kelly (and Ian Riccaboni for that matter) are also fond of telling us that Will Ferrara and Rhett Titus are best pals and we’ve never seen them do anything but fight each other, so I’m not sure how any of this is supposed to mean anything.
Ferrara picks Cheesejobber up like he’s going to attack him but before anything happens he runs away because Punishment Martinez has come out so we have an excuse to draw this non-drama out for another show because he, too, “is looking to make a statement” according to Ian Riccaboni. Oh yeah? So please explain to me what statement he made by kicking an already-beaten jobber in the head.
The fans chant “NAKAMURA!” at Martinez, I assume because of his red pants and long stringy black hair. It’s nice to see that they care about Cheesejobber about as much as I do. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to care about Martinez either, but then again that’s what happens when the only storyline you’ve had in your one year in the company is that you are reincarnation of the Purple Haze in a feud between Steve Corino and Kevin Sullivan and BJ Whitmer and also maybe Cody Rhodes that absolutely no one understands.

PUNISHMENT MARTINEZ vs. FRANKIE KAZARIAN- 5/10
This was actually quite good for the time it got. They did a lot of stuff, almost all of which was designed to make Punishment Martinez look like a star… and yet they still managed to make Kaz look strong heading into his title shot. If I were to write out on paper that the big scary monster heel was going to be the one to kick out at one after a big move and shout for the babyface to hit him again and give him his best shot it would sound utterly backwards, but that’s what happened here and they made it work. The only thing I really didn’t like was the finish, which was, in a way, almost a necessity here. Adam Page came out to distract Kaz, which allowed Martinez to hit his finisher and get the win. The pieces all fit, as Kaz needed to be protected going into his ROH TV Title shot next weekend but Martinez would look bad losing to Kaz and it would kill his momentum, and Page going after Kaz makes sense because Bullet Club wants revenge on Kaz for infiltrating them at stopping Cole from cheating at the 15th Anniversary Show in the match where Cole lost the ROH World Title, but we’ve just seen so many pointless heel finishes in ROH over the past two years that it’s extremely grating, and it hurts both their ability to make it mean something as well as the fans’ tolerance for it in a spot like this where they actually do need to do it. If this leads to Martinez saying he deserves a TV Title shot for beating the #1 contender then this was all fine, but if it doesn’t, then there was no reason to book these two against each other in the first place.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- there isn’t one. Yeah. Apparently Adam Page and Bullet Club are just happy to have cost Kaz this low-stakes match and they’re not going to take the opportunity of him being vulnerable here to, like, attack him or anything.

BOBBY FISH PROMO- no rating, meh segment
So after being removed from the talent list from this show ROH has let Fish show up anyway. It’s good to see that we’ve learned from telling Keith Lee to not bother putting the Briscoes over on his last night in the company.
Bobby says that he isn’t done with ROH. He says he still has issues with Jay Lethal. Okay. That’s fine, I guess. He’s disappointed that he lost… but shouldn’t he be asking for the rematch for the TV Title that he hasn’t gotten yet?
Silas Young comes out and interrupts him. They exchange hostile words (both mentioned Jay Lethal a lot, with Silas’ mentioned feeling extremely forced, so I guess that’s a feud that’s about to happen, even though we just did it back in the fall with Lethal winning basically every match) and the result is…

SILAS YOUNG vs. BOBBY FISH- no rating, fine segment.
How fortunate that both guys came out wearing their gear even though Fish wasn’t even scheduled to wrestle tonight while Silas had already wrestled and would have presumably changed out of it by now. They did stuff until we got a ref bump. Silas then went to use a chair but ROH Senior Official Tod Sinclair came out to stop him, so Silas shoved Sinclair for the DQ.
Fish and Silas brawled a lot more and took some brutal bumps. Kevin Kelly said that both of them were “looking to make statement” which is why they were brawling. This has to be at least the fifth time Kevin Kelly has said that someone is “looking to make a statement.” I wish Kevin Kelly wouldn’t try to make any more statements. That would make this show much more enjoyable.

We have a ref bump in this match and another referee runs out to replace him... so why did a second referee come out in the opener, which was a freakin’ title match? And ref in question here, who stopped Silas from using a chair, was the same ref who made no effort to stop Vinny Marseglia from trying to burn the Beer City Bruiser with a lit cigar. Consistency is important because the more consistent things are, the less you ask your viewers to suspend their disbelief. The answer to my above question is “because the plot demanded that it happen this time but not happen that other time.” That is an answer that should be avoided at all costs, no matter if it’s pro wrestling or any other format of storytelling.

At least Colt Cabana was back on commentary, which great raised the percentage of intelligent statements made.

While recapping the previous segment and selling his surprise that Bobby Fish came out Ian said that he was expecting to see one of the three remaining matches come out. Did no one give in the card for tonight? Even worse just a minute later Kevin Kelly clearly knew what match would be up next, so it’s also possible that Ian did get a sheet and he’s just a moron, or ROH management only gave the sheet to Kevin Kelly and Kevin is being a jerk and not sharing it. Either way, Ian shouldn’t have said that he didn’t know what match would be on next because it buries either him or the company. I know it sounds like I’m picking on the announcers, but good announcing is such an integral part of a good wrestling product that you can’t have announcers going around and saying stupid sh*t that either hurts their own credibility or makes the promotion look disorganized.

DRAGON LEE & JAY WHITE vs. VOLADOR JR. & WILL OSPREAY- 7.5/10
They’re starting off by doing f*cking comedy. Just great. That’s definitely what I want out of a match they’ve been pushing as a fast-paced match full of high flyers.
Ah. Now here comes the high-flying, which was pretty much the whole match, although White added a slightly less… flippy… element to it.

ROH WORLD TITLE MATCH: Christopher Daniels(c) vs. Dalton Castle (w/the Boys)- 6.75/10
Dalton has lots of Boys tonight… but then all but two of them just go to the back. Shouldn’t they all be out there to support Dalton in this match?
To show how nice I can be, I will excuse the spot where Boys almost fanned Daniels as Daniels trying to exploit their previously established stupidity and/or lack of fidelity to Dalton in an attempt to get Dalton angry and throw him off of his game. Otherwise, this would have been an attempt at comedy in a freakin’ ROH WORLD TITLE MATCH.
Okay. Now we’ve got actual comedy going on, resulting in the Boys getting into the ring and ROH Senior Official Tod Sinclair doing absolutely NOTHING to stop them, nor doing anything to get the fans- foreign objects that Colt Cabana proved could be quite dangerous- out of Daniels’ hands.
The match was very good from that point on, but ultimately I found it to be quite disappointing. Yeah, they had some false finishes and they went a while, but this did not feel like a big ROH World Title match by any means.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- fine
Cody Rhodes attacks both men from behind and poses with the ROH World Title belt. Kazarian came out to chase him off. At least Daniels has some direction, now, and the circumstances surrounding it (Lethal having beaten Cody earlier tonight, plus his big win against Fish at the 15th Anniversary Show) mean that this could be setting up Lethal getting a title shot, too. Hopefully Daniels’ future title defenses are better than this one was.

LADDER MATCH FOR THE ROH WORLD TAG TEAM TITLES: The Hardy Boyz(c) vs. The Young Bucks- 9.25/10
This might not have officially been billed as a “Ladder War” but that didn’t stop these four guys from trying to live up to the standards that have been set by ROH’s previous ladder matches. Half interesting twists on the usual Ladder Match spots and half just plain BRUTAL bumps, this is definitely a match that lived up to the hype.
The Bucks regained the belts here, as pretty much everyone assumed they would. So the Hardys came in and won the tag titles in a match that was completely unannounced so you made no money off of it, they beat Roppongi Vice and the Briscoes, then lost the belts right back to the Bucks a month later in the match they were originally scheduled to have, because nothing says “these belts are important” like short, pointless title reigns. Since Delirious got the book from Cornette he has booked fourteen ROH World Tag Team Title changes in four and a half years. Of these thirteen completed title reigns, five of them have had two defenses or fewer, with three of them having zero. More than half of them have not eclipsed five defenses. Only one reign (reDRagon’s first) has surpassed ten defenses. No one else has gotten more than seven. And please keep in mind that most of these are at a time when ROH is running more shows than they ever have before. Add in the similarly short, fruitless and pointless reigns we’ve seen recently with the world title (Kyle’s, and consequently Cole’s third) and Ishii doing nothing in the US with the TV Title, plus the lack of any real build for any sort of feuds with the six-man tag titles now that we are four months into their existence (or even any feuds in that whole division) and the fact that even a long title reign with many defenses is often filled with very little substance or deserving challengers, and it’s clear that we have a booker who doesn’t understand the importance of titles and how to book them.


This was a very up and down show from ROH. The stuff that was good was quite great but the stuff that was disappointing (or worse) was on the extreme end of that part of the spectrum as well. Unfortunately, even the stuff that was good was often made less enjoyable by the terrible announcing. Kevin Kelly in particular was absolutely terrible. He made jokes about Beer City Bruiser getting a DUI, constantly said annoying crap that made him look like the biggest idiot in the world, and instead of just explaining to the fans why something is important he would occasionally say it to Cabana as if Cabana was some sort of idiot who worked in the wrestling business but didn’t understand concepts like “promoters will only pay to fly someone in from overseas if they are really, really great” even though it was Colt who brought the topic up. Think about how dumb it makes the WWE announcers sound when Michael Cole reminds them of the rules of a triple threat match. That’s what Kevin Kelly would do, and I was kind of hoping that Colt would just slap the sh*t out of him.
ROH right now is giving off a very 1999 WCW feel. Business still seems to be going well, often through the efforts of the wrestlers to go out there and deliver every night rather than because anything compelling is happening) but the signs are there for those who are looking for them. The problem is that the higher-ups (i.e. Joe Koff) are ignoring the signs. They are happy with the current financial bottom line so they are taking no effort to fix the problems that are evident now that will hurt that bottom line in the future… and by the time they do take notice, a lot more damage could be done. A great show from ROH, but not one that in any way makes me feel optimistic about the product as a whole.

STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. Kevin Kelly- “The same type of disagreement between Silas and the Bruiser and The Kingdom that we saw at the onset of this match continues here.”
This was how he called MEN TRADING HAYMAKERS TO THE FACE. Byron Saxton would do a better job.

2. Kevin Kelly brings up the fact that Adam Page joined Bullet Club by helping the Guerrilas of Destiny in a match, saying that “the symmetry between Adam Page and the Guerrillas of Destiny goes all the way back to last June.
A) What the f*ck does any of that have to do with symmetry?
B) It was May, not June. You’d think the company’s lead announcer (and a guy who spent most of last year supposedly on the booking committee no less) would be able to remember which month the annual New Japan tour of ROH is in, but apparently not. It’s only been in the same month all four years now (including the announced tour in 2017).

3. Colt Cabana claims that “the Rhodes Family has never lost a Bullrope Match.”
Well that’s sure not true because I know Dusty lost one to Orton, plus I’m certain he lost one to Disco Inferno in TNA. But even if Colt didn’t remember or didn’t know about those, the odds that, between Dusty, Dustin, and Cody, they have never lost one single bullrope match are astronomically small, so why would you even say it when you could just say that it’s their signature match or something else that you can be certain is true.

4. Kevin Kelly said that both Fish and Silas have “intersections through Jay Lethal.”
Putting aside how utterly stupid that phrasing sounds (it’s downright Tenay-esque), not even the general idea is correct. An intersection is two things meeting in the same place. These two didn’t “meet” via Jay Lethal at all. Silas had a short feud with him in September and October, and Fish then started one three months later. That’s not an “intersection.” That’s two roads that run parallel to each other but both happen to cross Jay Lethal Boulevard at different points.

5. Ian Riccaboni (about the Silas vs. Fish match)- “I’m not sure if this match was even sanctioned.”
It took place between two ROH-contracted wrestlers in an ROH ring on an ROH show and an ROH official was sent out to officiate it and it ended when an ROH official disqualified one of the competitors for breaking an ROH rule. WHY THE F*CK WOULD IT NOT BE SANCTIONED?!

6. Ian described Bobby Fish’s appearance tonight as a “shocking return to Ring of Honor.”
He hasn’t missed a single show and his removal from the line-up was never once acknowledged by the company, so within kayfabe, which is what this show is supposed to be, this is not any sort of “return” and barely qualifies as being a mild surprise.
I thoroughly enjoyed your review BRM. You are the only other guy on here who just gets batshit crazy over Kevin Kelly and Todd Sinclair like I do.
Big Red Machine
Posts: 4376
Joined: Sat Jan 19, 2013 10:10 pm

Re: Supercard of Honor XI - Lakeland/Orlando, FL

Post by Big Red Machine »

Mr. Mojo Risin wrote:
I thoroughly enjoyed your review BRM. You are the only other guy on here who just gets batshit crazy over Kevin Kelly and Todd Sinclair like I do.
Thanks.
I usually find Sinclair to be inoffensive, but Kevin Kelly just utterly astounds me.
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