ROH Bound By Honor: Miami Official Thread

[dhads7161]

I can't believe they took the belt off Kelly already, wowwwwwwwwww.

Kelly following BJ to AEW perhaps?

[project161]

[quote=ActionJeffson post_id=157756 time=<a href="tel:1549849724">1549849724</a> user_id=2750]
I can't believe they took the belt off Kelly already, wowwwwwwwwww.

Kelly following BJ to AEW perhaps?
[/quote]

Unlikely. She signed a new contract with ROH early last month. I would presume the idea behind it was more to strengthen the relationship with Stardom.

Fun show I thought. Everything was pretty consistent with only a couple matches I felt really dragging at any point (mainly Romero/Cobb and the Dalton trios match.)

[dhads7161]

Yeah I felt like it was a string show as well. All the HonorClub offerings have been solid so far this year.

[AlexROH]

Crowd was super dead for this show and that probably hurt my enjoyment, but, being honest, I think this was a weak show. You know, not a bad one since the wrestlers are talented and can have entertaining matches even not giving their 100%, but this didn't feel as important as the Road to G1 Supercard tour or even Honor Reigns Supreme. That good vibe with every wrestling being super motivated and every match playing part in a story wasn't here, or at least I didn't find it. Lots of big names, but for any reason this didn't feel special at all.

Commentary by Aldis was strong, but I gotta admit that he is maybe too slow for me. Anyway, he did a tremendous effort.

I still don't know how the Anniversary Card will look, and it's sad bc I'm sure it will be a strong card with great matchups, but outside King-Scurll and Lethal-Taven there wasn't any kind of build going into the PPV. Being these 2 the last shows in the US before a PPV, I was expecting a bigger build not only in Miami but in Lakeland, since it was the go-home TV Taping. We'll see how the Honor Rising shows go, but I don't expect much thing outside some cool matches.

Talking about positive things, I like the story they are doing with Dalton, that possible will end up in a heel turn. Colt Cabana looked great and proved the ROH audience that he can still go and have great matches. I love his commentary work with Ian, but if anytime he wants to return full time wrestling to ROH, he would be a great addition to the uppercard.
Bandido, Cobb and Rush are big stars and should be going up this 2019.

Bad things, too much focus in PCO for my taste. Don't get me wrong, I love PCO, but man, having PCO as the last image for the show was too much for me. Also, I didn't understand at all the final segment. It was a brawl between all the roster, for giving you an idea, like your usual final segment in RAW before the Royal Rumble. This is an odd choice to end your last HC Show before a PPV bc you truly see that there are no storylines going into a big show.
I like Kenny King as a heel, but I'm sure he's gonna lose to Marty in Vegas (since Marty is getting his shot for the World title possibly in NYC and need some singles victories). Why do you push again King as heel to lose? Doesn't make so much sense.

Jay Briscoe vs. Rhett Titus 3/4

Dalton Castle & The Boys (Brandon & Brent) vs. Shinobi Shadow Squad 3/4

Colt Cabana vs. Zack Sabre Jr. 3/4

Kenny King vs. Marty Scurll vs. Silas Young vs. Willie Mack 1/4+

Jeff Cobb (c) vs. Rocky Romero 1/2

Kelly Klein (c) vs. Mayu Iwatani 1/4+

Coast 2 Coast & The Bouncers vs. Lifeblood 1/4

Mark Briscoe vs. PCO 1/2

Jay Lethal, Jonathan Gresham & Rush vs. The Kingdom 1/2-

Final rating: 6/10.

[Big Red Machine]

Crowd was super dead for this show and that probably hurt my enjoyment,

I should probably wait to find out what they drew before saying this, but this statement alone compels me to once again ask why ROH keeps trying so hard to run in Florida while running fewer shows in places they have proven themselves able to draw like Chicago or Hopkins. The Florida crowds always stink and the shows never seem to draw well unless it's WrestleMania weekend. And this goes all the way back to the end of the Gabe Era when SOTF 2008 had to be cancelled for drawing poorly. Why does ROH keep wasting its time trying here when there are many more productive options, either with already-established markets or trying to run new markets or testing how they draw in places like Maine without the NJPW guys (and not on a weeknight)?

[project161]

Surprised the crowd didn’t translate as someone who was there. There were definitely matches that felt noticeably down outside of the main spots (Romero/Cobb immediately comes to mind) but thought they were into a lot of the main stuff, namely the main, PCO/Briscoe, the 8-man tag and the 4CS.

Thought it at least delivered overall probably more than any FL show they have had since Road to Final Battle 2015 (excluding Supercard 2017) although that isn’t exactly the highest bar to jump over. Roster is hungry though and they would have to try pretty hard to have a bad show with who they have right now in my opinion.

Also in regards to the PPV, was Briscoe/PCO not building toward their match? I don’t disagree really with anything else in regards to the PPV build otherwise.

I felt like I was probably one of maybe two or three people in the building that found any sort of novelty to Rhett being the replacement for Brody. Jay was Rhett’s breakout singles opponent from Dayton in 2010. This match wasn’t that one of course but I still appreciated the novelty.

[Montana]

Decent show overall, but not one of ROH's best this year. The ending was pretty cool though. I found it kind of surprising the Lifeblood was in a 4 on 4 match, and they've helped carry some of the first shows of the year. It was hard to showcase all of them in the same match. It is also surprising that ROH runs Florida, with NXT live there, and now AEW as well. ROH has several other strong markets, and doesn't really need Florida.

I gotta wonder if Marty Scrull and Dalton Castle are on their way out now as well.

[monster mafia]

marty and dalton have current contracts as far i know.

[project161]

The shows with Omega in late 2017 drew very well, particularly the Fort Lauderdale one as far as Florida is concerned. I want to say Lakeland in 2014 with AJ booked also did well as far as non WM weekend shows they have had between 2014 and 2019.

I was under the impression that Dalton was under a two year deal. Google shows me that he signed a new deal in June of 2017.

Marty at least is signed through MSG and not sure if after that.

[AlexROH]

The shows with Omega in late 2017 drew very well, particularly the Fort Lauderdale one as far as Florida is concerned. I want to say Lakeland in 2014 with AJ booked also did well as far as non WM weekend shows they have had between 2014 and 2019.

I was under the impression that Dalton was under a two year deal. Google shows me that he signed a new deal in June of 2017.

Marty at least is signed through MSG and not sure if after that.

Id say Scurll deal is more until may-june, like the one Cole had 2 years ago. After MSG he's working the Crockett Cup too.

[Big Red Machine]

I'd only halfway through the show, but I feel the need to chime in and echo the comments everyone has made about the commentary so far. Aldis and Caprice are TREMENDOUS together.

[Big Red Machine]

ROH Bound By Honor 2019: Miami (2/10/2019)- Coral Gables, FL


JAY BRISCOE vs. RHETT TITUS- 3.75/10
Rhett Titus comes out and says he wants to rub Jay Briscoe down with baby oil, and also says that Jay Briscoe isn’t in shape. Couldn’t you have just explained to the crowd that Brody King’s wife is having a baby and Rhett is his replacement tonight? Did we really need Rhett to cut this stupid promo to rub in that he’s a goofball with no chance of winning?
This was short. Jay won.

SHINOBI SHADOW SQUAD vs. DALTON CASTLE & THE BOYS- 6.5/10
I’m not sure what “dissension” between Dalton and the Boys the announcers were talking about going into this match, but there was definitely some at the end. There is definitely a story to be told here with Dalton’s Boys growing as wrestlers and Dalton needing to learn to accept that, but I really don’t want to see Dalton go heel, so hopefully this works itself out without it getting that far.
Speaking of people who are “growing as wrestlers,” the Shinobi Shadow Squad feel like real members of the roster now! They’ve done a very good job with Isom (he got to pin Dalton Castle here!) and Nova never really had the jobber stink on him, but after years of absolutely zero character progression no matter how many “the biggest win of his career!” moments Delirious tried to give him, Cheeseburger finally feels like he’s not a joke anymore and is someone I have no trouble accepting as the leader of a team of young wrestlers.

ZACK SABRE JR. vs. COLT CABANA- 6.75/10

FOUR CORNER SURVIVAL: Marty Scurll vs. Kenny King vs. Willie Mack vs. Silas Young- 6.75/10
A decent action-packed four-way. The finish saw Marty have Silas tapping to the Crossface Chickenwing but Kenny King distracted Tod Sinclair by bringing a chair into the ring, and when Sinclair went to put the chair away, Kenny kicked Marty in the nuts, then rolled him up for the pin. A good finish to set something up between these two while keeping Marty Strong because he still has a world title shot due to him and also building Kenny up for the eventual world title shot he claims he deserves.

ROH WORLD TV TITLE MATCH: Jeff Cobb(c) vs. Rocky Romero- 7/10
Cobb worked over Rocky’s midsection in addition to the expected speed vs. power story.

ROH WOMEN OF HONOR WORLD TITLE MATCH: Kelly Klein(c) (w/Camp Klein) vs. Mayu Iwatani (w/Sumie Sakai)- 7.5/10
This was a great match, and I was shocked at the pop the title change got… but I simply don’t understand why Delirious changed the title here. It’s completely out of nowhere, cuts Kelly’s reign extremely short, and puts the belt on someone for whom no future dates have been announced. This felt like putting the title on a Japanese wrestler simply for the sake of putting the title on a Japanese wrestler, which did no good for the TV Title when Delirious temporarily put it on Tomohiro Ishii almost three years ago (Ishii won the belt from Roderick Strong, did nothing with it, and then lost it a few months later to Bobby Fish, who had already been feuding with Roddy over the TV Title when Ishii took it from Roddy). This feels like yet more evidence that like the other championship he has created in the past few years, the ROH World Six-Man Tag Team Titles, Delirious has no solid plans of any sort for what to do with the Women of Honor World Title, either.

COAST 2 COAST & THE BOUNCERS vs. LIFEBLOOD (Mark Haskins, Tracy Williams, Juice Robinson, & Bandido) (w/Tenille Dashwood)- 7.75/10
Stuff happened in the beginning, all nice and clean. Then LSG and Bandido are in there, doing their spots and they come to a stand-off… and all of a sudden, FOR NO REASON, the other six guys just get into the ring and have the most pointless, manufactured shouting match you have ever seen. The referee starts to order them to all go back to their corners, but the fans are chanting “LET THEM FIGHT!” but because these guys are all babyfaces they go back to their corners like respectful athlete… and, of course, the fans all boo. This is why you should stick to wrestling unless the spot you’re doing is necessary to tell the story of your match.
After almost ten minutes of completely clean wrestling, Beer City Bruiser just randomly starts biting Mark Haskins on the face, right in front of the referee. WHY?! Even worse, this was pretty much the only bit of cheating all match. I mean… aside from people running into the ring when they weren’t legal, but that happens in every tag match. But then again, why not use that to held LifeBlood stand out as true rule-followers. At this moment they’re just a bunch of random dudes in a faction. They supposedly have an ideology, but they don’t really do anything different than, say, Jay Lethal or Jonathan Gresham, so what is their purpose?
The action in the match was pretty great (aside from one or two spots where BCB taking Lucha moves wound up looking hokey- particularly the spot where he was sup[posed to run into Milonas off of a rana), but I really couldn’t get into the match because I wasn’t really given any reason to care about anyone in it. Bandido once again really shined, but I’d like him and his buddies who should also have me excited to get some actual direction.

MARK BRISCOE vs. PCO- 7/10
In an even worse repeat of the bad idea from the previous match, this time Mark and PCO got STEEL CHAIRS and wanted to hit each other with them but ROH Senior Referee Tod Sinclair got between them and ordered them to put the chairs down, and they complied… and the fans booed. Anyone should have been able to see this coming!
Unlike the last match, this did actually factor into the story as while PCO went to put his chair away, Mark simply but his down and attacked PCO from behind as PCO went to return his chair to the corner of the ringside area, but all of this still could have been avoided by coming up with some other way for Mark to cut PCO off.
Sinclair let them brawl all over the place without getting counted out. They announcers justified this with “referee’s discretion.” Then, as if to give us an example of why Tod should have interceded and started counting before it got to this point, Mark Briscoe gave PCO a scary powerbomb on the stage, then kicked him down the stairs. This was extremely scary. Fortunately, it seems to have scared Tod into finally doing the right thing, as he then ran back to the ring and began applying the twenty-count.
This match is probably the match I would use to explain 2018-2019 PCO to someone. He takes all of this scary stuff and somehow doesn’t stay down and sells everything and plays his character so well that it never once feels like it stretches credulity.

THE KINGDOM vs. JAY LETHAL, JONATHAN GRESHAM, & RUSH- 8/10
The story here focused on three individual match-ups: Taven vs. Lethal, O’Ryan vs. Rush, and Marseglia vs. Gresham. The first two of those have had some built while the third feels more like the leftover guys getting thrown together (but that’s fine). I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that rather than having the heels be cowards and try to avoid these match-ups when footing was even, they had them just as willing to get in there as their babyface counterparts.
There was a really great heat segment, some strong nearfalls, and a very exciting last few minutes (although, unfortunately we missed some of it because some moron decided that rather than keep the camera shot focused on the action sequence IN PROGRESS, it would be better to cut to a camera focused on the big screen hanging above the ring that was displaying the logo of the show and then pan down to the ring. This person should be fired. And also flogged.) Also, most surprisingly of all, Vinny Marseglia did absolutely nothing stupid.
Taven got to pin Lethal cleanly to cement the idea that he might actually be able to beat Lethal and validate his claims to being the best wrestler in the world. Based on what we saw tonight their match at the 17th Anniversary Show should be great, although they did have one or two issues. The scariest one involved Lethal going for Hail to the King but Taven I guess didn’t roll out of the way quickly enough and rolled towards the turnbuckle so Lethal wound up coming down with his knee driving into Taven’s back, but with Lethal’s legs spread at an angle that makes you wonder how he managed to avoid getting hurt on it.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Kenny King comes out and cuts a promo on Jay Lethal, calling Lethal a loser while noting that Kenny himself was victorious earlier tonight, pinning Marty Scurll. Scurll came out and attacked Kenny, but The Kingdom then all attacked Marty, and PCO came out and if things had continued from there with a brawl getting broken up then it would have been a very good segment, pushing three storylines at the same time (Lethal/Kenny, Kenny/Marty, and Kingdom/Villain Enterprises).
Instead someone decided that everyone had to run out and it turned into this painfully forced schmoz. In the middle of all of this, Bully Ray went after Tod Sinclair but PCO saved Sinclair and had a thing with Bully, because apparently someone felt that what ROH needs to book right now is match where the two participants have a combined age of almost 100 and where both men had won multiple WWF World Tag Team Championships well before ROH- shortly before its 17th birthday- ever came into existence. This felt like something that was big for the sake of being big rather than making sure everyone had a real reason to be involved, and the result was a segment where the focus ended up completely watered down.


This was a pretty great show from ROH. The wrestling was all very good and things ramped up well as the night went on. The finishes were almost all clean, with the one dirty one immediately becoming relevant in an angle, storylines were progress, and the commentary tonight… WOW!
Like Brody King, Ian Riccaboni missed this show because his wife was giving birth, so the commentary team tonight was Caprice Coleman and Nick Aldis… and they were TREMENDOUS! Two color commentary guys without a play-by-play guy is not something I like, but Aldis actually managed to play both rolls at once, with Caprice facilitating his transition from role to role by simply having an intelligent and reasonable conversation about the action with him.
I want to throw some particular props in Caprice’s direction for the way he dealt with the issues of a DQ finish. Whereas most announcers (Kevin Kelly in particular gets my ire up for doing this) say things like “we wouldn’t want a disqualification here” when someone is doing something like using a weapon right in front of the referee’s face, Caprice handled an angry Rush picking up a chair by saying “I would be kind of mad at” the referee if he called for a DQ had Rush used the chair. Caprice got across the same sentiment that we don’t want to see a match end via DQ, but while still getting over the idea that following the rules for the integrity of the competition and the safety of the competitors is more important than not disappointing the fans with a “bad” finish.

This is definitely a show that you should check out.




STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. Nick Aldis tried to tell me that Colt Cabana’s stock was “currently at an all-time high.”
He’s a former multi-time ROH World Tag Team Champion, multi-time NWA World Heavyweight Champion, a former RPW British Heavyweight Champion, a former IWA-MS Heavyweight Champion when that belt actually meant something, and has held many other titles around the world. Currently he holds ZERO championships… and you want to tell me that his stock is at an “all-time high” NOW?

[famicommander]

Yeah it was pretty weird for the sitting NWA champ to say that a former champ's stock is higher now that he doesn't have the belt anymore. Kind of buried his own belt.

[BurningHammer]

It felt a wierd show overall where pretty every match was really good up until each of their endings which just felt kind of wierd or awkward bar Cobb's and Rocky's which seemed awesome.

The 3 man tag at the end really was building to something special until the end where it kind of brock down and felt awkward. Saying that, Rush and TK have some chemistry, I think if TK has a couple more matches with him he will finally get it, Rush is really able to bring out something of TK that others haven't I would hope that it could continue to the point of permanent.

Really Enjoyed Cabana and Zabre, if a match made me more long for the pure title it was this one.

The commentary really wasn't my cup of tea although It did confirm that the there really needs to someone alongside Ian that really anylises the wrestling side, Cabana just doesn't do enough of it, and just seems a one line guy at this point.

(Red I think you need to watch Vinny again in that match he did at least three stupid including messing up the ending pretty much.)

[Big Red Machine]

It felt a wierd show overall where pretty every match was really good up until each of their endings which just felt kind of wierd or awkward bar Cobb's and Rocky's which seemed awesome.

The 3 man tag at the end really was building to something special until the end where it kind of brock down and felt awkward. Saying that, Rush and TK have some chemistry, I think if TK has a couple more matches with him he will finally get it, Rush is really able to bring out something of TK that others haven't I would hope that it could continue to the point of permanent.

Really Enjoyed Cabana and Zabre, if a match made me more long for the pure title it was this one.

The commentary really wasn't my cup of tea although It did confirm that the there really needs to someone alongside Ian that really anylises the wrestling side, Cabana just doesn't do enough of it, and just seems a one line guy at this point.

(Red I think you need to watch Vinny again in that match he did at least three stupid including messing up the ending pretty much.)

When I say "stupid" I mean things that create logical issues. Everyone screws up by accident (though obviously doing it too often is not good), but it's the people who dumb sh*t on purpose that raise my ire.

I totally agree about Colt. He's not providing any positive benefit on commentary anymore. At this point I think the best thing for ROH commentary would be for Ian to give us the set-up before every match, then have him just call the moves and occasionally pepper in a storyline detail relevant to that moment, while otherwise just laying out and letting Aldis and Caprice have a conversation about they're seeing.