ROH Supercard of Honor X: Night 1 (4/1/2016)- Dallas, TX
Apparently, among those in the crowd for this show were: Dave Meltzer, Savio Vega, and Teddy Hart. There’s a pretty disparate group for you.
CHRISTOPHER DANIELS vs. BOBBY FISH- 7.75/10
Fish worked the leg and knee, Daniels worked the arm, and they told a great story with it of two men who just plain did not want to tap away this match.
RODERICK STRONG vs. MOOSE (w/Stokely Hathaway)- 7.5/10
These guys had a really great match that was a lot meaner and grittier than most other Moose matches are. Granted Roddy had more to do with that than Moose, but Moose did a fine job of following Roddy’s lead. GREAT finish, too.
Bobby Fish was on commentary for this match, and at one point Roddy and Moose were fighting on the outside and Roddy ducked a boot from Moose that caught Fish in the head. Roddy won clean, but Fish jumped him after the match and sent Roddy scampering away. Fish offered Moose a handshake to show that there were no hard feelings and Moose accepted.
Oh my G-d this Cheeseburger t-shirt commercial is f*cking horrible, and even worse, it just keeps going ON AND ON AND ON AND ON!
BJ WHITMER PROMO- he comes out for his match but he isn’t dressed to wrestle. He brings Taeler Hendrix and Joey Diesel Daddiego, who is dressed to wrestle, out with him. Everyone saw where this was going, so of course it took BJ f*cking forever to get to the point. I understand that the crowd was booing him to the point where they weren’t letting him talk, but he could have cut at least a good ninety seconds off of this if he hadn’t done that whole “This is the biggest weekend of the year” part in the beginning.
Basically, Whitmer said that the House of Truth has issues with Donovan Dijak so he has sold his spot in the match to Daddiego. A few problems here:
1. So we are taking BJ Whitmer, a perfectly fine pro wrestler out of a match… and replacing him with J. f*cking Diesel?! That’s one hell of a downgrade! And before anyone says “it’s a six-way. It’s not going to affect the match,” I’d like to say that I honestly think it will affect the match because Daddiego f*cking sucks.
2. I get that the angle is supposed to be that the truth is that Whitmer is afraid to face Adam Page and so he is trying to get out of this match, but you could have gotten that point across WITHIN the story of the match by having Page chase Whitmer and always having other people stop him from getting to him, which would not only give the fans the advertised match, but would also wouldn’t open up the following can of worms:
3. This is now the second time in a few months that Whitmer has sold his spot in a match. Why is ROH management okay with this? He’s f*cking up their booking! If he is doing this, what is to stop him (or anyone else) from doing the reverse and paying some nobody to take his spot in a match he doesn’t want (like, say, the Street Fight he has coming up with Adam Page in a few weeks)?
And now ROH is just going to let him do commentary for this match instead? WTF?!
SIX MAN MAYHEM MATCH: Frankie Kazarian vs. Cheeseburger vs. Adam Page vs. Dalton Castle (w/the Boys) vs. Donovan Dijak (w/Prince Nana) vs. Joey Diesel Daddiego (w/Taeler Hendrix)- DUD!
Yeah, I know that Dalton Castle was obviously going to get the biggest reaction, but if you want to push Dijak as a star, I would have had him enter last. Not just because “the biggest star enters last” but because if you want to push this guy as some sort of specter of for the House of Truth, it should be his entrance that heralds the beginning of the action. Having him enter third and having him and Daddiego just stand across the ring from each other patiently waiting for the rest of the competitors to make their entrances does not scream “heated feud” to me.
First of all, there was WAY too much stupid comedy in here. I thought that the low blow thing was almost clever, but then they did the spot with Kaz which was completely idiotic. It’s not even physically possible for five different people to kick the same guy in the genitals at the same time. Their feet just wouldn’t fit. And is stupid comedy really the sort of thing that your new monster Donovan Dijak should be involved in? Or even angry young babyface Adam Page?
And why the f*ck is Dalton Castle, who is doing absolutely nothing, winning this match instead of Donovan Dijak, our big angry guy who is clearly being built up for a shot at the world title? (And I think this one is a nit-pick but this match put me in that mood so I’m going to say it: If we’re going to portray Dijak as a big angry guy now, can we please try to use his size to help do that? He doesn’t need to be taking random German Suplexes from Dalton Castle. And he certainly shouldn’t be getting floored by a shotei from f*cking Cheeseburger).
In many ways, this whole match and segment were a microcosm of almost everything wrong with ROH right now: Too much comedy, too much Cheeseburger, bad booking on the finishes, pointless angles that should actually open up a lot of kayfabe problems but are never even mentioned, not using large guys effectively, the presence of J. Diesel… hell, even the commentary was all full of dumb sh*t about Kazarian being fined for saying bad words, something that no fan gives a sh*t about but the announcers always have to make reference to these fines for bad words on every f*cking show.
There was also literally not interaction between Page and Whitmer from the moment Page came out and Whitmer hurried out of the ring to sit down at the commentary table. It felt like this whole thing was done so that they could almost ignore the feud for tonight as opposed to doing something with them IN the match, which would feel like part of the story.
POST-MATCH ANGLE- Diesel takes out Dijak’s ribs with a chair. This was almost good.
KYLE O’REILLY vs. MATT SYDAL- 8/10
One guy works the arm, the other guy works the leg, and some REALLY well-done false finishes.
ADAM COLE vs. ACH- 8.25/10
These two have had two or three matches over the years that just haven’t lived up to my expectations of what these two should be able to do together. This match was much more like what I was hoping for. Cole worked over ACH’s head and neck while ACH worked over Cole’s head. There was one spot I didn’t like (the “he kept the ref’s hand up instead of kicking out” spot), but other than that an awesome match.
WAR MACHINE & THE BRISOCES vs. SILAS YOUNG, THE BEER CITY BRUISER, & THE ALL NIGHT EXPRESS- 6.5/10
Fun brawl. The Briscoes and War Machine got in each other’s faces after the match.
ROH WORLD TITLE MATCH: Jay Lethal(c) (w/Taeler Hendrix) vs. Lio Rush- 7.25/10
Kevin Kelly refers to the Top Prospect Tournament winner getting a TV Title shot as a “Supercard of Honor tradition.” Such a match has NEVER taken place at Supercard of Honor. It has sometimes happened on the Anniversary Show and sometimes on TV.
For some reason Will Ferrara is commentary for this match. Also, apparently he and Lio Rush are good friends. Between his full but still short beard and this camouflage bandana, he looked like a small, lame Briscoe brother. I will be unspeakably furious if we wind up getting a f*ck finish with WILL FERRARA getting involved.
Rush is one hell of an underdog babyface, and Lethal certainly carried his part, with his arrogance on full display, but the post-match handshake he offered Rush also felt completely in-keeping with his character.
POST-MATCH SEGMENT- AWESOME!
Lethal cut a promo claiming that he had beaten everyone in ROH during his title run. Steve Corino made a similar statement during the match. This statement is utterly ridiculous. Just off the top of my head there is Mark Briscoe, Matt Sydal, ACH, Sabin, Shelley, Dalton Castle, Raymond Rowe, Bobby Fish (he didn’t lose their TV Title match clean), Jay Briscoe needs his rematch, Dijak, Adam Page, and just about every single heel in the company.
Of course, this was all done to set up for the return of Colt Cabana to ROH after an absence of almost five years. Cabana cut a f*cking AWESOME promo. Lethal responded with another great promo and then Colt responded with yet another awesome promo.
YOUNG BUCKS vs. MOTOR CITY MACHINE GUNS- 8/10
It was exactly what you’d expect, and it was all great aside from one spot where one of the Guns didn’t get DQed for blatantly grabbing on the Buck’s scrotums right in front of the referee. Making this even worse is the fact that I’m almost certain they did the exact same spot in the exact same way on the last show, too. The Bucks won here, so MCMG have already been beaten cleanly in just their third match back.
POST-MATCH SEGMENT- too much.
The Addiction came out and attacked both teams. This was good. Then The Briscoes came out and made the save, to build to tomorrow night’s four-way #1 contendership match. That was fine. Then MCMG and the Bucks gave Daniels a quadruple superkick. Then someone picked Daniels up again and this time all six babyfaces superkicked him because I guess a quadruple wasn’t enough. Why even do a quadruple if you’re going to do a sextuple right after it? And why do this sh*t at all? All it does is take away the Addiction’s heat.
An awesome show from ROH with high-quality actions consistently up and down the card (aside from the one dud), and HUGE moment in Colt Cabana’s return to ROH. Definitely one you should pick up.
ROH Supercard of Honor X: Night 2 (4/2/2016)- Dallas, TX
JAY LETHAL PROMO- he says that Colt Cabana shouldn’t be able to leapfrog guys who are actually on the roster who deserve a world title shot. Of course, the only guy who he can name that he thinks deserves a world title shot is Cheeseburger, so we get an…
ROH WORLD TITLE MATCH: Jay Lethal(c) (w/Taeler Hendrix) vs. Cheeseburger- 4/10
Lethal wins. Duh.
During this match, the announcers said that Lethal was the greatest ROH World Champion of all-time. I know that they are just trying to put over the current product, but there are ways to put over the current product without being completely farcical.
By no measure (and don’t bring up money unless you are prepared to admit that Kevin Nash was a better world champion than everyone ROH has ever had) has Lethal been a better champion than- or even one in the same league as- Bryan Danielson, Nigel McGuinness or Samoa Joe. Kevin Steen, Rodrick Strong, Adam Cole, and both Austin Aries title reigns were better than Lethal has had so far in terms of both frequency of defenses and how exciting the title picture was. Tyler Black’s title reign has been about as exciting in terms of title chases, but his defenses far out-shine Lethal in terms of quality. Just say that the guy is a great world champion and move on! Don’t say things that do nothing but kill your credibility.
POST-MATCH SEGMENT- GREAT!
Cabana comes out and cuts a great promo saying this isn’t a one-time deal and he is here in ROH to stay. He calls out Lethal’s heel cowardice, only being willing to defend the belt against a jobber. Cabana challenges Lethal to defend the title against him. Lethal says “no.” Cabana then cut another great promo basically saying “You’ve lost your balls, Jay. Truth Martini would tell you to say ‘no.’ Taeler Hendrix is telling you to say ‘no’… but what do you say? In your heart, do you think you can beat me?” This angers Lethal, who tells Cabana they can have the match right now, so we get yet…
COLT CABANA vs. JAY LETHAL (w/Taeler Hendrix)- No rating. Great segment.
They had a nice little mini-match here with one or two good nearfalls before Cabana got the roll-up and pinned Lethal 100% clean to prove that he is a deserving challenger to the ROH World Title. I was under the impression that his was a title match but apparently not. I must have missed something because neither the announcers, the wrestlers, or the crowd reacted like it was (I mean that the crowd popped huge for the finish, but they didn’t start booing once it became apparent that it wasn’t a title match like they would have if they thought it was).
THE ALL NIGHT EXPRESS vs. ACH & MATT SYDAL- 6.25/10
Wow. ACH is being really obnoxious on the handshake. He’s lucky Kenny didn’t slap that dorky smile off of his face. The match was fine for what its place on the card. ANX worked over Sydal’s ribs but he made the hot tag to ACH and the babyfaces eventually got the win.
WILL FERRARA vs. DONOVAN DIJAK (w/Prince Nana)- 6.25/10
Joey Diesel Daddiego was on commentary. Dijak completely ignored Daddiego on his way to the ring, even though his ribs are all taped up because Daddiego attacked him with a chair last night. Will Ferrara also got one of Nana’s mysterious envelopes but apparently only Dijak gets Nana as a manager. Ferrara seems unhappy about this, so he cut a promo about it (although what he really said was stuff about Nana’s envelopes and “seizing opportunity” and how he hasn’t been given an “opportunity” yet, but I think that is what he is getting at).
Everything about this match greatly exceeded my expectations. Even Daddiego’s commentary. I was quite surprised by how much time they gave these guys, but they certainly made the most of it. The story of the match was that Ferrara REALLY wanted to win, so he was relentlessly going after Dijak’s taped-up ribs and also just refused to stay down. Dijak did eventually pick up the win, but in terms of character and story, this feels like it should be the beginning of something for Ferrara. Unfortunately with the way the booking has been, I doubt that it will lead to anything. Dijak made sure to show Ferrara respect after the match.
There was one really bad botched in here (Dijak caught his feet on springboard attempt and fell right on his face), but these guys didn’t let it phase them. They adapted immediately and made it almost seem like the botch was supposed to happen. I can see some people not liking Dijak doing so much flippy stuff with injured ribs, but he did sell them every time. Rather than bad selling, it came off to be as (in Daddiego’s words) “showboating.” It definitely didn’t make Dijak come across as likeable, but it didn’t bother me in terms of taking away from the story of the match.
POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Daddiego once again attacked Dijak’s ribs with a chair. It would have been better if Kevin Kelly hadn’t completely telegraphed it by spending the entire minute before the attack saying “What are you doing?! He just took off his diamond-encrusted watch and now he’s taping his fists!”
2 OUT OF 3 FALLS MATCH: Roderick Strong vs. Bobby Fish- 7.75/10
The announcers keep talking about how Roderick Strong lost the TV Title to Ishii because “Bobby Fish was in his head.” There is no evidence for this whatsoever (Corino claimed that “Roddy wasn’t wrestling Roddy’s match” but that is specious at best seeing as how that match was built around Roddy working over Ishii’s back), which makes it really annoying. What’s even more annoying is that doesn’t this claim bury Roddy for not being able to focus on his match and make Ishii’s win less impressive because he beat a guy who wasn’t focused? It really feels like the announcers are grasping at straws for the sake of justifying that stupid title change within the context of this feud instead of just saying “Ishii beat Roddy because he was the better man that night because that’s just what happens sometimes” and leaving it alone.
I was expecting more out of this match. You got your standard Roddy working over the back and Fish working over the leg, but it didn’t ever feel like it got to that next level.
MOOSE (w/Stokely Hathaway) vs. P-DOG (w/the Get-Along Gang)- no rating, okay segment.
They interrupted Moose’s music for a P-Dog promo. That’s like taking away someone’s ice cream and telling them they have to eat dog sh*t. P-Dog and the Get-Along Gang aren’t even entertaining when they are doing nothing but getting the sh*t beaten out of them. At this point I think the only reasonable explanations for why they keep getting booked involve either blackmail or sexual favors.
WAR MACHINE vs. SILAS YOUNG & BEER CITY BRUISER- Can someone please explain to me why these two teams are facing off TWICE this weekend? War Machine are the very top of the tag team division while Silas & Bruiser are the bottom of it. They’re not feuding or anything either. They’re just booked together twice this weekend because Delirious was too lazy to build up any tag teams between the 14th Anniversary Weekend and whenever the Briscoes are getting their title shot. Seriously. There is absolutely no reason for the ROH World Tag Team Champions to be doing absolutely nothing of note on Supercard of Honor weekend.
So Silas Young cuts a promo saying that he and Bruiser deserve a title shot because he says so. He says that if War Machine were real men, they’d put the titles on the line, so War Machine agree, because this is all so much better than real booking where you build a match up so that people want to see it and then can hype it up as a tag team title match in advance.
I mean COME ON! At the very least why not have Silas or Bruiser actually pin one of the Briscoes in last night’s eight-man tag so that they can come out here and say that they beat the team that War Machine can’t beat, therefore they deserve a title shot. Hell… if you want to you can even protect the Briscoes by having the pin be caused by a miscue between them and War Machine to build up that match even more when you eventually get to it. But no. Instead we have to have our tag champs in two completely irrelevant matches on one of the biggest weekends of the year.
And for the record, Silas and the Bruiser have a grand total of TWO wins in ROH. Both of them were against The Boys. That is the only team they have beaten. They even lost to Caprice Coleman & Will Ferrara!
Anyway…
ROH WORLD TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: War Machine(c) vs. Silas Young & Beer City Bruiser- 6.5/10
It was big guys (and Silas) throwing each other around.
The announcers decided that this would be a good time to ponder who might get fined for cursing during the four way tag match. The number of times this one random policy put into place by the office that wasn’t even meant to be mentioned on television has completely derailed the announcers is staggering. They also decided to joke about the fact that Gary Hart couldn’t make it to tonight’s show. You know. Because he’s dead. Apparently that’s worth joking about.
BJ WHITMER vs. DALTON CASTLE (w/The Boys)- 4.75/10
Adam Page was on commentary for this match. When prompted, he talked about how he realized that Whitmer was being “selfish” and “wanted everything to be about himself,” thus costing Page matches. The problem is that the way I remember it, it wasn’t Whitmer getting Page DQed or accidentally distracting the ref while Page had the match won: it was Page allowing himself to get distracted whenever something happened to Whitmer on the outside. Page came off like a totally heel here, blaming Whitmer for his own screw-ups.
So Dalton has now purposely bent himself backwards in a position it is basically impossibly to defending himself from. Why is Whitmer not attacking him? Why the hell are wrestlers always so scared of Dalton bending backwards? It’s not even new anymore. You’d think they would have gotten used to it by now.
This was slow and boring. The finish saw Whitmer be completely dominating Castle but then he distracted himself with first Adam Page, then with the Boys, allowing Castle to recover hit Bangarang and win.
ADAM PAGE CUTS A PROMO ON BJ WHITMER- While Whitmer is recovering from Bangarang (selling it more than the Young Bucks sell anything), Page got a chair, sat down in the ring, and explained to BJ and everyone else that he is angry because Whitmer’s obsession with Steve Corino cost him the biggest match of his life against Jay Briscoe. Page turned in early January. It’s now early April. He couldn’t have cut this f*cking promo three months ago?
That part of the promo was fine, but then it went downhill fast. Page said a bunch of clichéd crap about how “from the moment we met the time was ticking until I would stand up to you” (sure as hell didn’t seem that way at the time), and how Whitmer was “a cancer” that had to be “cut out.” Then he challenged Whitmer to a Street Fight on 4/23 in San Antonio… and Kevin Kelly casually says “oh. That must have been the e-mail he was waiting for.” ‘WHAT E-MAIL?!” I screamed. Did he need permission from Nigel McGuinness before making a challenge or something? Since when has that ever been the case? And if so, why didn’t he just ask Nigel. Presumably Nigel, the matchmaker, is here this weekend, right?
“That was why he was checking his phone while he was out here,” Kevin continued.
This made me lose it.
I feel like the announcers spend more time talking about things we the viewers don’t see than things we do. It’s all talk about who is getting fined or “Kenny King doesn’t like ACH” or “Roddy said this to me earlier today” or “people in the locker room aren’t accepting GUY X” or “Matt Sydal is being a good veteran and helping the youngsters” or “Adam Page is f*cking around on his phone” or “Hanson and Top Prospect Tournament Guy are best friends” or “Stokely Hathaway has helped Moose focus on X” or “ANX is upset about so-on and so-forth” and nine times out of ten it’s completely irrelevant to the story, and the tenth time it makes me feel completely lost because they’re either talking about an angle I didn’t even known was happening or what they’re saying seems to contradict what has been presented to me in the ring.
Kelly and Corino need to go. They are hurting the product almost as much as the booking is. Give me Joe Dombrowsky and Nigel McGuinness. Or start using BJ Whitmer on commentary on a regular basis and team him with Larry Mercer. Or bring in Todd Keneley and pair him with Veda Scott. Hell, bring back Jared David for all I care but PLEASE get rid of these two!
FOUR CORNER SURVIVAL #1 CONTENDERSHIP MATCH: Young Bucks vs. The Briscoes vs. Motor City Machine Guns vs. The Addiction- 7/10
The Bucks and the Guns did that same stupid testicular claw spot AGAIN! The second night in row in front of the same f*cking crowd! They’ve only faced each other three times in ROH- on the last three shows- and they’ve done this stupid comedy spot that should be a DQ EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.
They all delved WAY too much into the “choreography” spots. The action was entertaining, but it often felt more like a performance than a wrestling match.
STOKELY HATHAWAY MAKES AN ANNOUNCEMENT- he says Moose and Okada will team together on one of the ROH/New Japan shows. This feels like yet another waste of Okada. Also, Moose was wearing a piece of bling that looked moronic.
NO HOLDS BARRED MATCH: Adam Cole vs. Kyle O’Reilly- 8.75/10
Cole jumps O’Reilly from behind to start this match, because unlike the Young Bucks, he knows how to do his job and actually be a heel. They did a pointless spot where Mandy Leon accidentally ate a superkick all so they could get a laugh with Cole shrugging. This is the sort of pointless sh*t that needs to stop happening.
Kyle could have done a better job selling his knee, but other than that (and the above spot with Mandy) this was a show-saving main event; an epic, violent confrontation with a crazy finish that definitely said “this feud is now over.”
A very frustrating show from ROH in many ways. If not for the main event, and the Cabana stuff, I’d recommend skipping it.
STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. Mr. Wrestling III told us that “it’s no secret that Kenny King hates ACH and won’t accept him in the locker room.”
It was certainly a secret to me, and I watch every single f*cking show this company puts out, so if I had to guess, I’d say it was also a secret to many others as well. If this is the case, why not let Kenny King cut a damn promo about it?!
2. Mr. Wrestling III is talking about how this impromptu challenge of their manhood by Silas Young has “completely thrown War Machine off their game.” Meanwhile, in the ring, War Machine are beating the living sh*t out of Silas and Beer City Bruiser without even breaking a sweat.
