Here's my review of the PPV on Voices of Wrestling:
http://www.voicesofwrestling.com/2016/1 ... ts-review/
It was a very good show, but I don't think it reached the levels of being a great show. I'd say it was about the caliber of PPV we've come to expect in the SBG Era (a solid undercard with a few standout matches at the top of the card).
Official Final Battle 2016 Thread
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DXvsNWO1994
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supersonic
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Re: Official Final Battle 2016 Thread
I'll throw in that it SHOULD have been the first one in 8 years had Silkin not been jonesing for a Randy the Ram spitting image push.
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Big Red Machine
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Re: Official Final Battle 2016 Thread
ROH Final Battle 2016 (12/2/2016)- New York, NY
STORY TIME WITH ADAM COLE VIDEO PACKAGE- not that this wasn’t fantastic, but I don’t know if I would have spent four and a half minutes of PPV time on this.
What happened to Bobby Fish? Why is he not in the TV Title match?
THE MOTOR CITY MACHINE GUNS (Chris Sabin, Alex Shelley & Donovan Dijak) vs. THE REBELLION (Kenny King, Rhett Titus, & Caprice Coleman)- 6.75/10
Apparently at some point off screen the Rebellion has said that their goal is “to destroy everything that ROH stands for.” First of all, this seems like the sort of thing that should be said ON-SCREEN. Secondly, we’ve seen this angle within the last few years already with SCUM (which included Rhett Titus) and that wasn’t particularly well-received, so why are we going back to it? And especially in ROH where every stable with this goal will always wind up being compared to The Prophecy and will never measure up.
Caprice’s knock-off Black Panther outfit needs to go. It makes the whole thing scream “Nation of Domination rip-off.” He also needs to stop acting like a cartoon character. Rhett and Kenny have the sense to be dressed smarter and not act like doofuses.
Dijak is now an official Motor City Machine Gun, despite not being from the Motor City. The Steve Corino tells us that now that Dijak is under the tutelage of veterans like MCMG, he has his best chance to fulfill his potential and make it to the top of ROH. Of course, we were also told that exact same thing when he paired up with Nana, and when he paired up with Truth Martini before that, so saying this means less than nothing at this point.
The match itself was a perfect opener and the right team went over and went over shockingly cleanly as well. The problem is that I’m having terrible flashbacks to Best in the World where the undercard matches went WAY too long.
JUSHIN “THUNDER” LIGER vs. SILAS YOUNG (w/the Beer City Bruiser)- 5.75/10
Liger is getting older. He’s still got the psychology down, and what he can do at his age is incredible, but he’s still Jushin Liger, so seeing him got to the top rope and then come off of it with a simple diving splash instead of the Shooting Star Press that he made famous is always going to be disappointing.
COLT CABANA vs. DALTON CASTLE (w/the Boys)- 5.25/10
Dalton got a big fancy entrance, which I would normally support, but this is a grudge match so it felt very much out of tone. I’d prefer for newly-heel Colt’s new music to be more heelish as well.
Kevin Kelly seems to have forgotten which episode of ROH TV aired the most recently, which I would be able to forgive except that he thought that the last episode ROH TV we got was the one where Colt locked the Boys in the closet… and that was the show the week before the big turn that set up this match. Even worse, we JUST saw a video package with highlights from that turn, including the Boys looking on in horror as Colt assaulted Dalton.
This is our third straight match where the Code of Honor wasn’t followed. At least in this match it not only made sense, it worked perfectly with what had come before in the feud and allowed them to have a unique start to their match (as opposed to Silas just not shaking Liger’s hand because he’s a heel). They did some stuff, then Dalton won clean with the Bangarang, which is the exact opposite of the finish they should have done. Colt cheating to win not only extends the feud, but adds more heat to it. This just kills it dead.
JAY LETHAL PROMO- too over the top, IMO. Also, completely unnecessary at this point.
JAY LETHAL vs. CODY RHODES- 6.75/10
**NOTE** These first two paragraphs are my thoughts at the time while I was watching the pre-match segment. I’ll get to my current thoughts in a moment.
Before this match could get started, the Addiction showed up and wasted time cutting a promo about how much they respect both guys and how ROH is the best they respect Dusty etc. etc. before finally announcing that they will be doing guest commentary for this match. I spent this entire time shouting at them to shut up, and so did the live crowd; not because The Addiction are heels (and even that is debatable at this point) but because they understand that THIS IS A PPV. Everyone who can hear this promo has already bought the PPV or bought a ticket so building it up with a promo serves no purpose. Even worse, the fact that this is a PPV means that you only have three hours to get in all eight matches and give them the time they need to deliver, so this was A COMPLETE AND TOTAL WASTE OF FOUR MINUTES, which sounds like a small amount of time, but it can often be enough to boost a match to the next level.
They have similarly wasted time on two of the last three PPVs (promos by the Cabinet and by Silas Young) and the PPV between those two had a completely pointless waste of time comedy match between six guys undercard guys from New Japan. One of the reasons my excitement for this show rose greatly in the past week was ROH’s Reach for the Sky Tour of the UK two weekends ago. It was three straight nights of fantastic wrestling and also all clean finishes, and none of the matches ever felt like they didn’t get enough time… and the longest that one of those shows went was two hours and forty-five minutes (in fact, two of them were down to two and a half). ROH seemed to be back on the right track and they seemed to have worked out their timing issues and everything seemed like it was heading back to how ROH should be… and now we’re getting stuff like this. If you want The Addiction to be on commentary for this match, then just have them be on commentary. You don’t need a four minute promo to set that up.
I left these two paragraphs in because they are an accurate representation of the way I felt at the time. In hindsight, this segment was actually very effective in what they were intended to do (although I still contend that they could have cut out a solid minute or two of this and just put over Cody and Lethal as athletes and left it at that). I’ll get into what they were intended to do at the end of this match, the importance of the sentiment I was feeling at the time to understanding the importance of this show in the grand scheme of things at the end of the review.
FINALLY someone follows the Code of Honor. Well… the shaking hands part anyway. Then this ended with an unexpected but well-executed heel turn on the part of Cody Rhodes. The match was exactly what it needed to be based on the finish. The Addiction complete their face turn by making the save at the end in a great post-match segment.
BRILLIANT booking here by Delirious. Cody’s heel turn was the most surprising turn in wrestling in a very long time. Probably at least since Rollins turned on The Shield. I’d definitely put this up there with that turn, Steen turning on Generico at Final Battle 2009 and Claudio turning on Quackenbush at the start of the BDK angle as the most shocking turns of the past decade. The brilliance of it is that Cody has been such a 100% babyface everywhere else he has been (notably TNA and Evolve) that it never even cross my mind that he might turn heel.
The Addiction promo helped this because it was exactly the sort of thing we see constantly in wrestling where it has almost become a rule that the more someone puts something over, the more likely that a turn is coming. When the ref went down I figured we were going to get The Addiction interfering to cost one of these guys the match. Then after Cody turned, I figured that they were going to tease fighting him and then join him in attacking Lethal, but instead we got the sadly refreshing “the swerve is that there is no swerve” swerve, and Kaz and Daniels seem to have finally completed the babyface turn that they had been slowly moving towards since Ladder War (and which you would have be insane not to follow through based on their performances in that match).
ROH SIX-MAN TAG TEAM TITLE TOURNAMENT FINALS: Lio Rush, KUSHIDA, & Jay White vs. The New Kingdom- 7.75/10
Corino said that this team was originally supposed to be Lio Rush, Jay White, & KUSHIDA but then Rush had to go to the UK so ACH stepped in with the idea that if they made it to the finals, Rush would take his spot back. That is quite false. The original team was announced as Rush, White, & ACH, with KUSHIDA being the guy who came in to take Rush’s spot, and in the article where the replacement was announced, no mention was made of Rush reclaiming his spot if they made it to finals. Any sensible booker would have just booked the Kingdom to attack ACH and injure him and then had Nigel rule that Rush could reclaim his spot on the team, but in Delirious’ ROH we’ve descended to the point where they don’t even try to come up with an explanation before the day of the show, and their explanation is just to have the announcers tell easily disprovable lies to the fans.
The match itself was awesome. There was a lot on the line here for all of these guys other than KUSHIDA (especially the new guys in the Kingdom), and they definitely delivered a match that shows that they can go when given the appropriate time. A match like this definitely showcase what these titles can be in a way that the rest of the tournament completely failed to do, but I still would have preferred that our inaugural champions win cleanly.
ROH TV TITLE MATCH: Marty Scurll(c) vs. Will Ospreay vs. Dragon Lee- 8/10
After the introductions we finally received an answer as to why Bobby Fish isn’t in this match as advertised, and it’s a perfectly legitimate reason. I just wish that, like with the ACH/Lio Rush thing, that they had given us an explanation right away instead of showing us a graphic for the match with one of the advertised participants missing for no reason while the announcers go about talking as if Fish was never even scheduled to be in this match in the first place while sitting at home wondering why Bobby Fish is missing. You should never do things that will leave your audience sitting there asking questions that it’s not part of your plan for them to be asking.
Once every few matches they would cut to some camera that would pan around the large crowd before zooming back in on the ring while Kevin Kelly would say basically the same line about us at home taking in “the view here in the Hammerstein Ballroom at Final Battle.” Cutting away from the action in the middle of ANY match is annoying and should never happen, but to do it in THIS match, RIGHT AFTER that amazingly fast-paced first sequence… how f*cking stupid can you possibly be?!
The match itself was pretty awesome. Was it mostly just MOVEZZZZZ? Yes… but they were jaw-dropping moves, and there were three guys so they each got to take their turns selling. Also, it’s not like they were doing crazy head-drops and stuff that it would make you wonder how they could possibly keep kicking out of.
ROH WORLD TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: The Young Bucks(c) vs. The Briscoes- 8.5/10
So I’ve actually a lot of very big Young Bucks main event matches recently, including two involving the Briscoes in the past four days, so at this point I wasn’t really surprised by any of the spots they did because it felt like I’d seen them already… but even then they still managed to put them together in a way that had me biting on all of the nearfalls. This match was CRAZY!
And speaking of crazy…
Then the lights went out in the arena and then everyone in the building went crazy because then the CaryTron turned on and BROKEN MATT HARDY CUT A PROMO SAYING HE AND JEFF WERE COMING TO ROH TO FACE THE YOUNG BUCKS!
I will admit to popping huge when I saw Matt, but more out of surprise and intrigue than anything else. I don’t like the character the way it has been presented in basically every segment it has been in other than the Final Deletion match itself, but I realize (I don’t understand it, but I acknowledge the fact) that I am in the minority on this, and I know that this is something absolutely HUGE ROH right now. Also, the fact they have actually been building to this on Impact means that either there are some interesting backstage machinations going on between TNA and ROH, or that TNA just got REALLY screwed and that will lead to some exciting upcoming newsdays as well.
I’m sure I’m the only person in the world thinking this right now, but the Young Bucks are aligned with Adam Cole, who has a significant history with Matt Hardy in ROH. Hardy leaving ROH while allied with Cole in 2014 led to Matt Taven being brought into The Kingdom, which has since dissolved, only for Taven to replace it with his New Kingdom… so who is the right third guy to team with the Hardys?
NO DISQUALIFICATIONS MATCH FOR THE ROH WORLD TITLE: Adam Cole(c) vs. Kyle O’Reilly- 8.5/10
This match was made a No DQs match because Cole tried to get disqualified in order to retain the title in his last defense against Jay Lethal at Reach for the Sky Tour: London.
Kyle finally wins the title from Cole in an awesome, bloody, violent match to end their feud. Then again, this is the second time this year that I’ve typed that Kyle beat Cole in a brutal violent match to end their feud, so who knows. This match wasn’t quite as good as that match (Supercard of Honor X: Night 2), and not quite as good as Bucks vs. Briscoes, but it was still everything it needed to be, and Kyle finally winning the title here will make this the match that everyone will remember in the long run.
ROH delivers another AWESOME show to continue this hot streak they have closed the year out on. This was BY FAR ROH’s best PPV of the year, and the first one this year where I felt like the show was worth my money up and down the entire card. There are still a lot of things that I don’t like about the product right now (their time management skills still aren’t the best, as the first three matches on this show could have lost two or three minutes each that should have gone to the top two matches), and I am fully convinced that, creatively, the period from August 2015 through October 2016 is the worst in ROH history, but this show, combined with the three Reach for the Sky Tour shows last month have gone a very long way towards restoring my faith in my all-time favorite promotion.
STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. Kevin Kelly- “they are putting together some innovative offense on sort of the masters of that innovative style.”
“Innovative” is not a style of wrestling! You can’t be an “innovative style” wrestler like you can be a “high-flying style” or “technical style” wrestler. Innovative means “new.” It is a word you can used to describe a style, but it is not a style itself that you can be a master of.
2. Steve Corino talked about how Kyle O’Reilly has been “creating this hybrid style over the past few months, attacking multiple body parts.
A) Has anyone noticed any change in Kyle’s style at all over the past two years, never mind the past few months?
B) If there is one, it’s certainly not a newfound strategy of “attacking multiple body parts” because Kyle has been doing that for years.
I can’t wait until Steve Corino heads to the WWE Performance Center where he will be safely far, far away from any ROH television cameras.
STORY TIME WITH ADAM COLE VIDEO PACKAGE- not that this wasn’t fantastic, but I don’t know if I would have spent four and a half minutes of PPV time on this.
What happened to Bobby Fish? Why is he not in the TV Title match?
THE MOTOR CITY MACHINE GUNS (Chris Sabin, Alex Shelley & Donovan Dijak) vs. THE REBELLION (Kenny King, Rhett Titus, & Caprice Coleman)- 6.75/10
Apparently at some point off screen the Rebellion has said that their goal is “to destroy everything that ROH stands for.” First of all, this seems like the sort of thing that should be said ON-SCREEN. Secondly, we’ve seen this angle within the last few years already with SCUM (which included Rhett Titus) and that wasn’t particularly well-received, so why are we going back to it? And especially in ROH where every stable with this goal will always wind up being compared to The Prophecy and will never measure up.
Caprice’s knock-off Black Panther outfit needs to go. It makes the whole thing scream “Nation of Domination rip-off.” He also needs to stop acting like a cartoon character. Rhett and Kenny have the sense to be dressed smarter and not act like doofuses.
Dijak is now an official Motor City Machine Gun, despite not being from the Motor City. The Steve Corino tells us that now that Dijak is under the tutelage of veterans like MCMG, he has his best chance to fulfill his potential and make it to the top of ROH. Of course, we were also told that exact same thing when he paired up with Nana, and when he paired up with Truth Martini before that, so saying this means less than nothing at this point.
The match itself was a perfect opener and the right team went over and went over shockingly cleanly as well. The problem is that I’m having terrible flashbacks to Best in the World where the undercard matches went WAY too long.
JUSHIN “THUNDER” LIGER vs. SILAS YOUNG (w/the Beer City Bruiser)- 5.75/10
Liger is getting older. He’s still got the psychology down, and what he can do at his age is incredible, but he’s still Jushin Liger, so seeing him got to the top rope and then come off of it with a simple diving splash instead of the Shooting Star Press that he made famous is always going to be disappointing.
COLT CABANA vs. DALTON CASTLE (w/the Boys)- 5.25/10
Dalton got a big fancy entrance, which I would normally support, but this is a grudge match so it felt very much out of tone. I’d prefer for newly-heel Colt’s new music to be more heelish as well.
Kevin Kelly seems to have forgotten which episode of ROH TV aired the most recently, which I would be able to forgive except that he thought that the last episode ROH TV we got was the one where Colt locked the Boys in the closet… and that was the show the week before the big turn that set up this match. Even worse, we JUST saw a video package with highlights from that turn, including the Boys looking on in horror as Colt assaulted Dalton.
This is our third straight match where the Code of Honor wasn’t followed. At least in this match it not only made sense, it worked perfectly with what had come before in the feud and allowed them to have a unique start to their match (as opposed to Silas just not shaking Liger’s hand because he’s a heel). They did some stuff, then Dalton won clean with the Bangarang, which is the exact opposite of the finish they should have done. Colt cheating to win not only extends the feud, but adds more heat to it. This just kills it dead.
JAY LETHAL PROMO- too over the top, IMO. Also, completely unnecessary at this point.
JAY LETHAL vs. CODY RHODES- 6.75/10
**NOTE** These first two paragraphs are my thoughts at the time while I was watching the pre-match segment. I’ll get to my current thoughts in a moment.
Before this match could get started, the Addiction showed up and wasted time cutting a promo about how much they respect both guys and how ROH is the best they respect Dusty etc. etc. before finally announcing that they will be doing guest commentary for this match. I spent this entire time shouting at them to shut up, and so did the live crowd; not because The Addiction are heels (and even that is debatable at this point) but because they understand that THIS IS A PPV. Everyone who can hear this promo has already bought the PPV or bought a ticket so building it up with a promo serves no purpose. Even worse, the fact that this is a PPV means that you only have three hours to get in all eight matches and give them the time they need to deliver, so this was A COMPLETE AND TOTAL WASTE OF FOUR MINUTES, which sounds like a small amount of time, but it can often be enough to boost a match to the next level.
They have similarly wasted time on two of the last three PPVs (promos by the Cabinet and by Silas Young) and the PPV between those two had a completely pointless waste of time comedy match between six guys undercard guys from New Japan. One of the reasons my excitement for this show rose greatly in the past week was ROH’s Reach for the Sky Tour of the UK two weekends ago. It was three straight nights of fantastic wrestling and also all clean finishes, and none of the matches ever felt like they didn’t get enough time… and the longest that one of those shows went was two hours and forty-five minutes (in fact, two of them were down to two and a half). ROH seemed to be back on the right track and they seemed to have worked out their timing issues and everything seemed like it was heading back to how ROH should be… and now we’re getting stuff like this. If you want The Addiction to be on commentary for this match, then just have them be on commentary. You don’t need a four minute promo to set that up.
I left these two paragraphs in because they are an accurate representation of the way I felt at the time. In hindsight, this segment was actually very effective in what they were intended to do (although I still contend that they could have cut out a solid minute or two of this and just put over Cody and Lethal as athletes and left it at that). I’ll get into what they were intended to do at the end of this match, the importance of the sentiment I was feeling at the time to understanding the importance of this show in the grand scheme of things at the end of the review.
FINALLY someone follows the Code of Honor. Well… the shaking hands part anyway. Then this ended with an unexpected but well-executed heel turn on the part of Cody Rhodes. The match was exactly what it needed to be based on the finish. The Addiction complete their face turn by making the save at the end in a great post-match segment.
BRILLIANT booking here by Delirious. Cody’s heel turn was the most surprising turn in wrestling in a very long time. Probably at least since Rollins turned on The Shield. I’d definitely put this up there with that turn, Steen turning on Generico at Final Battle 2009 and Claudio turning on Quackenbush at the start of the BDK angle as the most shocking turns of the past decade. The brilliance of it is that Cody has been such a 100% babyface everywhere else he has been (notably TNA and Evolve) that it never even cross my mind that he might turn heel.
The Addiction promo helped this because it was exactly the sort of thing we see constantly in wrestling where it has almost become a rule that the more someone puts something over, the more likely that a turn is coming. When the ref went down I figured we were going to get The Addiction interfering to cost one of these guys the match. Then after Cody turned, I figured that they were going to tease fighting him and then join him in attacking Lethal, but instead we got the sadly refreshing “the swerve is that there is no swerve” swerve, and Kaz and Daniels seem to have finally completed the babyface turn that they had been slowly moving towards since Ladder War (and which you would have be insane not to follow through based on their performances in that match).
ROH SIX-MAN TAG TEAM TITLE TOURNAMENT FINALS: Lio Rush, KUSHIDA, & Jay White vs. The New Kingdom- 7.75/10
Corino said that this team was originally supposed to be Lio Rush, Jay White, & KUSHIDA but then Rush had to go to the UK so ACH stepped in with the idea that if they made it to the finals, Rush would take his spot back. That is quite false. The original team was announced as Rush, White, & ACH, with KUSHIDA being the guy who came in to take Rush’s spot, and in the article where the replacement was announced, no mention was made of Rush reclaiming his spot if they made it to finals. Any sensible booker would have just booked the Kingdom to attack ACH and injure him and then had Nigel rule that Rush could reclaim his spot on the team, but in Delirious’ ROH we’ve descended to the point where they don’t even try to come up with an explanation before the day of the show, and their explanation is just to have the announcers tell easily disprovable lies to the fans.
The match itself was awesome. There was a lot on the line here for all of these guys other than KUSHIDA (especially the new guys in the Kingdom), and they definitely delivered a match that shows that they can go when given the appropriate time. A match like this definitely showcase what these titles can be in a way that the rest of the tournament completely failed to do, but I still would have preferred that our inaugural champions win cleanly.
ROH TV TITLE MATCH: Marty Scurll(c) vs. Will Ospreay vs. Dragon Lee- 8/10
After the introductions we finally received an answer as to why Bobby Fish isn’t in this match as advertised, and it’s a perfectly legitimate reason. I just wish that, like with the ACH/Lio Rush thing, that they had given us an explanation right away instead of showing us a graphic for the match with one of the advertised participants missing for no reason while the announcers go about talking as if Fish was never even scheduled to be in this match in the first place while sitting at home wondering why Bobby Fish is missing. You should never do things that will leave your audience sitting there asking questions that it’s not part of your plan for them to be asking.
Once every few matches they would cut to some camera that would pan around the large crowd before zooming back in on the ring while Kevin Kelly would say basically the same line about us at home taking in “the view here in the Hammerstein Ballroom at Final Battle.” Cutting away from the action in the middle of ANY match is annoying and should never happen, but to do it in THIS match, RIGHT AFTER that amazingly fast-paced first sequence… how f*cking stupid can you possibly be?!
The match itself was pretty awesome. Was it mostly just MOVEZZZZZ? Yes… but they were jaw-dropping moves, and there were three guys so they each got to take their turns selling. Also, it’s not like they were doing crazy head-drops and stuff that it would make you wonder how they could possibly keep kicking out of.
ROH WORLD TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: The Young Bucks(c) vs. The Briscoes- 8.5/10
So I’ve actually a lot of very big Young Bucks main event matches recently, including two involving the Briscoes in the past four days, so at this point I wasn’t really surprised by any of the spots they did because it felt like I’d seen them already… but even then they still managed to put them together in a way that had me biting on all of the nearfalls. This match was CRAZY!
And speaking of crazy…
Then the lights went out in the arena and then everyone in the building went crazy because then the CaryTron turned on and BROKEN MATT HARDY CUT A PROMO SAYING HE AND JEFF WERE COMING TO ROH TO FACE THE YOUNG BUCKS!
I will admit to popping huge when I saw Matt, but more out of surprise and intrigue than anything else. I don’t like the character the way it has been presented in basically every segment it has been in other than the Final Deletion match itself, but I realize (I don’t understand it, but I acknowledge the fact) that I am in the minority on this, and I know that this is something absolutely HUGE ROH right now. Also, the fact they have actually been building to this on Impact means that either there are some interesting backstage machinations going on between TNA and ROH, or that TNA just got REALLY screwed and that will lead to some exciting upcoming newsdays as well.
I’m sure I’m the only person in the world thinking this right now, but the Young Bucks are aligned with Adam Cole, who has a significant history with Matt Hardy in ROH. Hardy leaving ROH while allied with Cole in 2014 led to Matt Taven being brought into The Kingdom, which has since dissolved, only for Taven to replace it with his New Kingdom… so who is the right third guy to team with the Hardys?
NO DISQUALIFICATIONS MATCH FOR THE ROH WORLD TITLE: Adam Cole(c) vs. Kyle O’Reilly- 8.5/10
This match was made a No DQs match because Cole tried to get disqualified in order to retain the title in his last defense against Jay Lethal at Reach for the Sky Tour: London.
Kyle finally wins the title from Cole in an awesome, bloody, violent match to end their feud. Then again, this is the second time this year that I’ve typed that Kyle beat Cole in a brutal violent match to end their feud, so who knows. This match wasn’t quite as good as that match (Supercard of Honor X: Night 2), and not quite as good as Bucks vs. Briscoes, but it was still everything it needed to be, and Kyle finally winning the title here will make this the match that everyone will remember in the long run.
ROH delivers another AWESOME show to continue this hot streak they have closed the year out on. This was BY FAR ROH’s best PPV of the year, and the first one this year where I felt like the show was worth my money up and down the entire card. There are still a lot of things that I don’t like about the product right now (their time management skills still aren’t the best, as the first three matches on this show could have lost two or three minutes each that should have gone to the top two matches), and I am fully convinced that, creatively, the period from August 2015 through October 2016 is the worst in ROH history, but this show, combined with the three Reach for the Sky Tour shows last month have gone a very long way towards restoring my faith in my all-time favorite promotion.
STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. Kevin Kelly- “they are putting together some innovative offense on sort of the masters of that innovative style.”
“Innovative” is not a style of wrestling! You can’t be an “innovative style” wrestler like you can be a “high-flying style” or “technical style” wrestler. Innovative means “new.” It is a word you can used to describe a style, but it is not a style itself that you can be a master of.
2. Steve Corino talked about how Kyle O’Reilly has been “creating this hybrid style over the past few months, attacking multiple body parts.
A) Has anyone noticed any change in Kyle’s style at all over the past two years, never mind the past few months?
B) If there is one, it’s certainly not a newfound strategy of “attacking multiple body parts” because Kyle has been doing that for years.
I can’t wait until Steve Corino heads to the WWE Performance Center where he will be safely far, far away from any ROH television cameras.
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DXvsNWO1994
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Re: Official Final Battle 2016 Thread
I don't know if this has been mentioned here yet, but on Twitter there were a number of short videos of Taeler Hendrix stalking Mandy Leon. This ended with Hendrix hitting Leon with a fire extinguisher, and revealing that she is now aligned with Kevin Sullivan & "Punishment" Martinez.
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FanSinceHDNet
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Re: Official Final Battle 2016 Thread
Other stuff across their platforms, too, including some interviews and post match stuff.DXvsNWO1994 wrote:I don't know if this has been mentioned here yet, but on Twitter there were a number of short videos of Taeler Hendrix stalking Mandy Leon. This ended with Hendrix hitting Leon with a fire extinguisher, and revealing that she is now aligned with Kevin Sullivan & "Punishment" Martinez.
Re: Official Final Battle 2016 Thread
The cringe factor on that last video was so high.DXvsNWO1994 wrote:I don't know if this has been mentioned here yet, but on Twitter there were a number of short videos of Taeler Hendrix stalking Mandy Leon. This ended with Hendrix hitting Leon with a fire extinguisher, and revealing that she is now aligned with Kevin Sullivan & "Punishment" Martinez.
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supersonic
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JigsawVs.Jason
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Re: Official Final Battle 2016 Thread
Absolutely outstanding show and by far the best PPV of the year! Granted, they had a lot of booking issues as far as the rest of TV PPVs this year are concerned, but they knocked it out of the park with this one. Perfect booking in all matches, three must-see matches and a heartfelt emotional victory that niceyl capped off the 4 1/2 years rivalery between Cole and Kyle. The storytelling in the main event was off the charts and provides hope for the future, as we now have a world champ that can deliver MOTN after MOTN. We did not have that since Richards was champion and I've been clamoring for such a world champion for years. Now we finally have one that can put the ROH World Championship to the very top in terms of -in-ring wrestling.
I also love the fact how fresh the ROH roster feels right now, the roster shake-up definitely had its positive impact on the overall quality of their shows. Guys like Scurrl, Ospreay, White, Kamaitachi, Dragon Lee, Rush, etc have so many fresh match-ups waiting for them, it should be a great year of 2017.
Just a fantastic PPV, the only minor grip was the Hardys angle, who should be stay in the cesspool know as TNA, but other than that oustanding show.
I also love the fact how fresh the ROH roster feels right now, the roster shake-up definitely had its positive impact on the overall quality of their shows. Guys like Scurrl, Ospreay, White, Kamaitachi, Dragon Lee, Rush, etc have so many fresh match-ups waiting for them, it should be a great year of 2017.
Just a fantastic PPV, the only minor grip was the Hardys angle, who should be stay in the cesspool know as TNA, but other than that oustanding show.
"If anyone complains about how today's pro wrestling isn't as good as the past and isn't watching New Japan, their opinions have no validity." ~ Dave Meltzer
Re: Official Final Battle 2016 Thread
I'll echo the pervading sentiments that was a good show and not a great one.
The last two matches were kind of worrying and were the result of the self-fulfilling prophecy of Bullet Club out-babyfacing their opponents. The Briscoes and O'Reilly both seemed to struggle connecting with the crowd (I was surprised much more by the former, whom seemed lost at times). For the main event, there also seemed to be further detachments in the match, such as O'Reilly being perhaps concussed (he didn't look all that cognizant post-match), production issues delaying O'Reilly's music, and the overall apathy in the new champion. (Even Elgin's title win over Cole was better received, and that is a foreboding consideration to embark on.) Unless the bookers are very conscious of the crowd, O'Reilly's run could stumble really early. Of course, O'Reilly has to deliver as well and get the crowd invested in him again and this match was not the right start, perhaps among the weakest World Title changes there has been in the company.
If there isn't already serious thoughts being made about turning O'Reilly heel, then they could be in for a rude awakening. Pitting him against Daniels, Scurll, Fish, or Cole again won't elevate O'Reilly as ROH's top babyface.
Also, #BROKENMATT getting a gigantic babyface reaction makes all things right. Actually, looking back on all that Matt Hardy has done this year, maybe 2016 is actually OK after all.
The last two matches were kind of worrying and were the result of the self-fulfilling prophecy of Bullet Club out-babyfacing their opponents. The Briscoes and O'Reilly both seemed to struggle connecting with the crowd (I was surprised much more by the former, whom seemed lost at times). For the main event, there also seemed to be further detachments in the match, such as O'Reilly being perhaps concussed (he didn't look all that cognizant post-match), production issues delaying O'Reilly's music, and the overall apathy in the new champion. (Even Elgin's title win over Cole was better received, and that is a foreboding consideration to embark on.) Unless the bookers are very conscious of the crowd, O'Reilly's run could stumble really early. Of course, O'Reilly has to deliver as well and get the crowd invested in him again and this match was not the right start, perhaps among the weakest World Title changes there has been in the company.
If there isn't already serious thoughts being made about turning O'Reilly heel, then they could be in for a rude awakening. Pitting him against Daniels, Scurll, Fish, or Cole again won't elevate O'Reilly as ROH's top babyface.
Also, #BROKENMATT getting a gigantic babyface reaction makes all things right. Actually, looking back on all that Matt Hardy has done this year, maybe 2016 is actually OK after all.
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Big Red Machine
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Re: Official Final Battle 2016 Thread
Totally disagree that the Briscoes and O'Reilly had trouble connecting with the crowd. Against anyone else they would be heavily cheered. It's not their fault that some fans are just going to cheer Bullet Club's heel antics because they think it's cool.
Re: Official Final Battle 2016 Thread
O'Reilly is just so bland and the fans clearly don't give a fuck about him anymore. For the umpteenth time, this is Elgin all over again, except even worse somehow. Workrate is all fine and dandy, but he'll die a thousand deaths against 90% of the roster.
But hey, Delirious told his """epic""" story of a guy vanquishing his nemesis once and for all... if we forget that other time he did it of course.
But hey, Delirious told his """epic""" story of a guy vanquishing his nemesis once and for all... if we forget that other time he did it of course.
http://thelone.be/ => My site, which means a bunch of random stuff really.
Re: Official Final Battle 2016 Thread
I thought it was a good show with some great matches. Everyone worked hard, everything at least met my expectations, and there were only two match results I would have flipped, though I understand the logic behind both of them. I was worried for a minute earlier this week they would have Castle lose another big PPV match for no reason.
The first result I would have switched was Lethal/Cody. The match was fine though nothing special. I hope Cody delivers more as a heel. But that result... Did they just have Lethal put over Cody Rhodes at Final Battle in order to build Cody up for him joining the Corino/Whitmer feud? That’s what it looked like. I was afraid we were going to get Cody/Corino vs. Whitmer/Martinez. Cody vs. Corino (maybe with partners) is better on paper, but still not something I want to see. Cody vs. Daniels could be a good match, but I don’t want to see it in the context of the Corino/Whitmer feud. I have reservations about Lethal's next program that they teased on this week's TV too.
The opener was the other one I’d flip. I’m cold on the Cabinet even after the rebranding. I can’t take Rhett Titus seriously, the group comes off as a low rent Nation, and I don’t buy a joke act doing a random 180. The other team showed more in their first match than the Cabinet has in their year together and looked like chumps losing. Whatever they’re setting up with the Machine Guns, they better do soon because they’re rapidly losing credibility. I think they’ve only won 2 matches the last few months and I expect Shelley and Sabin both lose singles matches today. The same goes for Dijak, and the Addiction, and maybe a few other acts too.
I feel bad for Fish and what he’s going through. The TV Title was great though. I wonder if that three-way today will be an unofficial #1 Contender’s match for the TV Title. Do they have Scurll feud with Ospreay right away, or hold off on it for a while since they just did a singles match between the two and that three-way Friday? Personally I’d have Scurll do a program with Dragon Lee, if he’s available, or someone else as a buffer before building to him and Ospreay wrestling each other again months down the line.
The Hardy announcement was a surprise. I had my fill of Broken Matt Hardy after a handful of Youtube videos but I recognize that I’m in the minority and it will sell tickets so I’m fine with them coming in for a match.
Congratulations Kyle O’Reilly for finally winning the belt in a good main event. That was definitely something they should have pulled the trigger on a long time ago if they were going to do it and gotten him much hotter than he is going into it.
The first result I would have switched was Lethal/Cody. The match was fine though nothing special. I hope Cody delivers more as a heel. But that result... Did they just have Lethal put over Cody Rhodes at Final Battle in order to build Cody up for him joining the Corino/Whitmer feud? That’s what it looked like. I was afraid we were going to get Cody/Corino vs. Whitmer/Martinez. Cody vs. Corino (maybe with partners) is better on paper, but still not something I want to see. Cody vs. Daniels could be a good match, but I don’t want to see it in the context of the Corino/Whitmer feud. I have reservations about Lethal's next program that they teased on this week's TV too.
The opener was the other one I’d flip. I’m cold on the Cabinet even after the rebranding. I can’t take Rhett Titus seriously, the group comes off as a low rent Nation, and I don’t buy a joke act doing a random 180. The other team showed more in their first match than the Cabinet has in their year together and looked like chumps losing. Whatever they’re setting up with the Machine Guns, they better do soon because they’re rapidly losing credibility. I think they’ve only won 2 matches the last few months and I expect Shelley and Sabin both lose singles matches today. The same goes for Dijak, and the Addiction, and maybe a few other acts too.
I feel bad for Fish and what he’s going through. The TV Title was great though. I wonder if that three-way today will be an unofficial #1 Contender’s match for the TV Title. Do they have Scurll feud with Ospreay right away, or hold off on it for a while since they just did a singles match between the two and that three-way Friday? Personally I’d have Scurll do a program with Dragon Lee, if he’s available, or someone else as a buffer before building to him and Ospreay wrestling each other again months down the line.
The Hardy announcement was a surprise. I had my fill of Broken Matt Hardy after a handful of Youtube videos but I recognize that I’m in the minority and it will sell tickets so I’m fine with them coming in for a match.
Congratulations Kyle O’Reilly for finally winning the belt in a good main event. That was definitely something they should have pulled the trigger on a long time ago if they were going to do it and gotten him much hotter than he is going into it.
Re: Official Final Battle 2016 Thread
What I thought was worrying was that ROH didn't realize months ago that Bullet Club were actually the babyfaces, and that this was not a great way to help O'Reilly. I was somewhat surprised that the Briscoes weren't all that over and looked to be in minor hiccups. But the latter is not really a big deal.Big Red Machine wrote:Totally disagree that the Briscoes and O'Reilly had trouble connecting with the crowd. Against anyone else they would be heavily cheered. It's not their fault that some fans are just going to cheer Bullet Club's heel antics because they think it's cool.
I guess it's better than he signed and this is what we have, rather than the alternative of this overmuch story coming up bupkis. He will probably have a few quiet months as champion, but maybe he can improve after that, especially if they write him a story that isn't just generic babyface stuff. Regardless, I don't think he's going to shoot on alternative sports aspirations and get stripped of the title on his first PPV as champion.Thelone wrote:O'Reilly is just so bland and the fans clearly don't give a fuck about him anymore. For the umpteenth time, this is Elgin all over again, except even worse somehow. Workrate is all fine and dandy, but he'll die a thousand deaths against 90% of the roster.
But hey, Delirious told his """epic""" story of a guy vanquishing his nemesis once and for all... if we forget that other time he did it of course.
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Big Red Machine
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Re: Official Final Battle 2016 Thread
Don't get me wrong: I agree that the idea of the Bucks as heels (and sticking Cole with them in Bullet Club) wasn't the best choice. But I think this is what we have to accept now because of how New Japan and ROH want things portrayed and because of how an unfortunately large number of fans choose to react to things. The moment you stick Kyle in there with any other heel (or even most other babyfaces) on the roster, he'll go back to getting heartily cheered.Wilson wrote:What I thought was worrying was that ROH didn't realize months ago that Bullet Club were actually the babyfaces, and that this was not a great way to help O'Reilly. I was somewhat surprised that the Briscoes weren't all that over and looked to be in minor hiccups. But the latter is not really a big deal.Big Red Machine wrote:Totally disagree that the Briscoes and O'Reilly had trouble connecting with the crowd. Against anyone else they would be heavily cheered. It's not their fault that some fans are just going to cheer Bullet Club's heel antics because they think it's cool.
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Big Red Machine
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Re: Official Final Battle 2016 Thread
I don't think this particular loss would have qualified as being for "no reason." This match should have served the same function for its feud that Page vs. Whitmer did at the 14th Anniversary Show. We have a PPV coming up so we need to book something for these guys, so we give the heel a dirty win so that the feud can continue with its heat (and the driving idea behind it) intact.ndp wrote:I thought it was a good show with some great matches. Everyone worked hard, everything at least met my expectations, and there were only two match results I would have flipped, though I understand the logic behind both of them. I was worried for a minute earlier this week they would have Castle lose another big PPV match for no reason.
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supersonic
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Re: Official Final Battle 2016 Thread
Listening to the live audience on the Lapsed Fan, it certainly didn't seem the crowd was in an orgasmic State when O'Reilly won.
When one revisits and chronicles the glory days like I have, including Final Battle 2004, Death Before Dishonor III, Redemption, Glory By Honor IV, and Final Battle 2006, O'Reilly's coronation certainly didn't sound like an all-time defining moment based on the crowd's overall apathy.
When one revisits and chronicles the glory days like I have, including Final Battle 2004, Death Before Dishonor III, Redemption, Glory By Honor IV, and Final Battle 2006, O'Reilly's coronation certainly didn't sound like an all-time defining moment based on the crowd's overall apathy.
Re: Official Final Battle 2016 Thread
Does it really ?Wilson wrote:I guess it's better than he signed and this is what we have, rather than the alternative of this overmuch story coming up bupkis. He will probably have a few quiet months as champion, but maybe he can improve after that, especially if they write him a story that isn't just generic babyface stuff. Regardless, I don't think he's going to shoot on alternative sports aspirations and get stripped of the title on his first PPV as champion.
This is one of the few times they should have done a "downer" ending with O'Reilly just failing once again and leaving the main event scene for a while while Cole can do some kind of Summer of Punk-esque storyline and use his contract running out as a tool to make every title match unpredictable. It's not like Daniels or Fish are ridiculous choices for a world title run right now and it would have given Cole's reign a much needed hook instead of being a very transparent stop gap.
http://thelone.be/ => My site, which means a bunch of random stuff really.
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supersonic
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Re: Official Final Battle 2016 Thread
While interesting, I wonder if ROH would wanna acknowledge NXT, even implicitly, to that degree. Business is much different now than 2005 obviously.
Re: Official Final Battle 2016 Thread
As supersonic argued, there's no way a story about Cole's contract would be made in these times. We also don't know if he's staying or leaving. If Cole retained on Friday and was to leave, we probably would have just gotten more of the same until the anniversary show or and Supercard, which is still fine, I guess.Thelone wrote:Does it really ?Wilson wrote:I guess it's better than he signed and this is what we have, rather than the alternative of this overmuch story coming up bupkis. He will probably have a few quiet months as champion, but maybe he can improve after that, especially if they write him a story that isn't just generic babyface stuff. Regardless, I don't think he's going to shoot on alternative sports aspirations and get stripped of the title on his first PPV as champion.
This is one of the few times they should have done a "downer" ending with O'Reilly just failing once again and leaving the main event scene for a while while Cole can do some kind of Summer of Punk-esque storyline and use his contract running out as a tool to make every title match unpredictable. It's not like Daniels or Fish are ridiculous choices for a world title run right now and it would have given Cole's reign a much needed hook instead of being a very transparent stop gap.
However, O'Reilly would have been as dead as dirt if he lost to Cole. Not only would have made 2016 a complete waste of time for progression of the main event scene, but it would have made the whole picture suddenly rather old: Jay Lethal, Jay Briscoe, Bobby Fish, Christopher Daniels. Due to the massive investment of time, O'Reilly couldn't have lost, even counting the short-term benefits of Cole carrying it for some unnamed amount of time.
For now, I'm interested to see how O'Reilly catches on as champion and am cautiously optimistic. I don't see him making it past Best in the World as a babyface, though we don't have a clear frontrunner yet of whom could dethrone him. What's seems most sure is that this conversation will come back up whenever it becomes confirmed that ROH is "grooming" Dalton Castle to embark on some 29 month-odd odyssey toward the belt and that the company never learns from this kick against the pricks over-preparation.
Re: Official Final Battle 2016 Thread
Here is the Podcast of Honor 12/04/16 Final Battle Review + Young Bucks Update http://www.pwponderings.com/2016/12/04/ ... ks-update/