2016 Survival of the Fittest

[KL_]

Some confirmation about the title match happening, shame this wasn't actually through ROH.

Good promo by the way and the guy has some talent from what I can see.

Keith Lee gave his response

[TYFDK]

Excited for the two 4CS' with the CMLL guys.

But in general I hope next year they return to a one night formula. I can see not knowing the whole card hurting the San Antonio show attendance. If they had a big, strong card for the Arlington debut, which then lead into SOTF the next night in SA, then we'd have a better weekend going forward.

[Big Red Machine]

Excited for the two 4CS' with the CMLL guys.

But in general I hope next year they return to a one night formula. I can see not knowing the whole card hurting the San Antonio show attendance. If they had a big, strong card for the Arlington debut, which then lead into SOTF the next night in SA, then we'd have a better weekend going forward.

I agree that a one-night formula is better but in this case I actually think it will be night one whose attendance suffers. Whoever is in it, the SOTF finals are always guaranteed to be a great match and a theoretically important moment in ROH history. I think night one being limited to just qualifiers will be hurt (both live and in DVD/VOD sales) by being seen as less important.

[ndp]

War Machine vs. Lee/Taylor in a No Rules match has some TV build and Daniels/Jay Briscoe is decent on paper as far as something people may be more willing than normal to see a show for but I agree the San Antonio show's attendance could be quite poor, not that I expect night one to be that strong either given how poorly they hyped the tournament, how long they waited to announce the full matches, and how diluted the field is. I think a one night format with a tighter field could have helped, but they still would've needed to present it as something big and not just relied on potential name value. When four guys they've pushed and featured as much as they have with Cole, Lethal and the Bucks aren't on the show, it may be a good idea to announce more than what they did and/or do a better job of hyping up this tournament like it means something to try to bolster attendance on both nights.

With a few minutes to go, the only three guys the ROH twitter feed has hyped today with a “Can X win SOTF” post were Castle (sure), Rush (not likely but given some of the stories they can tease with that OK) and Cheeseburger (huh?). They also made double sure you knew Cheeseburger was in action tonight, unlike say, Cabana, O'Reilly (they did yesterday but not today) or Fish. I don't think doing what they did with different guys would have made any difference, but what they did doesn't speak well of their promotion abilities. At the very least, someone could have sat down for a couple hours and wrote a series of “Can X win it all at SOTF? Here was their journey” posts for the website/facebook with Twitter links and a Youtube video or two. They kind of did that in the individual match announcements, but many of those were bare bones and posted last minute. The other route could have happened over a week even before they finalizing the qualifiers.

[TYFDK]

So so far advancing are:

- The Panther
- Jax Dane
- Punishment Martinez (who replaced Alex Shelley, who was apparently attacker backstage)
- Bobby Fish
- Lio Rush
- Dalton Castle

This is your finals for tomorrow

In non-tournament matches, Kyle O'Reilly beat Christopher Daniels, and Briscoes/War Machine was turned into a three-way street fight with Lee & Taylor added, and Jay & Mark were victorious.

[DXvsNWO1994]

So so far advancing are:

- The Panther
- Jax Dane
- Punishment Martinez (who replaced Alex Shelley, who was apparently attacker backstage)
- Bobby Fish
- Lio Rush
- Dalton Castle

This is your finals for tomorrow

Isn't this the wackiest Survival Of The Fittest Finals ever?

[TYFDK]

It really is.

Tomorrow's matches, aside from the tournament:

- Silas Young vs. Mark Briscoe
- Hangman Page vs. Donovan Dijak
- The Cabinet vs. The Tempura Boyz & Misterioso Jr.
- Colt Cabana vs. Chris Sabin
- Christopher Daniels vs. Jay Briscoe
- Kyle O'Reilly vs. Frankie Kazarian
- No Rules: War Machine vs. Keith Lee & Shane Taylor

[BurningHammer]

Bizarre is certainly a word for it, I do have others in mind.

[187_Joeism]

I prefer they pushing Martinez instead of Cabana if Shelley was supposed to win and missed his flight. The Panther being in the finals is the only surprise for me but makes sense to push the CMLL partnership.

Cabana is intereference so Castle is not winning there, Lio Rush is my pick to win, winning Top Prospect Tournament & Survival of the Fittest the same year is a good way to push him.

[GardenStateSaint]

I'd like to see Rush win too but I can see Fish taking it.

[187_Joeism]

My point is that Fish can challenge for the title anytime he wants because he is the TV Champion, Rush can use the SOTF as a reason to challenge.

[Wilson]

So so far advancing are:

- The Panther
- Jax Dane
- Punishment Martinez (who replaced Alex Shelley, who was apparently attacker backstage)
- Bobby Fish
- Lio Rush
- Dalton Castle

This is your finals for tomorrow

Isn't this the wackiest Survival Of The Fittest Finals ever?

It was the wackiest of Survival of the Fittests, it was the Tag Wars-est of Survival of the Fittests.

Pretty surprised and deflated to read that Punisher is in the finals. BJ Whitmer and Kevin Sullivan pablum is abound?

Good for Lio Rush to actually win something with stakes. For the sake of the match, I hope he lasts a long time.

And thanks to our man Brada for the results. Hope it was a fun show.

[BurningHammer]

My point is that Fish can challenge for the title anytime he wants because he is the TV Champion, Rush can use the SOTF as a reason to challenge.

Hang on, have I missed something with being the TV champ. When are they able to challenge for the title at any time, Or do you mean that it's easier and more reasonable for the guy holding the title to challenge for the belt. Whatever the reason I still think you need something behind any challenger, especially if Kyle is the champ why would Fish really want to get to O'Reilly it's a nice way to build into a feud without starting something personal and breaking those guys up to do it.

I could see the final three or I hope so anyway, being Rush, Castle and Fish. I do hope they build Rush in the match and have him pin the bigger guys to create some nice baby face momentum going into say the final three. If those are the final three I think it would be nice to add in some famous moments from past three ways in ROH. having the final 2 being Fish and Castle has a nice story behind it considering their friendship and semi-rivalry for the title previously, While also having Castle also pining Fish would gain some revenge on Fish after their previous title match. I certainly would have loved Cabana in this final set to really help with the Castle story and like I Dijak would have been the much better option to take these finals to the next level as a match, especially with Rush being added as well considering t both Rush and Dijak have had competitive matches with each other.

[ndp]

I prefer they pushing Martinez instead of Cabana if Shelley was supposed to win and missed his flight. The Panther being in the finals is the only surprise for me but makes sense to push the CMLL partnership.

I would have preferred they moved pretty much anyone from one the four-ways down instead of advancing Martinez if that was the case. Crowds are almost always flat for him and I think practically anyone else they could have moved into that match would have made the finals better than he will. Did something happen with Shelley, though? Not to repeat myself too much from the spoiler thread, but they replaced him with someone who was there and not already booked in a match and he advanced. I don't see them doing just a non-wrestling segment with Martinez or where he would have fit on the Night Two card other than making the Dijak/Page match a three-way. That may have been the plan to begin with. It'd be a weird one, but everything about Night One was weird.

[187_Joeism]

My point is that Fish can challenge for the title anytime he wants because he is the TV Champion, Rush can use the SOTF as a reason to challenge.

Hang on, have I missed something with being the TV champ. When are they able to challenge for the title at any time, Or do you mean that it's easier and more reasonable for the guy holding the title to challenge for the belt. Whatever the reason I still think you need something behind any challenger, especially if Kyle is the champ why would Fish really want to get to O'Reilly it's a nice way to build into a feud without starting something personal and breaking those guys up to do it.

If you have the secundary title (Specially now that the TV is close to the World title in importance) you don´t need anything else to challenge for the World title in my opinion, you have enough reason behind.

I prefer they pushing Martinez instead of Cabana if Shelley was supposed to win and missed his flight. The Panther being in the finals is the only surprise for me but makes sense to push the CMLL partnership.

I would have preferred they moved pretty much anyone from one the four-ways down instead of advancing Martinez if that was the case. Crowds are almost always flat for him and I think practically anyone else they could have moved into that match would have made the finals better than he will. Did something happen with Shelley, though? Not to repeat myself too much from the spoiler thread, but they replaced him with someone who was there and not already booked in a match and he advanced. I don't see them doing just a non-wrestling segment with Martinez or where he would have fit on the Night Two card other than making the Dijak/Page match a three-way. That may have been the plan to begin with. It'd be a weird one, but everything about Night One was weird.

I prefer Martinez over the ones that were in their qualifying match, if you ask if i prefer him over Dijak, Page or Silas of course not.

[monster mafia]

I hope lio or dalton wins sotf,bobby fish is fine too.

[BurningHammer]

If you have the secundary title (Specially now that the TV is close to the World title in importance) you don´t need anything else to challenge for the World title in my opinion, you have enough reason behind.

Hmm, I never really aligned myself to believing that's a really credible way of just getting into the world title picture, I agree that the TV title gives the guy (if done right then) far more credibility within the company but I still think you need that extra momentum or reason to get into the title picture. It's why I feel loosing a secondary title then just moving into the main title picture is a bit strange and kind of flat in a sense. I do think if Fish wins here then Castle will be the next TV title guy, but they do seem to be pointing towards a stronger role in the main title scene but that could include a TV title run.

It might be interesting to see if Fish goes full cocky heel and maybe drops the TV title as though it's beneath him and his focus will be the main title no matter who wins, if he does win SOTF tonight.

If Kyle does win the title it might be interesting to see if he ever goes heel especially when Castle is fully in the title picture. A face vs face title match can be great but when you have such a guy like Castle I think it would best to have a heel on the other side. Might be interesting to see where Scurll goes as him wining the title and an eventual match with Castle could be great.

[187_Joeism]

If you have the secundary title (Specially now that the TV is close to the World title in importance) you don´t need anything else to challenge for the World title in my opinion, you have enough reason behind.

Hmm, I never really aligned myself to believing that's a really credible way of just getting into the world title picture, I agree that the TV title gives the guy (if done right then) far more credibility within the company but I still think you need that extra momentum or reason to get into the title picture.

TV Title Champ has one of the better win/loss always because of the title defenses, i don´t mind they being used on the role because of that too.

[TYFDK]

Results for tonight. Tweets in parentheses are videos from Ring of Honor.

Apparently, in the pre-show, Cheeseburger and Will Ferrara beat Andy Dalton and Scorpio Sky. Odd.

First up, The Cabinet beat Tempura Boyz & Misterioso, Jr.
(https://twitter.com/ringofhonor/status/ ... 8231038976)

Silas Young beat Mark Briscoe. Hints at challenging "legends or newcomers" in backstage promo.
(https://twitter.com/ringofhonor/status/ ... 7648831489)

Hangman Page beat Donovan Dijak
(https://twitter.com/ringofhonor/status/ ... 6316182528)

Alex Shelley says that the Cabinet were the ones that attacked him backstage last night.
Colt Cabana then beat Chris Sabin. Cabinet attacks MCMG after the match, but the latter are saved by Donovan Dijak, but to no avail.
(https://twitter.com/ringofhonor/status/ ... 0833609728)

NO RULES!!!! match up next.
Kevin Kelly is accidentally taken out
Taylor & Lee are victorious!
(https://twitter.com/ringofhonor/status/ ... 7962951680)
(https://twitter.com/ringofhonor/status/ ... 1618859008)
(https://twitter.com/ringofhonor/status/ ... 2718791680)
(https://twitter.com/ringofhonor/status/ ... 7612827648)

O'Reilly/Kazarian up next. Surprise upset by Kyle. Was sure this was a victory for Kaz.
(https://twitter.com/ringofhonor/status/ ... 0384196608)

[rohfan237]

O'Reilly/Kazarian up next. Surprise upset by Kyle. Was sure this was a victory for Kaz.
(https://twitter.com/ringofhonor/status/ ... 0384196608)

Huh???