ROH UK Tour
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Chrisvegas27
- Posts: 1840
- Joined: Sun Jul 15, 2018 2:27 pm
Re: ROH UK Tour
I guess Vicky was announced by fight network uk is a roh talent so maybe she sticking around
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BurningHammer
- Posts: 2160
- Joined: Fri Mar 22, 2013 10:58 am
Re: ROH UK Tour
I try not to do this generally, but what I experienced last night really annoyed me. As enjoyable as it was sitting next to Alex, the ‘lady’ next too me and I use that term loosely was quite possible the most objectionable fan I’ve had the displeasure of sitting next too and it really did affect my enjoyment of the show. I hope that her pretty unfounded shitting on the show turns her away for life and I hope that’s for all wrestling shows.
Apart from that, I enjoyed bits and pieces of the show. The crowd felt far less of an ROH show that London show had and it reminded of Darlington where you could tell there were a mixture of wrestling fans from all companies.
Three of the matches delivered for sure, my favourite being the tag match between Marty/Flip and Schadenfrueda, Kyle really is one of the best unsigned talents out there, while Lucky looked great too and I hope the two of them them both are used again in ROH very soon.
Flamita and Bailey really worked well, especially for what I think is a first time match and again both need to used in ROH in the future and if I have to see Veda for that too happen I really don’t care.
As Alex wrote about the Cobb vs RUSH match, it would have worked incredibly well with a crowd more familiar with RUSH as it had a well worked story throughout but needed that energy for both that just really wasn’t there. I think RUSH is really starting to get the American/less CMLL way of working but he could focus a bit more of thinking about an audience not knowing him. Regardless the match still delivered, it just could have been pretty special.
Having attended the two shows, there was a lot to enjoy about both shows and if I take my own personal experience out of it and look it as coldly as possible, I don’t think you could be disappointed with the effort to make create shows that were entertaining and enjoyable in all aspects. I do hope it’s a start for more fans to enjoy ROH more and it can grow ROH in the UK European market. As I think people are coming away having not attended an ROH show before and enjoyed it.
The talents brought in for the most part did really well and having Rampage, Flamita, Bailey (when his visa issues are sorted), Kyle and Lucky Kid (they really could be a new Steen and Generico). All I would live to see again in ROH a lot more.
Apart from that, I enjoyed bits and pieces of the show. The crowd felt far less of an ROH show that London show had and it reminded of Darlington where you could tell there were a mixture of wrestling fans from all companies.
Three of the matches delivered for sure, my favourite being the tag match between Marty/Flip and Schadenfrueda, Kyle really is one of the best unsigned talents out there, while Lucky looked great too and I hope the two of them them both are used again in ROH very soon.
Flamita and Bailey really worked well, especially for what I think is a first time match and again both need to used in ROH in the future and if I have to see Veda for that too happen I really don’t care.
As Alex wrote about the Cobb vs RUSH match, it would have worked incredibly well with a crowd more familiar with RUSH as it had a well worked story throughout but needed that energy for both that just really wasn’t there. I think RUSH is really starting to get the American/less CMLL way of working but he could focus a bit more of thinking about an audience not knowing him. Regardless the match still delivered, it just could have been pretty special.
Having attended the two shows, there was a lot to enjoy about both shows and if I take my own personal experience out of it and look it as coldly as possible, I don’t think you could be disappointed with the effort to make create shows that were entertaining and enjoyable in all aspects. I do hope it’s a start for more fans to enjoy ROH more and it can grow ROH in the UK European market. As I think people are coming away having not attended an ROH show before and enjoyed it.
The talents brought in for the most part did really well and having Rampage, Flamita, Bailey (when his visa issues are sorted), Kyle and Lucky Kid (they really could be a new Steen and Generico). All I would live to see again in ROH a lot more.
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Big Red Machine
- Posts: 4376
- Joined: Sat Jan 19, 2013 10:10 pm
Re: ROH UK Tour
ROH Honor United Tour 2019: London (10/25/2019)- London, UK
THE BRAT BACK (Mitch Waterman & Nick Bury) vs. LIFEBLOOD (Tracy Williams & Mark Haskins) (w/Vicky Haskins)- 6.75/10
A solid action opener, but I really would have preferred that LIFEBLOOD didn’t do a spot that required Vicky Haskins to distract the referee, even if the only rule they were violating was five seconds after a tag. They’re LIFEBLOOD.
JAY BRISCOE vs. JONATHAN GRESHAM- 8/10
Gresham wore a goofy mask to the ring that seemed like some sort of cosplay thing, but then he TOOK IT OFF BEFORE THE MATCH STARTED (as opposed to AEW where they apparently wrestle with such costumes on). They had an awesome match where Gresham dominated the wrestling while Briscoe dominated the brawling. The finish came when Gresham apparently spit mist into Briscoes’ eyes and rolled him up for the win. The camera totally missed this, which I was fine with, because it was supposed to be sneaky, and there wasn’t actually much mist on Briscoe’s face, which I liked because you avoid the stupid situation where the wrestler’s face is full of the stuff and the referee has to pretend to not see it until the pin has already been counted.
SIX-MAN SCRAMBLE MATCH: Dalton Castle vs. Hikuleo vs. Matt Taven vs. Rampage Brown vs. Silas Young vs. Kenny King (w/Amy Rose)- 7.5/10
They shoved a lot of talent into this undercard six-way match, so I was happy to see it given the time to deliver. It was the usual action you’d expect from this kind of match, but there was enough of it that it didn’t feel like a waste of guys like Castle, King, Silas, and Taven.
ROH WOMEN OF HONOR WORLD TITLE MATCH: Kelly Klein(c) vs. Mandy Leon- 4.25/10
Mandy jumped Kelly from behind to start things off. She worked over the arm and they seemed to be going with that story… but then Mandy hit Kelly in the head with the title and pinned her and won the title. Then Senior Referee Tod Sinclair came out and overturned the ruling, but that just makes me ask why he didn’t do so for Briscoes vs. Gresham, or why he doesn’t do so every other time someone cheats to win? Seconds later, Kelly Klein hit her finisher and got the win. This was pointless overbooking. Just let them go out there and tell their story!
COLT CABANA vs, FLAMITA-7/10
A great mix of action and comedy.
ROH WORLD TV TITLE MATCH: Shane Taylor(c) vs. Joe Hendry- 7/10
Dalton Castle joined the commentary team for this match. He was excellent. The match just hit my minimum threshold for a main event, which is nice to see from this spot on the card, but for a title match with some actual build behind it, I was hoping for a little more. Shane Taylor just doesn’t do it for me.
SCHADENFREUDE (Lucky Kid & Kyle Fletcher) vs. VILLAIN ENTERPRISES (Brody King & PCO)- 6.75/10
JAY LETHAL vs. MARK BRISCOE- 7/10
A great match that ended in a wonderfully-executed heel turn. This is how you do a non-finish without angering the fans. Whoever came up with the detail of Mark Briscoe bleeding after Gresham shoved him into the post (thus revealed that someone must have interfered with him) is a genius!
JEFF COBB & RUSH vs. VILLAIN ENTERPRISES (Marty Scurll & Flip Gordon)- 7.5/10
I wasn’t into this for the first half or so but they got me very invested by the end.
Cobb was a dick and tagged himself in after Rush hit Flip with the Bull’s Horns so that he could hit his own finisher and steal the pin.
This was a great show from ROH with solid wrestling all up and down the card (other than the horribly overbooked women’s match), a MAJOR storyline moment, and some good build towards the Cobb vs. Rush ROH World Title match that will headline this tour. Hopefully the rest of the tour keeps up this level of quality.
THE BRAT BACK (Mitch Waterman & Nick Bury) vs. LIFEBLOOD (Tracy Williams & Mark Haskins) (w/Vicky Haskins)- 6.75/10
A solid action opener, but I really would have preferred that LIFEBLOOD didn’t do a spot that required Vicky Haskins to distract the referee, even if the only rule they were violating was five seconds after a tag. They’re LIFEBLOOD.
JAY BRISCOE vs. JONATHAN GRESHAM- 8/10
Gresham wore a goofy mask to the ring that seemed like some sort of cosplay thing, but then he TOOK IT OFF BEFORE THE MATCH STARTED (as opposed to AEW where they apparently wrestle with such costumes on). They had an awesome match where Gresham dominated the wrestling while Briscoe dominated the brawling. The finish came when Gresham apparently spit mist into Briscoes’ eyes and rolled him up for the win. The camera totally missed this, which I was fine with, because it was supposed to be sneaky, and there wasn’t actually much mist on Briscoe’s face, which I liked because you avoid the stupid situation where the wrestler’s face is full of the stuff and the referee has to pretend to not see it until the pin has already been counted.
SIX-MAN SCRAMBLE MATCH: Dalton Castle vs. Hikuleo vs. Matt Taven vs. Rampage Brown vs. Silas Young vs. Kenny King (w/Amy Rose)- 7.5/10
They shoved a lot of talent into this undercard six-way match, so I was happy to see it given the time to deliver. It was the usual action you’d expect from this kind of match, but there was enough of it that it didn’t feel like a waste of guys like Castle, King, Silas, and Taven.
ROH WOMEN OF HONOR WORLD TITLE MATCH: Kelly Klein(c) vs. Mandy Leon- 4.25/10
Mandy jumped Kelly from behind to start things off. She worked over the arm and they seemed to be going with that story… but then Mandy hit Kelly in the head with the title and pinned her and won the title. Then Senior Referee Tod Sinclair came out and overturned the ruling, but that just makes me ask why he didn’t do so for Briscoes vs. Gresham, or why he doesn’t do so every other time someone cheats to win? Seconds later, Kelly Klein hit her finisher and got the win. This was pointless overbooking. Just let them go out there and tell their story!
COLT CABANA vs, FLAMITA-7/10
A great mix of action and comedy.
ROH WORLD TV TITLE MATCH: Shane Taylor(c) vs. Joe Hendry- 7/10
Dalton Castle joined the commentary team for this match. He was excellent. The match just hit my minimum threshold for a main event, which is nice to see from this spot on the card, but for a title match with some actual build behind it, I was hoping for a little more. Shane Taylor just doesn’t do it for me.
SCHADENFREUDE (Lucky Kid & Kyle Fletcher) vs. VILLAIN ENTERPRISES (Brody King & PCO)- 6.75/10
JAY LETHAL vs. MARK BRISCOE- 7/10
A great match that ended in a wonderfully-executed heel turn. This is how you do a non-finish without angering the fans. Whoever came up with the detail of Mark Briscoe bleeding after Gresham shoved him into the post (thus revealed that someone must have interfered with him) is a genius!
JEFF COBB & RUSH vs. VILLAIN ENTERPRISES (Marty Scurll & Flip Gordon)- 7.5/10
I wasn’t into this for the first half or so but they got me very invested by the end.
Cobb was a dick and tagged himself in after Rush hit Flip with the Bull’s Horns so that he could hit his own finisher and steal the pin.
This was a great show from ROH with solid wrestling all up and down the card (other than the horribly overbooked women’s match), a MAJOR storyline moment, and some good build towards the Cobb vs. Rush ROH World Title match that will headline this tour. Hopefully the rest of the tour keeps up this level of quality.
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supersonic
- Posts: 7665
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Re: ROH UK Tour
Observer:
This week was the U.K. tour which did not do well. We didn’t get official numbers from the tour but 10/25 in London did about 400 at York Hall which is terrible, 10/26 in Newport, Wales, did about 150 and 10/27 in Bolton, UK looked to have done a little over 300
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Big Red Machine
- Posts: 4376
- Joined: Sat Jan 19, 2013 10:10 pm
Re: ROH UK Tour
ROH Honor United Tour 2019: Newport (10/26/2019)- Newport, UK
OPENING SEGMENT- good
Jay Lethal and Jonathan Gresham came out and Lethal explained why he hit Jay Briscoe with a chair last night. Basically, he has come around to Gresham’s way of thinking that the only way to succeed in the current ROH is to “level the playing field” by doing the same things that the Briscoes, Silas Young, the Guerrillas of Destiny, Rush, Villain Enterprises, Kenny King, the Kingdom, etc. have done, which is to just do whatever they want, regardless of the rules. If all of those guys are going to do it and management clearly isn’t going to take action, then why should he and Gresham play fair when no one else is. Lethal’s delivery was so good here that I was having trouble not nodding along and saying that he has a point. It’s still a heel turn, however, as the Mark Briscoe had done nothing to their Lethal or Gresham before Gresham interfered in the match and before Lethal hit Jay with a chair.
They say they’re coming for the titles. The Briscoes came out and suggested that they fight right now. The Briscoes charged to the ring but Lethal & Gresham bailed. Jay (Briscoe) said that they didn’t want to deny Schadenfreude their scheduled match with the ROH World Tag Team Champions tonight, but they had no problem letting Lethal & Gresham join that match and make it a three-way. Lethal & Gresham were fine with this, and apparently so was management because the commentators treated it like it was official.
TRACY WILLIAMS & FLAMITA vs. VILLAIN ENTERPRISES (Marty Scurll & Flip Gordon)- 6.25/10
Tracy Williams was supposed to team with his LifeBlood teammate Bandido but Bandido is injured, so he got the other luchador on the show to team with him instead. The match was fine. Unsurprisingly, the replacement wrestler who also isn’t a regular member of the roster took the pin.
COLT CABANA INTERVIEWS VILLAIN ENTERPRISES- Colt asks them if they have picked someone to replace the injured Brodie King in tonight’s main event. They tried very hard to get the fans to be the ones to suggest Cabana so it would feel organic but it took way too long for the crowd to catch on, and it was only a small group who did at first. Colt left commentary to prepare for his main event match, leaving Ian alone for a while.
ROH WORLD TV TITLE MATCH: Shane Taylor(c) vs. Danny Jones- 4.25/10
Yet another TV Title challenger who hasn’t done sh*t to earn a title shot. In this case he is getting a title shot because Shane Taylor wants to disappoint the fans by giving their local favorite a title shot and defeating him. Whatever. I guess it theoretically makes sense, but the real problem is that Taylor keeps defending the title against these random jamokes who aren’t even on the roster and thus everyone knows have no chance of winning. Ian Riccaboni is on commentary talking up how Taylor has now moved into the top ten all-time in terms of days as ROH World TV Champion, and I’m sitting here thinking to myself that Taylor hasn’t actually done anything as champion yet. The closest thing he’s had to a program was going to a draw with Joe Hendry in a Proving Ground match to set up a title shot where he beat Hendry cleanly.
And speaking of Ian’s commentary and Shane Taylor, is Taylor supposed to be a babyface or a heel? Ian’s framing makes him seem like a babyface “taking a chance on himself” and being this great champion, and Taylor is clearly a fighting champion, giving out title shots even to people who don’t deserve title shots, and he almost always wins cleanly… but he also buries the crowd at every opportunity. There seems to be a MAJOR disconnect going on here between either the booker and commentary or the booker and Taylor.
The match was nothing interesting but the finishing sequence (Taylor hitting various big moves on Jones) looked AWESOME.
RAMPAGE BROWN & SILAS YOUNG vs. THE BRAT PACK (Mitch Waterman & Nick Bury)- 6/10
Watching Silas Young play babyface in peril was strange. I was also shocked that Silas wasn’t the one to get the win here, as not only is he the only regular in this match, but the idea of him picking up the win in a tag team match with a partner other than Woods seems like something that can be banked away for whenever Silas and Woods eventually split.
DALTON CASTLE vs. HIKULEO- 6.75/10
Joe Hendry joined Ian on commentary for this match. The crowd (reportedly only 150 people) has been pretty dead so far, so Dalton did his absolute best to get them going before the match.
They told a pretty good story with Dalton trying his amateur wrestling stuff in the beginning but it not working because Hikuleo was too big and Hikuleo was then able to turn the match into a brawl and take over. Dalton finally realized that he had to use a more strike-based offense to get Hikuleo woozy first before trying his amateur stuff and finally found success. The big moment came when Hikuleo got angry and was going to chokeslam Dalton through a table but Joe Henry stopped Hikuleo from doing so. I definitely think that grabbing Hikuleo’s arm should have caused a DQ, but why the hell wasn’t Todd Sinclair out here trying to stop the attempted illegal maneuver?
Anyway, Hendry wound up getting chokeslammed through the table by Hikuleo instead, but this bought Dalton the time he needed to recover, and Dalton got the win soon thereafter. Dalton eventually recognized Hendry for his help, which hopefully means that their team will be back on.
ROH WOMEN OF HONOR WORLD TITLE MATCH: Kelly Klein(c) vs. Lana Austin- 4/10
Yet another title challenger who hasn’t done sh*t to earn a title shot. Mandy Leon joined Ian on commentary for this match. She tried to do a British accent and failed miserably. This got extremely annoying very quickly, and not in the “I want to see Kelly Klein walk over to her and shut her up” good heel heat way, either. It was annoying in the “makes me want to mute the commentary” way.
Props to Ian for at least acknowledging that it’s rare for a second referee to over-turn a decision like we saw last night. It doesn’t excuse the inconsistency for being bad booking, but it at least makes me as a fan feel that the company isn’t trying to just gloss over the fact. Ditto for the thing with no longer using the referee in last night’s title match, although the “it was his first match in ROH” excuse doesn’t really work because it just makes me wonder why the company gave a first-time referee a freakin’ title match instead of giving him a match where there wasn’t anything on the line that a mistake due to unfamiliarity with the rules could screw up.
On the negative side of commentary was Ian’s decision to ask Many Leon about her f*cking dog instead of calling the championship match. I will never understand why announcers do sh*t like this when the match they are supposed to be calling is right there in front of their faces.
The match itself was rather meh. Lana was a goof for a while, doing way too much gaga before she cut Kelly off and worked her leg over. Kelly made her comeback and got the win in a match that had almost zero suspense because everyone knew that a woman who isn’t a regular part of the roster and hasn’t done a damn thing to earn this title shot in a match with no build of any sort wasn’t walking away with the belt.
JOE HENDRY vs. MATT TAVEN- 7.75/10
Just when I was thinking “I really wish we could get matches like this more often, where two wrestlers get to go out there and just show us what they’ve got in the ring,” Dalton Castle came out to watch the match, which resulted in Taven getting distracted, allowing Hendry to roll him up for the win. I don’t totally hate this as they have recently shown us that Dalton and Taven are good buddies (I hate that, but that’s a different story) while Dalton has also been rather complementary of Hendry on this tour and might have been trying to pay him back after Hendry saved him earlier tonight so you didn’t know who this would benefit and it could be a moment that affects more than one story… but I really wish they would have given us a clean finish.
JAY LETHAL & JONATHAN GRESHAM vs. THE BRISCOES vs. SCHADENFREUDE (Kyle Fletcher & Lucky Kid)- 7.5/10
Newly heel Lethal (along with Gresham) is using music that resembles his heel House of Truth music. The Briscoes, meanwhile, are offering handshakes. I know they turned babyface via the feud with the Guerrillas of Destiny, but it feels like there was a missing promo here. Something along the lines of them telling us how seeing the Guerrillas of Destiny disrespect ROH and the ROH World Tag Team Titles reminded them of why they love ROH so much and what ROH means to them and what ROH stands for. Something to officially announce that they are now babyfaces and give them a new mission statement.
They had a great action match that served to let Lethal and Gresham get over their new characters. If I were booking I definitely would have had Lethal & Gresham pick up the win on Schadenfreude to give them some momentum. I don’t really see what having the Briscoes pin Schadenfreude does for anyone.
POST-MATCH SEGMENT- didn’t like it
We went to a commercial for some DVDs, only to have Ian Riccaboni frantically shouting at the director to cut back live because Lethal & Gresham were attacking the Briscoes. The idea here was a fine one to make things feel more spontaneous, but the big mistake was having the Briscoes be the ones to be standing tall at the end of this, sending Lethal & Gresham scampering. Where is the heat in that?
KENNY KING (w/Amy Rose) vs. MARK HASKINS (w/Vicky Haskins)- 7.75/10
This was a very exciting match and they told a good story with both Amy Rose’s constant interference and Kenny King working over Haskins’ back. I am actually fine with the overbooking because it worked into the story of the match by having Vicky finally do something about Amy, but that support is conditional o Mark Haskins’ snapping at King and using a low blow in revenge for King’s own low blow actually being addressed in the storyline. It’s clearly not something a member of LifeBlood should be doing, and thus it needs to be addressed, but it definitely seems like something more in line with the sort of vigilante justice that Gresham has been preaching and that he and Lethal now represent.
COLT CABANA & PCO vs. JEFF COBB & RUSH- 5.5/10
It’s an ROH main event, so of course the stream f*cked up. We didn’t miss much, but no other company has these problems anywhere near as often. And what’s worse is that I’m not watching this live! I’m watching this on demand ALMOST THREE WEEKS LATER! It is COMPLETELY INEXCUSABLE FOR FOOTAGE TO GO UP LIKE THIS! It’s like they don’t even have someone watch the show to make sure there are no streaming issues and that the audio all works, etc. before they post it.
Anyway, they did stuff. Eventually they wound up on the outside and fought there forever without getting counted out. This all happened so that they could do a spot where PCO got kicked down the stairs and “had to be taken to the back” so that he could heroically return less than two minutes later to do a dive onto the wrestles who were still fighting in the aisleway. And it’s not like anyone was even f*cking surprised when PCO came back. They barely reacted! And that reaction was to the dive more than to the actual return.
This match just wasn’t good. The sequence of op-rope moves that Cabana and PCO hit on Cobb towards the end was clever, but other than that, this match was just guys doing stuff until we got a finish that tried to mirror last night’s main event finish leading to an obligatory brawl between Cobb and Rush as we went off the air.
One thing that was on full display here that I’ve been finding extremely frustrating about ROH right now is the fact that the guys who are in the actual main event picture (Rush, Cobb, PCO) and other guys I’m supposed to take as major stars (Scurll Taylor) just aren’t delivering in the ring to anything near the level of their push. The main event-level work right now is coming from Lethal, Gresham, the Briscoes, Mark Haskins, Matt Taven, and Kenny King. And it’s similar with the storylines. Those “main event” guys don’t have anything even close to interesting going on, especially as compares to Castle/Hendry stuff or Briscoes/Lethal & Gresham. For the first time since I became on ROH fan over a decade ago, I just can’t bring myself to give a sh*t about the world title. There is a world title match between two big stars (Rush and Cobb) on tomorrow’s show, I’m spoiler-free for it, and I probably won’t get around to watching that show for WEEKS. I shouldn’t be more eager to catch up on two months of EVOLVE and to watch some NXT UK and a WCW show from 1990 than I am to watch ROH, but that’s exactly where I am.
And I’m clearly not the only one, either, as I can’t think of any better indictment for the product than to say that here in 2019, with ROH’s first show in Wales, they drew a reported 150 fans. ROH’s VERY FIRST SHOW, with no TV advertising at all, in a city that was independent wrestling capitol of the world at that point, drew MORE THAN TWICE THAT.
This was just plain not a good show from ROH, saved from the bottom of the barrel by two great matches from the company’s workhorses (and two visiting wrestlers)… and it’s not even like those were blow-away matches either. One storyline got some good development, but the majority of the card felt like total filler and the majority of the show had little in-ring merit as well. Quality pro wrestling is not hard for fans to find in 2019. Unless ROH wants to turn into the sort of pathetic shell of a company that draws 150 people on a regular basis, they need to shape up, and quickly.
OPENING SEGMENT- good
Jay Lethal and Jonathan Gresham came out and Lethal explained why he hit Jay Briscoe with a chair last night. Basically, he has come around to Gresham’s way of thinking that the only way to succeed in the current ROH is to “level the playing field” by doing the same things that the Briscoes, Silas Young, the Guerrillas of Destiny, Rush, Villain Enterprises, Kenny King, the Kingdom, etc. have done, which is to just do whatever they want, regardless of the rules. If all of those guys are going to do it and management clearly isn’t going to take action, then why should he and Gresham play fair when no one else is. Lethal’s delivery was so good here that I was having trouble not nodding along and saying that he has a point. It’s still a heel turn, however, as the Mark Briscoe had done nothing to their Lethal or Gresham before Gresham interfered in the match and before Lethal hit Jay with a chair.
They say they’re coming for the titles. The Briscoes came out and suggested that they fight right now. The Briscoes charged to the ring but Lethal & Gresham bailed. Jay (Briscoe) said that they didn’t want to deny Schadenfreude their scheduled match with the ROH World Tag Team Champions tonight, but they had no problem letting Lethal & Gresham join that match and make it a three-way. Lethal & Gresham were fine with this, and apparently so was management because the commentators treated it like it was official.
TRACY WILLIAMS & FLAMITA vs. VILLAIN ENTERPRISES (Marty Scurll & Flip Gordon)- 6.25/10
Tracy Williams was supposed to team with his LifeBlood teammate Bandido but Bandido is injured, so he got the other luchador on the show to team with him instead. The match was fine. Unsurprisingly, the replacement wrestler who also isn’t a regular member of the roster took the pin.
COLT CABANA INTERVIEWS VILLAIN ENTERPRISES- Colt asks them if they have picked someone to replace the injured Brodie King in tonight’s main event. They tried very hard to get the fans to be the ones to suggest Cabana so it would feel organic but it took way too long for the crowd to catch on, and it was only a small group who did at first. Colt left commentary to prepare for his main event match, leaving Ian alone for a while.
ROH WORLD TV TITLE MATCH: Shane Taylor(c) vs. Danny Jones- 4.25/10
Yet another TV Title challenger who hasn’t done sh*t to earn a title shot. In this case he is getting a title shot because Shane Taylor wants to disappoint the fans by giving their local favorite a title shot and defeating him. Whatever. I guess it theoretically makes sense, but the real problem is that Taylor keeps defending the title against these random jamokes who aren’t even on the roster and thus everyone knows have no chance of winning. Ian Riccaboni is on commentary talking up how Taylor has now moved into the top ten all-time in terms of days as ROH World TV Champion, and I’m sitting here thinking to myself that Taylor hasn’t actually done anything as champion yet. The closest thing he’s had to a program was going to a draw with Joe Hendry in a Proving Ground match to set up a title shot where he beat Hendry cleanly.
And speaking of Ian’s commentary and Shane Taylor, is Taylor supposed to be a babyface or a heel? Ian’s framing makes him seem like a babyface “taking a chance on himself” and being this great champion, and Taylor is clearly a fighting champion, giving out title shots even to people who don’t deserve title shots, and he almost always wins cleanly… but he also buries the crowd at every opportunity. There seems to be a MAJOR disconnect going on here between either the booker and commentary or the booker and Taylor.
The match was nothing interesting but the finishing sequence (Taylor hitting various big moves on Jones) looked AWESOME.
RAMPAGE BROWN & SILAS YOUNG vs. THE BRAT PACK (Mitch Waterman & Nick Bury)- 6/10
Watching Silas Young play babyface in peril was strange. I was also shocked that Silas wasn’t the one to get the win here, as not only is he the only regular in this match, but the idea of him picking up the win in a tag team match with a partner other than Woods seems like something that can be banked away for whenever Silas and Woods eventually split.
DALTON CASTLE vs. HIKULEO- 6.75/10
Joe Hendry joined Ian on commentary for this match. The crowd (reportedly only 150 people) has been pretty dead so far, so Dalton did his absolute best to get them going before the match.
They told a pretty good story with Dalton trying his amateur wrestling stuff in the beginning but it not working because Hikuleo was too big and Hikuleo was then able to turn the match into a brawl and take over. Dalton finally realized that he had to use a more strike-based offense to get Hikuleo woozy first before trying his amateur stuff and finally found success. The big moment came when Hikuleo got angry and was going to chokeslam Dalton through a table but Joe Henry stopped Hikuleo from doing so. I definitely think that grabbing Hikuleo’s arm should have caused a DQ, but why the hell wasn’t Todd Sinclair out here trying to stop the attempted illegal maneuver?
Anyway, Hendry wound up getting chokeslammed through the table by Hikuleo instead, but this bought Dalton the time he needed to recover, and Dalton got the win soon thereafter. Dalton eventually recognized Hendry for his help, which hopefully means that their team will be back on.
ROH WOMEN OF HONOR WORLD TITLE MATCH: Kelly Klein(c) vs. Lana Austin- 4/10
Yet another title challenger who hasn’t done sh*t to earn a title shot. Mandy Leon joined Ian on commentary for this match. She tried to do a British accent and failed miserably. This got extremely annoying very quickly, and not in the “I want to see Kelly Klein walk over to her and shut her up” good heel heat way, either. It was annoying in the “makes me want to mute the commentary” way.
Props to Ian for at least acknowledging that it’s rare for a second referee to over-turn a decision like we saw last night. It doesn’t excuse the inconsistency for being bad booking, but it at least makes me as a fan feel that the company isn’t trying to just gloss over the fact. Ditto for the thing with no longer using the referee in last night’s title match, although the “it was his first match in ROH” excuse doesn’t really work because it just makes me wonder why the company gave a first-time referee a freakin’ title match instead of giving him a match where there wasn’t anything on the line that a mistake due to unfamiliarity with the rules could screw up.
On the negative side of commentary was Ian’s decision to ask Many Leon about her f*cking dog instead of calling the championship match. I will never understand why announcers do sh*t like this when the match they are supposed to be calling is right there in front of their faces.
The match itself was rather meh. Lana was a goof for a while, doing way too much gaga before she cut Kelly off and worked her leg over. Kelly made her comeback and got the win in a match that had almost zero suspense because everyone knew that a woman who isn’t a regular part of the roster and hasn’t done a damn thing to earn this title shot in a match with no build of any sort wasn’t walking away with the belt.
JOE HENDRY vs. MATT TAVEN- 7.75/10
Just when I was thinking “I really wish we could get matches like this more often, where two wrestlers get to go out there and just show us what they’ve got in the ring,” Dalton Castle came out to watch the match, which resulted in Taven getting distracted, allowing Hendry to roll him up for the win. I don’t totally hate this as they have recently shown us that Dalton and Taven are good buddies (I hate that, but that’s a different story) while Dalton has also been rather complementary of Hendry on this tour and might have been trying to pay him back after Hendry saved him earlier tonight so you didn’t know who this would benefit and it could be a moment that affects more than one story… but I really wish they would have given us a clean finish.
JAY LETHAL & JONATHAN GRESHAM vs. THE BRISCOES vs. SCHADENFREUDE (Kyle Fletcher & Lucky Kid)- 7.5/10
Newly heel Lethal (along with Gresham) is using music that resembles his heel House of Truth music. The Briscoes, meanwhile, are offering handshakes. I know they turned babyface via the feud with the Guerrillas of Destiny, but it feels like there was a missing promo here. Something along the lines of them telling us how seeing the Guerrillas of Destiny disrespect ROH and the ROH World Tag Team Titles reminded them of why they love ROH so much and what ROH means to them and what ROH stands for. Something to officially announce that they are now babyfaces and give them a new mission statement.
They had a great action match that served to let Lethal and Gresham get over their new characters. If I were booking I definitely would have had Lethal & Gresham pick up the win on Schadenfreude to give them some momentum. I don’t really see what having the Briscoes pin Schadenfreude does for anyone.
POST-MATCH SEGMENT- didn’t like it
We went to a commercial for some DVDs, only to have Ian Riccaboni frantically shouting at the director to cut back live because Lethal & Gresham were attacking the Briscoes. The idea here was a fine one to make things feel more spontaneous, but the big mistake was having the Briscoes be the ones to be standing tall at the end of this, sending Lethal & Gresham scampering. Where is the heat in that?
KENNY KING (w/Amy Rose) vs. MARK HASKINS (w/Vicky Haskins)- 7.75/10
This was a very exciting match and they told a good story with both Amy Rose’s constant interference and Kenny King working over Haskins’ back. I am actually fine with the overbooking because it worked into the story of the match by having Vicky finally do something about Amy, but that support is conditional o Mark Haskins’ snapping at King and using a low blow in revenge for King’s own low blow actually being addressed in the storyline. It’s clearly not something a member of LifeBlood should be doing, and thus it needs to be addressed, but it definitely seems like something more in line with the sort of vigilante justice that Gresham has been preaching and that he and Lethal now represent.
COLT CABANA & PCO vs. JEFF COBB & RUSH- 5.5/10
It’s an ROH main event, so of course the stream f*cked up. We didn’t miss much, but no other company has these problems anywhere near as often. And what’s worse is that I’m not watching this live! I’m watching this on demand ALMOST THREE WEEKS LATER! It is COMPLETELY INEXCUSABLE FOR FOOTAGE TO GO UP LIKE THIS! It’s like they don’t even have someone watch the show to make sure there are no streaming issues and that the audio all works, etc. before they post it.
Anyway, they did stuff. Eventually they wound up on the outside and fought there forever without getting counted out. This all happened so that they could do a spot where PCO got kicked down the stairs and “had to be taken to the back” so that he could heroically return less than two minutes later to do a dive onto the wrestles who were still fighting in the aisleway. And it’s not like anyone was even f*cking surprised when PCO came back. They barely reacted! And that reaction was to the dive more than to the actual return.
This match just wasn’t good. The sequence of op-rope moves that Cabana and PCO hit on Cobb towards the end was clever, but other than that, this match was just guys doing stuff until we got a finish that tried to mirror last night’s main event finish leading to an obligatory brawl between Cobb and Rush as we went off the air.
One thing that was on full display here that I’ve been finding extremely frustrating about ROH right now is the fact that the guys who are in the actual main event picture (Rush, Cobb, PCO) and other guys I’m supposed to take as major stars (Scurll Taylor) just aren’t delivering in the ring to anything near the level of their push. The main event-level work right now is coming from Lethal, Gresham, the Briscoes, Mark Haskins, Matt Taven, and Kenny King. And it’s similar with the storylines. Those “main event” guys don’t have anything even close to interesting going on, especially as compares to Castle/Hendry stuff or Briscoes/Lethal & Gresham. For the first time since I became on ROH fan over a decade ago, I just can’t bring myself to give a sh*t about the world title. There is a world title match between two big stars (Rush and Cobb) on tomorrow’s show, I’m spoiler-free for it, and I probably won’t get around to watching that show for WEEKS. I shouldn’t be more eager to catch up on two months of EVOLVE and to watch some NXT UK and a WCW show from 1990 than I am to watch ROH, but that’s exactly where I am.
And I’m clearly not the only one, either, as I can’t think of any better indictment for the product than to say that here in 2019, with ROH’s first show in Wales, they drew a reported 150 fans. ROH’s VERY FIRST SHOW, with no TV advertising at all, in a city that was independent wrestling capitol of the world at that point, drew MORE THAN TWICE THAT.
This was just plain not a good show from ROH, saved from the bottom of the barrel by two great matches from the company’s workhorses (and two visiting wrestlers)… and it’s not even like those were blow-away matches either. One storyline got some good development, but the majority of the card felt like total filler and the majority of the show had little in-ring merit as well. Quality pro wrestling is not hard for fans to find in 2019. Unless ROH wants to turn into the sort of pathetic shell of a company that draws 150 people on a regular basis, they need to shape up, and quickly.
Re: ROH UK Tour
I'll be going to Bolton. I really like the roster for this tour, with some new ROH names in the UK like Williams, Rush, PCO or Cobb, and then great and fresh international talent like Bailey, Flamita, Rampage or Aussie Open.